Texan's Touch

FIVE

THE FOUR RIDERS took to the night like bats, racing toward the McLain home in silent dare to an evening storm. Strong winds chased their backs and lightning flashed around them. The earth blinked bright as day for an instant, then black again.

Adam needed the pounding ride to challenge his body and ease the frustration he felt toward Bergette. He tried to tell himself that this was only his first day home, and she was under a great deal of stress. Give her time, he reasoned, but his gut feeling told him to ride faster-as far away from her as he could get. She was not the woman he’d dreamed of and planned a life with. All the beauty was still there, but her heart was missing.

When they reined in at the farmyard, splatters of rain smothered their dust. Adam glanced at Nichole. Her smile confirmed that she loved the speed as much as he did. The lightning hadn’t frightened her. He wondered what, if anything, would. She was as wild as a spring storm, and it was the wildness that attracted him, nothing more, he decided. The female reb was as far from his world as a woman could be.

But something in her green eyes challenged him to care. Something in her short midnight curls dared him to touch her.

Glancing away from Nichole, Adam realized the storm had followed them in, swirling excitement and rattling the air with summer thunder. He could hear the horses moving in the corral and the windmill speeding around as rain plopped in the already full tank.

Daniel yelled from the porch. “Thank God! You’re back.” He hurried toward them as fast as his stiff leg would allow.

“What is it?” Wes was off his mount first with Adam just behind.

“It’s May.” Daniel suddenly looked very young and near panic.

Adam grabbed his medical bag. “Has the labor started?”

“No.” Daniel shoved his wet hair from his face. “I can’t find her! She’s disappeared.”

His little brother fought to pull himself together enough to force words out. “She was in the kitchen when I left to bring in the horses, but now she’s gone.” Daniel struggled with each sentence. “I’ve called and called. She couldn’t have just vanished.”

Adam touched his brother’s shoulder and moved into the kitchen with the others following. For a moment everything looked in place, her sewing on the table, the fireplace bright, supper dishes in a pan by the pump. Touches of May were everywhere, but she was missing.

“We’ll split up.” Adam tried to make his voice calm and commanding. “Wes, you and Wolf check the barn. Nichole, start on the second floor and call May’s name in every room. Daniel, check the outhouse and chicken coops. When anyone finds her, yell loud. She can’t be far away.”

Everyone moved at once, for they were all used to following orders and knew by Adam’s voice there was no time to lose.

When they disappeared, Adam knelt by the table and touched the wet spot on the floor. He brought his fingers to his nose and frowned. The watery liquid was slippery to the touch and smelled of blood. “Her water broke,” he whispered to himself.

“Where are you, May?” Fear and frustration banked his sudden demand to an empty room.

Only silence.

He built up the fire and put on as much water to boil as he could find pots to hold it, then he darted to the only downstairs bedroom and stripped the sheets. He laid a soft deerskin pelt on the mattress, then covered it with a thick flannel sheet.

“What did you do that for?” Nichole asked from the doorway.

“It’ll catch the fluids.” Adam layered the bed with all the sheets he could find. “She wasn’t upstairs?”

“No.” Nichole helped him. “I can hear your younger brother calling for her in the rain. His voice is full of panic, almost madness.”

Adam didn’t look at her as he worked. “May’s not just his wife, she’s his world. They’ve been best friends since he started school. When Daniel was little, he never talked. My folks feared something was wrong with him until he found May. Seemed he’d saved up all he had to say to tell her. When he got old enough to enlist as a chaplain, they married before he left so she could go with him when he was stationed in a town. He got shot in the leg while visiting an outpost, but she was at his side. When she’s near, words come easy for Danny, but when she’s not, he dams up inside.”

“I’ve seen wives go through hard times to stay near their men,” Nichole whispered. She remembered seeing the small camps of women sometimes only a few miles behind the lines. Their fires and supplies were usually lower than that of the troops, but they didn’t complain of wanting to go home as the men did. They were where they had to be.

“It’s more than just wanting to be together with those two. She somehow completes his world.” Adam opened his bag and began laying out what he thought he might need. He’d only delivered three babies during medical school. One was with the help of an instructor, and the other two were women who’d had so many children they lectured him completely through the process. But this was May’s first. Her water had already broken. Wasn’t that supposed to happen later? He couldn’t remember. She wasn’t due for days yet. He’d planned to read everything he could find on delivery before then.

Nichole moved until she stood across the small table from him. “Do you need Wolf and me to stay and help, Doc?”

Adam looked up and guessed from her expression that helping deliver a baby was something quite foreign to both Nichole and her brother. “No,” he said, allowing his pride to answer. “We can manage.”

One thing his mother had taught him, a McLain never asked for help unless he could return the favor. Nichole and he were even, and Adam planned to keep it that way.

She let out a long breath. “Then we’ll be leaving as soon as May’s found.”

Adam stared into her dark green eyes and knew there were somehow words left to be said between them that would never have a time. She opened her mouth slightly, her action echoing his thoughts.

“Adam!” Wes screamed above the storm. “Adam!”

Adam bolted for the kitchen door with Nichole only a step behind. Wes’s tall form materialized through the gray rain. He carried May, covered with his coat. Her forgotten shawl dragged in the mud behind them.

“Adam! Daniel! I found her!”

Wolf ran ahead of Wes and opened the screen door as Dan jumped over the railing at the corner of the porch. 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.

The old doctor wiped his face with a towel and glanced in Nichole’s direction. “As soon as this one is out, you do what Adam is doing with the first. I’ve got to help May. You and Adam will have to see these babies get to breathing clear. That’s most important, lest all this suffering be for nothing.”

Nichole tried to force herself to breathe. She’d seen battlefields covered in blue and gray and blood, but she’d never seen anything like this.

Wilson lifted the baby in the air as it wiggled and screamed in protest. He cut the cord and tied it, then handed the tiny bundle to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the afterbirth begin to emerge and moved quickly away, not sure she could breathe if she witnessed more.

When Nichole reached Adam’s side, he took the newborn from her arms and handed her a baby already wrapped in a towel.

“Keep this little lady warm.” He smiled at Nichole, as if he thought the messy creature was pretty. “I’ll clean up my other niece.”

Nichole cradled the wiggling bundle close to her heart as she watched Adam work. He held the tiny baby in one hand and cleaned its mouth and let the lungs drain of fluid. Then he wiped the wrinkled flesh with a warm cloth and checked each limb.

“They’re both perfect.” He glanced over his shoulder with a smile toward the new parents. “Daniel, you and May have yourselves two fine daughters.”

Nichole watched the smile vanish from Adam. His face become a mass of sorrow when there was no answer from anyone near the bed.

“No,” he cried.

She followed the direction of his gaze.

“No!”

Dr. Wilson wept openly as he knelt on one knee and slowly raised the sheet over May’s face. “I saw her come into this world. Now it’s time for her to pass on to the next.”

“No!” Daniel’s order shook the room. “Don’t leave me, May!”

He buried his head in the pillow next to the covered outline of his wife and sobbed. Deep low sobs of a pain too great to bear.

But the sheet separated their tears as death separated them.