Loving Linsey (20 page)

Before he could stop it, his hand reached across the seat to squeeze her leg. “We'll get to her in time; don't worry.”

She gave him a feeble smile before returning her attention to the road.

Finally they pulled off the country road and
drove up to the cabin. The buggy had barely come to a stop when Linsey leaped down. Daniel grabbed his bag and raced after her inside.

Linsey hastened to her friend's side and dropped to her knees next to the huge tick mattress. “I'm back, Caro, just like I promised. I brought Daniel with me. Everything's going to be fine now.”

“I'm going to lose him, I know it,” she wept.

“No, you won't. Daniel won't let anything happen to this baby.”

Daniel wished she wouldn't put so much faith in his abilities. He was only a man, not a miracle worker, and he'd seen healthier women than Caroline deliver stillborns. She'd already lost two babies midterm, and a third in the last trimester. The odds that she'd deliver a healthy child this time were slim to none.

Still, strangely enough, Linsey's confidence also gave Daniel a strength of purpose he hadn't felt in a long time: to not fail the two women who trusted him to do his job.

He set his bag on the foot of the bed. “Linsey, gather up all the lamps you can find. I'll also need hot water, a piece of rubber sheeting if you can find it, and a pile of towels.”

While Linsey hastened to do his bidding, Daniel rolled up his sleeves and scrubbed his hands in a tin basin. Several items—a pair of scissors, a whole garlic clove, a cartridge and a comb—littered the surface of the bedside stand. Three horseshoes had been nailed to the inside of the headboard of the cradle waiting between the bed and the fireplace.

No one needed to tell him that Linsey had been responsible for the extra touches. If it would have done any good, Daniel would have ordered the nonsense taken away. But he didn't have the time or energy for an argument. He needed to save both Caroline and her child.

He finished scrubbing his hands and had just begun to press on Caroline's belly to judge the position of the baby when Linsey set five lanterns on the trunk at the far side of the bed, and a stack of towels on the nightstand. Then she knelt beside Caroline and brushed the tangled brown hair from the woman's eyes in a gesture Daniel couldn't help but find touching.

God knew, Caroline would need a friend today.

As he examined her, he knew she was in trouble. Wave after wave of contractions rolled through her, pain twisting her gaunt, perspiring face. Blood trickled from her bottom lip where she'd bit through it against the pain.

“Doc Jr, please do something. Don't let my baby die. I can't lose another one.”

“I'm going to do everything I can, Caroline.” Not only for the babe but for the woman. He didn't think she'd survive another miscarriage. “I need you to work with me, though.”

“Whatever it takes—
ahhh
!”

“Take deep, even breaths. Don't push—even if the sensation becomes unbearable, hear?”

“I hear. Don't push.”

Daniel poured carbolic acid into a pan to sterilize his instruments, then over his hands. Many physicians didn't put much importance
on cleanliness, but one of Daniel's professors insisted that patients fared better, and over the years, Daniel had come to agree. “Linsey, inside my bag there's a small brown bottle with the symbol of a closed eye on it. Dribble a few drops onto a piece of flannel, then press it against her nose and mouth until she passes out.”

Linsey's head snapped up. She looked at Daniel in astonishment. “You're putting her to sleep?”

“It's necessary. I have to cut her open.”

Cut her open?
She'd never heard of such a thing! Granted, she'd never attended a birthing before, either, but she knew how babies were delivered—and it didn't involve cutting anything open.

The panic must have shown in her eyes, for Daniel told her, “If I don't perform this surgery, Caroline and the babe will both die. She's too small to deliver it through the canal, and the placenta has already begun to tear away.”

She heard the anguish in his decision, yet his eyes shone with a steely confidence. He knows what he's doing, she told herself. He had a degree to prove it.

Even so, her hands trembled as she fished under rolls of bandages for the group of bottles, searching for the one he specified. It wasn't that she didn't trust Daniel, it wasn't that she doubted his abilities. It was herself she didn't trust, herself she doubted. He wanted her to help him and she feared that if she failed, it would mean the death of one of her dearest friends.

