by Lisa Dale
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Karin said quickly. “Lana. You have to calm down. Take a deep breath with me. Take a deep breath.” Karin took a deep, full breath, Lana’s eyes locked on hers.
Then, Karin stopped breathing. Time pressed to a halt. The heaters blared, the falling ice scratched at the hood of the van, and instantly, all the worry, all the fear that she would botch things up, left her mind. Karin felt her own knowledge of what to do as if it had been sitting there and waiting centuries for her. Technology had changed, but this, this process—so elemental and innate—never had. “Only push if there’s a contraction.”
“There is!” Lana pressed hard and strong. A blue vein swelled in her forehead; her lips were drawn back wide and tight. When the baby’s head emerged, Karin’s instincts took over. She supported the head, cleaned out its mouth and nose as best she could with her fingers, then checked to make sure the cord wasn’t wrapped around the baby’s neck.
Lana was saying Kare, Kare, Kare, her voice wild with panic. Karin kept her voice calm and soothing when she spoke. “It’s okay, Lanie. Listen to me. The baby’s head is out. You’re doing a great job. Just stay calm. Everything is going to be just fine.”
“I’m too tired,” Lana muttered. “I can’t do any more.”
“Yes, you can,” Karin said. “Just one more push. That’s all we need.”
“Oh, G-o-o-o-o-o-d!”
Lana didn’t have to tell her another contraction had come on. Lana’s face went red as mercury, her features contorted in anguish, and Karin shifted her focus back to the baby. A moment later, she guided the first shoulder out, then the second, and with a gush of blood and fluid, a child was in her hands.
A baby. A perfect, vigorous child, its little blue arms flailing and its head moving back and forth in surprise. She quickly picked up her coat and held its slippery body carefully with the cloth. She kept it level with Lana’s abdomen, with its feet slightly above its head as she’d read a thousand times. She did her best to clean out the rest of its nose and mouth and she’d just started to panic that she’d done something wrong when suddenly, the baby made the smallest, sweetest sound she’d ever heard, a cry so fragile it was almost a mewing. Ice broke off a treetop and hit the roof of the car. She stared in wonder, transfixed.
“A girl,” she said softly. “It’s a girl.”
She looked up at Lana, whose face had gone slack with the sudden shock of no longer having to push. “Is she okay?”
“I think so…” Karin had to make a decision about whether or not to cut the cord. It was better to let the doctors do it, she knew. But how long would that be? She waited a moment for the cord to stop pulsing, then she wrapped a strip of gauze around it and tied it off with one of her shoelaces as tightly as she could. With a deep breath, she cut the cord with sterile scissors from her emergency kit and then searched her brain frantically for what to do next. She knew she had to keep the baby warm and that Lana needed to nurse her right away. The silvery shine of the heat blanket in her emergency kit caught her eye, and she wrapped the baby in it for warmth. Not the most comfortable texture against a newborn’s skin, but it would do the job.
Suddenly, as she was readjusting her weight so she could rise and give the baby to her sister, she realized the emergency was most likely over. They’d all survived. The branches tapped against the windows, the sleet melted gently in the heat from the defrosters, and the baby, so small and sweet, was pinkening and squirming mightily in her hands.
“A girl?” Lana said, her voice striking Karin as oddly fragile, given the enormous strength she’d been capable of just moments ago.
“Yes. Your daughter,” Karin said.
With all the joy in her heart, she placed the baby in her sister’s arms.
Lana lay quietly in the backseat of the minivan, listening to the tinkling of the ice—a sound that only intensified the otherworldly silence. Karin had gone outside to stand on the roadside and flag down anyone who might help. And now Lana was alone with her baby, her daughter, for the first time.
