The Mountain Midwife (25 page)

The emptiness that had plagued him since learning how the McDermotts had deceived him about his parentage washed over him, and he drew out a chair to sit and wait for Ashley. A cat leaped onto his lap. Tentatively, he stroked his back. No, her. It was a calico. Somewhere he’d read that calicoes were almost always female. She began to purr like a hemi engine and gazed up at him with big green eyes. The warmth of her fur, the rumble of her purr soothed him. Perhaps he should get a cat, something to keep him company.

A thud drew his attention away from the feline. Ashley stood in the doorway, eyes wide. “She normally doesn’t like strangers.”

“I fed her.”

“Maybe that’s it.”

He stood, the cat in his arms. She didn’t jump down. Instead, she crawled onto his shoulder and poked her cold, wet nose against his ear.

Ashley laughed. “You’re a cat person.”

“Not to my knowledge.” He extricated the feline from his sweater and set her on the floor.

With an indignant “Ma-row” she stalked away, her tail straight up.

“That makes me feel guilty.” Hunter pulled his jacket from the back of a chair. “Do you need to take your medical equipment with you?”

“I always do. I never know when I’ll need it.”

“Then let me help.” He stepped into the exam room where her cases still stood. “Where does your friend live?”

“Right in town.” Ashley wheeled her bag toward the door. “You met her Tuesday night. Heather. Tall, gorgeous blonde. She’s a midwife who works for a local ob-gyn.”

“No house calls in the . . . er . . . hollers?”

“Office and hospital work only.” Ashley held the door open for him since both his hands were full. “I’d get claustrophobic doing that.”

“So how will you manage med school and a residency?”

She paused in the process of locking the door. “Lots of walks?”

“If you can get out of the hospital.”

“I know.” She paused beside him on the top step of the deck. The sky had cleared to reveal the countless stars’ glow unimpeded by ambient light from town. Other than the whisper of the wind through the bare branches of the trees, the night was still and silent. Washed clean from the rain, the air smelled crisp and sweet, a little spicy.

“I don’t know how my brother and sister and parents spend
their days behind desks or in restaurants. I need to smell dirt and water and fresh air.”

“I survived undergrad in the city.” She moved, and her arm brushed his. “Though I admit I had time then to get out of the city and ride my bike on the W and OD Trail.”

He caught her reference to the retired Washington and Old Dominion railroad bed turned into a bike and walking path and decided to test her prowess as a cyclist.

“From Shirlington to Purcellville?”

“All forty-five miles or whatever it is.”

“Round trip?”

“Of course.” She smiled up at him.

He caught hold of her hand. The starlight and clear autumn night and the way he was beginning to feel about her demanded the contact. Her fingers lay tense in his for a moment, then relaxed. For several minutes, they said nothing, standing side by side until the intensity of the contact seemed to draw the oxygen from the air as though they stood at five thousand feet, not a thousand.

He released her and said lightly, “A girl after my own heart who goes on a ninety-mile bike ride for the fun of it.”

“Th-the trail’s easy.” He didn’t miss the little stammer to her voice.

His pulse echoed that hitch in rhythm. He moved away from her, not at all ready to feel this way about her, or any lady. He needed to get his own head together about his past and where he belonged in the future.

“I’ve got to find this woman claiming to be Sheila Brooks.” As he spoke, he heard the desperation in his own voice.

C
HAPTER
18

W
HAT IS GOING
on?” Heather pounced on Ashley the minute she stepped onto the wide, wooden boards of the Penvenans’ porch.

“I’d rather not be alone tonight and want to be at the hospital early—”

“Uh-huh. You said that in your text. I mean, who was in that SUV that followed you here?”

“Oh, um . . .” Ashley glanced at the vanishing taillights. “Hunter McDermott. You met him the other night.”

“I wondered. He seemed awfully interested.”

“Interested in how I can help him.” She dared not hope for more. She couldn’t have more at this time in her life.

