Cassie Miles - Montana Midwife

“Does it, now?”

“You bet it does. It’s almost like we’re investigating. Both of us. Together.” She covered her smug grin by draining the last of her coffee. “I seem to recall something you said about not wanting my help because it was too … What was it you said? It was too dangerous for a delicate flower like me.”

“I’m real sure I never called you a flower.”

“I added that part,” she said. “You know what you said.”

He shoved away from the fence and stood tall before her. “If you’re done with your I-told-you-so, I’d like to put things into motion.”

“And you want me to help you investigate.” She looked up through her eyelashes.

“I reckon I do.”

Though born in Chicago and raised in LA, USA TODAY bestselling author CASSIE MILEShas lived in Colorado long enough to be considered a semi-native. The first home she owned was a log cabin in the mountains overlooking Elk Creek, with a thirty-mile commute to her work at the Denver Post.

After raising two daughters and cooking tons of macaroni and cheese for her family, Cassie is trying to be more adventurous in her culinary efforts. Ceviche, anyone? She’s discovered that almost anything tastes better with wine. When she’s not plotting Mills & Boon ®Intrigue books, Cassie likes to hang out at the Denver Botanical Gardens near her high-rise home.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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In memory of Rosemary Heiser.

She will be missed.

On a high ridge overlooking the Little Big Horn River, Tab Willows sat up straight in the saddle and lifted her arm above her head. Finally, she had a signal for her cell phone. There was no way she could find Misty and her boyfriend unless they gave her better directions to their location. This horse didn’t come equipped with GPS.

She hit the redial.

Misty Gabriel answered immediately. “Tab, where are you? I need you.”

Panic trembled in her voice, which was understandable for a woman in labor with her first baby. For some unexplainable reason, Misty and Clinton had decided to go off-roading and had gotten their vehicle stuck in a creek bed that was damp with melt from a recent snow. The early November weather wasn’t bad right now, but night was coming. With the darkness came an icy chill.

Tab hadn’t been working with Misty as a regular client in her midwife practice, but she felt an obligation and a connection to this young woman she used to babysit, even though, as adults, they didn’t appear to have much in common. Misty was the spoiled seventeen-year-old daughter of a wealthy ranching family. Bubbly and blonde, she giggled with every other breath. In contrast, Tab seldom laughed out loud. Her overall appearance—dusky-colored skin and straight black hair worn in a single braid down to her waist—favored her mother’s Crow heritage. Her blue eyes came from her dad.

“I’m looking down at the area you described,” Tab said, “but I don’t see your Jeep. Give me directions.”

“Like what?” She giggled nervously. “It’s not like there are street signs or anything.”

Focus, Misty . “Any unusual rock formations?”

“Oh, yeah. On the other side of the river and up a slope, there’s a big cave we used to play in when we were kids.”

“Half-Moon Cave.”

That landmark told Tab the approximate whereabouts. When Misty had first called, she’d said there were no passable roads, which was why Tab was on horseback. She wished she’d taken her van; there was a decent route that ran fairly close to Misty’s location.

“Half-Moon Cave, that’s right.” Her giggle broke into a sob. “You’ve got to hurry. Clinton hit his head.”

Of course, he did . This situation just got worse and worse. “Is he conscious?”

“Kind of. He was trying to push the Jeep out of the mud and he slipped and conked his forehead on the bumper.”

On horseback, there was no way to evacuate a man with a concussion and a woman in labor. “Let’s talk about you. How far apart are your pains?”

“I don’t know. It just hurts.”

“And how many months along are you?”

“Eight-ish. The doctor said I could have the baby any time now.”

In the best-case scenario, Misty was experiencing Braxton Hicks contractions that wouldn’t lead to childbirth. Or she could be going into early labor. “I want you to stay calm. Take slow, steady breaths, okay?”

“Whatever you say, Tab.”

“One thing I don’t understand,” she said. “Why didn’t you call your brother to come for you?”

Her brother, Aiden Gabriel, provided a private rescue-helicopter service for the local hospitals, the sheriff and national park rescue teams. Because he also worked on the family ranch, he wasn’t always available, but Tab knew that Aiden would drop everything to rescue his baby sister.

“Aiden is a big old jerk,” Misty said. “And he doesn’t like Clinton.”

An opinion Tab could easily comprehend. Clinton had taken his very pregnant girlfriend on an off-road adventure, gotten them stuck and then knocked himself unconscious. Clearly, he wasn’t the sharpest arrow in the quiver. “Brace yourself, Misty. I’m calling your brother. You need his help.”

“Maybe not. I think I see somebody coming.”

“Stay where you are,” Tab said sharply. “I can’t find you if you go wandering off.”

“Okay. See you later, elevator.”

“Real soon, harvest moon.”

Tab smiled as she remembered the rhyming games she and Misty played ten years ago. Tab had been sixteen. Her life had been split between living with her dad in Billings and with her grandma, Maria Spotted Bear, on the Crow reservation. When her dad had been hired to do contracting work at the Gabriel ranch near Henley, she’d tagged along and had gotten recruited as a live-in babysitter for seven-year-old Misty.

That summer had been a rough time for the Gabriel family. Misty’s dad had been killed in a car accident. Tab felt like she could understand Misty’s grief because she’d lost her mom and knew what it was like to have a parent die too young. She and Misty had bonded but their friendship wasn’t the main thing that happened that summer. That summer, Tab had fallen in love for the first time.

Looking down at her cell phone, she remembered the tall, lean, handsome Aiden Gabriel with his thick brown hair and his dreamy gray eyes. He’d been twenty-one when he came home from college and shouldered the responsibilities of a ranch owner, helping his mom to cope when her husband died. Though Tab never told anyone, she’d dreamed of Aiden every night, imagining his kiss and what it would feel like to be held in his strong arms. Once, he’d given her a necklace with a shiny four-leaf clover pendant, which she’d worn for years before tucking it away in her jewelry box.