The Doctor Delivers

With one glance at the baby, he realized that his relief, like the infant, was premature. About twenty-eight weeks, he guessed. A little over two pounds. Viable in that sense. Her dusky color wasn’t good though, neither was her muscle tone. Less reassuring still was her single weak cry. As he cut the umbilical cord, he felt a prickle of fear. The feeble sound was hardly a declaration of life.

Where the hell was the air ambulance? He cleaned out the infant’s nose and mouth as best he could and handed her to Rita.

“A daughter.” He forced a smile and a note of reassurance to his voice. “Hold her tight against you, inside your clothes. All right? Make sure she stays warm.”

Rita looked from him to her new daughter. A range of expressions played across her face. She fumbled with the buttons of her shirt, got it open and yanked her bra away from her breasts. “Is she okay? She’s not crying much. My others all yelled their heads off.”

“We need to get her to the hospital.” He pulled the edges of her shirt together so that they covered the baby. “The ambulance should be here any minute.”

Fervently hoping he was right, he watched for a moment, then returned to the tented canopy. As he reached up inside her for the placenta, his hand caught a tiny foot. He released his grip, felt around again. No doubt, it was a foot. He shook his head. This couldn’t be happening. Exploring, he found what had to be the shoulders of a third infant.

“Holy Mother of God.” For a moment he couldn’t move, his grip frozen on the tiny limb. Rita’s scream galvanized him into action. “Where the bloody hell is the highway patrol,” he yelled over his shoulder. “Tell them…”

A second, louder scream interrupted him.

CHAPTER THREE

“JOSH GILLESPIE, right.” Catherine cradled the receiver between her ear and shoulder and consulted the scrawled jottings on her notepad. “Eight years old,” she said, reading from a sheet of yellow paper. “Life-Flighted here about seven this morning. Hit by a car as he was crossing the road. We need a condition report for the media.” She hesitated a moment. “A couple of reporters want to speak to the parents.”

“Josh is in surgery.” The voice of the nurse in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit was abrupt. “He’s—” She stopped, a hint of suspicion evident now. “Who did you say you were?”

“Catherine Prentice. Public Relations.”

“I don’t know your name.”

Catherine drew a square around the boy’s name. If she’d sounded more confident, would the nurse have questioned her? She pushed the thought away. Her head ached, her stomach felt as if she’d swallowed a lump of lead. And the Professional Match producer had called again. Now she’d have to go plead with Martin Connaughton to see if she could get him to change his mind. Which might have been easier if she hadn’t called him Scrooge. All of this when what she really wanted to do was go and pick up her kids, start a new life somewhere where Gary and Nadia would never find them.

“I’ve just started working here,” she told the nurse. “You can call me back to verify if you want.”

“I’ll take your word,” the nurse said. “He’s critical. On life support. The mother’s here, but—” she lowered her voice “—she’s pretty hysterical. Try back in an hour or so.”

After she’d hung up the phone, Catherine stared at the small framed picture of Peter and Julie on her desk, wondered how she’d cope if anything happened to either of them. A sudden superstitious dread washed over her as though she’d tempted fate by even contemplating the possibility. She touched the picture: first Peter’s face, then Julie’s.

Like a tornado, the divorce had hurled her around, ripped away the sheltering protection of domesticity, battered her confidence and self-esteem. In the aftermath, she’d looked at the transformed landscape and recognized nothing at all that was familiar. Even now, she couldn’t get rid of this image of herself, standing Dorothy-like on a Kansas plain, her two children sheltering under her skirts. Winds whipped around her and, off in the distance, was another tornado just waiting to strike.

She shook her head to dislodge the image and dialed the NICU. Connaughton was off-site, the clerk told her, so she left a message for him then called Professional Match to say she was still working on getting someone. After she hung up, she tried to focus on another project, but her thoughts kept drifting to Gary’s demand for custody.

What she didn’t know was just how far he would go. He had a habit of threatening her just to keep her a little concerned and insecure. Like the time when Julie was two months old and he’d gone on a white-water rafting trip with a couple of his buddies. He’d complained that he was unhappy and stifled, that she’d let herself get fat, that she cared more about the children than him. Without the trip to restore his spirits, he would walk out of the marriage, he’d said. The third time he used the same threat, she’d called his bluff, forcing him to find new material.

Office noises drifted around her. The low hum of conversation in the next room, the whoosh of a file drawer sliding shut, a burst of laughter from the reception desk. In the coffee area, a microwave oven pinged its readiness and, seconds later, the whiff of hot popcorn filled the air. In her first week at Western, she had decorated her office with pictures of the children, a couple of trailing green plants, a small amber lamp and a glass bowl which she kept constantly replenished with jelly beans. It was her thing, creating nests.