But if she didn't help him, Caroline or her baby would most certainly die. Did she really have a choice?

“Caro? Daniel says we need to give you this to make you sleep.”

Questions swirled in her pain-riddled eyes. “What for?”

“So he can save the baby.”

“Tell her to breath deeply when you put the cloth over her nose and mouth.”

Linsey repeated Daniel's order, and whispered, “Don't be afraid, Caro.”

“Don't leave me, Linsey.”

“I won't. I'll be here the whole time until you wake up.”

And though she knew it was a necessary procedure, her eyes grew moist as she pressed the drugged cloth over her friend's face. In just a few seconds, Caroline's eyes closed, her tight muscles relaxed, and the hand within Linsey's went limp.

Linsey couldn't bring herself to watch when Daniel set his knife beneath Caroline's navel. She turned her head, hunched her shoulders, and gripped Caroline's work-worn fingers.

The click of steel hitting steel, the thump of a clock, the consistent yap of a dog, all had her nerves on edge.

She focused on Daniel's steady breathing, willing it to calm her. Amazingly, it did. Slowly the tension left her neck and shoulders, and the anxiety seeped from her body.

After a while she even managed to brave a glance at Daniel. His cowlick drooped low over his forehead, creating a frame for his right
eye. The mouth she'd once longed to taste was pressed together in a relaxed line.

His composure really was remarkable. While she battled hysteria, he remained unflaggingly calm and self-assured, almost as if he worked on a mechanical object instead of a person. Maybe that was what made him so capable—being able to separate himself from his emotions.

“Wipe my brow, please.”

Grateful to be of some use, she snatched a square of flannel and stood to blot the beads of sweat from above his eyes, then sat down again. If he needed anything, she'd be happy to comply, but unless he asked, she figured the best thing she could do was just keep out of his way.

“Talk to me,” he said a few minutes later.

“About what?”

“Anything your little heart desires.”
Click. Snap.
A curse.

She caught a flash of white; felt the tension in Daniel's shoulders as his movements turned swifter. Only then did she realize that he wasn't as detached as she thought. That he would seek a sense of normalcy, of comfort, from her made her heart do a little flip.

“Jenny asked me to stand up in her wedding,” she said.

“She did, huh?”

“Will you be there?”

“I plan on it.”

It went unspoken that sometimes his plans didn't always work out the way he wanted them. “She asked her girls to wear blue. It's a lucky color.”

“You wearing blue at your wedding?”

“I would if I married, but I'm afraid that won't happen.”

“The right man'll come along.”

She longed to tell him that even if he did, it was too late. “And you Daniel, have you set your eye on a lady yet?”

“Nope. Haven't looked, either.”

“Sometimes you don't have to look. Sometimes she's right under your nose.”

His hands paused. She felt his gaze on the top of her head. Her scalp tingled.

“Thread the needle on that tray with the cat gut. And fetch me a warm blanket.”

“The baby's out?” she breathed.

“Will be in two seconds.”

The next few minutes passed in a rush of activity: Daniel's hands nothing more than a blur above the sheet covering Caroline; Linsey hurrying to and fro bringing him items he requested, sometimes even before he requested them; blood-soaked cloths tossed heedlessly into a metal basin. . . .

And then the announcement she'd been waiting for.

“Caroline's got herself a fine girl child.”

The next thing Linsey knew, he'd placed a screaming, squirming bundle in her arms. She took the baby across the room to get her cleaned up while he finished with Caroline.

“What a little cherub you are,” Linsey crooned, wiping a damp cotton cloth along the wriggling body. She couldn't weigh more than five pounds, but she looked pink and healthy despite the mottled complexion of her wee
face. Even more incredible was that such a painful experience could have brought forth such a beautiful creature.

And as she counted the fragile fingers and knobby toes, an ache grew inside her, so sharp she wondered how she bore it. She'd never hold a child of her own, never nurse it from her breast, never watch it take its first steps.

