Cherished Beginnings Page 2

  Chapter 2

  The glare of the low-lying South Carolina sunset was muted in this shadowed room where filtered light touched the liquid dark eyes and high cheekbones of the dark-skinned woman laboring on the bed.

  Maura brushed a strand of her own auburn hair back behind her ear and summoned up all the feeling and intuition of her art. Gently she stroked the woman's damp brow, concentrating on focusing her abundant energy so that the woman might draw strength from it.

  "Push, Annie," she said, her voice low and vibrant with emotion. No matter how many babies she delivered, Maura never failed to feel reverence for new life and respect for the dignity of motherhood. The emotional and spiritual aspects of the art of midwifery were what made this calling so special.

  Annie rolled her eyes and looked frightened. Maura felt a stab of doubt about the situation. But what could she expect from this woman? Annie had never laid eyes on Maura until a few short hours ago. It was Maura's responsibility to reassure her.

  Maura knew that Annie was afraid of the sensations of labor and needed to slow down. She slipped around the edge of the bed and eased herself down beside her. "Slow your breathing," she urged, placing Annie's hand on her own flat abdomen and demonstrating how to draw each breath slower and deeper than before.

  Annie relaxed visibly, smiling as she became centered within herself and therefore less tense. She raised grateful eyes to Maura's. "Sure am glad you happened along," she said.

  "I am, too," Maura told her warmly. She glanced at the small girl who hung over the back of a spraddle-legged straight chair in a corner, watching the proceedings with fascinated interest.

  "You all right, Cindy?" Annie asked anxiously, craning her neck so she could see her daughter.

  "Yes, Mama," said the child.

  "Any time you want to leave, you go on," Annie said.

  "I want to be with you, Mama."

  Annie took a deep breath. "That's good. It makes me feel better having you near."

  The fact of this family's privation had been evident from the moment Maura saw the shack with its tar-paper roof and the porch leaning haphazardly to one side. "Such poverty!" she'd muttered to herself. Her anger at this need existing only a stone's throw away from the exclusive resort and residential community of Teoway Island had taken second place, however, to her sense of purpose when she'd encountered the frightened young woman on the sagging bed in one of the cabin's two rooms.

  "I sent Cindy up to the store to call Dr. Copeland around noon," Annie told her shyly after Maura quickly explained that she was a nurse-midwife and qualified to deliver Annie's baby. "She told him I couldn't get to the hospital and asked him to come here. Doubt he'll be here now." Annie's voice was meek and accepting.

  "Please don't worry, Annie. I'm here to help you." Maura adjusted pillows behind Annie's head and went to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water in preparation for the ordeal ahead.

  When Maura first arrived earlier, Annie's labor was well advanced. She'd told Maura that for a long time, she hadn't believed she was in labor. When she realized that the baby was coming, her cell phone battery was dead, and there was no landline. If Maura hadn't happened along, Annie would have delivered her baby in fear and pain with only her eight-year-old daughter in attendance.

  Maura had offered to call an ambulance if Annie preferred, but Annie clung to her hand and begged. "No, please don't. I'm afraid of hospitals. Nobody goes there unless to die. I'd like it better if you'd bring my baby."

  Providing home births to low-income families was why Maura had moved here, and Annie certainly qualified. No car stood in the weed-filled yard, and there were no near neighbors that Maura could see. When she asked Cindy if there was a man in the home, the child had been evasive. Finally she admitted haltingly in speech punctuated by the local Geechee dialect that her father had moved out long ago.

  "He don't come 'round hyah," Cindy said. "When he do, it's hurtin' time."

  So. No help from that quarter, nor would they want it. Annie Bodkin was definitely a hardship case.

  It made Maura's blood boil that no one had been looking after Annie. In her estimation, it should have been her doctor. Alexander Copeland could have called in social workers, visiting nurses, or any of the other advocacy organizations available to help. Clearly he hadn't.

  Right now, while Annie was working hard to deliver this baby, the man she'd depended on for medical care was probably relaxing in the cocktail lounge at the Teoway Island Inn and bragging about his golf game.