“How does he want your help?”

“I don’t think I should say.”

“Hello.” Heather waved her hand in front of Ashley’s face. “I’m your friend, not some stranger.”

“Yes, but—”

“And he’s not one of your patients.”

“But you are. So tell me how you’re doing. Have you, um, heard from Ian?”

“You’re not changing the subject that quickly.” Heather grabbed Ashley’s suitcase and dragged it inside. “Sit. I’ll make us some tea.” She headed for the kitchen, then stopped and whirled back. “You have your hair down.”

“I had to wash it. It was all over mud.”

“And your text said you had an intimate little dinner—”

“Cold sandwiches and soup is hardly an intimate little dinner.”

“Were you alone?”

“The cats were there.”

Heather rolled her eyes and stalked into the kitchen.

Ashley watched her friend with care. Always thin, Heather now looked gaunt. Her long, pale-blond hair hadn’t been combed in hours, if she had brushed it at all that day, and one could have landed a spaceship in the circles beneath her eyes.

Ashley followed her into the kitchen. “When did you last eat?”

“I had an apple three hours ago.” Heather slapped the kettle onto the stove.

“Not enough, and you know it.”

“I know, but it’s all I could keep down.” Heather turned a knob on the stove. The electronic ignition clicked and the gas flame whooshed to life. “I haven’t heard from Ian.”

“Oh, my dear.” Ashley wrapped her arms around her taller friend. “I’m so sorry you’re hurting. I wish I could take it away from you.”

“Why? I brought it on myself.” Heather’s voice was cold, but her body shook.

“That doesn’t mean you aren’t still worth loving.”

“Ian seems to think so.” The teakettle whistled, and Heather stepped away to pour boiling water over two tea bags. The tang of chamomile and mint rose into the air. “Do you want honey?”

“Please.”

Heather squeezed honey into the cups, added spoons, and handed a mug to Ashley. Then she led the way into the living room, where lamps glowed in the rich colors of the silk rugs Ian had brought back from Singapore. From long practice, each took an end of the sofa, kicked off their shoes, and curled up in a corner, half facing one another.

“So tell me what’s up with you,” Heather got out first. “That way I don’t have to think about me.”

Knowing focusing on someone else sometimes helped ease emotional pain, Ashley told Heather about the man in the Ford pickup, about Hunter and her attraction to a man she had no business being attracted to.

“I mean, we didn’t grow up poor,” Ashley concluded, “but his family is rich, like you only see in movies kind of rich. And he travels a lot for his job. And I have med school next year and—”

“What are you trying to talk yourself out of?” Heather smiled over the gold rim of her cup.

Ashley laughed. “Liking him. I don’t have time to care about anyone.”

“And when will you?”

“Probably never.”

A bleak future of coming home to a half dozen cats for the rest of her life flashed before Ashley’s eyes. She would have her work for the next forty years, more than likely, but after that . . . Or if something happened to her and she couldn’t work . . . And an endless string of catching other people’s babies . . .

“But Hunter McDermott is not anyone to get involved with. You should condone that sentiment. I mean, the travel and all.”

“Ashley, Ian’s travel wasn’t the problem—isn’t the problem—between us.” Heather set her cup on the coffee table and began to braid a front section of her hair. “I wanted to stop working for an ob-gyn and go freelance like you, maybe with you. Ian wanted me to quit altogether and have babies.” She dropped her hand to her belly. “I wanted them, too, but not at the expense of giving up my work. Not forever. But the fact that he thinks I can just stop serving women like a water spigot shows how little he knows or cares about me. We just fought all the time. I’m not a good enough housekeeper. He’s a slob sometimes. I spend too much money on shoes. He spends too much money on guns. Pick. Pick. Pick. Neither of us really cares about these things, but we just made them into mountains and had these screaming matches.” She sighed. “And then I accidentally took a shift the night before he was to leave for Mumbai, or some other godforsaken corner of the earth, and we had a horrible fight over the phone, of all things, with me in the hospital parking lot switching over calls because one of the patients thought she was going into labor but didn’t want to come to the hospital.”

