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The man Tyler led into the room filled the doorway. Lori felt dwarfed by his presence. He looked calm, though, a lot calmer than Gary would have been in the same situation. “I’m so glad you’re here. It really is a miracle.”
“Not quite.” The red-haired woman in uniform looked at the man and telegraphed something to him silently. “But it looks like what we came for will have to wait.”
Lori laughed nervously. “Yes, it does. Do either of you have any training in catching babies?”
“Mike does. He used to be an EMT. I mean, I’ve had the basics, in theory, but I’ve never used it. Mike?”
The big man nodded, and crossed the small room. “Sure have. Where are we, Mrs. Harper?”
“Lori.” This was no time to be formal. “And I think we’re at the point where I hope you’re either driving an ambulance or you have a radio, Mike.”
The man’s smile was rueful. “Can’t say I can help you either way. But I do have a cellular phone in the truck. What do you say we call the county emergency guys on duty, who have the real ambulance and radio, and try to meet them on the closest main road? Do you think we have enough time for that?”
“I hope so.” Lori struggled to speak while she felt a contraction building. “With Tyler, things were pretty quick, once they started happening, and I expect it will be quick this time, too.”
“What does the doctor say?” The man’s large hands were gentle as he helped her off the bed and into a standing position. Lori wished she could avoid his question.
“Nothing. I haven’t seen one,” Lori admitted. His intake of breath was sharp, and an emotion that could have been fear or anger flashed through his dark eyes. “We moved out here before I knew I was, uh, in the family way, and then Gary had the car all day working in Friedens, and after August I never got around to finding somebody…” She trailed off. How could she tell a stranger that there was no money for a doctor? “Will we all fit in that truck outside? I won’t leave Tyler here.”
“There’s no way we’d leave him,” the woman in uniform said. “Not alone, anyway.” She looked at the man. “I was thinking maybe you and Mrs. Harper ought to go on, and the rest of us will stay here until somebody else can come out and get us.”
The man shook his head. “Won’t work. That dog wouldn’t take a command to stay at a strange place without me. How long has it been since you’ve ridden in the back of a pickup?”
When the woman started to splutter, Mike looked at Lori and winked. It was such a conspiratorial gesture that she had to smile through the wave of pain that threatened to fold her double. “There’s no other choice, Carrie. You and the dog can sit in the back. Me and Lori and Tyler’ll be up front. What do you bet we can make it to the main road in less time than EMS does from their end?”
Lori stifled a gasp as her protector guided her back through the trailer and helped her down from the front door to the hard ground. “Gently, Mike. Hit any bumps wrong and you’re going to have to use those EMT skills yourself, I’m afraid.”
He looked her in the face, all traces of teasing gone now. His dark eyes sparkled with a light that pierced Lori deeper than the pain of the contractions. “I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry.” And somehow, looking into those eyes, she knew he was telling the truth.
Chapter Two
This was the strangest trip to the hospital Lori had ever witnessed, much less been part of. The red-haired woman in uniform and the huge German shepherd—was he really wearing reindeer antlers?—were in the back of the truck. It was cold in the cab because Mike’s car phone handset was out the open back window, so Carrie could talk to the paramedics while Mike navigated the bumpy road.
Mike had apologized for having to put the phone plug in the cigarette lighter for power. “I never remember to charge the battery.”
“Lost the charger, probably,” she heard Carrie mutter from outside. Lori had to stop breathing so fast. If they hit one more bump, Tyler was going to get to meet his new brother or sister up close and personal. Tyler looked so small sitting next to her on the seat, bouncing up and down even though he was belted in.
“Isn’t this cool, Mama?” His eyes shone. From his perspective, it was probably cool. All of Tyler’s passions were involved here: uniformed police officers, big dogs, huge trucks and a man who actually paid attention to him. When she nodded to agree with him, a wave of nausea roared over her.
“Bad move, huh?” Mike looked over at her sharply. How could he drive and keep his eyes on the road yet still monitor how she was feeling?
“Bad move.” She held her head still. Things felt better that way. “How far are we from—”
“Meeting the ambulance crew? Tell us, Carrie.” Mike turned his head toward the open back window.
Carrie spoke into the phone, then leaned toward the open window. “Maybe five minutes. You going to be able to hang on?”
“Sure.” Lori gritted her teeth. She wasn’t sure, but she was going to have to be, for Tyler’s sake, for the baby’s sake, even for the sake of the large man driving the truck. He didn’t look ready to deliver a baby.