  Oh, Maura hadn't forgotten her own lightning response to the man's innate sensuality. But she was glad to find out exactly what kind of lackadaisical doctor he really was. In her own mind, this new perception of Alexander Copeland, M.D. justified bolting from his office this afternoon.

  Maura went back into the bedroom and reached for the lip balm in her bag. She deftly applied it to Annie's parched lips. "Would you like a lozenge?" she asked Annie after the next contraction.

  "A what?"

  "A hard candy. So your mouth won't feel dry."

  "Oh, yes."

  Maura placed the lozenge on Annie's tongue, and Annie's eyes drifted closed in relief.

  Maura had drawn the ragged shades over the windows to block out the scorching rays of the sun, but the sun penetrated the shades anyway through tiny holes torn in the plastic. Perspiration beaded Maura's forehead and soaked the back of her blouse and the smock she wore to protect her clothes. She raised one of the shades a few inches to admit some fresh air, although there was no breeze in this heavily wooded place.

  The moisture-drenched air in the cabin was hot, too hot, and she sponged Annie's face with a damp rag. "Get me some more water, will you, honey?" she asked Cindy.

  Cindy said, "Yes'm," and scampered away to the rust-stained sink in the kitchen.

  Maura stood, lacing her fingers behind her back and raising her arms in a yoga exercise to relieve the tension in her shoulder muscles. Labor coaching was always hard work.

  She sat down again and wrung the cloth out with fresh cool water from the bucket. She watched Annie carefully, timing Annie's contractions. Cindy brought a palm-leaf fan and waved it over the bed to stir the heavy air.

  "Oh!" Annie gasped suddenly, her spine suddenly going rigid with a new contraction. "The baby's coming!"

  Maura jumped to her feet and bent over the bed, checking. It was true. The last strong contraction had made the birth imminent. "Good, Annie," she encouraged. "A good, strong push." And then, crooning, "Come on, baby. That's right."

  The baby's head was in view now. Its head and—oh, no!—a tiny arm. This was a compound presentation, a complication. Maura caught her breath in consternation, observing the small head carefully. Everything looked fine, except for that little arm. Its presence meant that the baby's head would have to be rotated and the arm drawn gently forward so that the shoulders could be born.

  What a time for a motorcycle to skid into the yard, shooting out sand and gravel. Maura spared the motorcycle and its rider only a quick glance through the gap between shade and windowsill. She didn't have time to speculate about who it was and what he might be doing in this godforsaken place. She was summoning all her knowledge of midwifery, all the skill and learning within her, to safely deliver Angie's baby.

  As usual at birthings, Maura was the only one with the skill and expertise to provide a healthy delivery for both mother and child. Everything, absolutely everything, depended on her.

  * * *

  Xan Copeland slid from the seat of his bright blue Harley-Davidson and propped it on its kickstand. It didn't want to stay propped because the earth here was too soft, so he looked around for a rock and nudged it beneath the stand with his toe so the bike wouldn't fall over. Then he turned and sized up the wooden shack.

  Typical, and about what he'd expected. Mrs. Annie Bodkin had seen him for prenatal care, all right. Exactly twice. Then she'd dropped out of sight and he hadn't heard a word from her until today when a child had left a
message on his cell phone that was broken up by static. All he'd been able to decipher was "My mother... Bodkin... baby."

  By hitting his call return button, he'd managed to talk to someone at the store where the call was placed. A man had answered the phone and said that "the little Bodkin girl" had taken off like a shot as soon as she'd placed the call. He didn't know exactly where the Bodkins lived. They moved around a lot, he said, ever since Annie Bodkin lost her job.

  Xan almost gave up. The 911 Emergency EMTs needed a house address, and he had none. Also, Quinby Hospital had a rule that only mothers who were seen regularly for prenatal care were to be admitted. With Annie Bodkin, there was no possibility of hospital admittance. If the EMTs managed to get to her, they'd have to take her to the big hospital in Charleston, which was pretty far away for a woman in the throes of labor. If that's what this was.