The dispassionate level of her voice quavered and she blinked several times. “He left and a week later, one of my patients had a car accident on the way to the hospital for delivery and Ian hadn’t apologized to me yet . . .” She buried her face in her folded arms and began to sob. “I’m such a fool.”

Ashley didn’t know how all these things strung together. She didn’t need to know. Her friend was hurting, and that was all that mattered.

She slipped to her knees beside Heather and gave her a shoulder
to cry on. She wanted to murmur things about calming down, about the crying not being good for the baby. She didn’t think it was. Emotional distress never made a pregnancy easy. On the contrary, if the mother didn’t take care of herself, the baby suffered.

Maybe being lonely in her old age to avoid this kind of pain wasn’t worth it. Yet in the end, Heather would have her baby.

The storm passed and, looking calmer and more relaxed than she had since Ashley’s arrival, Heather sat back and wiped her eyes on the sleeves of her sweatshirt. “I’m surprised you’re not asking me who the father is.”

“You know I never ask questions like that. That stopped being required by law two hundred years ago.”

“Imagine that—having to ask our patients in labor who the father is before we could help them.” Heather pulled a crumpled tissue from the pocket of her jeans and blew her nose. “I’m too embarrassed to tell you anyway.”

“You said Ian knows who the father is?”

“He knows.” Heather wrinkled her nose. “He asked me straight off the morning I told him. It’s funny, but he seemed relieved, like he was afraid it was someone else. But then he cried. I’ll never forget seeing him cry.”

Ashley rose. “Heather, what matters now is the baby. You have got to take care of yourself better. You need to eat. You need to sleep. You can’t keep taking extra shifts with work. Are you taking vitamins?”

“I am.”

“That’s a start.” She paced a circle around the rug in the center of the floor, then paused on the other side of the coffee table from Heather. “Do you want to make up with Ian? Or do you want to be with your baby’s father?”

“Right now, neither of them. But I change my mind by the half day.” Heather’s smile wobbled. “But I married Ian. I made a commitment to him. I love him, even if he doesn’t think so.”

“Then we’ll pray for healing there and meanwhile see that you deliver a healthy baby. All right?”

Heather bowed her head. “Okay, if God will listen to me.”

“You know he will.” Ashley gathered up their teacups. “Now let’s get to bed. I want to be at the hospital early before I go into the mountains with Hunter.”

Heather unfolded her legs and rose. “When are you going to get married and have your own babies, girl? You care so much about them.”

“When I find a man who will put up with me, and that won’t be until after med school.”

She made the remarks offhand, but as she readied herself for bed in Heather’s guest room, Ashley couldn’t get Hunter McDermott’s face out of her mind’s eye. She couldn’t forget how warm she’d felt just holding his hand there in the starlight. She couldn’t dismiss how, for the first time since she could remember, she hadn’t felt that aching emptiness.

Foolish, foolish woman. She couldn’t have it all—med school and a man in her life. Flipping her pillow over to the cooler side, Ashley determined that she would help Hunter find his mystery woman, if she could be found, and then get back to her life as it had been before he turned into her drive.

Ashley was downstairs by six thirty the next morning. Already, Heather sat at the table dressed and sipping at a cup of coffee, a plate of nibbled toast beside her. Ashley, out of reflex, started to say she hoped the coffee was decaf, then realized Heather was staring at her phone.

“Ian?” Ashley darted across the kitchen to slip an arm around Heather’s bowed shoulders.

Heather nodded and handed Ashley the phone. A short, concise text sprawled across the screen: W
ON
’
T BE BACK TO
B-
BURG
4
WHILE
. W
ILL CALL
2
DISCUSS TERMS OF SEPARATION
. He concluded with a time.