by Robyn Carr
“Yeah, I get that. Thanks.”
“I almost didn’t go with you. Really, there’s no reason I should have trusted you.”
“Yeah. You’re a brave little girl. Try to forget my face. For your own sake.”
“Listen, I’m in medicine, I’m not a cop,” she said. Then she gave a weak huff of laughter. She’d been used to having the backup of LAPD, but tonight it had been down to her. There was no backup. And if she hadn’t been there, it could have been down to Doc, who was seventy. What was going to happen five years from now? To her chauffeur she said, “Now keep it in your pants or use protection—I don’t really feel like doing business with you again.”
He grinned at her. “Tough little broad, aren’tcha? Don’t worry. I’m not looking to have that kind of trouble again.”
She got out of the SUV without comment and walked toward her porch. By the time she neared her front door, he had turned around and driven out of the clearing. She sank into the porch chair and sat in the dark. The night sounds echoed around her; crickets, an occasional owl, wind whirring through the tall pines.
She wished she could just go inside, undress and go to bed alone, but she was wired and out of courage for the night. After a moment, when she could no longer hear the engine of his big SUV, she went down the stairs to the Hummer. She drove into town and parked behind the bar, next to Jack’s truck. The sound of the engine and car door must have awakened him, because a light went on and the back door to his quarters opened. He stood in the frame, a dim light behind him, wearing a pair of hastily pulled on jeans. She walked right into his arms.
“What are you doing here?” he asked softly, pulling her inside and closing the door.
“I went out on a call. A baby. And I didn’t want to go home. Didn’t want to be alone after that. It was a close one, Jack.”
He slipped his hands inside her jacket to hold her closer. “Did everything work out okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “But there wasn’t very much time. If I’d been five minutes longer getting there... The cord was around his neck.” She shook her head. “But I did get there. And he’s a beautiful baby.”
“Where?” he asked, smoothing her hair over her ear.
“The other side of Clear River,” she said, remembering what the man had said when he pulled up to the front of Doc’s clinic. In truth, she had no idea where they’d gone. He could’ve driven around in circles for all she knew.
“You’re trembling,” he said, pressing his lips to her brow.
“Yeah, a little. Coming down from the experience.” She tilted her head to look up at him. “Is it okay that I’m here?”
“Of course it is. Mel, what’s wrong?”
“The mother was going to deliver herself, but the father got nervous and came for me.” She shivered. “I thought I had some wild experiences in L.A.,” she said with a weak laugh. “If you’d told me a year ago that I’d go out to some poor trailer in the woods, in the middle of the night to deliver a baby, I would have said, never gonna happen.”
He rubbed a knuckle along her cheek. “Who was it?”
She shook her head. If she told him she didn’t have the first idea, he’d flip. “They’re not from around here, Jack. He dropped by Doc’s a while ago, looking for someone who could handle a birth. I can’t talk about patients unless they say it’s okay, but these patients, I didn’t even ask. They weren’t married or anything. She lives in a crappy little trailer by herself. It’s a pretty horrid situation for her.” And she thought, I’m doing things out here in the mountains that I never, in a million years, thought I could do. Terrifying, impossible, dangerous things. Exhilarating things that no one else would do. And if no one had, there’d be a dead baby. Possibly a critical mother. She leaned her head against Jack’s chest and took a deep, steadying breath.
“He called you?” Jack asked.
Damn. Bold-faced lies to straight questions were so hard for her. “He was waiting at the cabin. If I’d stayed the night here with you, I’d have missed him and that baby wouldn’t have made it.”
“Did you tell him where to find you after hours?”
She shook her head before she thought about her answer. “He must have asked someone,” she said. “Everyone in Virgin River knows where I live. And probably half the people in Clear River.”
“God,” he said, tightening his arms around her. “Did it ever occur to you that you could have been at risk?” he asked her.
“For a minute or two,” she said. She looked up at him and smiled. “I don’t expect you to understand this—but there was a baby coming. And I’m glad I went. Besides, I wasn’t in trouble. The mother was.”
He let out a slow, relieved breath. “Jesus. I’m going to have to keep a much closer eye on you.” He kissed her brow. “Something happened tonight. Something you’re not telling me. Whatever it was—never, never let that happen again.”
“Could we get in bed, please? I really need you to hold me.”
* * *
Jack was sitting on the porch of the bar, tying off flies, when a familiar black Range Rover pulled slowly into town and parked right in front of Doc’s. He sat forward on the porch chair and watched as the driver got out, went around to the passenger door and opened it. A woman carrying a small bundle got out of the car, walked up the porch steps to enter the clinic and Jack’s heart began to pound.
When the woman entered Doc’s, the man went back to his SUV and leaned against the hood, his back to Jack. He took out a small penknife and began to idly clean under his nails. Because of the kind of guy this was, Jack knew he had seen him sitting there, on the porch. He would have observed everything worth seeing when he came into town; he’d know every escape route, any threat. Today, coming into town with a woman and new baby, Jack would bet there wouldn’t be contraband of any kind in that vehicle and if he had weapons, they’d be registered. And...his license plate was splattered with mud so it couldn’t be read. Lame trick. But Jack remembered it; he’d memorized it the first time this guy had come to town.
