Close Pursuit

He looked vaguely startled—a first for him. “I beg your pardon?”

OMG. He really doesn’t know that? “Women don’t like to be told they look bad.”

He frowned, his formidable mind obviously examining her statement from ninety-two different angles. “I suppose that’s logical if a woman is insecure about her appearance for some reason.”

“News flash, Einstein—all women are insecure about their appearance.”

“I have no context within which to place that remark.”

Oh, for the love of Mike. “Are you always such a geek?”

For just a second, something incongruous—and totally non-geeky—flashed in his eyes. Amusement. Male appreciation. Desire.

What. The. Heck? Where did the geek go?

She did a sharp double take, and his eyes were back to being as guarded and clueless as ever.

* * *

ALEX CONSIDERED KATIE—or at least the tip of her nose where it poked out of her sleeping bag. She could prove to be a serious problem. For a self-professed dingbat blonde, Katie had already showed herself to be deeply intuitive. Smarter than she let on. God knew, she was easy on the eye. The first thing he supposed most people would notice about her was the lush, golden hair falling in soft waves around her face. Or maybe her bright blue eyes. Or maybe even her slender, attractive figure.

Frankly, the thing he’d keyed in on first was her smile. It was warm and genuine and filled a room. He would like to think his mother had smiled like that. But, knowing his father, the man would never have gone for an open, loving woman. His old man would have gone for an ice bitch with a heart as hard and cold as a diamond.

Which would, of course, be more in keeping with his mother’s early and complete disappearance from his life. He had no memory of the woman whatsoever. Had no idea what happened to her. Never seen a picture. Never even heard a name.

A loose rock rolled outside, and he jerked to full alert. He shed the sleeping bag he’d wrapped around his shoulders and slid into the shadow beside the tent flap. He shook a razor-sharp scalpel out of his sleeve and slid it into his palm.

A low voice whispered on the other side of the canvas and then devolved into the persistent cough most of the locals had. Dammit. He didn’t understand a word of what the voice was saying. But it was female. He pulled the flap back, and two lumps of black cloth crouched in front of him. He gestured for them to come inside. The scalpel went inconspicuously back inside his sleeve as he moved to the back of the tent.

“Katie, wake up.” He gave her shoulder a shake through the down sleeping bag. She felt small and fragile under his hand. A temptation he couldn’t afford, dammit.

“Wha—” she mumbled as she rolled onto her back. Heavy sleeper. Must be nice to be so naive. It had been a long time since he’d thought the world was safe enough to sleep like that.

“I need a translator.”

She sat up sharply. “Oh!” She looked over at the two women huddled by the door and said something in the native tongue. It was a guttural and clumsy-sounding language.

“You’re on, Doc,” Katie announced. “The one on the left is in labor. Older one is her grandmother. Says she’s worried because her granddaughter is young and small.”

“How young?” he bit out.

Another exchange of words. Then Katie answered grimly, “Fourteen. Her first baby.”

One of the burka-wrapped shapes bent over just then and gave a low moan. Grandma propped up the girl as the contraction gripped her.

All the deliveries had been routine so far. Adult women, mostly on at least their fourth kid. But a first-timer barely into her teens? This could get interesting. His training in obstetrics was superficial; he was primarily a trauma surgeon. But all doctors were required to pull an obstetrics rotation in medical school. The men in prison with him who had constituted much of his on-the-job medical experience hadn’t given birth to a hell of a lot of babies—which was to say, any babies.

He’d pulled a short stint in a maternity ward to deliver a few more kids before he’d been sent out here. But he’d never seen a case like this. Nothing like trial by fire to earn his stripes as an obstetrician.

“Get the girl onto a cot. I need her out of her clothes but covered enough to keep her warm. I’ll crank up the heater while you ladies take care of all that,” he instructed.

It was forbidden for males of any stripe, even doctors, to look at any part of a woman in this part of the world, especially where he’d have to look to deliver a baby. But with all the local midwives dead, he was the only show in town. The Doctors Unlimited folks in Washington, D.C., had explained that it would be a death sentence for him and his patients to be caught. But the D.U. staff had believed—correctly—that local women would risk it anyway.

Crazy thing, that. Women wanting to have a fighting chance at surviving childbirth. What were they thinking? He snorted sarcastically as he turned up the propane heater. Without proper care, one in three women in this part of the world died in childbirth or soon after from complications. Doctors Unlimited and other aid organizations had spent the past several decades training midwives, and the mortality rate had dropped to rates commensurate with the West. Until this past winter and the midwife massacre.

He commenced meticulously scrubbing his hands and forearms over a bucket of water so cold it made his fingernails turn blue. How in the hell was he supposed to work under these conditions?

A muttered argument ensued behind him, and Katie announced, “The girl doesn’t want you to examine her or help unless things go badly.”

“And how am I supposed to know things are going badly if I can’t look at my patient?” he snapped.

She sighed. “They want you to tell me what to look for.”

“That’s absurd. You have no medical training whatsoever.”

“That’s what I told them. She’s adamant, though. And embarrassed.”

“But I’m a doctor—”

“And she’s a young, terrified girl who cannot read or write and will be beaten to death by her husband if he catches her here.”

“Then why did she come?” he demanded, low and angry.

Katie came over to stand directly in front of him. Her eyes were huge and beseeching as she looked up at him. “Because she’s more scared of her baby dying than of dying herself.”

He stared down at her, seared by the zeal in her eyes. He grumbled, “This sucks.”

“Welcome to life as a female a thousand years ago.”

He just shook his head. “The first thing to do is see if the baby’s presenting headfirst. You’ll have to use a speculum and a flashlight since it’s so dark in here.” The lone lantern was barely bright enough to read by, let alone perform surgery by.

Katie gulped and headed for the laboring girl, who was moaning again. He glanced at his watch. Contractions were under two minutes apart. “Do you know what a speculum is?” he asked.

“Every woman who’s ever had an ob-gyn exam knows what one is,” Katie replied frostily.

His lips twitched with humor, and he was glad her back was turned to him. “How far is she dilated?” he asked.

“There’s about a silver-dollar-sized opening,” Katie reported a moment later. “What does a head look like?”

“Like a wet, hairy balloon pressed against the cervix.”

“Then we’ve got a problem. I’m seeing pink skin. And it’s kind of pointy. Maybe bony. Like, umm, a baby bottom?”

“Breech presentation,” he bit out. “You’re going to have to talk our reluctant patient into letting me help.”

But Mama was having no part of it. It was outrageous that he had to stand there and do nothing when he could be attempting to turn the baby before it entered the birth canal. Although given how small Mom was, that would be a dicey proposition at best. He really needed to consider a C-section sooner rather than later.

“Tell her I want to discuss a C-section.”