Jodi Thomas - Texan's Touch

“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.