Mountain Midwife

“Trust you?” Not wanting to upset Goldie, she kept her voice level. Inside, she was far from calm. “You don’t deserve my trust.”

“That’s not what you said when I was saving your butt.”

“I didn’t ask for your help.”

“Come on, Rachel. I could have left you in the middle of a shoot-out. I’m not a bad guy.”

“If you hadn’t hidden in the back of my van and kidnapped me—” she paused for emphasis”—kidnapped me at gunpoint, I wouldn’t have been in a shoot-out.”

“There were circumstances.”

“Don’t care.” Right now, she was supposed to be on vacation, relaxing in her cozy condo with a fragrant cup of chamomile tea and a good book. “I want this nightmare to be over. And when it is, I never want to see you again.”

“Fair enough.” He stood and stretched. “Take care of Goldie. I’m going to make sure we’re secure.”

“Go right ahead.”

COLE OPENED THE CABIN DOOR and stepped onto the porch. The brief moment of warmth when he’d been inside the cabin made the cold feel even worse than before. The blizzard still raged, throwing handfuls of snow into his face. The icy temperatures instantly froze his bare hands. In his left, he held his gun. In his right, the cell phone. His intention was to call for help. Shivering, he turned on the phone. His power was almost gone. He had no signal at this remote cabin. Holding the phone like a beacon, he turned in every direction, trying to make a connection. Nada. Damn it. He hoped the GPS signal was still transmitting his location to his FBI handlers.

The wind-blown snow had already begun to erase their tracks. Drifts piled up, nearly two feet deep on one side of the log cabin walls. In this storm, visual surveillance was nearly impossible. He couldn’t see past the trees into the forest. All he could do was try to get his bearings.

In front of the house was a turn-around driveway. Less than thirty feet away, he saw the blocky shape of a small outbuilding. A garage? There might be something in there that would aid in their escape.

The wide front door of the garage was blocked by the drifting snow, but there was a side entrance. He shoved it open and entered. The interior was unlit, but there was some illumination from a window at the rear. The open space in the middle seemed to indicate that this building was used as a garage when the people who owned the cabin were here. Under the window, he found a workbench with tools for home repair. Stacked along the walls was a variety of sporting equipment: cross-country skis, poles and snowshoes.

He’d never tried cross-country skiing before, but Rachel probably knew how to use this stuff. She was a hardy mountain woman. Prepared for the snow. Intrepid. What was her problem, anyway?

He’d been about to tell her that he was a fed and she had no more reason to fear, but she’d shut him down. Her big, beautiful blue eyes glared at him with unmistakable anger. She’d said that she didn’t give a damn about him.

He didn’t believe her. Though she had every reason to be ticked off, she didn’t hate him. There was something growing between them. A spark. He saw it in her body language, heard it in her voice, felt it in a dim flicker inside his frozen body. Maybe after they were safe and she knew he was a good guy, he’d pursue that attraction. Or maybe not. He had a hard time imagining Rachel in sunny California, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to move to these frigid, airless mountains.

Leaving the garage, he tromped along the driveway to a narrow road that hadn’t been cleared of snow. No tire tracks. Nothing had been on this road since the beginning of the storm.

He looked back toward the house. Though the curtains were drawn, he could still see the light from inside. If anyone came looking for them, they wouldn’t be hard to find.

CRADLING THE BABY on her shoulder, Rachel padded around in the kitchen in her wool socks. She heard the front door open and saw Cole stumble inside. He locked the door and placed his gun on the coffee table. And his cell phone.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a phone?” she asked.

“It’s almost dead. And I can’t get a signal.”

Warily, she approached the table. “Who were you trying to call?”

“Somebody to get us the hell out of here.”

“Like who?” She wasn’t sure that she wanted to be rescued by any of his friends. Out of the frying pan into the fire.

“I’m not trying to trick you.” He tossed the phone to her. “Go ahead. See if you can get the damn thing to work.”

She juggled the phone and waved it all around while he went through the door to the bedroom. He hadn’t been lying about the lack of signal, but that didn’t set her mind at ease.

