“I’ll be fine at my cabin.”
“See, that’s just it. You might be fine at your cabin, but you’d be better off at my house, and you’re just too damned stubborn to listen to me. So let me put it to you in a way you’ll listen—my house will be safer
for Bryce
than your cabin. And depending on how bad the flooding gets, you might be holed up there several days. So you tell me, Gabrielle. How well protected, and accommodated, do you want your baby to be?”
“That’s not fair,” she snapped, grabbing the keys from his hand. “You know I’d be perfectly fine at the cabin.”
“But you’d be even better at my house. More amenities, if nothing else. And Lester’s going to drive you. I’ll call him, and by the time you get to the parking lot he’ll be there waiting for you.”
She started to walk away, angry. But ten steps later she had a change of heart. Neil was only trying to take care of her. He’d thought of her safety before anything else, and here she was resisting him. She didn’t want to. But she was so afraid of giving in, because if she kept doing that—and giving in to Neil was the easiest thing to do—eventually it would rip her heart in two. Putting up the barriers the way she did didn’t get her any closer to him, but it didn’t drive her any further away either. And that’s all she was allowing herself to hope for right now, not to be driven any further away. So she spun around and drew in a deep breath. “Thank you,” she said. Simple words. But they brought a smile to Neil’s face. A beautiful smile that would sustain her.
“You take care of yourself, Gabrielle. I’ll call you when I can.”
“Please, do that.”
Ed Lester chose that moment to run down the hall and motion for Gabby to follow him. Another lingering moment with Neil would have been nice, but that was also the moment Neil disappeared into the emergency department.
But she had his smile imprinted in her heart as she followed Ed into the rain. For now, it was everything.
T
WENTY-TWO
hours cooped up now, and for most of those hours she’d stared out the window, watching the rain come down steadily, paced the halls of Neil’s house, fighting the boredom, then stared out the window some more. She wasn’t going completely crazy yet, but she was so restless she was ready to jump out of her skin. Being alone in Neil’s huge tomb of a house was making her feel safer, but it was also reminding her just how alone she was, isolated up on the hill away from the flowing waters in the road down below. It was a lovely house to look at, and to explore the first six or seven times she’d explored it, but the emptiness around her was almost palpable. No wonder Neil didn’t spend much time here. His home, every immense nook and cranny of it, had all the warmth of an institution. And she was so lonely here she wanted to cry.
She wanted Neil.
But she was glad to be there in spite of her glum mood. Glad, and even encouraged that Neil had thought of her safety above everything else. And, sure, she’d much rather have been working at the hospital alongside him, but that was all behind her for a little while. It was time to take care of herself, and get ready for the inevitable. Just thinking in those terms made her boredom easier to bear
because when she thought about Bryce, everything fell into its proper place. He was going to be here soon and her
only
plans now were to deliver a healthy baby and see what life had in store for the two of them. Or the three of them, if Neil wanted to be included.
“We’ll make all the decisions in due course,” she told Bryce. “Whether we’ll be staying here for good or going back to Chicago and regrouping. But it’s going to work for us, no matter what we do. Whatever it turns out to be, it will be good. I promise you.”
Reports coming in on the radio said that some of the villages farther down the valley were being fully evacuated now, and while White Elk wasn’t at the same highlevel risk, the flood of rushing water in the street was a concern to her. It made her feel even more trapped because now, even if she wanted to, she couldn’t get out. She didn’t have a car there. “It would have been nice having Neil here with us,” she said to Bryce. He’d have been good company, and on a purely medical note she’d have felt safer. All the same, the last time she’d talked to him he’d said the hospital was going crazy. People with nowhere to go were stopping by. Minor injuries were starting to trickle in, too. There were people everywhere, simply loitering.
“It’s good that he calls,” she told Bryce. “And we like his voice, don’t we? It makes us feel safer.” Made her feel better too because it was soothing. Now that her real contractions were coming, she craved that comfort. She hadn’t mentioned her labor pains to him yet, because she wasn’t particularly concerned that four or five an hour were going to lead to anything any time soon. They were a beginning, though. Her new life reminding her that it was just about ready to start. Of course, she was still a few weeks away from her due date, and had no reason to believe Bryce’s arrival was at hand. Women often had sporadic labor pains
in the last couple of months, so she hadn’t triggered the alarm that she was about to give birth all alone in the house on the hill, because nothing indicated that was going to happen.
“You’re just reminding me that I’m not alone,” she told Bryce, as another pain hit her while she was on her way to the front window to stare out yet again. This time she saw someone coming up the drive, in a truck that was well able to navigate the eighteen-inch flood waters down below.
The truck came to a stop at the top of the hill and the driver got out—someone dressed in a bright yellow rain slicker. A woman, Gabby guessed from the person’s small size as the figure ran to the passenger’s side and opened the door.
