Jean Gordon - Small-Town Midwife

She took his extended hand, debating whether to let on that she knew him or let it drop. His grip was firm and businesslike.

“Good to see you. It’s been a while.” He released her hand. “Samaritan Hospital,” he prompted as if she might have forgotten him.

“Yes. Good to see you, too.” Autumn shifted her weight from one foot to the other as he studied her face. The seconds seemed to run into minutes.

He tilted his head. “I almost didn’t recognize you. Your hair was different, shorter.”

That was an understatement. When her longtime boyfriend had broken up with her on spring break, Autumn had had her waist-length hair cut in a short, spiky style that she’d since grown back out.

“Well,” the administrator said. “It certainly is a small world. Autumn is one of two certified nurse midwives who deliver at the center and have an office here. We have one other midwife who has an office in Keene and splits her deliveries between the birthing center and the hospital in Saranac Lake.”

“But,” Autumn said, “I’ve taken a sabbatical from catching babies to develop the GYN side of the practice.” At least that’s what her official explanation was. Autumn didn’t feel that anyone at the birthing center, other than Kelly, needed to know that the complications at the last birth she’d attended had shaken her so much that Autumn wasn’t sure when, if ever, she’d resume that part of the practice. It might have been less traumatic if the parents—Jack and Suzy Hill—weren’t longtime friends.

Liza narrowed her eyes. Autumn knew the former birthing center director hadn’t hesitated to make it clear to Liza and the rest of the hospital administrative staff that he wasn’t pleased with Autumn’s decision. It had potentially put him on call more often. Not that he’d actually been called more. There hadn’t been more births than Kelly and the other midwife who had delivery privileges at the birthing center could handle.

“Is Kelly here?” Liza asked. She turned to Jon. “Kelly Philips started Ticonderoga Midwifery, which has had its office here since the center opened.”

“No,” Autumn said. “One of our home-birth mothers went into labor a couple of hours ago. She and our delivery nurse Jamie Payton are there.”

Jon knit his brows. “The center condones home births?”

“We—”

Autumn interrupted Liza, bristling at the disdain in Jon’s voice. “We’re a private practice, so it’s not up to the center to condone or not condone our mothers’ birth arrangements.”

“Autumn and Kelly and their two delivery nurses aren’t employees of the birthing center,” Liza explained in a placating voice. “The practice has privileges and leases space here.”

Jon drew his lips into a hard line. “I assume the medical center’s attorneys have vetted this arrangement for any liability that could come back on the center.”

Autumn fisted her hands at her sides. Jon’s tone and words irritated her, even though she knew he was simply asking from a business standpoint. But it wasn’t his concern how she and Kelly practiced. The practice’s agreement was with the Adirondack Medical Center, not him.

“Certainly.” Liza’s terse reply was a sharp contrast to her earlier, almost fawning attitude.

Autumn flexed her fingers.

“And what’s my responsibility if complications arise at one of these births and higher-level medical intervention is needed?”

Shades of the former director? Was Jon concerned he’d have to do more than push paper? No. When she’d worked with him at Samaritan, he’d seemed to derive a lot of satisfaction out of delivering babies. But he’d had a technical approach to childbirth, almost as though he was curing the mother of a deadly disease, rather than bringing a new life into the world. She bit her tongue to organize her thoughts so she didn’t blurt out the first response that had come to mind. It didn’t work.

“With a normal birth, medical intervention isn’t necessary.”

Something flickered in his eyes that she would have normally read as pain. But that didn’t make any sense.

“Even a seemingly normal birth can have complications.”

Jon wasn’t saying anything she didn’t already know well. But most of their births didn’t need the type of intervention he was talking about. “We continually screen our mothers and insist on a center delivery when we think one is needed, or refer the mother to an obstetrician if we see anything abnormal that might require medical intervention or a hospital delivery.”

“And when something goes wrong at home?” Jon asked.

“With our screening, that hasn’t been a common experience.” Her only life-threatening complication had occurred here at the center.

“You’re saying that you’ve never had to rush a home-birth mother to the hospital?” he pressed.

Autumn silently counted to three. “We’ve had to transport a couple of laboring home-birth mothers to the birthing center.”

He crossed his arms and nodded, as if her answer had proved some point.

Uneasiness washed over her. As director, Dr. Hanlon could initiate a review of her and Kelly’s privileges here at the birthing center if he had a problem with their practice. The next closest medical facility, where they also had privileges, was an hour away at the Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake. Autumn shook the feeling off. She was being paranoid. The center needed Kelly and her. The community needed them.

“We should get back to Saranac.” Liza glanced from Jon to Autumn. “We have a dinner meeting with the board of directors of the hospital.”

“Of course.” Jon turned to Autumn. “I’ll set up a staff meeting for early next week and email you and your partner an invitation.”

“The front office assistant has our patient schedule.” No need to tell him she worked with Kelly under contract. He’d find out soon enough that she wasn’t a partner.

“Good. I’ll check with the office assistant.” He took a step to follow Liza, who was already at the doorway, and stopped. His all-business expression softened. “You wouldn’t by any chance be related to Neal Hazard at the campgrounds over on Paradox Lake?”

“Yes, he’s my father. Why?” Autumn couldn’t imagine any way Jon would know her father.

“I’m renting his duplex.”

“The one on Hazard Cove Road?” He couldn’t mean any other. It was the only duplex Dad owned. She’d assumed he was renting it to one of the usual families who took it for the summer.

“That’s the one. I’ll see you next week.”

“Right.”

Once he was out of sight, Autumn leaned against the edge of her desk. Dr. Hanlon was going to be her next-door neighbor. She could put her feelings about him and the thoughtless way he’d broken her Samaritan Hospital roommate’s heart behind her at work. She and Kelly practiced independently of the birthing center administration. And since she’d taken leave from delivering babies, she was unlikely to have any need to consult with him as the practice’s backup physician. If she made an effort, she could pretty much avoid him here.

But with him living right next door, avoiding him and keeping her dislike in check wouldn’t be so easy. While she hadn’t been bowled over by him like so many of the nurses, she’d liked Jon when she’d first met him and had half expected him to ask her out. But he’d asked out her roommate, Kate, instead. Then, after he’d broken up with Kate, he’d had the audacity to ask her out. And he’d seemed mystified when she’d turned him down. It hadn’t taken him long to move on to another nurse friend, confirming the buzz around Samaritan that he wasn’t the settling-down type. And while it might seem old-fashioned, she was.