  But he recalled Annie's tight, scared face on the two occasions when she'd shown up for checkups. Back then he'd known with a kind of sixth sense that he'd probably never see her again, and that was why he'd written his cell phone number on the back of a business card and told her to call him if she wanted to talk. If Annie had fears, he wanted to allay them. If he could convince her to continue with prenatal care, that would be all to the good. Annie had never called.

  Today, Xan hadn't had it in him to let the child's phone call go unheeded. He'd looked up Annie's address in his records. He knew the neighborhood. He figured that he'd check on his way home to see if she still lived there. However, as he was about to leave his office, the hospital had called with the news that one of his regular patients was about to deliver. Afterward, he'd hopped on his bike and raced over here, taking several wrong turns down dead-end lanes before an old man directed him to this isolated cabin where a small girl was sitting on the edge of the porch.

  "I'm Dr. Copeland," he said. "Does Annie Bodkin live here?"

  "Uh-huh. My mom asked me to call you, and I did, and you didn't come hyah," she said accusingly.

  "I'm sorry, honey," he replied. "I got here as fast as I could."

  He ignored the stairs, which looked so rotten that he doubted they would hold his weight, and bounded directly onto the porch. When nobody answered his urgent knock, he pulled at the flimsy screen door until it swung open.

  He glanced swiftly around the room, a combination cooking and eating and living room. A door led to another room and he strode to it. He wasn't at all prepared for what he saw.

  Annie lay on the bed giving birth. That registered immediately. But who was assisting her? This redhead whose hair sparkled with the fire of rubies in the streamers of light beaming through the holes in the ragged window shades?

  Something made him stop dead in his tracks. It was a redhead with long bare arms. Her arms were what he noticed about her most, after her red hair. At the moment those arms were employed in an activity about which he thought he knew everything, but he'd never before seen anyone delivering a baby with such grace, such rhythm.

  She made a kind of ballet out of it, raising it from the ordinary to the sublime, if such a thing were possible. She bent gracefully over the bed and the woman, coordinating the motion of her shoulders and arms and hands and hips to Annie's needs. Watching her, he was transfixed at the subtle and intuitive movements and at the spirituality of the process.

  "Annie, everything is wonderful, everything is fine," she said, and her voice was low and husky and gentle, almost hypnotic in its effect. It was then that he realized with a start that this was Maura McNeill, the woman he'd seen in his office earlier, the one who had caused consternation among his office staff by bolting and running from the examining room.

  Now, through eyes narrowed in speculation, he permitted himself to look at her, to really look at her as a man looks at a woman. It was a luxury he never allowed himself when seeing patients.

  She wasn't a glamour girl, that was evident. She was strong, and she looked sensible. And sensitive, too, he could tell by the curves of her mouth. He wasn't attracted to weak-mouthed women, but she wasn't one of them. He liked to see a full bottom lip, which she had, with a generously bowed top lip. Her teeth were square and white and even.

  Oh, but there was something wrong! As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, his breath tightened apprehensively in his throat as he realized that the birth was a compound presentation. The infant's hand was presenting alongside its ear. He was ready to run back to his bike to get his bag when Maura glanced quickly back over her shoulder and smiled coolly.

  The smile staggered him. Such glowing beauty in these miserable surroundings seemed out of place enough, but it was what was behind the smile that almost knocked him over. A competence, a reassurance. She was reassuring him?

  But wait—she was grasping the infant's hand and rotating its head, exactly as he would have done, and far more gently, too. She was no blundering amateur at this. She knew what she was doing. That thought set him back almost as much as the smile. He backed off, leaned against the wall, and watched. He wanted to see what she'd do next.

  Maura carefully extracted the baby's arm, and in a rush the shoulders followed. Almost immediately the baby slid free. Her voice rang with exuberance and triumph as the baby settled into her broad hands. "A boy, Annie!" she proclaimed with great joy and feeling. "A wonderful, beautiful boy!"

  Annie, beaming, reached for the baby, which immediately rent the humid air with a lusty cry. Maura, with a beatific radiance on her face, gently arranged the tiny infant in Annie's arms.

  "Cindy, you have a baby brother," she called.

