Saving Dr. Ryan

Suddenly she felt a painless but decisive sensation in her lower belly, like a pin pricking a balloon; she barely managed to stuff the towel between her legs to catch the gush of warm liquid. She swiped at a tear trickling down the side of her nose, hating the thought of a stranger taking care of her children. Of her. That she had no choice in the matter.

More fluid seeped into the towel with the next contraction. Maddie only half watched, silently panting, as the doctor wrapped her children in warm blankets, settling them into an overstuffed armchair in the corner of the room, close to the sizzling radiator.

She heard the change in his voice, knew he’d seen.

“You two just snuggle up for a bit while I check out your mama. All right?”

“Yes, sir,” she heard from Noah, and relief trickled through her. He tended to be skittish around most men these days. Especially ones as big as Dr. Logan. Not that Maddie could blame him for that, she supposed.

Again, the doctor vanished, reappearing maybe a minute later. He fussed with something or other nearby, then turned to her, his thick, damp hair a dull gold in the weak light. He raked one hand through it, raising a field of curved spikes on the top of his head.

“I put the kids’ clothes in the dryer,” he said, his gaze snagging on the towel indelicately wadded between her legs, which for some reason provoked a low chuckle.

Maddie squeezed shut her eyes, breathed through the next wave of pain. “What’s so blamed funny?”

“My timing, looks like.” He grabbed another towel, replacing the first one. She opened her eyes to catch his nod in approval as he briefly inspected it, tossed it into a plastic tub. “Fluid’s clear. Good sign. Now let’s see what’s what.”

The next few minutes passed in a blur as the doctor palmed her belly, pronounced the baby in the correct position, then prepared both the bed and her for the birth. All the while, his face remained expressionless, his manner calm, efficient, unembarrassed, even when he helped her remove her soaked panties. Several pillows now at her back, Maddie watched him fish his stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff from his bag, noted how his height was offset by a kind of wiryness, that his movements were sure and graceful. She began to relax, at least enough to say, “You know, I don’t normally let a man remove my underwear without getting his name first.”

“Logan,” the doctor said, amusement—she hoped—making his mouth twitch. “Ryan Logan. The degrees are up in my office.” He jerked his head to the right. “On the other side of that wall.” She saw his attention flicker briefly to the kids, both of them already out like lights, Noah snoring softly. Dr. Logan looked back at her, barely smiling. “Looks like they’re down for the count.”

She nodded, licked her lips. Figured she may as well preempt the first round of questions. “I didn’t do that to him.”

“I didn’t figure you had. You want some water?”

Maddie nodded again; Dr. Logan poured a glass of water, handed it to her. “Just a sip, now—”

“I know, I know.”

She sipped, handed him back the glass, catching the compassion in his expression. And a boatload of questions, waiting off to the side. He picked up a cordless phone, punched a number into it. “Calling for reinforcements,” he explained. “The midwife. How far along are you?”

“I think I’m about three weeks early—”

He frowned, then spoke to the person on the other end. “Hey, Ivy, got a surprise delivery about to happen over here, was wondering if you’d… Uh-huh.” He laughed softly, etching creases at the corners of his eyes, then sobered. “Small, from what I can tell. Early, a bit. But the head’s engaged, she’s a multip… No, I haven’t. Thought I’d wait for you to do that.” He turned to Maddie, his expression unreadable. “Third baby?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How long you been in labor?”

She opened her mouth to answer, only to be strangled by another pain. Dr. Logan leaned over to massage her shoulder, his kindness adding yet another layer of achiness to the twenty worries already suffocating her.

“Yeah, they’re real strong,” he said quietly into the phone, his eyes locked with hers, silently coaching her through the contraction. “And she’s got that look on her face…. No, not yet, but I wouldn’t wait, if I were you. Membranes ruptured, maybe ten minutes ago? I doubt she’s gonna have a long second phase. Yep, door’s unlocked.”

