make even the slightest move toward her and Devon was glad. If he had, she might have let him take her in his arms and…
“Just tired.” She punched in the clinic’s number.
“The Birth Place,” a voice answered.
“Trish?” Devon was a little surprised the clinic’s receptionist, Trish Linden, was still on duty.
“Yes, I’m still here. Got some paperwork I wanted to finish up. One of your patients is on her way in. Carla Van Tassle. She’s spotting. Just a little, but she’s worried.”
Devon sorted through her mental case file until she put a face to the name. Carla was seven weeks pregnant with her second child. Lydia had delivered her first, a little boy, twenty-two months earlier. “I’ll be right there.”
“Wait a moment, Devon, your grandmother wants to speak to you.”
“I thought you were taking the day off,” Devon said, when Lydia came on the line.
“I did take the day off. I came in to catch up on some charting and to give Lacy Belton a follow-up phone call.”
“I planned to do that a little later this evening.” Devon felt her neck and shoulder muscles tighten. Lacy’s temperature had returned to normal and stayed there after she had received the IV antibiotics Joanna prescribed. She and her baby had left the clinic shortly before noon.
“I’m sure she would still appreciate your call. And you’ll probably want to set up a convenient time to check in on her tomorrow, anyway.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I just wanted to tell you that since I’m here already, I’ll examine Carla. I’m sure it’s nothing serious.”
Spotting early in a pregnancy wasn’t unusual, but Devon would have taken a blood sample, checked hormone levels, maybe ordered an ultrasound to be on the safe side. Not Lydia. Not at The Birth Place. Her grandmother had decades of experience, four thousand healthy deliveries to her credit. She relied on her instincts and her personal knowledge of each and every patient that passed through her care.
“I’ll be glad to come back.” Devon kept her voice even and pleasant. She was very aware of Miguel standing just a few feet away. She was usually pretty good at hiding her emotions—she had to be in her business. But he was also very good at reading people for the same reason.
There was a small silence before her grandmother spoke again. Her tone was unusually gentle. “Devon, I assure you I’ll transfer Carla to Arroyo County for an ultrasound if I think there’s the least chance this is serious. I’ll notify you immediately if that’s the case so you can be with her.”
Devon took a breath. This was Lydia’s way of apologizing for their disagreement over Devon’s handling of Lacy Belton’s delivery. If only they could do the same with the past. “Thanks, Lydia.”
“Good,” her grandmother replied briskly. “As I said, I don’t anticipate any real problem with Carla, so I’ll see you tomorrow. Why don’t you take the morning off, come in after your visit with Lacy?”
Devon opened her mouth to say she’d be in at her usual time, and then changed her mind. She could use a few hours to herself. “All right. I will. Good night, Lydia.”
“Good night, Devon.” She replaced the receiver.
“Everything okay?”
“Yes. One of my patients is spotting a little. She’s still early in her first trimester, so it’s probably hormonal. The cervix is very sensitive at this point, so it could also be that she and her partner were just a little too energetic in making love.”
Miguel lifted his hands in a time-out gesture. “Whoa. That’s enough.”
Devon laughed. “I’m sorry. I was thinking out loud.”
He was smiling, but he looked distinctly uncomfortable, and totally, breathtakingly male. Her stomach tightened in response and she felt her pulse speed up.
“That’s more information than I really need,” he said.
“I’ll remember that.”
“Are you heading back to the clinic?”
“No. My grandmother is going to check Carla over. She’ll call me if she needs me.” She caught a glimpse of the smooth, bronzed skin of his throat. She had kissed him there that night, and the taste of his skin had been like sunlight and sagebrush. She forgot what they’d been talking about. She forgot what she was going to say next. “I really should be going,” she finished in a rush.
“You don’t have to run off, Devon.” He kept the width of the table between them, but she felt as if he was only inches away. She wished he was only inches away.
“I…” She stopped and got hold of herself. “Would you like me to drop by and check on your grandfather while I’m out that way tomorrow morning?” They were neighbors. Neighbors did things like that for each other.
“The Belton place is five miles from Granddad’s.”
“I thought I’d drive on up to Silverton. I haven’t been there since I got back.” Silverton was an old abandoned mining town in the hills north of Enchantment. Horseback rides, picnics, a played-out silver mine and false-fronted wooden buildings slowly falling into ruin. It had been one of her favorite places as a girl.
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. We’ve been getting a lot of calls about stuff coming up missing out that way. Probably just kids, but with the INS cracking down on border crossings, the Coyotes are working their way farther north all the time.”
Coyotes, the unscrupulous men who transported undocumented workers across the border from Mexico and sometimes left them to die a terrible death in the desert.
“I’ll be careful. Thanks for the warning.” But the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to go.
Devon had gotten up as she spoke and was heading into the main room of the cabin, with its whitewashed walls and shiny, wide-planked wood floor. A big fireplace made of river rock stood against one wall, flanked by floor-to-ceiling windows. Hanging on the opposite wall was a gorgeous hand-woven Navajo rug in warm earth tones. Miguel’s aunt, Carmella Elkhorn, was a master weaver. The rug was most likely her work.
“Thanks again for the sandwich and the tea,” Devon said. “I’ll talk to Kim as soon as I check in tomorrow.” She reached to open the door.
Miguel circled her wrist with his hand. His grip was painless but strong. She would have had to use her other hand to pry his fingers loose, and she didn’t trust herself to touch him even that much. “We have to talk,” he said quietly. “And not about the party.”
She started to shake her head in an instinctive denial. They hadn’t seen each other a half-dozen times in the past ten years. Before that they’d parted in anger and hurt. Then the first time they were alone together, she fell apart in his arms and into his bed. He must think she’d lost her mind.
She wasn’t sure she hadn’t.
“I know