The passenger was Angela! Was she in labor? Was her baby picking the worst possible time to make a grand entrance? As she pulled open the door with one hand, she placed her other hand on her belly. “Don’t you go getting any ideas, you hear?”
The woman in yellow stood back as Angela ran into the house. “Neil told me you were here all alone,” she said, shaking out of her wet raincoat. “He thought that since we were at a higher elevation than this place, we’d be able to get here better.”
“Why?” Gabby asked, taking Angela’s raincoat and waiting for Angela’s friend to shed her slicker.
“Because he didn’t want you to be alone. When he finally got through to the resort, he said he’d been trying to call here for hours. But the phone lines are cutting in and out all over the place. Anyway, Neil said that you were here all by yourself and asked if there was any way I could get to you. I told him I was on my way, and that my sister would come with me.”
“And he didn’t tell me?” Gabby said.
“He tried calling you. We tried calling you. The wires are crossed or something, because it sounded like some kind of party line with several people talking. Oh, and I’m Dinah Corday, by the way. Brand-new to town, and not impressed with your weather.”
“I’m not impressed with it either,” Gabby commented, picking up the house phone and trying to dial out. No dial tone, though. So she tried her cell phone, and it started to ring, but cut out almost immediately. “So it’s just the three of us, stranded here without communication?”
“My phone’s working, off and on,” Dinah said.
Dinah didn’t at all resemble her sister, Gabby noted as the three women fixed hot tea and settled into Neil’s den, which Gabby had decided early on was the only truly comfy room in the house. It was decorated for a man and she imagined Neil having it done for himself.
Sipping tea, wishing there was some hot chocolate in the house, she studied the sisters. Where Angela was small, Dinah was tall, statuesque. Angela’s brown hair was cropped short, while Dinah’s auburn locks waved halfway down her back. Their eyes were the same, though, and that’s where Gabby saw the resemblance. Dark brown, feisty. “Well, it’s a big house and you’re welcome to anything in it,” she said, then laughed, “even though nothing here is mine. So, aren’t they going to need you to cook up at the ski resort?”
“My whole kitchen staff is in, running all over each other,” Angela replied. “I put my sous chef in charge and, to be honest, I was glad to get out of there. People from all over the area are trooping into the lodge, trying to get away from the floods, and it’s a madhouse. Too many people.” Relaxing, Angela put her feet up on the sofa and settled back into the pillows. Within a minute, she was sleeping like a baby.
“How’s she doing?” Dinah whispered.
“All things considered, good. I know she’s had a lot to deal with lately, but she’s managing.”
“I’m glad you let her go back to work. Even the little bit she’s doing means everything to her.”
“Like I keep saying, pregnancy’s not an illness, and it shouldn’t be treated like one.”
“Well, I’m glad she found you. I think if Dr Ranard hadn’t asked her to come and stay with you, she would have anyway. She really wants you to deliver her baby, and she’s been worried that with the flood…”
Gabby flinched under a contraction, trying not to be obvious about it, but Dinah caught on right away.
“When are you due, Gabby?” she asked.
“Not for a while.”
“So are your contractions Braxton Hicks’, or did I just see the real thing?”
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”
“Unless you’re an obstetrician.” She took hold of Gabby’s wrist to take a pulse. “Your pulse is a little fast.”
“Just tired. That’s all.”
“Tired, and in labor?” Instinctively, Dinah positioned Gabby’s legs on the sofa, then propped a pillow behind her head. Next came the quilt. “And have your waters broken yet?”
Gabby shook her head. “I’ve still got almost three weeks. And I’ve been having false labor for a little while.”
“And unless I’m mistaken, I’m counting your false labor at one contraction every six minutes. Could you be a little off on your due date?”
Not even by a minute. She knew the exact moment of her conception because that had been her first time with a man in…well, forever. As well as her last time. “Due date is right on.”
“So you’re just going to deliver a little early.”
All of a sudden, a sharp pain nearly split Gabby’s belly in two.
This wasn’t a false alarm.
And those pains she’d been having right along were the warning. Suddenly, she was excited. And frightened. And she wanted her dad. But most of all she wanted Neil.
Desperately.
“It’s time,” she finally confessed. “I’ve been hoping I was wrong. But you get to a certain point where you can no longer deny the obvious, and the obvious for me is that I’m going to have a baby, probably before the flood waters recede.”
“Well, your timing’s not very good, is it?” Dinah said, pulling out her cell phone. She searched for a signal in the den, couldn’t find it, so she went to the lobby, which had a higher ceiling, and dialed the numberAngela had given her for Dr Ranard.
The reception was crackly, but he did answer.
“You’re the doctor?” she practically shouted.
Neil had no idea who was on the other end. The number meant nothing to him, and he could barely hear the voice. “Yes,” he answered.
“Gabby…labor…”
“What?”
