smiled faintly in return. “I guess you felt that kick.”
“Let me put the quilt over you.”
“The fire is keeping me nice and warm.” She turned her head to stare into the flames. “I love wood fires.”
He decided this might be the time to find a knife and some string, wipe them as clean as possible with alcohol and have them handy when the need arose. By the time he returned he’d made up his mind not to tell her that he’d do his best to make sure she and her baby would be okay.
The most reassuring thing he could do for her was to keep his mouth shut about how inexperienced he really was. The more confidence she felt about his ability, the less frightened she would be. Strange how people assumed cops delivered lots of babies.
“What happened out there? Lose your way in the storm?” he asked.
“When it got really bad, I must have taken a wrong turn.”
“That can happen. You’re a long way off the route to Duluth.”
“Then the car skidded and I hit a tree,” she said. “The airbag stunned me for a bit.” She crossed her hands over her abdomen. “At least the baby seems to be all right.”
“As long as she can kick she must be.”
Fay raised an eyebrow. “She?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know why I said that.”
“Most men would have said he. They all seem to want sons.”
Since Dan didn’t want a son or a daughter, raising children in today’s world being too chancy, he didn’t comment.
“Or else they don’t want either a boy or a girl.” Her words almost made him feel she was reading his mind, but the bitterness threading through them told him she wasn’t thinking of him at all.
“Your—” he began, then changed what he’d been about to say. Since a lot of mothers today were single parents, he wouldn’t ask about a husband. “The baby’s father?”
“Dead.”
“I’m sorry.” Uncomfortable now, he decided to stop asking personal questions. “We’ll need something to put the baby in once she’s born.”
Fay smiled slightly. “She, again. I bought a baby bed, one of those you strap into a car, but that’s where it is—in the wrecked car along with other baby stuff. And mine, too.” She glanced at a window and shook her head. “You can’t possibly go out into that horrible storm. So we’ll need something temporary.”
His gaze fastened on the handcrafted wood-box his grandfather had made to hold his logs and kindling. He rose, strode to the fireplace and dumped the contents of the box onto the floor.
“Once I clean this up, we’ll have our temporary crib,” he said.
“Looks fine to me. Have you thought about diapers?”
Diapers? Naturally not. As far as he knew most babies wore disposable ones these days. Which didn’t help in the here and now. “I saw a stack of old flannel sheets in the cedar chest. I can line the wood-box with some, and I could cut up some for diapers and others for baby blankets.”
“Good idea.”
He handed her his watch so she could time her own contractions, while he went to fetch the sheets.
Coming back, he cleaned the wood-box carefully and lined it with a flannel sheet, using two more folded for a pad at the bottom. While he worked he kept glancing worriedly at Fay. Finished, he settled the padded box near the fireplace for the heat to warm it, trying to imagine a newborn baby nestling inside. He couldn’t.
Shaking his head, he brought the flannel sheets he meant to cut up back to where Fay lay on the couch, pulled a chair over and sat next to her. He started to ask her if she was okay, then noticed that, her face tense, she was timing a contraction. Finally she sighed and relaxed.
“How long did that one last?” he asked. When she told him, he realized the contractions were lasting a little longer each time.
For several minutes she watched him pile the pieces of cloth onto the coffee table he’d pushed aside. “I’m certainly inconveniencing you,” she said finally.
“Emergencies are what cops are for.” He reinforced his words with a smile. Poor kid, she needed all the reassurance he could dig up.
“I’m so glad—” she paused, wincing. “Another one. Really powerful.”
A minute or two later, she said, “Um, Dan?”
“What is it?”
“I didn’t have a partner for my birthing classes. If I tell you what to do, would you mind holding my hand and helping me breathe the right way?”
Between contractions, she explained his role. He edged the chair closer, took her hand in his and breathed with her. “You’re doing fine, Fay. We’ll get through this together.”
“Together,” she murmured and then moaned, caught up in a contraction he thought would never end.
“Come on, breathe with me,” he told her.
Damn. He figured that pretty soon he’d have to do more than put a hand on her abdomen and that scared the hell out of him. The baby’s head comes out first, he reminded himself. Normally face down. That’s when he was supposed to tell her to push. He thought he remembered the instructor saying to try not to let the baby pop out too fast because it might injure the mother. He gritted his teeth, unsure of how to prevent that. Tell her not to push?
When the contraction ended, he got up, hurried to the phone and lifted the receiver. Still dead. As it undoubtedly would be until the storm was over. He straightened his shoulders. Okay. It was up to him. He could do this. He’d never failed an assignment yet. He’d never had one this tough, though.
“You’re limping,” Fay said.
To think she’d noticed with as much strain as she was under. “My leg’s almost healed,” he said.
Her contractions came closer and closer together. “I think something’s leaking out,” she said after the last one. She’d already put her knees up, with her feet flat on the couch, legs spread apart.
“I feel like pushing.” She gritted the words out.
He didn’t want to keep the baby from coming out, but he placed his hand against the opening as she pushed.
Fay’s breathing came in gasping grunts now and he took his hand away and saw the baby’s head. He then caught the baby as it slid out.
But something wasn’t right. She wasn’t crying. Was she breathing? The instructor’s voice came back to him. “Hold the baby upside down, insert your little finger in its mouth and extract any mucus that might be blocking the baby’s airway.”
Holding his breath, he followed through. A glob of mucus dribbled from the baby’s mouth, she coughed,