So, he hadn’t come to Virgin River for a couple of drinks a while back. He’d come to see if there was medical assistance here. Mel had said that the delivery that shook her up had occurred on the other side of Clear River and there was no doctor or clinic in that town. Grace Valley and Garberville were just a little farther away, but there were more people around.
It was a little over a half hour before the woman came out, Mel walking behind her. The woman turned and shook Mel’s hand; Mel squeezed her upper arm. The man helped her into the car and drove slowly out of town.
Jack stood and Mel met his eyes across the street. They were on their respective porches and, even from the distance, she could see the deepening frown gather on his face. Then he walked over to her.
She slipped her hands into the pockets of her jeans as he approached. When he was near, he put one foot up on the porch steps and leaned his forearms on his bent knee, looking up at her. The frown was not angry, but definitely unhappy. “Doc know what you did?” he asked her.
She gave a nod. “He knows I delivered a baby, if that’s what you mean. It’s what I do, Jack.”
“You have to promise me, you’re not going to do that again. Not for someone like him.”
“You know him?” she asked.
“No. But he’s been in the bar and I know what he is. The problem isn’t him bringing a woman to the doctor, you know. It’s you being on his turf. It’s you going with him in the middle of the night. Alone. Just because he says—”
“I wasn’t threatened,” she said. “I was asked. And he had been by the clinic before, looking for a doctor, so he wasn’t a complete stranger.”
“Listen to me,” Jack said firmly. “People like that aren’t going to threaten you in your clinic or my bar. They like to keep a real low profile. They don’t w
ant their crops raided. But out there,” he said, giving his chin a jerk toward the mountains to their east, “things can happen. He could’ve decided you were a threat to his business and—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “He wouldn’t let anything happen to me. That would be a threat to his business—”
“Is that what he told you? Because I wouldn’t take his word for that.” He shook his head. “You can’t do that, Melinda. You can’t go alone to some illegal grower’s camp.”
“I doubt there will be a situation like that again,” she answered.
“Promise you won’t,” he said.
She shook her head. “I have a job to do, Jack. If I hadn’t gone—”
“Mel, do you understand what I’m telling you? I’m not going to lose you because you’re willing to take stupid chances. Promise me.”
She pursed her lips and merely lifted her chin defiantly. “Never...never suggest I’m stupid.”
“I wouldn’t do that. But you have to understand—”
“It was down to me. There was a baby coming, there really was, and I had to go because if I hadn’t it could’ve been disastrous. There wasn’t time to think about it.”
“Have you always been this stubborn?” he asked.
“There was a baby coming. And it doesn’t matter to me who the woman is or what she does for a living.”
“Would you have done something like that in L.A.?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.
She thought for just a moment about how life had changed since leaving L.A. After being picked up by a gun-carrying illegal grower and delivering a baby back in the woods, shouldn’t she be packing? Running for her life? Unwilling to ever be put in a position like that again? Instead, she was doing a mental inventory of what was in Doc’s refrigerator, wondering if it wasn’t about time to take a few things out to Paulis’s camp. It had been a couple of weeks since she’d last done that.
Although she really didn’t want a repeat of the scenario with the grower, something about the experience got her attention. When she’d left L.A., they didn’t have any trouble filling her job. There were ten people who could do what she did, and do it just as well. In Virgin River, and the surrounding area, it was her and Doc. There just wasn’t anyone else. There was no day off or week off. And if she had hesitated even long enough to fetch Doc to go with her, that baby wouldn’t have made it.
I came here because I thought life would be simpler, easier, quieter, she thought. That there would be fewer challenges, and certainly nothing to fear. I thought I’d feel safer, not that I’d have to grow stronger. Braver.
She smiled at him. “In L.A. we send the paramedics. You see any paramedics? I’m in this little town that you said was uncomplicated. You’re a big liar, that’s what you are...”
“I told you, we have our own kind of drama. Mel, you should listen to me—”
“This is a real complicated place sometimes. I’m just going to do my job the best I can.”
He stepped up onto the porch, put a finger under her chin and lifted it, gazing into her eyes. “Melinda, you’re getting to be a real handful.”
“Yeah?” she asked, smiling. “So are you.”
Thirteen
Mel didn’t tell Doc where she was going, just that there were a couple of people she wanted to look in on. He asked her, since she was out, to stop and check on Frannie Butler, an elderly woman who lived alone and had high blood pressure. “Make sure she has plenty of medicine and that she’s actually taking it,” he said. He popped an antacid.
“Should you be having so much heartburn?” she asked him.
“Everyone my age has this much heartburn,” he answered, brushing her off.
Mel got Frannie’s blood pressure out of the way first, though it wasn’t quick. The thing about house calls in little towns like this was it involved tea and cookies and conversation. It was as much a social event as medical care. Then she drove out to the Anderson ranch. When she pulled up, Buck came out of the shed with a shovel in his hand and an astonished look on his face when he saw the Hummer. “Who-ee,” he said. “When did that thing turn up?”