“Linsey?”

Daniel's concerned tone almost shattered her. She'd always been the strong one, and for him to catch her weak and weeping . . .

“A bit overwhelming, isn't it?” he commented softly from Caroline's bedside.

She swallowed, then nodded, as deeply moved by his insight as the tender compassion in his voice.

“No matter how many times I see a birth, it never fails to humble me.”

For the first time since she could remember, he wasn't jeering at her or recoiling from her or cursing her to perdition. He was simply listening. What's more, he seemed to understand that some things couldn't be put into words.

“Oh, Daniel . . .” She lifted her gaze to his across the room, and in a voice hoarse with emotion, said, “Caroline and Axel will be so grateful. You have given them a gift beyond measure.”

He shifted and dropped his gaze, clearly discomfitted by the praise. “I don't know about that; I just did what I've been trained to do.” As if one compliment deserved another, he said, “I couldn't have done it without your help.”

His praise created a warmth in her belly.

“So how does it feel to bring a life into the world?”

Linsey suddenly brightened. “I did, didn't I?” It hadn't occurred to her during the activity, but she had. Her smile widened. She'd actually brought a life into the world! “I guess that's another project off my list.”

“List?”

She thought about telling him, but he'd only laugh at her. Or worse, ridicule her, and she didn't think she could bear that after being the recipient of his praise.

They continued working together in companionable silence, and when Daniel finished with Caroline, he examined the baby and pronounced her fit. Caroline awoke shortly after.

She was a bit groggy, but Daniel expected that. Her stomach would be quite sore for a while, too, and she'd need help with the baby. As he watched Linsey place the baby in the new mother's arms, and listened to them gush like only women could do, an unexpected swell of pride rose inside him—pride in Linsey, pride in himself. Damn, but they'd worked well together, almost as if they'd been made to be partners. He'd always wanted that “perfect fit.” That sense of being part of a team. He couldn't have asked for a better set of extra hands.

He hadn't expected to find that with Linsey. But, then, she was forever surprising him.

After he had all his instruments cleaned and put away, he returned to the women. Caroline was looking weary.

“Why don't we go outside for a bit?” he whispered in Linsey's ear.

“I promised Caroline I wouldn't leave her,” she whispered back.

“You're not. You're just getting some fresh air. We'll leave the door open so she can call out if she needs you.”

After a second's hesitation, Linsey rose from the bed where mother and child snuggled and let Daniel escort her outside onto the front porch. A swing hung from the rafters. He gestured toward it. Linsey smoothed her skirts along her rear and thighs, and sat. Daniel lowered himself next to her.

She took in a deep breath of cool, fresh night air and stared at the stars. “Have you ever wished on a falling star, Daniel?”

He hesitated. He didn't feel up to bickering with Linsey tonight. “I wouldn't know what to wish for,” he finally said.

“Why, whatever you want. Wishes on falling stars are always granted—that's how I got my sister.” She smiled at the sky. “Nights like this are magical. The moon, the stars . . . And even if you don't believe in the power of a falling star, the miracle behind that wall is enough to make a person believe anything is possible.”

He said nothing, just watched her for several moments while the peace of the evening surrounded them. “If anything was possible, what would you wish for?”

“If
anything
was possible?”

Daniel nodded.

“A child. Holding that baby in my arms makes me ache for a little girl of my own.”

He knew the feeling. Every now and again he'd get that pinch of longing, too. “You'll have one someday.”

She swallowed visibly, then whispered, “Some women just aren't fated to be mothers.”

There was such sorrow in the words that Daniel found himself wanting to pull her close. He wondered how she could be so certain that she'd not hold a child of her own, but it was too personal a question to ask.

He hoped that when he finally married, his wife would want children as badly as Linsey seemed to. His sons and daughters would need to know they were loved, and important, and accepted for what they were.

God knew, he'd never felt that way.

He suspected she'd make a good mother, though. She had a way about her that attracted youngsters. A zest for life, a mischievous twinkle, a nurturing aura.