He disconnected the phone, set it on the nightstand. When the pain subsided, she noticed the severely dipped brows, the firm mouth turned down at the corners.

“Okay, let’s back up here a second—you think you’re three weeks early?”

She didn’t miss the edge to the question. “Yes.”

“Labor came on quick then, I take it?”

“An hour ago, maybe…ooooh!”

Without thinking, she grabbed his hand with the next contraction, squeezing shut her eyes, swallowing down the howl threatening to strangle her. She felt Dr. Logan’s free hand cradle her hard belly, the other warm and steady under the pressure of her fingers. Floating over the pain, his voice eased her through the contraction.

“Minute and a half. Good.” She looked up, grateful to see his expression had softened some. He was younger than she’d at first thought, she realized with a bit of a start. A lot younger. Mid-thirties, maybe. Weren’t country doctors all supposed to have white hair and potbellies?

The bed creaked a little when he eased himself onto the edge. Not looking at her face, he pushed back her nightgown sleeve, strapped the blood pressure cuff to her arm. “By the way, I’m not in the habit of removing a woman’s underpants without knowing her name, either.” A pair of wire-rimmed glasses appeared from his pocket; he snapped them open before settling them into place. “So,” he said, pumping up the cuff. “You are?”

“Miserable.”

He smiled a little, squeezing the bulb until she thought she’d lose the circulation in her fingers, frowning slightly as the needle hitched, dropped. “Pressure’s a bit high, Miserable.”

“Might have something to do with my bein’ a little stressed at the moment.”

He grunted. Strong, smooth fingers slipped around her wrist. He focused on his watch. “New in town?”

“You could say that. And my name’s Maddie. Maddie Kincaid.”

“And…is there a Mr. Kincaid?”

The wedding ring had been one of the first things hocked, not that it had brought much. Still, Maddie found it interesting he wasn’t making assumptions one way or the other. “Not anymore—oh, Lordy!”

“You ready to push?” she thought she heard the doctor say, but since she already was, the question seemed moot.

Ryan grabbed a set of disposable latex gloves from his bag and snapped them on. So much for waiting for Ivy to do the internal. Yes, he was the doctor, but he was also a stranger. And this gal didn’t need any more on her plate right now, that was for damn sure. But she shouldn’t be pushing before he knew if she was fully dilated or not.

“Sorry,” he said, slipping down the sheet. “I really need to—”

“It’s okay.” Marbled knuckles gripped the sheet as she panted out, “But it’s not every man I’d let do this on the first date.”

Biting back a smile, Ryan quickly examined her, relieved to find all systems go. And her blood pressure wasn’t dangerously high, just enough to bear watching. Not that deliveries made him nervous—he’d done his fair share over the past ten years—but he wasn’t real excited about doing an out-of-hospital birth with an underweight woman, three weeks early—she thought—whose case he didn’t know.

“You can go ahead and push now,” he said, leaving the sheet up and peeling off the gloves.

“Like you’ve got any say in it,” she got out, just before her face contorted again. But not with pain this time. With determination.

Ryan wriggled into a fresh pair of gloves, deciding against asking her if she wanted to get the kids up. They were zonked, nobody needed the distraction right now, and if she’d wanted them up, he had no doubt she would have made her wishes known.

Three pushes later, the baby’s head crowned. No surprise there.

“Pant, Maddie, pant! Don’t push, you hear me? Pant the baby out…yeah, like that, good. Baby’s real small…the idea is to birth it, not launch it into orbit.”

For a split second, her startled gaze met his and she looked as though she might laugh…only another surge diverted her attention.

“Pant, honey! That’s right, that’s a girl… Good, good…okay…here we go…!”

He steeled himself for her screams…but they never came. One of his patients had likened giving birth to squeezing a cannonball through the eye of a needle, an image which had pretty much burned itself into his mind. Maddie Kincaid, however, either had the highest pain threshold known to womankind or was possessed of a will Ryan decided he did not ever want to tangle with.