“Just last week,” she said. “Better for getting around the back roads than my little foreign job, as Doc calls it.”
“Mind if I have a look?” he asked, peering into the window.
“Help yourself. I’d like to check on Chloe. Lilly inside?”
“Yup. In the kitchen. Go on in—door’s open.” And he immediately stuck his head in the driver’s door, taken with the vehicle.
Mel went around back. Through the kitchen window she could see Lilly’s profile as she sat at the kitchen table. The door was open and only the screen door was closed. She gave a couple of quick raps, called out, “Hey, Lilly,” and opened the door. And was stopped dead in her tracks.
Lilly, too late, pulled the baby blanket over her exposed breast. She was nursing Chloe.
Mel was frozen in place. “Lilly?” she said, confused.
Tears sprang to the woman’s eyes. “Mel,” she said, her voice a mere whisper. The baby immediately started to whimper and Lilly tried to comfort her, but Chloe wasn’t done nursing. Lilly’s cheeks were instantly red and damp; the hands that fussed with her shirt and held the baby were shaking.
“How is this possible?” Mel asked, completely confused. Lilly’s youngest child was grown—she couldn’t possibly have breast milk. But then she realized what had happened. “Oh, my God!” Chloe was Lilly’s baby! Mel walked slowly to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair to sit down because her knees were shaking. “Does everyone in the family know?”
Lilly shook her head, her eyes pinched closed. “Just me and Buck,” she finally said. “I wasn’t in my right mind.”
Mel shook her head, baffled. “Lilly. What in the world happened?”
“I thought they’d come for her—the county. And that someone would want her right off. Some nice young couple who couldn’t have a baby. Then she’d have young parents and I—” She shook her head pitifully. “I just didn’t think I could do it again,” she said, dissolving into sobs.
Mel got out of her chair and went to her, taking the fussing baby, trying to comfort her. Lilly laid her head down on the tabletop and wept hard tears.
“I’m so ashamed,” she cried. When she looked up at Mel again she said, “I raised six kids. I spent thirty years raising kids and we got seven grandkids. I couldn’t imagine another one. So late in my life.”
“Wasn’t there anyone you could talk to about this?” Mel asked.
She shook her head. “Mel,” she wept. “Country people... Small-town country people know that once you talk about it... No,” she said, shaking her head. “I was sick when I realized I was pregnant and forty-eight years old. I was sick and a little crazy.”
“Did you ever consider terminating the pregnancy?”
“I did, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I make no judgment, but it isn’t in me.”
“What about arranging an adoption?” Mel asked.
“No one in this family, in this town for that matter, would ever understand that. They’d have looked at me like I killed her. Even my friends—good women my age who would understand how I felt, could never accept it if I said I didn’t want to raise another child, my own child. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“And now what do you intend to do?” Mel asked.
“I don’t know,” she wailed. “I just don’t know.”
“What if they come now—Social Services? Lilly, can you give her up?”
She was shaking her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Oh, God, I wish I had a chance to do it over.”
“Lilly—how did you conceal your pregnancy? How did you give birth alone?”
“No one pays much attention—I’m overweight. Buck
helped. Poor Buck—he didn’t even know till it was almost time—I kept it from him, too. Maybe we can adopt her now?”
Mel sat down again, still jiggling the baby. She looked down at Chloe, who was burying her fist in her mouth, squirming and fussing. “You don’t have to adopt her, you gave birth to her. But I’m awful worried about you. You abandoned her. That must have almost killed you.”
“I watched the whole time. Till you and Jack came to the porch. I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. It was terrible hard, but I felt like I had to. I just didn’t know what else to do.”
“Oh, Lilly,” Mel said. “I’m not sure you’re okay yet. This is just too crazy.” She passed the baby back to Lilly. “Here, nurse your baby. She’s hungry.”
“I don’t know that I can,” she said, but she took the baby. “I might be too upset.”
“Just hook her up—she’ll do the work,” Mel said. When the baby was again at the breast, Mel put her arms around Lilly and just held them both for a few minutes.
“What are you going to do?” Lilly asked, her voice a quivering mess.
“God, Lilly, I don’t know. Do you understand that doctors and midwives protect your confidentiality? If I’d been here when you’d discovered your pregnancy, you could have trusted me with your secret. You could have trusted Doc, or Dr. Stone in Grace Valley. The people in the family planning clinic keep confidential records—they would have helped. But...” She took a breath. “We’re also bound by laws.”
“I just didn’t know where to turn.”
Mel shook her head sadly. “You must have been so scared.”
“I haven’t ever been through anything as difficult in my life, Mel. And me and Buck, we’ve had some real hard times holding this family and ranch together.”
“How did you keep the breast-feeding from your kids? I assume they’re around quite a bit—and don’t your boys work the ranch with Buck?”
“I give her a bottle if anyone’s around, and I nurse her when we’re alone.”
“Even though you planned to let her go, you nursed her? You didn’t have to do that.”