  The little girl crept close to the bed, her round eyes filled with awe and wonder, and wordlessly Maura drew her to Annie so that Cindy could lay her small brown cheek against her mother's. It was a tableau so touching and so moving that Xan Copeland felt the sting of tears in his eyes.

  Damn! This was ridiculous. How many births had he witnessed by this time? Hundreds? Thousands? And yet not one had been accompanied by the sensitivity or the love he had witnessed in this ugly shack.

  He blinked rapidly, once, twice. When his eyes cleared, he saw that Maura, knowing exactly what she was about, was taking care of business. Her hair, which had been drawn back in a loose clip, fell free now. It crowned her, making her seem almost madonna-like, her hair a mantle of loveliness draping over her square shoulders and softening the angular planes of her face. Unmindful of its beauty, she flipped her head so that her hair arced through the air, threading the fading rays of the sun with brilliance.

  He continued to watch silently. She knew he was watching, of course, but she had so many things to think about that she didn't have time to worry about him. She certainly hadn't recognized him as Alexander Copeland. She was just grateful he hadn't passed out when he'd bumbled unexpectedly onto a woman giving birth. Some men would have.

  Annie murmured to her new son, a good sign of bonding. The baby in its mother's arms seemed still a part of its mother until it stirred, its mouth seeking sustenance. Maura guided the tiny mouth toward the maternal breast. As mouth opened to receive nipple, the mother sighed peacefully. The tranquility of mother and child reached out to embrace Maura, making her feel marvelously in tune with the world and everything in it.

  When she was certain she could be spared, Maura straightened, massaged the aching hollow of her back for a moment, and shot the man leaning against the wall a tentative smile. It was then that she recognized with a sudden shock who he was.

  Dr. Copeland! Oh, no! Maura's knees actually gave way for a moment as her eyes widened in astonishment. She held on to the iron bedstead for support as she felt her cheeks flame red in embarrassment.

  But then, when the first flash of recognition had passed, she was stunned to see a look of grudging admiration on his face. She tried to get a handle on her runaway thoughts, to see this from his point of view.

  She was sure that he didn't think she belonged here, but she had handled a difficult delivery well, partly out of instinct, partly out of her finesse as
a midwife. She had reason to be proud of herself, but it was clear that she'd better explain.

  She drew a deep breath and let go of the bed, unsure whether her knees were operative. They held her up, which was more than she expected. She motioned toward the door with her head, dreading the confrontation with him, and he followed her as she walked very carefully, putting one foot deliberately in front of the other, into the other room.

  "Dr. Copeland, about what happened," she began uneasily, turning to face him.

  Interrupting, he said, "Call me Xan. And don't apologize. You were good in there."

  As luck would have it, he was going to be nice about it. It wasn't what she had expected from him at all. She managed to smile in relief as she brushed a wisp of hair off her forehead. "Thanks," she said. A pang of guilt speared through her as she thought about running out of his office earlier. Tired as she was, she was still aware of his all-too-virile attraction. To distract herself from his sex appeal, she said, "Do you mind if I fix tea?"

  "Not at all," he said. "May I help?" He was letting her remain in charge. This too surprised her.

  "You could find a teapot," she said as she set out the cups. She was unaccustomed to doctors doing her bidding.

  He rummaged in an old cracked cupboard until his fingers closed around the spout of a pot. He handed the pot to Maura, who poured boiling water over a handful of dried herbs and set the teapot aside to steep.

  As she worked efficiently and with practiced economy of movement, she observed Xan Copeland surreptitiously out of the corner of her eyes, thinking that it was no wonder she hadn't recognized him when he first came in. Now he wore an ordinary knit shirt, not the shirt and tie and white coat he'd worn in the office today. He hadn't buttoned any of the buttons on his present shirt, and sprigs of tightly curled black hair sprang through the placket.

  After he found the teapot, he stood watching with his arms folded over his chest, muscular arms, and his shoulders were so broad that she thought he should probably have bought the next size larger shirt. Below that his jeans looked well-worn. And he should have bought a larger size in those, too.