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Small-Town Midwife
Jean C. Gordon
Unexpected ArrivalAutumn Hazard loves being a midwife. But a tragic loss has her doubting the path she’s chosen. And her new boss isn’t helping. She’s worked with Dr. Jonathan Hanlon before, and he’s just as handsome and seemingly perfect as ever. His presence could mean trouble for the clinic—and her sensible heart. Jon remembers Autumn too. She’s still beautiful, smart, and oblivious to him. Maybe that’s for the best—he’s leaving the small town as soon as his training’s done. Besides, he has secrets of his own, and he can’t risk Autumn getting close enough to uncover them. Yet despite all their reservations, working beside each other doesn’t feel like work at all…it feels like home.
Unexpected Arrival
Autumn Hazard loves being a midwife. But a tragic loss has her doubting the path she’s chosen. And her new boss isn’t helping. She’s worked with Dr. Jonathan Hanlon before, and he’s just as handsome and seemingly perfect as ever. His presence could mean trouble for the clinic—and her sensible heart. Jon remembers Autumn, too. She’s still beautiful, smart and oblivious to him. Maybe that’s for the best—he’s leaving the small town as soon as his training’s done. Besides, he has secrets of his own, and he can’t risk Autumn getting close enough to uncover them. Yet despite all their reservations, working beside each other doesn’t feel like work at all…it feels like home.
Autumn drilled her gaze into Jon’s. If he wanted to observe the visit, admiring the baby would be a good start in getting Megan to agree.
Jon cleared his throat. “He’s a good-sized boy, and his color looks healthy.”
Autumn resisted the inclination to roll her eyes at Megan. “I apologize for not checking ahead to ask about bringing Dr. Hanlon.”
“Jon,” he said, turning his smile on the young mother.
Her expression softened. “That’s okay.” She turned to Jon. “You’re just here to observe, right?”
That was it? One smile from Jon and Megan was fine with him being here? Autumn focused her attention on the infant in her arms, looking into his blue eyes as if he could give her an answer.
What’s wrong with me? she silently asked the baby. Jon wasn’t flirting and, if he was, why should she care? The infant scrunched his face as if he were going to cry. Right. It was Jon’s attitude. The fact that he obviously thought his good looks were a balm to the situation. And that it seemed to be true.
JEAN C. GORDON’s
writing is a natural extension of her love of reading. From that day in first grade when she realized t-h-e was the word the, she’s been reading everything she can put her hands on. A professional financial planner and editor for a financial publisher, Jean is as at home writing retirement- and investment-planning advice as she is writing romance novels, but finds novels a lot more fun.
She and her college-sweetheart husband tried the city life in Los Angeles, but quickly returned home to their native upstate New York. They share a 170-year-old farmhouse just south of Albany, New York, with their daughter and son-in-law, two grandchildren and a menagerie of pets. Their son lives nearby. While Jean creates stories, her family grows organic fruits and vegetables and tends the livestock du jour.
Although her day job, writing and family don’t leave her a lot of spare time, Jean likes to give back when she can. She and her husband team-taught a seventh-and-eighth-grade Sunday school class for several years. Now she shares her love of books with others by volunteering at her church’s Book Nook.
You can keep in touch with her at www.JeanCGordon.com (http://www.JeanCGordon.com), on Facebook or write her at P.O. Box 113, Selkirk, NY 12158.
Small-Town Midwife
Jean C. Gordon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Two people are better than one.
They can help each other in everything they do.
—Ecclesiastes 4:9
To our very own resident midwife, my daughter, Carrie Gordon-Stacey, for all of her help
and insights. I still miss having you
as a regular critiquer.
