Patricia Forsythe - At Odds With The Midwife

As she worked, she sang words he couldn’t understand. They were out of rhythm with the music he could now see was coming from a tablet computer set up at the base of the lamp.

The woman had curly red hair that flowed down her back and lifted when a breeze happened by. She wore cutoff jeans with black rain boots and a yellow tank top that revealed toned arms, streaked with dirt.

He needed to let her know he was there, but he was enjoying the sight of her working.

Turning around and leaving before she saw him was certainly an option, but now that he was here, he wanted to find out what was going on and, more importantly, who she was.

“Hello,” he called out.

She didn’t respond.

“Excuse me. Hello.” He took a few steps forward, but she still didn’t answer. Now he could see potted plants lined up, ready to go into the ground. She was planting something. At night.

Thinking that she might be hard of hearing, Nate stepped forward, reaching out a hand to wave at the moment she tossed the shovel aside and bent to pick up one of the potted plants lined up at her feet.

The woman turned her head, saw a hand coming at her and exploded.

Grabbing his arm, she stepped forward to throw him off balance. Then she swept out her foot to knock his feet out from under him.

Nate landed on his left side with a whoosh of breath. His hand slammed down on the sharp edge of the shovel blade, shooting pain up his arm.

The girl grabbed the shovel away from him with one hand and jerked earbuds from her ears with the other. She let them fall and they dangled from the MP3 player attached to her waistband as she moved back several feet and held the shovel out in front of her like a weapon.

“Who are you?” she demanded. “What do you want?”

“I—I saw...” Nate stopped to catch his breath.

“You saw what? A woman alone who might like some company?” She tossed her head to get her hair out of her face and moved from one foot to the other, ready to do more damage. “Well, you guessed wrong, buddy. As you can see, even though I’m alone here, I can defend myself just fine.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” He rolled onto his side to sit up, but when he placed his cut hand on the ground, pain raced up his arm. Breath hissed between his teeth as he fell back.

“What’s wrong?’ she asked, finally seeming to realize he was hurt. “Do you need help? I can help you if you don’t try anything funny.”

“I can take care of it myself,” he answered testily. “As long as you don’t knock me down again.”

Dropping the shovel, but making sure it was within reach, she came down onto her knees beside him. She slid her arm under his shoulders and helped him into a sitting position.

Nate held up his hand and tilted it toward the pale glow from the lamp.

“Oh, that’s a pretty bad cut,” she said. “You must have hit it on the edge of the shovel.”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“And you’ve managed to grind dirt into it.”

He couldn’t see her face clearly since the light was behind her, but Nate imagined she was giving him an accusing look.

“Yeah, well, that sometimes happens when a crazy woman throws me to the ground.”

“Crazy? I was defending myself!”

“I was only trying to get your attention.”

“Why? So you could scare me to death?” She got to her feet and stepped back to watch him stand up, too.

“I saw the light and thought someone was up to no good.”

“Yes, someone was. You!”

Nate tried to smother his temper. “I thought someone was trespassing.”

“Again. You! This is private property. My property.”

He paused, staring at her, then walked around her so that she would have to turn to keep an eye on him. When the light hit her face, he recognized her. The red hair—though he didn’t remember it being quite this red—almond-shaped green eyes, the heart-shaped face.

“Bijou?” he asked.

“Do I know you?” She frowned at him.

“Nathan Smith,” he said.

Surprise flared in her eyes, followed by a fleeting emotion he couldn’t name. Embarrassment? Dismay? She lowered her eyes so he couldn’t read her expression.

When she didn’t say anything else, he went on, “I thought your parents had sold this place.”

“No. It’s always stayed in the family.” She gave a small shrug. “Obviously, no one kept it up.”

He glanced around. “This is a lot of work. What are you doing back here, Bijou?”

“I could ask the same of you, Nathan, and the name’s Gemma now. I changed my name the minute I turned eighteen.”

“What did your parents, Wolfchild and, um, Sunshine, think of that?”

She reached up and pushed her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ears. “They realized that I was old enough to make my own decisions and they apologized for having given me a name that wasn’t cosmically suited to my personality.”

Nate hid a smile as he flexed his shoulders. He’d forgotten that her parents talked like that. They had been well-meaning oddballs in this community, but they hadn’t minded being out of step with everyone else in town. He hadn’t thought their daughter was very much like them, seeming to be more conventional—focused on school, friends and small-town life.

“Bijou is French for Jewel,” he pointed out, his gaze touching on those bright green eyes and richly colored hair.

“I know.”

Lifting his uninjured hand, he rubbed his left arm. He was going to be sore and bruised in the morning. “I’m guessing you chose Gemma since Wonder Woman was taken.”

One corner of her mouth tilted up as she lifted her eyebrows at him. He remembered that expression from years ago.

He held up his mangled hand. “Is there somewhere I can wash and bandage this before I head home?”

“Come inside. I’ll bandage it for you.”

“I’m a doctor. I can do my own bandaging.”

“I know that, and I’m a registered nurse, so I’ll do the bandaging. It’s my house and they’re my bandages.” Gemma paused to pick up the tablet and shut off the music.

Nate decided not to pursue the who-will-do-the-bandaging? argument. From what he’d seen so far, he would lose, anyway.

“That was...interesting music,” he ventured. “But you weren’t listening to it?” He didn’t have a very active imagination and didn’t know why she would listen to one kind of music to block out another.

“It’s Tibetan music. Frankly, I can’t stand it because it reminds me of the time my dad insisted we all needed to learn to play the zither.” She shook her head, a small smile on her lips. “Carly is absolutely convinced it’ll help the plants grow.”

He frowned. “Carly? Oh, yes, Joslin.” He vaguely remembered the two of them had been best friends, along with Lisa Thomas. Glancing around at her family’s property, he realized she had done what he couldn’t—kept her ties to their hometown.

“Come on,” she said briskly. “Let me look at that hand. It’s rude to keep the nurse waiting.”

Giving her a thoughtful look, he followed her inside. A nurse. In spite of her prickliness, this sounded promising.

“Don’t touch the door or the facings,” she said, pointing to what he could now see was a bright blue, glistening with newness. “I just painted them.”

“I know. I smelled the paint.”

While she scrubbed her hands at the sink, then bustled about, setting out a basin, a clean towel, disinfectant and bandages, Nate looked around the cozy cabin.

The living room held a dark blue sofa and chair with a huge, multicolored rug in the middle of the floor. A rock fireplace, probably original to the house, dominated one wall. A few sealed boxes were piled one atop the other along a wall, and a stack of paintings and photographs waited to be hung. A doorway opened onto a hallway, where he assumed the bedrooms and bathroom were.