The next five minutes seemed more like five hours. Lori would have burst into tears of relief when the yellow ambulance pulled up to the truck, but she lacked the energy. Mike braked and vaulted out of his side of the truck. “Don’t you dare try to get out on your own,” he warned. “Hey, Kenny, Rosa, this lady’s about to have a baby. How about some real quick movement this way?”
Before Lori could say anything, she was on a stretcher pulled up to the cab of the truck. In moments, she was looking up at the ceiling of the moving ambulance while someone with cold, sure hands was assessing the situation.
“Hi, I’m Rosa.” The dark-haired woman smiled. “You’ve got a head nearly crowning here, but you probably knew that already. Mike said to tell you that they’d follow us there and meet us at the hospital. He said not to worry about Tyler.”
“I won’t. Right now I’ve got all I can worry about right here.”
It was there in the ambulance, holding Rosa’s hand, that Lori had to come to terms with what she’d known for months. Gary was really dead. She was really doing this on her own, and it wasn’t getting any easier.
When Lori thought about Gary, she couldn’t feel any pain. Just a sense of peace, something telling her that maybe the most troubled soul she’d ever known had finally found rest.
She wondered if he was watching them somehow, could see what was going on. There was no time to wonder. Another contraction engulfed her. The ceiling of the ambulance blurred. When they hit a rut on the road she stifled a yelp. “Go ahead and yell if it will make you feel any better.” Rosa was still right there with her. “Anything that will keep you from giving in to that urge to push right now would be welcome.”
Lori managed a weak smile. “I guess you would rather the doctors at the hospital delivered this baby.”
Rosa nodded. “I’ve caught a couple myself, but it’s always good to have help. It would be more comfortable for you in the long run, too.”
“Then I hope the hospital isn’t too much farther.” That ceiling was starting to blur again. This baby was going to be here soon, wherever they were.
“Am I a big brother yet?” Tyler asked, looking around the commotion of the emergency room.
“We’ll find out. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.” Carrie held his hand and craned her neck over the crowd. “You see anything?”
Mike’s vantage point was better, but he still had no indication of where Kenny and Rosa might have taken their precious cargo. “Nothing yet. Let’s ask at the desk.”
“Yeah, she just made it.” The triage nurse came around the counter and went down to Tyler’s height. “You have a very pretty baby sister. Of course she might look all red and squashy to you, but she looks pretty good to Mom right now. If you wait about twenty minutes more, we’ll get you back there to see her, once we clean them both up.”
Tyler’s brow wrinkled. “How’d they get dirty?”
The nurse laughed. “Well, they didn’t, exactly. But being born is pretty messy.” She looked at Carrie and Mike. “Maybe one of your friends can take you to look at the vending machines while we let your mom know you’re here.”
“Cool. Do they have candy bars?” Tyler looked around for the machines.
“They sure do. And really good chips.” Carrie led him to the small room off the hallway where the machines were. Naturally she’d take the easy part. Mike straightened up.
“Guess that means I’m going back with Mrs. Harper. You say she had a girl?”
The nurse nodded. “At least eight pounds. And she really is pretty. I wasn’t lying to her brother. Rough way to start out life, though.”
Lori looked beautiful but frail propped up in her hospital bed holding a very new baby. They were an oasis of calm in the emergency room. Only a curtain separated the bay that held mother and child from organized chaos on either side of them. Mike hadn’t looked in the other cubicles, but one seemed to be occupied by someone elderly and quite deaf, while the other seemed to hold a brace of wildcats, or maybe just an unhappy toddler and mother.
Lori looked up from the bundle in her arms. “Hi. You made it. Isn’t she something?” Her smile was touched with exhaustion. “I’m still figuring out what to call her. Gary was so sure this was going to be a boy. He said it would be Gary, Jr., this time. I can’t think of any way to make Gary into a girl’s name though.”
Mike shook his head. He had no idea what to say to this lady. “Nothing comes to mind right away. Carrie’s out getting Tyler a candy bar. The nurses wanted us to hold off bringing him back for a few minutes, give you some more rest time.”
Lori smiled again wanly. “Good. I have a feeling rest is going to be in very short supply in a little while. Once they figure out we’re both okay, we’ll probably go home. With no insurance, they won’t keep us long.”
“No insurance? Didn’t your husband leave you anything? What about Medicaid? Something?”
Lori’s eyes clouded. “He hadn’t been at his job that long. Gary’s boss said we wouldn’t be qualified for health insurance until he’d been there for a year anyway and even then not for a baby that was already on the way. Said it was one of those ‘preexisting conditions’ all the insurance companies talk about.”
