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Nate tried to smother his temper. “I thought someone was trespassing.”
“Again. You! This is private property. My property.”
He paused, staring at her, then walked around her so that she would have to turn to keep an eye on him. When the light hit her face, he recognized her. The red hair—though he didn’t remember it being quite this red—almond-shaped green eyes, the heart-shaped face.
“Bijou?” he asked.
“Do I know you?” She frowned at him.
“Nathan Smith,” he said.
Surprise flared in her eyes, followed by a fleeting emotion he couldn’t name. Embarrassment? Dismay? She lowered her eyes so he couldn’t read her expression.
When she didn’t say anything else, he went on, “I thought your parents had sold this place.”
“No. It’s always stayed in the family.” She gave a small shrug. “Obviously, no one kept it up.”
He glanced around. “This is a lot of work. What are you doing back here, Bijou?”
“I could ask the same of you, Nathan, and the name’s Gemma now. I changed my name the minute I turned eighteen.”
“What did your parents, Wolfchild and, um, Sunshine, think of that?”
She reached up and pushed her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ears. “They realized that I was old enough to make my own decisions and they apologized for having given me a name that wasn’t cosmically suited to my personality.”
Nate hid a smile as he flexed his shoulders. He’d forgotten that her parents talked like that. They had been well-meaning oddballs in this community, but they hadn’t minded being out of step with everyone else in town. He hadn’t thought their daughter was very much like them, seeming to be more conventional—focused on school, friends and small-town life.
“Bijou is French for Jewel,” he pointed out, his gaze touching on those bright green eyes and richly colored hair.
“I know.”
Lifting his uninjured hand, he rubbed his left arm. He was going to be sore and bruised in the morning. “I’m guessing you chose Gemma since Wonder Woman was taken.”
One corner of her mouth tilted up as she lifted her eyebrows at him. He remembered that expression from years ago.
He held up his mangled hand. “Is there somewhere I can wash and bandage this before I head home?”
“Come inside. I’ll bandage it for you.”
“I’m a doctor. I can do my own bandaging.”
“I know that, and I’m a registered nurse, so I’ll do the bandaging. It’s my house and they’re my bandages.” Gemma paused to pick up the tablet and shut off the music.
Nate decided not to pursue the who-will-do-the-bandaging? argument. From what he’d seen so far, he would lose, anyway.
“That was...interesting music,” he ventured. “But you weren’t listening to it?” He didn’t have a very active imagination and didn’t know why she would listen to one kind of music to block out another.
“It’s Tibetan music. Frankly, I can’t stand it because it reminds me of the time my dad insisted we all needed to learn to play the zither.” She shook her head, a small smile on her lips. “Carly is absolutely convinced it’ll help the plants grow.”
He frowned. “Carly? Oh, yes, Joslin.” He vaguely remembered the two of them had been best friends, along with Lisa Thomas. Glancing around at her family’s property, he realized she had done what he couldn’t—kept her ties to their hometown.
“Come on,” she said briskly. “Let me look at that hand. It’s rude to keep the nurse waiting.”
Giving her a thoughtful look, he followed her inside. A nurse. In spite of her prickliness, this sounded promising.
“Don’t touch the door or the facings,” she said, pointing to what he could now see was a bright blue, glistening with newness. “I just painted them.”
“I know. I smelled the paint.”
While she scrubbed her hands at the sink, then bustled about, setting out a basin, a clean towel, disinfectant and bandages, Nate looked around the cozy cabin.
The living room held a dark blue sofa and chair with a huge, multicolored rug in the middle of the floor. A rock fireplace, probably original to the house, dominated one wall. A few sealed boxes were piled one atop the other along a wall, and a stack of paintings and photographs waited to be hung. A doorway opened onto a hallway, where he assumed the bedrooms and bathroom were.
The place was warm and inviting, not at all the den of hippie craziness his mother had claimed it to be. Also, it was rustic, but not primitive. Thinking about it now, he wondered why she had chosen that word.
“Come over to the sink,” Gemma commanded and he did as he was told, standing with his hand under warm running water. He was very aware of her gently clasping his hand in her own while she turned it this way and that, keeping it under the stream from the faucet. Nate liked being close enough to catch her scent, which was faintly flowery, no doubt heightened by the work she’d been doing out back.