“She’s in labor.”
“Gabrielle’s in labor?”
The answer sounded like yes, but he couldn’t tell for sure. And as he tried asking a second time, the line went dead. “Damn,” he muttered, running into exam four to Eric. “She’s gone into labor, as best I can tell.”
“Gabby? Did she call?”
“No, I think it might have been her friend, Angela. She’s up there with Gabrielle now.”
“Then I think you’d better get going,” Eric said. “Take
the back road. It’s at a higher elevation, shouldn’t be a problem if you use my truck.” He tossed the keys over to Neil.
“You going to be OK here?” Neil asked, already shrugging out of his white coat.
“Just go,” Eric said impatiently. “For once, something besides this damned hospital should come first.”
Ten minutes later, on the road, he could barely think straight, he was so crazy with worry. Eric’s truck, a large, sturdy four-wheel drive, would get him through the muddiest of back roads without too much problem.
He hoped.
On his way out, he’d stocked it with every medical supply he could grab in two minutes, then left the mayhem of the hospital to the rest of the staff. Angela’s sister was a nurse, Angela had told him earlier. But he wasn’t going to have her go through this without him.
Of course, Eric had already guessed Neil’s feelings for Gabrielle. Nothing had ever been said about it, but Eric had accused him of wearing his heart on his sleeve these past weeks, and that was probably the case. Even when he was avoiding her, or when she was avoiding him, he couldn’t avert the glances he fought too hard to tame, couldn’t deflect the longing stares he tried to deny himself, and failed so miserably to do.
He’d wanted to convince himself he didn’t have feelings, wanted to convince himself that he didn’t want her. But he did. There were no more denials here. Not even about the fact that she was about to deliver Gavin’s baby.
That thought caused Neil’s grip on the steering wheel to tighten as the truck wheels spun in a wash coming down off the side of the mountains, flowing straight across the road. Damn, he hated going so slowly. But doing something stupid, like speeding up, would get him stranded up here while Gabrielle was less than a mile away, having her
baby.
Without him.
So he had to be steady, had to keep his head.
Dear God, you’d think it was his baby she was delivering, the way he was feeling. The way he was acting.
Admittedly, he was jealous. The perfect scenario would have Gabrielle pregnant with his child. He’d thought about it that way, tried blocking it out as that would never happen. But he’d also thought about a future where he and Gabrielle and Bryce were a family in the ways that mattered.
Except he’d been such an idiot lately. A great big idiot, blaming Gabrielle for something that wasn’t her fault. It didn’t matter right now, though. Nothing did, except getting through.
Suddenly, his cell phone rang, and he looked at the number. Eric. Damn. He’d been trying Gabrielle but not getting through. He’d hope this was her…“Yeah,” he said, answering his phone.
“You can get down Canyon Circle,” Eric yelled to Neil over the bad connection.
“What?”
“The Canyon Circle. I heard…open…may be passable.”
“Is it going to hold?” It was at risk to wash out, and the last thing he needed was to get stranded up there. But if it held, it would be a shortcut. It might give him as much as fifteen minutes.
“What?”
“Eric! Is it going to hold?”
“Not sure…possibly.” The connection cut out.
Sighing, Neil turned down a road that looked more like a wide trail, cursing the mud, cursing the weather, cursing the road. It was passable, but barely. It would take him straight to Canyon Circle, though, unless it washed out down the way. Which, unfortunately, it did. But before he
got that far he made another turn onto the old national park trail, and spun himself straight into a ravine of mud, bringing an abrupt end to his trip by truck. Nothing that he could do out there, by himself, was going to get the back tire out of its rut.
“Damn,” he muttered, gathering up as many supplies as he could carry. “Why the hell couldn’t this be easier?”
The only answer came in the clap of thunder overhead as he started his way down the trail on foot, alternately slipping, then sliding where the trail washed out, most of the time managing to stay upright. Once his foot slid out from under him and he went straight down, still hanging on to his medical bag. Another time the bag flew out of his hands as he went down, and landed in a thicket of budding branches nearby. Luckily for him, it stayed latched, so once he’d pulled himself from the mud yet again, he grabbed his bag and continued his downward trek, slowing up a little for fear that if he injured himself, or ruined his medical kit, he might not be able to give Gabrielle the help she needed.
That’s all this was about—helping Gabrielle. So for the next several minutes he grumbled about his slow pace as he sloshed through the many rivulets and washouts, but he kept it slow all the same until he reached the rear of his house. Pausing briefly on his patio, he phoned Eric to let him know that the back road wasn’t good enough to get through without a lot of walking, and that he’d find his truck up there on the high ground at the trail head, stuck for the duration of the bad weather. Then he braced himself for what he had to do and headed straight through the back door. “Gabrielle,” he called, as his rubber boots squeaked on the floor tiles, dripping mud in a trail behind him.