She was vaguely aware of her own soreness, the trauma her body had been through, but the pain that had threatened to rip her in two just minutes ago was now no more relevant than a song playing gently in her mind. She shivered slightly even though the van was warm, and she guessed her trembling was more from the labor than from the cold. Her baby was now pressed to her skin for warmth and swaddled in a heat blanket and in Karin’s thick coat. In the back of her mind, Lana worried that she was okay. She knew that at thirty-five weeks there was a very real chance that the baby’s lungs weren’t strong enough and that its sucking reflex had yet to kick in. And yet the baby had nursed weakly for a few minutes, then closed her swollen eyes and lapsed into a deep, intense sleep, her breathing light but even. Lana would feel much better once the doctors could examine them both. But for the moment, the pain was tolerable and her daughter seemed absolutely… flawless. No cloud forests or wild orchids could ever compare with this.
She was so glad Karin had been here with her. But she only wished Eli were here too. Eli, Ron, and Calvert. This miracle belonged to them—to all of them—as well. She brushed her lips against the baby’s forehead and whispered, “You’re going to have more family than you know what to do with.”
The door to the minivan slid open and though the baby didn’t open her eyes, her face wrinkled at the sound.
“I found help,” Karin said.
And when Lana looked up, Eli was there, his hand braced against the doorframe and his coat falling open as he climbed inside.
“Are you…” His words trailed off as he saw the bundle in her lap. She knew what he was seeing—all the blood, the relative gore of childbirth in Karin’s car. She’d delivered the placenta not long ago, and Karin had thrown an old rag over it and moved it out of Lana’s way. Still, Eli must have thought someone had died.
“We’re fine,” she assured him. Her eyes began to tear. She hadn’t realized how badly she’d needed him to be here. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. Seeing him made her know everything was going to be okay.
“Eli.” Karin’s voice broke her concentration. “Can I take your cell phone?”
Lana came back to reality. “Is the ambulance…?”
“It’s coming,” Eli said.
Karin reached out and took Eli’s cell. “I just… I talked to Gene to say Merry Christmas this morning, but I just need to tell him about the baby. If you need me, I’ll be up by the road. I want to make sure the ambulance doesn’t drive past us.” She looked at Lana for a long moment, a warm smile brightening her face. “Lana, you were amazing.”
“I’m glad you were here,” Lana said.
A moment later, Karin was outside, the door sliding closed behind her. And Lana and Eli were alone. His brown knit hat was pulled down to his eyebrows and his glasses were flecked with melted ice. The way he was looking at her, Lana thought he’d never seen her before. She knew he was holding his breath.
“Please, come here,” she whispered.
He leaned closer, unable to look away from the baby. “Oh… Lana.”
She felt tears come to her eyes, to have Eli and her baby both beside her. It seemed so very right, the journey coming to an end. “It’s a girl,” she said.
“It’s a miracle,” he said.
“Maybe that’s her name,” Lana said. “Winter Miracle Biel.”
Then Eli was laughing—crying too—and he leaned forward and pressed a strong, relieved kiss to her lips. She closed her eyes for a moment to savor it. When she opened them, he was running the back of his index finger over the baby’s cheek, and her nose wrinkled a little at his touch. “I was so worried,” he said, his voice full of yearning and relief. “I wanted to do something to help. But I didn’t know if I could find you. I didn’t know how to help.”
“It’s okay,” Lana said, sensing the panic in his voice.
He picked up her hand and rubbed her ring finger with his thumb. “You didn’t get… engaged.�
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“No,” she said. “How could I marry him when I want you?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been such an idiot.”
“Shhh. We’ll talk about this later.” She touched his cheek, quieting him. “Do you still love me?”
He nodded, his gaze not leaving hers.
“Then we can get through anything,” she said.
Epilogue
Five Years Later…
April
The fields behind the Wildflower Barn were not yet in full bloom, but thin traces of color were showing on every branch and shrub, giving the landscape an air of softness though nothing in particular presented a flower of its own. The afternoon was chilly, and Lana stood outside to keep an eye on Winter, who was walking back and forth along the edge of the meadow—one hand swinging and the other holding the phone to her ear as she talked to Ron. Like her mother, there was no keeping her inside.
Lana held a photo of bright pink bougainvillea, the color of its petals blaring louder than pealing bells. She sighed wistfully, remembering. She didn’t hear her husband arrive at her side.