He was about to ask what she’d been planting when she shut off the water and grabbed a handful of paper towels, which she placed beneath his hand to catch the drips, and directed him toward the table. Its scarred top spoke of many meals eaten by many generations. The chairs were a mishmash of styles, but all seemed to be as old as the table. Nate could imagine previous Whitmires sitting here, eating, talking, laughing. The place had a settled atmosphere. In spite of the modern furnishings, glowing electric lamps and the laptop open on a living room table, he could picture a woman in a long dress coming inside, removing her bonnet and pumping water at the sink to wash up. Maybe that’s what actually haunted the Whitmire farm—the ghosts of hardworking, happy people with established traditions going back generations. He shook his head at the fanciful thoughts. He never lapsed into daydreams like this.
Casting Gemma a wary glance, he ruefully decided that she wouldn’t know if this was out of character for him or not. They hadn’t seen each other in fifteen years.
“This cabin is nice,” he said, watching her pick up a rubber bulb syringe, fill it with warm water and expertly flush his cut with a disinfectant solution. “Your family farmed this land for many years.”
“More than a hundred, but my dad wasn’t interested in farming so he sold most of the farmland and established the campground.”
“But they stayed in this cabin, kept the family home.”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” she said, glancing up and giving him the full attention of those remarkable green eyes. “They have roots here that they wanted to maintain. My parents may have been...unusual, but they knew how to create a happy home.”
Nate didn’t answer. For all of their wealth and position, his parents had never known how to do that. From his first memories, their home had been sterile, filled with icy silences. Funny, after all these years, he still never thought of the ostentatious house at the end of Pine Street as his home, only theirs. That’s why it was sitting empty, falling into disrepair. Why he’d rented a small house near the hospital and filled it with furniture he’d bought himself. He had yet to include anything from his childhood home.
“And how are your parents?” he asked. “I heard they had left town, and the campground was permanently closed.”
She gave him a big smile—the expression of someone talking about those she loved. “They’re very well. As soon as I was launched into the world, they took the money they’d inherited from my dad’s family and the sale of the farmland and took off. They’ve traveled the world ever since, helping out on building projects in places in need wherever they can. I see them a couple of times a year here in the States, or I go wherever they are.”
“It sounds...idyllic.”
Gemma laughed and her eyes lit up. “It sounds like what a couple of middle-aged hippies would do, but don’t tell them I said that.”
“I doubt that I’ll ever see them.”
“You might be surprised.” She lifted his hand and examined it closely for debris, then, apparently satisfied, she carefully positioned a bandage over the cut. “This is their home, after all.”
“Are you going to be here long?” Maybe she’d go out to dinner with him. There were no decent restaurants in Reston, but Dallas was only a couple of hours south and he knew there were plenty of fine dining places there. Besides, if she was as competent a nurse as she appeared to be, he might have a job for her.
“I’m back permanently.”
“Really?” More and more promising, Nate thought. “Is your nursing license current?”
“Of course.” She tilted another smile at him. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Afraid I didn’t bandage your hand right? Remember, you were on my property without being asked, while I was busy working.”
Deciding he’d better change tactics, he asked, “What were you doing out there, by the way? At first I thought you were burying a body.”
“Planting herbs.”
“In the dark?”
“It’s not dark. There’s a full moon, which is when these herbs must be planted.”
Maybe she wasn’t as different from her parents as he’d thought. “Oh? What kind?”
“Blue cohosh, for one.”
He frowned. “It grows wild all around here. You only have to walk into the woods and pick it.”
“I’d rather have it close by and if I grow it myself I can ensure the quality.”
She was watching his face carefully. Nate felt as if he was trying to communicate in an unknown language.
“And you need these for cooking?”
“No, for pregnancy, labor and delivery. Tincture of blue cohosh stimulates labor.”
Nathan went very still as those words sank in, the facts lining up before him as if they were printed on the very air.
“You’re a midwife.” His tone was flat.
* * *
GEMMA WHITMIRE STARED at the sudden stiffness in his face, the way his brown eyes had narrowed. Alarm bells clanged in her head, but she spoke calmly. “Yes, I am.”
“And you’re planning to open a birthing center?”
“Yes, in your father’s old offices next to the hospital.” She lifted her chin, held his gaze. There had been a time when she would have backed down, apologized, tried to explain her position. Those days were gone. “Exactly as you plan to establish a family practice and reopen the hospital.”
“Not exactly.”
“Both facilities are for people’s health.”
“No, the hospital cures people and keeps them well—”
“Fortunately, giving birth isn’t an illness.”
