When Wes stepped inside, he was dripping wet.
“I found her in the darkness by the barn door.” He handed her to her husband. “She wasn’t crying or nothing, just curled up in pain.”
Daniel held her close. “She’s never been able to open the barn door when the wind’s up.”
“Get her in the bedroom, Dan!” Adam ordered. “We’ve got to keep her dry and warm. Nichole, see if you can start the fireplace blazing. I’ll bring the water and every lantern I can find.”
For an instant brown eyes meet green. He silently asked for the help she’d offered earlier. She nodded slightly and followed Daniel into the bedroom.
Adam turned his attention to Wes. “Get that blood off you and see how fast you can bring Doc Wilson out from town.”
Wes looked down. Blood covered the bottom part of his shirt as thick as if he’d been gut shot. May’s blood!
Wolf reached out an arm in time to break Wes’s fall. Both men crumpled to the floor like timbers falling.
Glancing over his shoulder, Adam saw Wolf rise on one elbow. “Is he all right?” Adam asked as he pointed with his head toward his older brother.
“Out cold.” Wolf laughed. “Some soldier. Can’t stand the sight of a little birthing blood.”
Adam stared at Nichole as she passed with an armload of firewood. “Can you?”
Her gaze met his once more in silent challenge. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly.
“There’s one way to find out.” He motioned for her to follow him and yelled back from the other room. “Wake my big brother and ride to town with him, would you, Wolf? We need Doc Wilson as fast as he can get here.”
“You bet, Doc.” Wolf dropped Wes’s head on the floor with a thud and went to get a bucket of cold rainwater from the barrel on the porch. “Come to supper and you join the family around here,” he mumbled.
Adam fought down the panic as he moved to May’s side. She was cradled in Daniel’s arms, holding on to his hand with a tight grip.
“It’s too early.” Daniel looked up at Adam. “She’s too little. What are we going to do?” Tears he wouldn’t allow to fall welled in his eyes.
“We’re going to do our best,” Adam answered, knowing that if he didn’t keep Daniel busy, he’d have two brothers as patients, and Wolf wasn’t much of a nurse. “Help me get her out of these wet clothes and into a nightgown.”
As the room warmed, May relaxed a little. She turned loose of Daniel’s arm and tried to smile between contractions. “I couldn’t find you when the pains started,” she whispered to Daniel. “I thought I lost you. I thought you were hurt somewhere in the dark and I wouldn’t be able to find you.”
“Never.” He kissed her cheek, then shoved curls of hair from her forehead. “Adam’s here now. We’re going to have our baby soon. We’ve been through a great deal together and we’ll make it through this.”
An hour passed. Everyone worked and waited. Nichole kept the fire hot, hauled water in and soiled sheets out. Adam timed the contractions and comforted May. Daniel never left her side, and Adam knew it would be a waste of time to ask him to leave. He could hear Wes and Wolf in the kitchen burning a supper no one would bother to eat.
Dr. Wilson arrived with his usual good cheer, lightening the mood by assuring everyone that having a baby was a natural thing and nothing to worry about. But when he examined May, the lines around his mouth tightened. He glanced up at Adam, silently confirming Adam’s fear. Everything was not right. Her womb seemed stretched to the limit, but he could feel no baby aligning to be born.
The night passed, one contraction at a time. May would grip Daniel’s hand, seeming to pass the pain to him. And Daniel took it, feeling all she suffered along with his own sorrow of watching her grow paler with each hour.
Adam tried everything he could think of to help her. He shifted her position in the bed, easing her back. He talked Doc Wilson into helping him try and turn the baby. They talked about cutting across May’s abdomen, but Daniel wouldn’t hear of it. Adam didn’t insist. Even if they could get the baby out, there was a good chance she’d bleed to death before they could sew her up.
He gave her honeyed whiskey to ease the contractions. Nothing worked.
As dawn brightened the windows, Adam left the bedroom for the first time. He walked past Wes sleeping in a chair at the kitchen table and stepped outside.
The storm had worn itself out, leaving the morning gray and humid. All the wounded he’d ever treated came rushing back to him. May’s suffering seemed to pile atop all the others, until Adam felt his shoulders snap from the load. He dropped on the first step and put his elbows on his knees, wishing he were a boy again and could go back to a time when Mama’s words could make everything all right. He wanted the world to make sense. He wanted the suffering to end.
Adam wasn’t aware of Nichole until she stood just behind him.
“Wolf left for town to send a telegram home,” she said matter-of-factly, handing him a mug of steaming coffee.
“Trouble?”
“The war may not be over so easy for us. We may have to fight for the land we left behind. Wolf and I will have no peaceful farm to go home to or profession like doctoring to fall back on. What becomes of a Shadow when the war ends? It’s not exactly a skill that we can continue in peacetime.”
Adam felt sorry for her. She’d become an expert in something no longer in demand. “Thank you for helping out tonight. The McLains are in your debt. Name the time and we’ll pay you back.”
“I don’t expect any payment.” Her words were sharp. “And I’m not sure I was much help. I could never have the kind of talent you have. You’re very gifted.”
“No great skill. I don’t know if I want to be a doctor anymore,” he mumbled more to himself than her. “Maybe I should give the gift back.”
“Picked a hell of a time to leave the profession,” she answered without sympathy.
Leaning back against the porch railing, he felt her leg pressing lightly against his back. Neither retreated. The warmth of her nearby was reassuring.
“Some doctor. I can’t do anything else for May.” He straightened slightly, still allowing his back to touch her leg, but letting her know that he wasn’t asking for compassion, only understanding.
Nichole let out a long breath. Sympathy wasn’t a talent she’d had time to develop. “I guess that takes you out of the running for God, doesn’t it?”
Anger sparked in him. She wasn’t giving an inch. He’d seen her comfort May again and again. She’d patted Daniel on the shoulder. She’d even brought old Doc Wilson a chair and bullied him until he’d sat for a while. But no kind words for him.
Adam stood, tossing the coffee into the mud. “I’d better get back.”
He wanted to yell that he knew he’d let her down. He wasn’t the grand doctor she thought him to be. She’d traveled all this way to see a hero, and he was only a man. A man who spoke of his doubt. Something he’d never do in front of her or any woman again.
When he looked at her, she was staring out at the sunrise. She was a hard woman, he’d give her that. Her world had fallen apart, and she hadn’t blinked at what might lie ahead. She’d seen things tonight that would have had most women fainting. That was the difference between her and Bergette. Not the dress, or the manners, or even the background-Bergette had no heart, while Nichole’s heart had turned to stone over the years of war.
Wilson called Adam. Without a word, he left Nichole’s side, thinking that even if he declared himself in her debt, she’d probably die before she asked for help from him.
“It’s time!” Wilson shouted again.
Adam crossed the kitchen in three strides as May’s scream lacerated the silence and woke Wes. He jumped, toppling the chair backward and almost colliding with Nichole as she raced to the bedroom.
She shoved Wes out of the way. He took a step to follow, but another scream from the bedroom seemed to bar him from entering.
“I’ll check the horses!” he yelled to the open doorway, but no one answered.
An hour later, Nichole stood in the shadows watching a second baby crown. May had grown too weak to push, and Daniel looked like he might pass out at any moment. Dr. Wilson put a bloody hand on May’s knee as he waited for the next contraction. Sweat dripped off his forehead and into his eyes where it blended with his tears.