“That again?” Eli asked gently.
She laughed, a little embarrassed to have been caught. She put the photograph down on the little picnic table at her side, among a handful of other pictures from her travels that she was considering framing. “I can’t stop thinking about it. The hiking, the kayaking, the rope walk… I had such a wonderful time.”
“We’ll have to take Winter on our next trip.”
“I think if it was legal for her to buy a plane ticket, she’d beat us there.”
He put an arm around her shoulders. They watched Winter walking back and forth among the sprigs pushing up out of the ground, her long blonde hair trailing all the way down her back. Eli pressed a kiss to Lana’s temple, and she caught the smell of his skin. She leaned into him, sighing and content.
Three years ago, Eli had proposed the idea of legally adopting Winter as his daughter, and Ron had agreed. Ron loved Winter, in his way. But Eli was her father, the man she called Dad. They shared a close bond, so close that Lana had a hard time deciding which of them looked up to the other more. Eli answered Winter’s endless questions with a patience that was equally endless. He talked to her like she was part scientist and part princess. Lana warned him not to spoil her, but in truth, it warmed her heart.
She turned when she heard voices coming from the barn behind her, Gene and Karin walking toward them side by side. They were both dressed for work, in jeans, sneakers, and light coats. Michael, the newest hire, walked slowly behind them. He wore the regulation Wildflower Barn polo shirt and jeans, but he still had the air of a young man who wasn’t quite comfortable in his own clothes. His sandy blond hair had been cut brutally short at his last foster home, and there was a tattoo of a fish on his neck. He’d been talking recently about having it removed.
“We’re heading over to Calvert’s,” Karin called as she got closer.
Lana laughed and looked at Michael. “How’d you get roped into this?”
“Roped?” Gene clasped the boy’s shoulder. “He volunteered. It’s not every day a teenage guy gets to clean out an old man’s basement with his family.”
“Okay,” Lana said. “We’ll be over later with sandwiches. Call if you think of anything you need in the meantime.”
Gene wrapped an arm around Karin, and Karin smiled. “See you soon.”
Lana watched in silence as they walked away, then turned back around to make sure Winter hadn’t wandered. She rested her head on Eli’s shoulder as Winter talked animatedly at the edge of the lawn. “That Michael’s a good kid,” Lana said.
“He makes Karin happy.”
“And Karin makes him happy too. I think she and Gene finally found their purpose, opening up their house as a foster home to older children. It does everyone good.”
Lana glanced down. And at her feet, a single irascible dandelion was pushing up through the grass, the first of the army of dandelions that would soon descend on the fields around the Barn. Already, one single flower had gone to seed—much earlier than the others—and without thinking, Lana plucked it and stood to blow the seeds into the yard.
“What are you doing?” Winter’s voice startled her. The look in her eyes was totally transparent; she’d seen the tempting white blow ball in Lana’s hand and she wanted it for her own. “Can I have it?” she asked, bouncing on her tiptoes with excitement.
Lana held up the little white puff, considering. So many generations had flirted with the idea that flowers could tell the future or divine the truth. Dandelions could predict how many children you would have. Buttercups held under a chin could predict if a person liked butter. If you could catch a bit of milkweed floss in the air, your wish would come true.
But it was all so silly—to think that flowers could possibly predict an unpredictable future. Lana twirled the white puffball in her hand. Five years ago, she never would have imagined this moment as a future she could be happy with. And yet she was happy. If wildflowers like this one predicted anything, it was only that happiness was entirely graspable, but at the same time out of her hands.
Lana looked down at her daughter. She gave her sternest frown. “Are you going to blow all these seeds over my newly tilled field?”
“Yes,” Winter said.
Eli laughed. “The woman knows her mind.”
“That she does.” Lana shared a secret smile with her husband and handed the little round ball to her daughter. “By all means, Winter. Enjoy.”