Contents
Chapter One (#ue4b34667-bebb-5956-8989-48f12d87a8a0)
Chapter Two (#ubd1adefe-3855-5fea-bfa6-eebc524745d1)
Chapter Three (#u5c82c20d-242e-51fa-b605-d188f6f69812)
Chapter Four (#u7117252a-2104-5400-8de5-08412bba831d)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
Excerpt (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
So that’s what he’s up to. Autumn Hazard skimmed through the article on her iPad. JMH Health Care had gobbled up another struggling nonprofit hospital in Upstate New York.
She ground her teeth. If he thinks he’s going to add the Ticonderoga Birthing Center to his family’s collection, he had better think again.
Autumn closed the article and went back to the list of not-yet-billed patients.
“Have you seen him?” Cindy, the birthing center’s evening front desk manager, stood in the doorway to her office. “He’s drop-dead gorgeous.”
Autumn rubbed her forehead. “Seen who?” As if she didn’t know.
The middle-aged woman leaned against the doorjamb as if in a swoon. “The new director.”
Another woman fallen prey to his outward charms.
“Pretty is as pretty does,” Autumn muttered. And nothing she’d seen Jonathan Mitchell Hanlon—or his grandfather, the chairman of the board of directors of JMH—do was pretty.
“What?”
Autumn touched the screen to flip to the next page. “Something Great-Grandma Hazard used to say.”
“I’ve heard the saying. What I was questioning was your meaning. Wait, you know him?”
“Yes, I worked with him briefly at Good Samaritan Hospital, when I was doing my midwife clinicals. He was an OB resident.”
“Oh, then, you—” The sound of the door between the birthing suites and the lobby opening cut Cindy short. “I’d better get back out front.”
“Good idea.” Autumn picked up the printout of the directions for entering the insurance codes into the billing program. Their office assistant had gone and had her baby early, leaving Autumn and Kelly, the owner of the midwifery practice, without anyone lined up to fill in while she was on maternity leave.
Might as well get started. It wasn’t as if she had any other Friday evening plans. Much as she loved living in her Adirondack Mountains hometown, Paradox Lake had a very limited supply of datable men. A supply that had been made even smaller when Rod, the navy recruiter she’d dated for several months, had been reassigned to a post in suburban Boston. She clicked the icon for the billing program. By entering the billing, she’d be making herself useful to the practice. A pang of regret jabbed her in the stomach. While Kelly had been understanding at first, what use was a midwife who couldn’t bring herself to deliver babies?
Footsteps sounded in the hall.
“If your grandparents do come up to Lake George for a vacation, feel free to give them a tour of the center.” The high-pitched voice of Liza Kirkpatrick, an administrator from the Adirondack Medical Center, carried clearly down the hall to Autumn’s office.
Autumn tensed listening for the response. All she heard was a deep rumble of indistinguishable words.
A minute later Liza was at the door to Autumn’s office. “Autumn. Good, you’re still here. I wanted to introduce our new director, Dr. Hanlon.”
Liza and Jon stepped into her office. Cindy was right. Jon was gorgeous. If possible, even more so than when she’d last seen him. His dark hair was clipped a little shorter and neater than when he was a resident. His brilliant blue eyes still had that spark that hinted he knew something you didn’t and invited you to try to find out what. And he’d obviously found time to get in his five-mile run every morning, or regular workouts at the gym. However, his classically symmetrical features had lost the harried look he’d always had back then. A look that had added to his appeal for many of the female staff members. They had wanted to soothe his concerns away.
Autumn rose and stepped away from her desk. Jon gave her a low-key once-over ending with a smile that said he liked what he saw.
He doesn’t remember me.
She certainly remembered him. Anger squelched any pleasure she might have gotten from his silent compliment. She’d seen him use the same look with every female he’d met at Samaritan Hospital.
The administrator introduced them. “Autumn Hazard, Dr. Jonathan Hanlon.”
She took his extended hand, debating whether to let on that she knew him or let it drop. His grip was firm and businesslike.
“Good to see you. It’s been a while.” He released her hand. “Samaritan Hospital,” he prompted as if she might have forgotten him.
