cab door, eyes closed, lips slack. A world of blackness spun around her, sucking her in. Her mind wept.
From a distance, she heard the familiar voice urging her with a desperation that touched but couldn’t move her. “Push! Please, ma’am, you have to push.”
“Can’t,” she murmured, overwhelmed by the effort of the monosyllabic utterance.
Wet hair stuck to her face, clung to her quivering eyelids. She didn’t have the strength to lift her hands, yet felt gentle fingers stroke her skin, smoothing the damp strands away. The touch was so tender, so loving. She forced her eyes open and saw his face. Rugged yet young, not much older than she was. Round eyes, dark with worry, fringed with a stub of golden brown lashes. A mouth that was full, sensitive. Lips that were moving.
She strained to hear. “Your baby needs help,” he was saying. “I know it’s hard, but you have to try, ma’am, you have to.”
The contraction struck like an earthquake in her soul. Her back arched without permission, throwing her backward, shaking her, pummeling her, battering her body without mercy. The world darkened as her eyes rolled up into her skull.
“Push, ma’am! Oh, Lordy. Doc? She can’t, she just can’t. You’ve got to get her some help…please, Doc, she can’t take no more.”
The voice was coming from somewhere, everywhere. Peggy focused on it, used it as a lifeline to bring herself back from the brink.
Your baby needs help, ma’am.
Peggy forced her mind away from the white light of unconsciousness.
Your baby needs help.
The young cowboy’s words echoed in her mind, giving her strength.
Your baby.
She drilled her fingernails into the upholstered car seat.
Needs help.
She thrust her head forward until her chin struck her chest, then coiled forward, using every ounce of strength she could muster. Stars broke through her mind. Lights flashed. Blood roared past her ears like an exploding ocean.
She fell back, panting. Drained. Empty.
Empty.
With immense effort, Peggy opened one eye and saw the limp little body lying on her abdomen. The cowboy was alternately wiping its tiny mouth and talking into the microphone. A dull hiss in her ears kept her from hearing him, but she could tell by his grim expression that something was very wrong.
Blinking sweat from her eyes, Peggy tried to touch the precious infant, but her hand felt like lead. The cowboy dropped the microphone, snatched up a wad of cloth—one of her nightgowns, she thought—and began to vigorously massage the tiny body.
Slowly the droning hiss dissipated and Peggy could hear again, although sound was distorted, distant. She tried to speak, couldn’t, coughed, tried again. “What’s…wrong?”
The bleak-eyed cowboy didn’t look up. “Nothing, ma’am. You’ve got yourself a pretty little girl, and everything’s fine, just fine.”
But it wasn’t fine at all. Even in her exhausted stupor Peggy could see that the baby was smaller than her brother, and more lethargic. Her color was odd, too, kind of a dusty lavender that made Peggy’s heart flutter in fear. “My baby…?”
“Don’t you fret.” The flowered fabric came apart in his hands. He used a strip if it to tie off the cord. “I’m not going to let anything happen to your baby.” As he spoke, he continued to massage the limp little limbs, then he bent down and puffed gently into her tiny mouth.
A lump rose into Peggy’s throat. Hysteria bubbled from her lips. “God…oh, God… Please, please—”
The infant’s arms twitched, once, then again. A tiny foot kicked the air. There was a squeaky sputter, then the baby’s chest heaved.
“That’s right, darling,” the cowboy murmured. “Take yourself a big old breath. There you go, sweetheart, there you go.”
In response, the baby pulled up her knees, flailed her tiny fists, screwed up her face and belted a howl even louder than her brother’s had been.
Peggy exhaled all at once. Tears sprang to her eyes. “Oooh.” She bit her lip, overcome with joy and relief.
The cowboy’s shoulders rolled forward. He lifted his hat, wiped his face with his forearm and heaved a shuddering breath. “You go on and holler all you want,” he murmured to the wailing infant. “You got a right to be mad.”
He tucked his hat back over a disheveled shock of sun-streaked brown hair, then awkwardly wrapped the thrashing infant in a blanket. His hands were huge, clumsy, endearingly gentle. When he brushed a sweet kiss across the baby’s soft little scalp, Peggy’s heart swelled until she thought it would explode. She’d never seen a man, any man, exhibit such tenderness. It touched her to the marrow.
Peggy cradled her daughter in the crook of her arm, loosened the blanket to marvel at the perfect little body and, of course, to count each miniature finger and teensy toe. Gratitude surged into her throat, nearly choking her. She swallowed, struggling to speak. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
He shrugged, clearly uncomfortable. “I didn’t do much.”
“You saved her life.”
The second shrug was more like a twitch. “She’s a gutsy little gal,” he murmured, angling an admiring glance. “Just like her mama.”
That’s when Peggy saw it, the telltale moisture clinging bright to his stubbled cheeks. Their eyes met and held. Something special passed between them, something warm and wonderful. Something that changed her life.
* * *
Shortly after the second birth, the ambulance arrived and Travis was shuffled aside in the chaos. While the medics tended to the new mother and her twins, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and ambled through the gray drizzle, stopping occasionally to peer through the wet cab window at the frenzy of activity.
A gurney was pulled from the rear of the ambulance and wheeled to the open cab door. Travis strained to watch, but was pushed aside by a burly EMT as the weak woman was lifted out. A baby fussed. Travis thought it was the boy. He was attuned to each infant’s distinctive sound. They were a part of him now.
He stretched upward, trying to see, but caught only a quick glimpse of matching bundles whisked to the waiting ambulance. The gurney wheeled by. Another glimpse, this time of flaming hair spread on white linen, a pale face, eyes closed, beautiful in its purity, smiling in repose.
Someone slapped his shoulder. Someone shook his hand. Travis paid little attention. He was busy watching the ambulance doors close.
A moment later, the vehicle sped away, lights flashing.
Alone now, Travis pulled down the brim of his hat, folded his arms and propped a hip against the cab fender to wait for the tow truck. But his mind replayed the morning’s events over and over and over again. After twenty-eight years of living, Travis Stockwell had finally figured out what life was about.
He’d