Notes and Acknowledgments
Big huge thanks: To my editor Michele Bidelspach. To my agent, Kim Lionetti of Bookends. To those who contributed by sharing your particular expertise and generosity: Erin Berberian, Diana and Chris Borie of the Vermont Wildflower Farm, Lisa Karakaya, Kriste Matrisch, Mike Meeker, Dr. Cynthia D. Morgan, Tiana Santasiere, Tia, and Laura Venner. Thanks also to Garth Baxter, David, Erica, Lee Hyat of Author Sound Relations, Keri Rand, Mom, Deborah Wiseman, Writer’s Relief, and all of you who have so generously helped me with this oddball dream of being a writer—especially those readers who so kindly tell friends and family about my books. And finally, thanks to Matt Shauger: love, there just aren’t enough words.
Jack Sanders’s book The Secrets of Wildflowers is an absolute treasure that I relied on and enjoyed immeasurably. As for descriptions of Vermont, I’ve taken a fair amount of artistic license, but I think the most obvious and egregious example is that the Dragonboat Festival is actually in August, not July. Sorry! There’s no reasoning with muses sometimes.
Dear Reader,
When I was younger, my family and I used to go to my grandparents’ cabin in the hills of Pennsylvania, where we’d go on long hikes, climb trees, build forts, sing around campfires (yes, we really did that!), make homemade ice cream, and then drop into our beds—already asleep before our heads hit the pillows.
It’s probably no surprise that the setting for my first book, SIMPLE WISHES, takes place in just such a cabin. After making a terrible mistake in New York City, my heroine, Adele, must return to the cottage she inherited from her estranged mother. But it’s not exactly a pleasure trove to her, at first. Memories of a difficult childhood haunt her at every turn.
It’s only through the love and friendship of her new neighbors that she has a chance at making a good life for herself. Her neighbor Beatrice, an elderly grandmother, challenges her to think differently about her mother and her past. And Jay, the sexy carpenter who lives next door, teaches her to stop fighting so hard. Love is there for all of us, when we’re open to it.
It’s a deep, emotional read that—I’m extremely pleased to say—got a favorable reception from critics and readers alike (you can only imagine how relieved I was, since it was my first book!).
I hope you’ll join Adele on her journey into the deepest secrets of the heart in SIMPLE WISHES. For more information, visit me on my Web site: www.lisadalebooks.com.
Happy reading!
&nbs
p; THE DISH
Where authors give you the inside scoop!
From the desk of Lisa Dale
Dear Reader,
Do you believe in love at first sight? I do. The moment I set foot in Burlington, Vermont, two summers ago, I knew I was wildly, head-over-heels, never-to-recover in love with Vermont.
It was a no-brainer to set IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (on sale now) on the beautiful shores of Lake Champlain. Lana Biel longs to leave her family’s Vermont wildflower farm so she can travel and see the world. And her sister Karin wants nothing more than to put down roots and conceive the child she and her husband just can’t seem to have. When a lighthearted fling with a mountain biker leaves Lana expecting, she finds herself tumbling headlong into motherhood while her sister Karin can only look on.
For help, Lana turns to Eli Ward, a professional meteorite hunter and her best friend for the last ten years. But Eli’s keeping secrets that could turn their friendship on its head. As the Vermont seasons change and the flowers in the wildflower meadows begin to fade, Lana must make some meaningful decisions about her family, her friendships, her love life, and her dreams.
Many of my girlfriends are new moms—and what a lifestyle change motherhood brings! At some point I think all women must wrestle with the question, Can we have it all? The kids, the job, the freedom, and the man of our dreams? Lana lives for her future and pins all her hopes on traveling the world. But what happens when fate has other plans?
I hope you’ll read about Lana, Karin, and Eli’s journey as they discover the courage within. Please check out my website at www.LisaDaleBooks.com. I love to hear from readers and hope you’ll be in touch.
Happy reading!
From the desk of Caridad Piñeiro
Dear Reader,
I have a confession to make—I’m a science geek.
I’ve always been fascinated with how things work, and so it was no surprise that I decided to major in science when I went to Villanova. It was probably more of a surprise that I did a switch after college to pursue a career in law and then decided to return to my first love—writing.