Mike suspected that whatever Harper was doing in Friedens, Missouri, it hadn’t been the kind of job that came with a medical plan. Meth labs were a little short on benefits. Still, now wasn’t the time to bring any of that up. Lori Harper didn’t seem to know much about what her husband had really done for a living. There would be plenty of time to break the bad news to her later.
Right now it was time to admire the baby. That was easy to do. She was fairly red and squashy, but she looked a whole lot better than most newborns Mike had seen. At least this one had open eyes of that fuzzy indeterminate blue most newborns sported. And she had hair. Squiffs of blond fuzz poked up all over her head.
She was quiet, too. Mike expected her to be squalling, but the baby was making little noises, most of which sounded fairly content. As if to jinx him once he thought that, her small face screwed up, flushing and ready for a howl. “What’s the matter?”
Her mother smiled. “Nothing. She’s probably just tired and hungry. So if you don’t mind…” She looked at him pointedly. Mike could feel himself turning all kinds of colors once he realized what she was asking.
“I’ll be outside here if you need me for anything.” It was all he could choke out as he retreated.
The baby’s howling stopped almost as soon as he was on the other side of the curtain. Mike fought not to entertain any picture whatsoever of the scene that created the quiet. As he struggled with his thoughts he saw two young men dressed in scrubs rolling a gurney off the elevator and into the E.R.
They rolled it up to the nurses’ station, which was empty. Looking around, one of them spotted a very young woman rushing by. “We’re here to transfer Harper up to the maternity floor.”
He wasn’t very quiet, and his partner was even louder. “Yeah, I heard this one was related to that drug dealer we had in August. The one that took the methedrine plunge…”
The young nurse’s aide, or whatever she was, finally got the jerk quieted down. Mike steeled himself for what he would find behind the curtain. Maybe they’d been granted a little miracle and Lori would be so wound up in her beautiful new daughter that she hadn’t heard what went on.
He couldn’t imagine that was true. “Mike?” Her voice was choked and faint.
The baby was still nursing under a white cotton blanket. Lori’s shaking arms could barely hold her. “I wasn’t supposed to hear that, was I?”
“Hear what?” He could try to brazen it out for a little while.
“That bit about another Harper. A drug dealer. Again? But he told me he was going straight this time. That he was doing a real job for honest money.” Her lips tightened into a thin, white line. Her eyes were huge. “Is that why his boss was so strange? And there was nobody at the funeral?”
Mike came over to her side. He couldn’t watch her tremble alone anymore. He put one arm around her shaking one, supporting the baby. “I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell you.”
“Even out at the trailer, I could tell that. You and Carrie knew something you weren’t saying in front of Tyler. Does everybody else in Friedens know this for a fact?”
Mike told her softly, and as gently as possible, what he knew. “Talk around the department was that he was dealing. Maybe even manufacturing.”
Lori’s expression hardened. “So that drug-informant part of what he told me about being relocated… It wasn’t true, was it?”
“It might have been.” Mike didn’t want to lie to her, but keeping hope in a dead man didn’t feel much like a lie. The baby made a little sighing, gulping noise. “Do you want help shifting her around?”
“No, I can manage. I think you can let go now.” Lori looked down at his arm, stretched the length of hers. Mike was aware of how soft she was, how fine boned. Her elbow fit in his cupped hand with so much room left over. He let go and looked away.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry that he died, or sorry you had to be the one to tell me the truth about him?” Lori’s voice was sharp. Mike looked back into her face. “That wasn’t real nice, I know. But I also know that Gary wasn’t a real model citizen in the county. We didn’t exactly have a welcoming committee beating a path to our door when we moved in.”
“Yeah, well, I’m still sorry he’s gone. No matter what he did for a living. I mean, he was probably a good daddy, and now—”
“Don’t go there.” Lori’s voice was still sharp. “If I’m truthful with myself, he was an awful father. He never knew what to do with Tyler, and a new baby wouldn’t have made any difference. Finding out about her was probably what made him turn to the drug thing again. It seemed to be the only way he knew how to make money.”
Lori’s tough facade couldn’t last. Mike told himself that, and as he did, he watched her crumble. Her arms beneath the baby shook, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Lord, what am I going to do?”
Suddenly everything caught up with her and she lost what little color she had as silent tears coursed down her cheeks. Mike had no idea what to do besides sit there and pat her arm. He hoped that was okay, because it was the only thing he could do. So for a while they all sat quietly.
The baby nursed. Lori wept. Mike patted her arm. Both of the adults were conscious of the presence of the two young men with the gurney, just beyond the cloth divider. Even this little oasis of calm they had created wouldn’t last long. As the last of the calm there trickled away, Mike heard the echoes of Lori’s wail in his mind. What were they going to do? The thought of leaving this young woman alone to deal with whatever fate handed her was unthinkable.