“Yes. Good to see you, too.” Autumn shifted her weight from one foot to the other as he studied her face. The seconds seemed to run into minutes.
He tilted his head. “I almost didn’t recognize you. Your hair was different, shorter.”
That was an understatement. When her longtime boyfriend had broken up with her on spring break, Autumn had had her waist-length hair cut in a short, spiky style that she’d since grown back out.
“Well,” the administrator said. “It certainly is a small world. Autumn is one of two certified nurse midwives who deliver at the center and have an office here. We have one other midwife who has an office in Keene and splits her deliveries between the birthing center and the hospital in Saranac Lake.”
“But,” Autumn said, “I’ve taken a sabbatical from catching babies to develop the GYN side of the practice.” At least that’s what her official explanation was. Autumn didn’t feel that anyone at the birthing center, other than Kelly, needed to know that the complications at the last birth she’d attended had shaken her so much that Autumn wasn’t sure when, if ever, she’d resume that part of the practice. It might have been less traumatic if the parents—Jack and Suzy Hill—weren’t longtime friends.
Liza narrowed her eyes. Autumn knew the former birthing center director hadn’t hesitated to make it clear to Liza and the rest of the hospital administrative staff that he wasn’t pleased with Autumn’s decision. It had potentially put him on call more often. Not that he’d actually been called more. There hadn’t been more births than Kelly and the other midwife who had delivery privileges at the birthing center could handle.
“Is Kelly here?” Liza asked. She turned to Jon. “Kelly Philips started Ticonderoga Midwifery, which has had its office here since the center opened.”
“No,” Autumn said. “One of our home-birth mothers went into labor a couple of hours ago. She and our delivery nurse Jamie Payton are there.”
Jon knit his brows. “The center condones home births?”
“We—”
Autumn interrupted Liza, bristling at the disdain in Jon’s voice. “We’re a private practice, so it’s not up to the center to condone or not condone our mothers’ birth arrangements.”
“Autumn and Kelly and their two delivery nurses aren’t employees of the birthing center,” Liza explained in a placating voice. “The practice has privileges and leases space here.”
Jon drew his lips into a hard line. “I assume the medical center’s attorneys have vetted this arrangement for any liability that could come back on the center.”
Autumn fisted her hands at her sides. Jon’s tone and words irritated her, even though she knew he was simply asking from a business standpoint. But it wasn’t his concern how she and Kelly practiced. The practice’s agreement was with the Adirondack Medical Center, not him.
“Certainly.” Liza’s terse reply was a sharp contrast to her earlier, almost fawning attitude.
Autumn flexed her fingers.
“And what’s my responsibility if complications arise at one of these births and higher-level medical intervention is needed?”
Shades of the former director? Was Jon concerned he’d have to do more than push paper? No. When she’d worked with him at Samaritan, he’d seemed to derive a lot of satisfaction out of delivering babies. But he’d had a technical approach to childbirth, almost as though he was curing the mother of a deadly disease, rather than bringing a new life into the world. She bit her tongue to organize her thoughts so she didn’t blurt out the first response that had come to mind. It didn’t work.
“With a normal birth, medical intervention isn’t necessary.”
Something flickered in his eyes that she would have normally read as pain. But that didn’t make any sense.
“Even a seemingly normal birth can have complications.”
Jon wasn’t saying anything she didn’t already know well. But most of their births didn’t need the type of intervention he was talking about. “We continually screen our mothers and insist on a center delivery when we think one is needed, or refer the mother to an obstetrician if we see anything abnormal that might require medical intervention or a hospital delivery.”
“And when something goes wrong at home?” Jon asked.
“With our screening, that hasn’t been a common experience.” Her only life-threatening complication had occurred here at the center.
“You’re saying that you’ve never had to rush a home-birth mother to the hospital?” he pressed.
Autumn silently counted to three. “We’ve had to transport a couple of laboring home-birth mothers to the birthing center.”