Their eyes met—hers defiant, his resolute. Gemma’s heart sank as she imagined the swirl of objections that were about to come at her. She’d heard them all before, fought them all before. Somehow, it was disappointing to know she was about to hear them from Nathan.
She hadn’t recognized him at first when he’d startled her and she’d thrown him to the ground. He’d been a small, skinny guy in high school, with dark hair worn long in defiance of his parents. He must have grown a good six inches since she’d seen him last, topping out at six feet, with wide shoulders and muscled arms. His hair was cut short, probably for the sake of convenience. But those eyes hadn’t changed. Deep-set and steady, they looked at her as if he was trying to see into her soul.
She had admired him when they were growing up, and had a major crush on him by the time they were in high school. She’d been crazy about his good looks, his serious gray eyes and the way his thick brows came to a slight peak as if he was gently surprised by life. Whereas the other guys she’d known had been jocks or cowboys, he’d been focused and smart. Apparently, he still was.
But he was also wrong.
“Giving birth is fraught with risks. Risks that are best handled in a qualified medical facility.” His voice was firm, as if he thought that stating his case strongly would have her immediately caving.
Not a chance. “Giving birth is a natural process, which women have been handling very well for quite a while now.”
“That’s true, but why take risks with women’s lives when excellent medical facilities and qualified personnel are available?”
“It’s not a risk and I am qualified personnel. I’ve been a registered nurse for ten years and a midwife for six. I’ve worked in every type of medical situation, every type of neighborhood you can imagine, even some pretty bad ones, which is why I know self-defense moves. Many times, a birthing center is the most affordable option for families, and you may not be aware of this, but Reston County isn’t exactly overflowing with wealthy people who can afford hospital births and care. Our new birthing center is the only option for expectant mothers since we don’t know when the hospital will be reopened, anyway.”
“It will be soon...”
“Besides that, more than ninety percent of this country’s births are in a hospital and we have such high maternal and infant mortality rates in the United States. It’s appalling.”
“I agree, but I can’t believe that dragging home births back from the past is going to improve the situation.”
“Which is exactly why they’re not being dragged back from the past. Nonhospital births are proven safe on a daily basis, both at home and in birthing centers across this country.”
He raised a skeptical brow. “Your birthing center has to have a transfer agreement with a hospital no more than thirty minutes away and a licensed doctor as medical director.”
“I’m working on both of those things with the hospital in Toncaville until you get the Reston County Hospital reopened.” She clapped her hands onto her hips. “And once our hospital is reopened, if you choose not to be the medical director for the birthing center, I’ll respect that and continue with a doctor from Toncaville—no matter how inconvenient that might be.”
He frowned, obviously not liking her tone. “You’ll have to be on duty twenty-four hours a day.”
“I know that.”
“You think one nurse-midwife is going to be enough for the whole of Reston County?”
“Of course not. I’ll be hiring other qualified personnel.”
“Good luck with that.” He jerked a thumb toward town. “I’ve got forty vacancies to fill in order to reopen the hospital.”
“I have my own sources for finding qualified people for the birthing center.”
“Oh? How? Did you send out flyers by Pony Express? Ask any of the locals who’ve ever helped bring a calf into the world to sign up?”
Gemma felt her temper heating up. Her chin, always ready to lead her into trouble, lifted. “I’ve hired people and will continue to hire people who lost their jobs when Reston Community Hospital closed eight years ago. My new employees are excellent, qualified people who live in this town and wanted to continue working here but couldn’t because their livelihood was snatched away. They’ve spent eight years driving to jobs in neighboring towns. They’ve missed their kids’ baseball and football games, school plays, band concerts, and birthday parties because they couldn’t make it home in time.”
Gemma watched emotions chase each other over his face—annoyance, anger and then shame.
Nathan’s eyes were fierce as he said, “And those people could have kept their jobs, continued to work here in Reston, if my father, the hospital administrator, hadn’t bankrupted the place and absconded with the money.”
CHAPTER TWO (#u746e4187-45ae-54f9-a6b6-9912bde79c1f)
ONCE AGAIN, HEAT rushed into Gemma’s face, but this time, it wasn’t from anger. She pressed her palms together and cleared her throat. “I wasn’t... I wasn’t going to say that.”
“You didn’t need to,” Nathan said, standing up. “Everyone in town knows it.”
Gemma stared at him in dismay. She hadn’t meant to bring it up. It had to be humiliating for him to return here, face the critics, try to make things right. “I... I’m sorry.”
