***
It took Logan a dozen texts and four calls before John finally picked up his cell phone.
Logan came right to the point. “What the hell happened?”
“Hello to you, too.” John’s voice sounded like he was walking fast through a very long hall. “Hospitals and clinics must be different in South America, Logan, but here in Washington State cell phones aren’t allowed on the maternity ward—”
“Yeah, yeah, just—is Judy all right?”
“Yes, she’s fine, she’s resting.”
His gut knotted. “And the baby?”
“A girl.” John burst into a laugh of pure wonder. “Barely four-and-a-half pounds, though. It was touch-and-go for a while, but the doctors say she’s healthy and strong.”
Logan tipped the phone away from his mouth so John wouldn’t hear his exhale of relief. Sweat formed on his forehead as he tried to get a hold of himself. There was no reason to panic, no reason for this crushing sense of guilt and responsibility. At least not this time.
“That’s great news, John,” Logan said, swiveling the phone back into place, forcing his vital signs back to normal. “Now tell me everything.”
“What, you want all the gory details?”
“Every damn one. From first contraction to crowning.”
As John told the tale, Logan unfurled it in his mind. He’d delivered enough babies to recognize the warning signs of early labor long before John had, John who was called ‘doctor’ because of a Ph.D. in botany. As Logan listened to the narrative, images intruded of bare bulbs blinking by the power of failing generators, of women drenched in sweat as their wombs knotted within them, as babes were born into his bare hands and washed in tainted water. He closed his eyes and reminded himself that Judy lived in Seattle where the sheets were bleached and morphine was fed to a laboring mother through a slender catheter inserted into her spine.
“…and then,” John said when he came to the end, “they took the baby away and stuck wires all over her. It was a good hour before we really knew what was going on. All they told us was that she weighed four pounds and six ounces. She has to be monitored closely.”
“They’ll keep her until at least five pounds.” The size of a roaster chicken. He’d held smaller babies in his hands as they struggled to breathe without the benefit of ventilators and antibiotics and heated bassinets.
“She’s already gained half an ounce since yesterday,” John said. “She has her father’s appetite.”
“That’s a good sign.”
“Come up and see her, Logan. She’s small, but she’s beautiful. And Judy could use you. She doesn’t trust these doctors. But she’d believe you if you said the baby is going to be okay.”
“The doctors there know the situation best.” And his being a doctor didn’t make him a seer. “It would take me a while to get up to speed—”
“Really, Logan?”
John’s weary skepticism oozed through the line, too thick to ignore. John knew what had happened in South America, as did Logan’s college friends Dylan and Garrick. Those three buddies were the only ones he’d felt compelled to confide in. Logan had made them swear never to speak of it again.
Hearing a woman’s footsteps coming from the bedroom, he seized the opportunity to change the subject. “While you were away, there was some excitement here in the north woods.”
“What? Did a bear get into the garbage again?”
“I found a naked woman in my shower.”
John choked in surprise on the other end of the line while Logan eyed the woman approaching the kitchen from across the living room. Lady was the better term. Gone were the gloriously loose, wet red locks. She’d plastered her hair back and imprisoned it in some sort of silver contraption. A leather belt cinched her silken pants, whose folds smothered the firmness and shape of those freckled thighs.
She grabbed the pearls pooled on the table, then dipped her head to fasten them behind her neck.
“Logan? You still there?” John sputtered. “Explain yourself.”
“You’re the one who has some explaining to do.”
“How?”
“Dr. Jennifer Vance is standing in this living room, claiming she’s got your permission to bunk here for two weeks.”
Silence fell on the other end of the line, interrupted by the sound of an automatic door whooshing open and closed. John’s pause kicked up a new storm of suspicions in Logan’s mind.
“Aw, Logan.” John sucked in a dramatic breath. “I forgot.”
“You forgot.”
“Is it June already? Yes—late June. Damn, it’s not even listed in my calendar, but I did exchange emails with Jen—Dr. Vance.” Logan could picture John, unshaven, pacing in the sunshine outside the hospital as he scrolled through his emails. “Yeah, yeah, she’s supposed to arrive today. I promised she could have access to the cabin right after the semester ended. With all the difficulties of Judy’s pregnancy, I forgot to block out the weeks—”
“Playing the absentminded professor again?”
“Dude, this was an honest mistake.”
“Mmmhmmm.”
“I didn’t set you up! Dr. Vance’s visit has a legit academic purpose. She’s doing some research that’s associated with mine. Remember when I dragged you out to the national park in March, and talked about the paper I was working on?”
Logan didn’t remember the paper but he remembered the day. He’d just moved into the cabin and his mind was still a jagged mess. Logan remembered the loamy scent of the Washington rain forest, the cloying odor of spring flowers blooming—reminding him of bouquets left on graves.
“I’m not pulling one over on you, Logan, I swear.” John’s voice leveled. “I know it’s no time for pranks.”
Logan squeezed his eyes shut. He knew by John’s tone that his friend was telling the truth. He was on a knife’s edge these days and all he wanted was to be left alone.
“It would have been a great prank,” Logan conceded, tracking the movement of the female pacing in the room. “I can tell you, it sure knocked me off my feet.”
“Yeah,” John said, relief in his voice. “And you’d be the luckiest man on earth if I set you up with Dr.
