It wasn’t the answer he’d hoped for, but it was the answer he got and now he needed to deal with it. “What do you want me to do?”
“Wonderful.” Callie let out a long sigh. “Put on your boots and help Faith back to her house. I need to dig my midwife bag out of a packing box upstairs. I’ll get it and I’ll be right over, I promise.”
* * *
Out on the porch, it was still raining as if it was the end of the world. Nate handed Faith the lantern. “I’m just going to carry you.”
She bit her lip and nodded. “Okay.”
So he scooped her up in his arms and ran with her, down the steps and across the yard, with the rain pelting down on them and his boots sinking into the saturated ground with every step he took.
But at least it wasn’t far. He was mounting the steps to the shelter of her porch in seconds. He shoved open the front door as another one of those contractions started.
Faith moaned and almost dropped the lantern. He managed to catch it, keeping one hand on her for support as she slid her feet to the floor, all the while fervently praying that Callie would get over there quick.
The house was warm. Faith had a fire going in the living room heat stove. And she had fat candles lit and more of those electric lanterns set around.
She pointed down the central hallway. “My room,” she moaned. “That way....” He waited for the worst of that contraction to pass and then scooped her up again and carried her down there, detouring into the room she indicated.
He set her on the bed, which had been stripped except for a sheet and some kind of plastic cover beneath the sheet, which made faint crinkling sounds as it took her weight. There were candles on the dresser and a lantern by the bed. In the soft glow of light, he saw a basin, stacks of clean towels and diapers and those small cotton blankets that you used on newborns.
Perched on the end of the bed, Faith had started rocking gently back and forth, kind of humming to herself. He stood over her, feeling like a lump of useless nothing. She actually did seem kind of peaceful and relaxed about the whole thing.
Nothing like Zoe, nothing like that awful day in January so long ago...
He cleared his throat. “Is there anything I can get you?”
Faith looked up at him, big blue eyes so calm. “I didn’t know, about you and Callie....” He had no idea what to say to that, so he said nothing. He’d known Faith forever, been five years ahead of her in school. He used to hang out with her older brother Stan. She pinched up her mouth at him and added sternly, “You treat her right, Nate Crawford. She deserves the best.”
He gave her a slow nod, figuring that was the easiest way to get off the subject of Callie and him and what might be going on between them.
Faith softened toward him then and granted him a gentle little smile. “What you can do is go to the kitchen and get me some ice chips.”
“Ice chips,” he repeated.
“That’s right. Metal bowl in the high cupboard on the right of the sink, ice pick in the drawer to the left of the stove. Break up some ice into small chips for me. It helps, to suck on the chips, keeps me hydrated.”
Relieved to have something constructive to do, he left her.
Callie came in as he was breaking up the ice. She stopped for a moment in the open doorway to the hall. “Ice chips. Good.” She gave him a smile. She had a purple rolling canvas bag, like the largest size of carry-on suitcase, with a stylized logo of a mother and child on the front. “Just bring them in when they’re nice and small.”
“Will do.” He kept poking with the ice pick.
She turned and wheeled her midwife suitcase off down the hall.
When he took them the ice chips, Callie met him at the door. “Thanks,” she said softly. “We’ve got it from here.”
Did she want him to go back to his house? Well, he wasn’t. If something went wrong, at least he would be there to take them wherever they needed to go. “I’ll just...wait in the other room, keep the fire going. Anything you need, you give me a holler.”
She nodded. “Maybe more ice chips later.”
“Whatever you need, you just let me know.”
He went back to the kitchen and stood at the sink, gulping down a tall glass of water, and then wandered into the living room to check on the fire in the heat stove. After that, he had no idea what to do with himself.
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