Returning to the kitchen, she focused on preparing the formula—a task she’d performed hundreds of times before. Not only was she the third oldest of eight children, but her responsibilities at the clinic also included more than assisting at births. She also made regular visits to new moms, helping them with baby care, feeding and providing necessary immunizations.

The water she’d put into a saucepan on the stove was just beginning to boil. Since she had no idea about the source of this liquid, she wanted to make sure germs and bacteria had been killed. Ten minutes of boiling should be enough. A cloud of steam swirled around her. From the other room, she heard doors opening and closing. She hoped Cole was changing out of his wet clothes. He looked half-frozen.

His well-being shouldn’t matter to her, but she’d be lying if she told herself she wasn’t attracted to him. All her life, she’d been drawn to outsiders and renegades. There was something about bad boys that always sucked her in.

Her first serious boyfriend had owned a motorcycle shop and had tattoos up and down both arms. He definitely hadn’t been the kind of guy she could bring home to meet her stable, responsible, churchgoing parents, which might have been part of her fascination with him. She’d loved riding on the back of his Harley, loved the way he’d grab her and kiss her in front of his biker friends. He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her. He’d called her “baby doll” and given her a black leather jacket with a skull and a heart on the back.

On the very day she’d intended to move in with him, she’d discovered him in bed with another woman, and she’d heard him tell this leggy blond stranger that she—the blond bimbo—was his baby doll.

Even now, ten years later, that memory set Rachel’s blood boiling. Before she’d departed from motorcycle man’s house, she’d gone into his garage, dumped gasoline on her leather jacket and set it on fire.

After that ride on the wild side, she should have learned. Instead, she’d gone through a series of edgy boyfriends—daredevils, rock musicians, soldiers of fortune. Like an addict, she was drawn to their intensity.

Cole was one of those guys.

True, he had risked his life to rescue her and Goldie. He wasn’t evil. But he wasn’t somebody she wanted to know better.

Using a dish towel, she wiped around the lid of the container before she opened the powdered formula. There was food for Goldie, but what about them? Searching the kitchen, she found a supply of canned food and an opened box of crackers. There was also flour and sugar and olive oil. If they got snowed in for a day or two, they wouldn’t starve to death. A day or two? The idea of being trapped with Cole both worried and excited her.

One-handed and still holding the fidgeting baby, she measured and mixed the formula. “Almost done,” she murmured to Goldie. “You’ll feel better after you eat.”

One of the reasons Rachel had moved to the mountains was to get away from sexy bad boys who would ultimately hurt her. As a midwife, she didn’t come into contact with many single men and hadn’t had a date in months. Fine with me! She preferred the calm warmth of celibacy to a fiery affair that would leave her with nothing but a handful of ashes.

Bottle in hand, she returned to the living room just as Cole stepped out of the bathroom, drying his dark blond hair with a towel. He’d changed into a sweatshirt and gray sweatpants that were too short, leaving his ankles exposed. On his feet, he wore wool socks.

“Did you take a shower?” she asked.

“A hot shower. They have one of those wall-hanging propane water heaters.”

She gazed longingly toward the bathroom. “Hot water?”

He held out his arms. “Give me the baby. I’ll feed her while you shower and change out of those wet jeans. There are clothes in the bedroom.”

That was all it took to convince her. She nodded toward the rocking chair. “Sit. Do you know how to feed an infant?”

“How hard can it be?”

“You haven’t been around babies much, have you?”

“I was an only child.”

Another piece of personal information she didn’t need to know. “Here’s how it’s done. Don’t force the nipple into her mouth. Let her take it. She’s tired and will probably drop off before she gets enough nourishment. Gently nudge with the nipple. That stimulates the sucking reflex.”

She placed Goldie in his arms and watched him. His rugged hands balanced the clear plastic bottle with a touching clumsiness. When Goldie latched onto the nipple, Cole looked up at her and grinned triumphantly. He really was trying to be helpful. She had to give him credit.

“What did you find when you went outside?” she asked. “Is it safe for us to stay here?”