The Midwife And The Lawman

They’d ridden into town on the floor of the Blazer, and she fed them cold cereal and scrambled eggs and toast as soon as they’d gotten safely inside her house. By the time she’d found clean clothes for the older siblings—a pair of faded scrubs for Jesse and a high-waisted denim jumper for Sylvia—and one of her smallest T-shirts for Maria, and shown Sylvia how to run her washer and dryer, she was fifteen minutes late for her three-o’clock prenatal. Lydia had not been pleased, but there was nothing she could do about it.

She returned from the clinic at seven to find the children scrubbed as clean as their clothes. Thankfully their hair had only been dirty, not infested, so a trip to Taos for lice shampoo wouldn’t be necessary. She couldn’t buy that at the pharmacy across from Elkhorn’s Hardware any more than she could buy two gallons of milk and three dozen eggs in one stop. People would notice.

She pulled warm, clean-smelling towels out of the dryer and carried them to the couch in front of the fireplace, which she’d filled with silk ferns for the summer. She began to fold them, still thinking of the three children. Keeping them safe and fed and secret was not going to be easy. They were runaways. Probably illegal aliens. She still didn’t even know their surname or their ages.

Keeping their whereabouts a secret was breaking the law. Something she had never done in her life.

But she had given her word to three desperate and scared children. And she was determined to honor it. Even if it meant she must keep on lying to everyone she knew.

CHAPTER FIVE

“I BROUGHT YOU SOME TEA.” Kim Sherman smiled as she held a steaming mug out to Devon a couple of days later. “I thought you might need a boost.”

“I do.” Devon smiled back at her cousin, although it took some effort to get her tired facial muscles to produce the desired response.

“I won’t keep you from your work.” Kim stepped away from the table where she’d placed the mug. “I just wanted to let you know I talked Lydia into going home. I also checked to make sure everything’s turned off, put away and locked up except the front door.”

“Thanks,” Devon said, taking a sip of the tea. “Especially for getting Lydia to go home. She’s been here since seven this morning.”

“I know. I’m sure her doctor wouldn’t approve of the hours she’s been working.”

“Exactly. I’m glad she listened to you.” She was glad, but she also felt somewhat envious of Kim’s relationship with Lydia. It was so much better than her own.

“Anything I can do for you? Any billing? I have twenty minutes or so until Nolan and Sammy pick me up.” Sammy was Nolan’s seven-year-old niece, an energetic tomboy he’d been raising since her parents’ tragic deaths. Kim eyed the pile of charts on the table. When she’d first come to work at The Birth Place, her office door had always been firmly closed. But since she’d fallen in love with Nolan McKinnon and been accepted as Lydia’s granddaughter, she no longer barricaded herself behind a closed door.

She had also abandoned the well-worn gray cardigan, buttoned to the throat, that she had worn so often in the past. Her clothes were still conservative and businesslike, but the colors were softer, brighter. She’d exchanged her dark-rimmed glasses for contacts, and now Devon saw her own gray eyes staring back at her.

Her eyes, and Lydia’s.

“I’m almost ready to call it a day, too. I’m finishing my report of Jenna Harrison’s delivery.” Devon was working in the all-purpose area of the clinic that served as a storage area and break room. She didn’t have an office of her own, and had, in fact, resisted broaching the subject. For once she did, it would mean that she was staying at The Birth Place for good. Admitting that her life, such as it was, and her practice in Albuquerque were a thing of the past.

She hadn’t thought much of either in the past few days, she realized.

Kim moved closer, her arms crossed beneath her breasts. “Mother and baby are doing fine, I hope.”

Devon didn’t have any problem finding her smile this time. “They are.” Then the smile disappeared. “It was touch-and-go there for a while.”

“You mean she was in danger?” The death of Nolan McKinnon’s sister and her baby seven months earlier, although unavoidable, had weighed heavily on the staff and, in Devon’s opinion, had been a contributing factor in Lydia’s heart attack. Devon bent her head to her notes for a moment before looking up at her cousin again. “Not life-threatening. But I was afraid we would have to transfer her to Arroyo for a C-section.”

“But you didn’t have to transfer her. And I’m sure she thinks her son is worth it.”

“I’m sure she does.” Lydia had never doubted that Jenna, an older, first-time mother, could complete the labor and delivery without intervention. Devon had not been as serenely confident as Lydia. She never was. When Jenna’s progress stalled at eight centimeters and remained there for several hours, Devon wanted to urge her grandmother to move Jenna to the hospital.

But she’d kept her mouth shut, and now she was glad. Lydia had suggested one more session in the huge Jacuzzi that half filled the birthing suite. The warm water and subsequent reduction in pressure on Jenna’s lower body had done the trick. Her contractions once more became productive and less than an hour later, her squalling, red-faced and utterly beautiful little boy had made his entrance into the world.

Jenna and her son had remained under the watchful eye of the midwives the rest of the day. Devon had just finished helping her strap her son’s carrier into the safety seat of the Harrisons’ minivan for the trip home.

“Devon, may I ask you a favor?” Kim sounded oddly hesitant.

Kim had never asked Devon for a favor before, other than the honor of being her maid of honor. Devon put down her pen and gave her cousin her full attention. “Of course,” she said.

“I…I’d like to invite someone to the rehearsal dinner if you don’t mind. Two people actually.”

“Oh, Kim. Did we forget someone? I’m sorry. I don’t know how this happened.”

Kim waved off Devon’s attempted apology. “No, no. It’s my foster parents. I…I lost contact with them years ago when they had to move out of the state. Nolan tracked them down for me. And, well, we’ve been corresponding. I haven’t told anyone else about them yet. Even Grand—even Lydia. I wanted to make sure they were interested in seeing me again.” For a moment the lost little girl her cousin had been looked out from Kim’s eyes. But the ghost was there for only a moment and then it disappeared. “They’ll be traveling through the area, and they want to meet Nolan and Sammy. I’ve invited them to the wedding, but I’m sure they’ll understand if—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course they’re more than welcome.”