Now the pittance the department had scraped together for Christmas wasn’t enough. For a brave young widow with a five-year-old, it might have been. But not now. Not with this baby, and Lori’s new knowledge of her desperate situation. The moment Tyler Harper had opened the door and let Mike into his home, he was hooked. And even for a problem this size, he intended to be part of the solution.
Chapter Three
It took Lori about an hour to get settled in her room on the maternity floor. Brisk nurses whisked her daughter away to be washed, weighed, measured and looked after. Once the baby was out of her arms, Lori sank back into the bed pillows. She was too exhausted and confused to think. Her body ached for a hot shower, but she knew what the nurses would say to that.
She should be making phone calls. But to who? How long would it be until someone told her she had to leave the hospital? “I asked for a miracle,” she reminded God out loud. Maybe this looked like a miracle on the other side of heaven, but it sure didn’t look like one from under a white cotton blanket in a hospital bed.
Lori let the crisp sheets and firm pillows envelop her. Okay, time to take stock. There were miracles here. She’d had the baby in the hospital, surrounded by doctors and nurses, instead of alone in the trailer or in the ambulance on the road. And her daughter was beautiful and healthy, as far as Lori could see.
So the immediate past was full of miracles. As for the near future, Lori wasn’t so sure. She felt very fragile just now. Where was her hope right now?
She let out a little laugh. Hope? That was all she could have right now, wasn’t it? There certainly wasn’t any money around. Or much solid that she could put her hands on. There was a rickety trailer whose rent was paid for maybe two more months. And a rattletrap heap of a car Gary’s former employer had been bullied into signing over the title on. Maybe that was her ticket out of this mess, at least for the time being.
Lori dreaded going back to that trailer in the middle of nowhere. It was bad enough when Gary had come home almost every night bringing groceries and bits of the outside world. The last few months had been awful. Now with a new baby, it would be horrible with no other adults, no phone…
A shudder ran through her body. Lori covered her face with her hands, fighting sobs. Was there any hope for the future? As if to answer, a woman walked through the door of the room, pushing a cart. In a plastic bassinet on the cart was the most beautiful baby Lori had ever seen. It was her baby. “Isn’t she gorgeous? What’s her name?”
“Mikayla Hope.” The words popped out before Lori could stop them. The little girl looked pleased with her name somehow. She knew that babies less than a day old didn’t smile. But this one seemed to if you looked just right. And nestled back in Lori’s arms with the help of the woman, who brought her into the room, she was a warm, welcome weight.
She smelled of mild soap, fresh cotton and some magical scent all her own. “Mikayla Hope,” Lori whispered in her ear. The velvet warmth of the baby’s face was overpowering. Here was her little miracle.
As if on cue Tyler burst into the room, followed by Carrie. “Hey, there’s our baby. And she’s not dirty at all,” he said, crowding up to the bed. “What’s her name, Mama?”
“This is Mikayla Hope. Come up and see her. Gently.” Tyler scrambled onto the bed. He reached out one hand and stroked the baby’s cheek.
“Hi, Mikayla. I’m Tyler. I’m your big brother.” His voice was soft. “She feels good.”
“I’ll bet she does.” Carrie pulled up the bedside chair. “Mikayla Hope, huh? Does a certain someone know about the Mikayla part?”
“Not yet. I just found out myself.” Carrie’s look was one of pure confusion, and Lori hastened to explain. “The nurse asked what her name was, and the words just came out. But it’s perfect. I can’t see her being anybody else, can you?”
Carrie peered over at the swaddled baby. “I don’t know. I think she looks like Mr. Peanut in that wrapping. Or I guess Ms. Peanut. What do you think, Tyler?”
“Ms. Peanut!” How could Carrie say that about her beautiful baby?
“Sure.” Carrie stifled a giggle, although the stifling wasn’t very successful. “Look at her, all wrapped in that blanket. She looks just like a little peanut. No arms, no legs, just a cute little face for one half and…”
“All right, have it your way.” Lori couldn’t help laughing with Carrie. Tyler got into the act, too, chortling while he put a finger into his sister’s fist.
“Look, Mama. She’s holding on already. Isn’t she smart?”
“Smarter than the rest of us. She’s going to sleep while she has the chance.” Lori looked over at Carrie. “You want to take her and put her in her bassinet?”
Sheer panic flashed across Carrie’s face. “Me? Take her all the way across the room?”
