Part 12 (1/2)
Ten.
Kate began the week thinking she'd see Sam again before Sunday, but as the days pa.s.sed, hope dwindled. A broken arm, a sawmill accident, the arrival of the overdue medical supplies, a day spent in Matchwood talking to Alison Lenox's science cla.s.ses about prenatal development, and two ten-hour days of office appointments prevented her from sneaking in even a short visit to the cabin. Everywhere she went, though, gossip about Sam's trips into town aroused her curiosity and made it harder to wait to see him.
Bert Andrews at the post office said Sam had come in on Monday to mail a letter to Detroit. Floyd Gibson, Scott's father, reported that Sam had brought his Jeep into the shop for work, and Ed Davenport said he'd been to the store on Tuesday for groceries and again on Wednesday for bait.
Bait? As in fish? Was Ed sure of that? Absolutely.
On her way to baby-sit for Cressie and Steve on Thursday evening, Kate tried not to worry about Sam forcing himself to catch fish that made him sick, only to prove he still could. Yet it seemed he'd not only caught fish but had taken them to Cressie's the previous evening.
Kate wondered if there was a problem at the cabin that had brought him out. No, Cressie said, it had been a social call. The instant Sam walked in the door, Francis had corralled him into building block towers and playing airplanes. That Sam seemed happy to oblige a two-year old had impressed Cressie no end.
Sam had impressed the daylights out of Steve, too. The man knew his planes, Steve said. They'd talked aviation history from World War One to the present, until Cressie had begged them to stop. Had they flown Steve's plane together? Kate asked. No, it had been too dark. Come to think of it, Steve said, he hadn't heard Sam say whether he actually had a pilot's license. Kate bit her tongue, wondering how much Sam wanted people to know.
In any event, Steve planned to see to it that Sam got up with him in the Mentor on Sunday. He and Cressie both were glad Kate had invited Sam to join their family gathering-a ”meet the new baby” party that had expanded to include a surprise celebration of Francis's recovery. Kate was glad, too, that she'd invited Sam, since he was responsible for half of her family's good fortune.
By Friday afternoon she was sure she wouldn't make it until Sunday without seeing him. Then her last office visit of the day-an hour spent with Lynn Nielsen-ruined her half-formed plans to take dinner out to the cabin that evening.
”Lynn, why didn't you call me yesterday, or have Erik come get me?” Kate handed Lynn a Kleenex and waited for her to blow her nose.
The pregnant young woman had come in without an appointment and had been a bundle of anxiety as she told Kate she'd wakened the previous morning bleeding. Terrified that something was wrong with her baby, Lynn started crying the instant Kate had located the baby's healthy heartbeat with her electronic fetoscope that put intrauterine sounds on speaker. With the exam over and her tears winding down, Lynn was feeling rea.s.sured.
Kate, however, was not.
”I know I should have come in or called.” Lynn wiped her nose and wadded the tissue in her fist. ”But the radio's broken, and Erik didn't finish installing the stove in the lodge kitchen until ten last night. Then he fell asleep on the couch. Besides, it wasn't much bleeding, and it stopped after a couple of hours. And I figured if”-the tears welled up again in her blue eyes- ”if something was wrong with the baby, it was . . . too late. So, I . . .” ”So you worried all night and waited until Erik got home with the truck this afternoon to bring yourself in.”
Lynn nodded. ”Nothing is wrong with the baby, is it?”
”Not that I can tell,” Kate replied, opening the Rolodex on a corner of the desk. ”But you're going to need a sonogram. And if I can get Dr. Logan at the hospital, I'd like to send you down there now.”
”Tonight?”
”Hm-mm.” Kate picked up the phone and punched in the number. ”You go home and get Erik to drive you, though. And it might be a good idea to take an overnight bag, in case Dr. Logan wants to keep you.”
Lynn's mouth dropped open. ”Keep me? You mean, at the hospital?”
Tucking the phone under her chin, listening as it rang in Adrian Logan's office, Kate looked at the distraught young woman sitting in the chair alongside her desk. If Lynn went into labor at thirty-three weeks, her baby might survive-if the infant received immediate neonatal care. And if the conditions that might have caused the bleeding didn't become acute when Lynn was an hour away from the hospital.
When Adrian Logan's answering service picked up, Kate left a message. Then, turning to Lynn and seeing her young patient's anxious look, she reached across the desk and took her hand.
”Lynn, bleeding this late in a pregnancy isn't good. Maybe it'll turn out to be something minor. Maybe you can stay with your parents in Ironwood.” She raised an eyebrow in warning. ”But if Adrian Logan thinks you should be in the hospital, you're going to have to listen to him.”
Lynn frowned. ”So you really think this could be serious?”