Devon half rose from her chair and Kim took a small involuntary step backward, then smiled. “No hugging. You midwives are great ones for hugging.”

“We are, aren’t we. No hugs until the wedding, I promise.” Devon felt laughter bubble up, and then a quick tingle of anticipation as she contemplated discussing the addition to the party with Miguel. She hadn’t seen him or spoken to him since she’d spirited the runaway children into her home, and the strength of her sudden longing to remedy that situation caught her by surprise. “I think it’s wonderful you’ve found your foster parents again. Do you think they’ll want the chicken or the fish?”

THE BIRTHING CENTER appeared deserted as Miguel turned into the parking lot. He eased the big SUV around to the back and noticed Devon’s Blazer still in her space. The high-altitude twilight was fading fast, taking the heat of the summer day with it. The sky was clear as blue glass, no sign of clouds anywhere. The leaves on the aspens beyond the parking area were curled on the edges from lack of moisture. The grass beneath his feet felt brittle when he stepped on it. It was only a matter of time before some fool threw a lighted cigarette out of the window of his truck, or a careless hiker started an illegal campfire, and they would be staring a wildfire in the face. And with almost two years of drought behind them, it would probably be a hell of a fire when it got going.

Devon had left a message on his answering machine about the party. Something about two more guests. Probably Kim’s foster parents. Nolan had told him he’d tracked them down a couple of months ago. He didn’t know much about Kim’s childhood, but it must have been tough on her as a kid, her mother dying when she was small, being shunted from one foster home to another. He’d grown up in an intact family, even if his dad did drink too much, and he had aunts and uncles and cousins all over the county, as well as in Ohio. Family was important to the Navajo. In fact, one of the worst things his grandfather could think of to say about someone was that they “acted as if they didn’t have a family.” But Kim had had no one to look out for her growing up. No wonder she sported as much emotional armor as an armadillo.

He checked the back door of the clinic. It was locked. He left his vehicle where it was and walked around the side of the building. Quietly he turned the handle on the front door. It opened easily and he stepped inside. No one was at the reception desk, but a light came from the records room behind it, and in the break room across the hall.

A movement from the far corner of the waiting room caught his attention. It was Devon, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the children’s play area. At her back two big plastic toy boxes were piled full of stuffed animals and pull toys. A wooden table was covered with puzzles and coloring books. A bookcase under the window held what seemed to Miguel to be hundreds of picture books. Devon had a pile of them in her lap, and a couple of dozen more heaped around her.

He stayed where he was in the shadow of the deeply recessed door and let himself enjoy the sight of her. Her hair was caught up in a twist on top of her head, but it was so fine that strands of it floated around her neck and shoulders, catching the lamplight like spun gold. He could see the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the thin cotton of her scrubs. They were blue today, and over the top she wore a printed lab coat covered with fat, naked babies frolicking on fluffy pink clouds.

He suspected that wearing hospital scrubs and a lab coat, even one with fat naked babies on it, was an act of rebellion for Devon. All the other midwives followed Lydia’s lead, opting for the earth-mother look—peasant skirts or jeans, sandals or clogs. Not Devon. She was a medical professional with her own style, and she wasn’t about to give it up, no matter how often she butted heads with her formidable grandmother.

She raised her hand to cup the back of her neck and arched her back, as though to ease tired muscles. She’d arched her back that way when she’d climaxed that night in his bed, her body tightening around him and spurring him on to his own release. He felt a surge of blood to his groin and decided he’d better make his presence known before his imagination produced a result that would be hard to ignore and damned near impossible to hide from Devon.

He closed the door behind him with enough force that she looked up in alarm, clutching the picture books to her chest. “Miguel! Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“I didn’t sneak up on you. I moved into an unknown situation with due caution. No telling what kind of suspicious character might be hanging around in here.”

“I’m the only one here,” she said, and he could tell she was trying hard not to respond to his teasing.

“That’s what I mean. Suspicious character.” He crossed the tile floor and dropped to his haunches beside her. “Stealing books from the kiddies? I might have to cuff you and haul you down to the station for that.”

A tiny frown wrinkled her forehead. “I’m not stealing. I…I thought I’d sort through a few of the worn ones and get some replacements the next time I’m in Taos.” She still clutched the books to her chest as though she thought he might take them away from her.

He tossed his hat onto a nearby chair, then levered himself into a sitting position, with one knee drawn up for his forearm to rest on and the other leg stretched out alongside her. “Can’t the books wait for another day?” He waggled his index finger at the overflowing bookcase. “There are more books than a dozen kids could read in a week on those shelves.”

She wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. “People bring them in. They donate them. There are duplicates.” She did look tired. Faint circles were smudged under her eyes, and lines bracketed the corners of her mouth. She’d been at the center since five in the morning. He’d heard her truck go by as he was getting in the shower. It was after seven at night now. He should quit teasing her. He changed the subject. “I got your message on my voice mail. What’s up?”

She brightened immediately and her smile slammed into his heart. If he hadn’t already been sitting on the floor, he would have had to find a chair. “Kim’s found her foster parents. Or at least Nolan has.”

“That’s great. Nolan told me a couple of months ago he was going to try and contact them, but he didn’t have much to go on. He said Kim hadn’t heard from them for at least fifteen years.”

“She asked if she could invite them to the rehearsal dinner. Of course, I said she could. I hope you don’t mind that I did it without consulting you.”

“Did you find out if they want the chicken or the fish?”