She stared at the computer screen, tried to think of a snappy lead for the release she was working on, but nothing came to mind. Somehow it was difficult to concentrate on promoting a bunch of wealthy, golf-playing doctors when she was worried about losing her kids. A movement in the doorway made her look up and she saw Derek, cellular phone in one hand, a bran muffin in the other.

“Forget about Connaughton,” he said around a mouthful of muffin. “The producer called me just now, they’ve found someone else.”

“Derek, I’m sorry, he just refused—”

“What about the kiddie on the trike?”

“Bike.” Catherine corrected. “He’s in surgery.”

“There’s a TV crew camped outside the E.R.,” he said. “See if you can get mommy to talk.”

“I already tried,” Catherine said. “The nurse said to call back later.”

“The nurse isn’t on deadline.” He finished the muffin, crumpled the paper wrapping into a ball and aimed it at her trash bin. It missed. “Reporters are. That’s why you’re here. Never mind, I’ll take care of it.” As he walked away, his cell phone rang and he grabbed a pen and yellow pad from her desk and started scribbling notes. Moments later, he clicked the phone shut and looked across the desk at her, an expression on his face she couldn’t quite discern.

“Big media event. One of our docs delivered triplets on the Long Beach Freeway this afternoon. He stayed until the air ambulance arrived then took off like a bat out of hell. Said he was in a big hurry.” He glanced at his notes. “Babies and mommy are on their way here. Security says the press are already swarming all over the lobby. I’m going to get them corralled in one of the conference rooms. Once the kids are stabilized, we’ll arrange for some pool footage.”

Catherine followed him out of the office, eager for an opportunity to redeem herself. “Do you want me to put some background stuff together?”

“Later. Right now, everyone wants to talk to this guy. What I need you to do is find him and get him down to the conference room, pronto.”

“Sure,” Catherine agreed. “What’s his name?”

“Martin Connaughton,” Derek said. “And don’t drop the ball this time.”

SHE GAVE HERSELF a pep talk as she made her way up to the NICU. You can do this. You will overcome Connaughton’s resistance. You will prove Gary wrong about Nadia being the only reason you got this job. And tonight, to celebrate, you will take the kids out for pepperoni pizza without thinking about the calories. Then after they’re in bed, you will have a bubble bath and, maybe, a glass of wine, because you will have deserved it. Go do it, girl.

Outside the unit, a dark-haired reporter with glossy red lips and a tightly fitting suit in matching crimson, flashed Catherine a smile that appeared and disappeared as precisely as if a button had been pressed.

“Selena Bliss,” she said. “I’m looking for Dr. Martin Connaughton.”

“Connotun.” Catherine smiled as she corrected the reporter’s pronunciation. “I’m looking for him, too.” Not sure how Selena and her cameraman had managed to escape both security and Derek’s corral, she figured that if you looked like Selena Bliss, a lot of things might be possible. “You need to be in the conference room,” she said. “In a few minutes we’ll be giving a briefing.”

“I’d rather wait here for Dr. Connaughton,” Selena said.

“I’ll bring him down to the conference room.” She maintained her smile. “That’s where he’ll be doing the interviews.”

The reporter glanced at the cameraman standing nearby, then looked at Catherine. “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.” The smile began to feel forced. “Ready?”

“Maybe you’re not aware of it, but that’s not the way I work.” Selena Bliss smiled again. “Derek Petrelli said I could have an exclusive with Dr. Connaughton.”

“Derek never mentioned an exclusive to me,” Catherine said. “But I’d be glad to check it out with him. If that’s the case, we can set something up. For now though, if you’ll go down to the conference room—”

“I’m not hanging around a conference room waiting,” Selena said. “I’ll wait here.”

Struggling for a way out of the impasse, Catherine heard a voice behind her and turned to see Nate Grossman, chief of pediatric neurosurgery. Ignoring Catherine, he stuck out his hand to the reporter, his face a beam of delight.

“Selena Bliss! Do I have a story for you! Have you heard about the new surgical technique that we’ve perfected here at Western to—”

“Actually, I’m here to interview Dr. Connaughton,” Selena said.

“Connaughton?” Grossman’s face darkened. “Why would you want to talk to him?”

“He’s quite the hero of the hour.” Selena summarized the freeway rescue. “So we want to talk to him about what he did. How he felt at the time. How the babies are doing, that sort of thing.” She smiled. “It’s a really nice heart-warming story.”