His Baby Surprise

“Unless it’s a matter of life and death, Freddie Hatfield avoids this place like a bachelor avoids a widow’s convention.” Martha shook her head and laughed. “Always has been delicate. Faints dead away at the smell of antiseptic.”

Delicate?

Ty frowned at Martha’s description of Fred Hatfield. Of all the terms he thought she might use to describe a man with a weak stomach, delicate wasn’t among them.

A low moan from the infirmary broke through his musing. While Martha went to check the patient, Ty entered the locker room to change clothes.

All in all, he’d had a pretty good day, he decided, pulling on the blue scrubs. He hadn’t seen anything more serious than Harv Jenkins’s sore joints, and anticipated a routine birth.

Rotating his shoulders, Ty found much of the tension that had plagued him in recent weeks had begun to dissipate. Now if he could just get the nightmares under control….

Shaking off the guilt and regret, Ty scrubbed, plastered a smile on his face and shouldered open the door to the birthing room. He wasn’t about to let the tragic events that led to his being here intrude on his good mood.

“Where’s Freddie?” the patient asked.

Martha laughed. “Where do you think?”

“Over at the Blue Bird.”

A tingle raced the length of Ty’s spine at the patient’s familiar soft southern drawl. Only one woman’s voice had ever affected him that way. He glanced over at the bed, but Martha blocked his view. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear—

He shook his head at the ridiculous thought.

“Freddie took off out of here like a scalded dog,” Martha said.

As he tied the bottom strings of the mask around his neck, Ty listened to the patient groan, then huff and puff her way through a contraction. When it finally eased, she blew out a deep cleansing breath.

“Freddie’s a big wimp,” she said, her voice raspy.

He couldn’t have said it better. No matter how queasy old Fred was, the guy could at least try to be present for the birth of his child.

“O-o-oh, why do they…have to come…so close together?” the woman moaned a split second before she began panting her way through another pain.

His disdain for the weak-kneed Fred increased. Compelled to reassure his patient, Ty walked over to the side of the bed. “You’ll do just…”

His voice trailed off as he stared openmouthed at the woman in the final stages of labor. Alexis Madison, popular talk radio hostess and, until almost a year ago, Ty’s next door neighbor, was about to give birth in a rural health clinic in eastern Tennessee.

The last time he’d seen Alexis had been the night before she left Chicago. Due to a station buyout, she’d been told to move her show to Los Angeles or find work elsewhere. She’d chosen to quit and move back to Tennessee. In fact, she was one of the reasons he’d taken the job in Dixie Ridge. When he’d been looking for a place to hide from the media, he remembered her talking about the peace and quiet of the Smoky Mountains. After sending out a few feelers, he’d jumped at the chance to temporarily take over the clinic.

The disappointment tightening his chest surprised him. He’d been more than a little attracted to her from the moment they met and had intended to look her up while he was here in the hopes of becoming better acquainted. But there wasn’t any reason to do that now. She’d obviously found some guy named Fred as soon as she moved back, gotten married and started a family.

He forced a smile as he gazed down at her. “Hello, Alexis.”

Lexi figured it had to be the pain causing hallucinations. It had been almost ten long months since she’d heard Tyler Braden’s rich baritone. Besides, the location was all wrong. She was back home in the mountains of Tennessee, not the concrete jungle of Chicago.

But when she opened her eyes, the metallic taste of fear spread through her suddenly dry mouth and she let out a horrified moan. “N-o-o-o…not you!”

“You knew Doc Fletcher wouldn’t be here for the delivery,” Martha reminded her. She reached up to pat Ty’s shoulder. “This here’s Doc Braden. He’s fillin’ in.”

Panic swept through Lexi and she grabbed the front of Martha’s white uniform. “Get him away from me!”

“Simmer down, Lexi.” Martha disengaged herself and turned to Ty. “Don’t take offense. They all act like they’re devil possessed by the time they reach this stage of the game.”

“Please, Martha,” Lexi pleaded. She had to make the woman understand she didn’t want Tyler Braden anywhere near her. “I don’t want him delivering my baby.”

“Lexi, you know there ain’t another doctor within thirty miles of here,” Martha said, her voice stern.

“Then you do it!”

“Now, cut that out.” Martha shook her finger. “You know the only time I catch a baby is when the doctor can’t get here in time.”

“Then go tell Freddie to get the car…and take me to Granny Applegate!” Lexi felt like a beached whale as she struggled to sit up.

“Who the hell is Granny Applegate?” Ty asked.

“An old woman up on Piney Knob,” Martha said, pushing Lexi’s shoulders back down when she finally managed to prop herself up on her elbows. “Granny takes care of some of the folks around here with her home remedies. And she’s delivered more babies than a porcupine has quills or time to count ’em.”

Upset and completely unprepared for the next contraction, Lexi moaned. Pain pulled at her insides, demanding her body take action. Closing her eyes, a guttural sound rumbled in the back of her throat as she strained with all her might to push her baby into the world.

When the contraction ended, she opened her eyes to see Ty shaking his head. “Don’t be ridiculous, Alexis. There’s no other choice. You wouldn’t make it as far as the front door before you give birth.”

“You two know each other?” Martha asked curiously, her keen eyes assessing the situation.

“We’ve met,” Ty said, a muscle along his lean jaw tightening.

“A long time ago-o-o,” Lexi added as her body demanded another push.

Ty frowned and stepped to the end of the bed. “Unless I miss my guess, your protest is about to become a moot point. How long have you been having contractions, Alexis?”

When he tried to lift the sheet, Lexi planted her feet on the end of it. “My name is Lexi. And leave that sheet alone.”

He pulled at the linen. She pressed her feet down more firmly.

“All right, Lexi. How long have you been in labor?”

“Since early this morning.” She couldn’t think of a more humiliating situation than her current position, and where Ty was about to look. They were really no more than casual acquaintances. “Get away from me.”

He ignored her protest, freed the sheet and arranged it over her bent knees. “Why did you wait so long before you came to the clinic?”

“I didn’t realize…I was in labor-r-r.” Another wave of pain swept over her and she completely forgot her embarrassment as she rode the swell of the contraction. “I just…had a backache…until my water broke. That’s when…the pain really became intense.”

Ty’s examination confirmed his earlier suspicions. Alexis was fully dilated and the fetus had entered the birth canal. “We’ll have to put this argument on hold for a while, Lexi. You’re about to have your baby.”

Pushing his personal feelings aside, Ty’s physician instincts took control. “We need to get her feet in the stirrups, Martha.”

Martha nodded and moved the retractable equipment into place. “These new birthin’ beds are the best thing to come along since penicillin. Maybe we’ll get more maternity cases here at the clinic now that we have this little jewel.”

“Where do most of the women go?” Ty asked as he tied his mask in place. “Granny Applegate?”