”Yes, it really could be.” Kate explained the basics of several conditions that might have caused the bleeding.
Lynn thought a moment. Then her lips thinned in a determined look. ”All right. I appreciate your calling Dr. Logan for me, but I can't go down there until Tuesday.”
Kate shook her head. ”You shouldn't wait that long.”
Hesitating, Lynn chewed on her bottom lip, but an instant later, she insisted, ”I can't do it sooner. I have to talk to Erik. If I'm going to have to be in the hospital, it'll mean . . . well, there are things we'll have to work out.”
Kate spent the next fifteen minutes trying to change the young woman's mind, but she finally had to give up. She was arguing with a brick wall. ”At least promise me that you'll go home and go straight to bed,” she said. ”And stay there. I don't want you to get up except to use the bathroom.”
”I promise,” said Lynn promptly. ”And if the bleeding starts again, I'll . . . I'll send Erik in if the radio's still not working or . . . well, I'll do something.”
Kate wasn't satisfied with the arrangement, but later, when she talked to Doc about her day's appointments, he a.s.sured her that he'd check on Lynn over the weekend. That helped a little.
It was nine o'clock when Kate got home, and she was too exhausted to do more than eat a bowl of cottage cheese and go to bed. When the phone rang at 3:00 a.m., she groaned but woke up quickly as a frantic David Graff told her that Laura was in labor and didn't think she'd make it to the hospital. Laura was right. Kate got to the Graff's twenty minutes before Isaac was born. His father was proud. Laura was elated, if a little staggered at how quickly the whole thing had happened.
Kate left their house smiling, at 6:00 a.m.-and went home to cry herself to sleep.
Would it ever end? Would she ever have any peace from the conflicting emotions that plagued her every time she delivered another woman's baby? She was thrilled for Laura and David; it always made her a little euphoric to partic.i.p.ate in what she thought of as the core experience of life. But it also hurt. She'd thought it would get better, that being a midwife would help to satisfy her unfulfilled needs, but with every baby she delivered, it was only getting worse.
Kate spent all day Sat.u.r.day cooking for Sunday dinner. It solved the problem of what Sam would do when faced with Cressie's baked ham. It was also good therapy. Seeing Sam might have been better therapy, but she was in rotten shape, and she didn't want their next meeting to occur when either one of them was an emotional wreck. She wanted them both to be at their best-and for the day to be normal.
Actually, she wanted everything to be perfect, and when Sunday finally came, it gave every sign of living up to her wishes.
Standing at her front door on Sunday afternoon, Sam looked lean and tall and sinfully s.e.xy, dressed in khaki slacks and a dark brown s.h.i.+rt, with his sun-streaked hair swept back in careless disarray. Kate was certain her expression conveyed her thoughts when his mouth sloped into that a.s.sured, wicked grin. His eyes traveled downward, taking in the ma.s.s of waves falling around her shoulders, the skin exposed by the deep lace collar of her white blouse, and the curve of her hips beneath the soft, clinging folds of her flowered skirt. When his gaze rose to caress her features, his grin had softened to a warm smile. His eyes spoke of shared intimacies.
”I missed seeing you this week,” he said.
”I missed seeing you, too,” she returned.
”You look pretty. All soft and s.e.xy.”
She blushed, as she was sure he wanted her to, and murmured a nervous thank you.
His smile took on a hint of teasing. ”I hear you've been busy.”
”I hear the same about you.”
”So, let's swap local gossip while we ride. Otherwise, I'm going to kiss you. Then it'll be a while before we leave, and I want to get you out of here before the phone rings or that radio crackles and we end up losing the day.”
Kate's dimples appeared as her lips curved upward. ”That won't happen. Doc's on call until tomorrow.”
”Don't give me that stuff,” Sam replied. ”After what I've heard this week, I think you've got a bigger problem than I do with knowing your own limits.”
She didn't like to admit it, but given her emotional state the day before, she was afraid he might be right.
It was a gorgeous day, full of warm suns.h.i.+ne and yellow daffodils and the clean smell of spring. With the Jeep's top off, Kate relished the breeze whipping against her skin as they rode. And when they pa.s.sed the old McCarron place-an abandoned farmhouse she had always loved-she got a rush of spring fever seeing the pink dogwoods blooming among the weeds on the front lawn.
”So how did you make out with Aaron Spencer and his broken arm?” Sam asked. ”I hear he fell out of a barn loft.”
”He's lucky he didn't break his neck,” she muttered. ”I think his mother is hoping the cast will slow him down, but I doubt it. He was quite a handful at the hospital.”
”You went with him?”
”Yes. And don't look at me like that. Doc already yelled at me for it, but Nancy's two months pregnant and throwing up all the time, so I drove them down. But how did you hear about Aaron?”