The Midwife And The Lawman

The only other officer on duty this shift was Hank Jensen. Hank was six months out of the New Mexico Police Academy. It would be lights and siren all the way back to The Birth Place. Devon would be furious. Madder than she’d be if he showed up. “Negative, Doris. I’m heading back into town. I’ll meet her at the Silver Creek Road intersection.”

“Affirmative. I’ll notify the clinic that you’re available.”

“I’ll give you an ETA after I connect with Ms. Grant. Eiden out.” He stood up but didn’t leave the shade of the brush arbor where he’d been sitting with his grandfather, Daniel Elkhorn. “Gotta go, Granddad. Devon Grant doesn’t want to be delivering a baby in the back of her Blazer any more than I do. I’d better see she’s got a clear run the rest of the way into town.”

His grandfather stood, too, unfolding his barrel-chested, six-foot frame from his lawn chair, and took a limping step forward. “This’ll be the second baby in two weeks that she’s talked the mother out of delivering at home. Not the best endorsement for her grandmother’s clinic.”

“How’d you know that?” Miguel looked at his grandfather over the top of his sunglasses.

“Heard it down at the Legion.” Daniel stared back at him from eyes that had faded from black to brown with the passing of years, but still seemed able to see right through him. His skin was bronzed and creased as an old leather jacket. His hair was more gray than black now. His nose jutted out from his face like a hawk’s beak. Miguel had inherited that nose. “’Course you already know that. You helped her get Ophelia Pedroza to The Birth Place, too, didn’t you?”

“It was a breech birth. I don’t blame Devon for not wanting to deliver Ophelia way the hell out on the reservation with only an assistant midwife for help. And now Lacy Belton’s running a fever. Sounds like it could be serious.”

“Or she could’ve caught a cold from one of her kids. Makes no difference. Lydia Kane will be fit to be tied that Devon’s done it again.”

Miguel didn’t have an answer for that. He opened the door of the Dodge Durango the town fathers had seen fit to buy for the chief who’d preceded him and swung inside. The air conditioner wasn’t working again. The vehicle had been sitting in the sun and the interior was like an oven. It was nearing ninety this July afternoon, a higher than normal temperature for the altitude. He rolled down the window and made a mental note to have the SUV serviced, which ensured another hour of doing paperwork.

“I’ll check back in tomorrow if I can, Granddad. And if you see anyone else prowling around the barn, you stay put inside, you hear? You’re not the only one who’s had things come up missing. It could be just kids from town or the reservation raising hell, or it could be illegals making their way north to Colorado. Either way, you don’t need to do my job for me. Give the station a call. I’ll get someone out here, pronto.”

Daniel lifted a hand in acknowledgment—or dismissal, more likely. Sixty years ago he’d island-hopped his way across the Pacific, one of the famous Marine Navajo Code Talkers. Before that he’d grown up on the Navajo reservation when living off the land was the only option for most Native Americans. Even crippled by arthritis and nearing eighty, he was fearless and a crack shot. He wouldn’t stay locked inside his trailer waiting for his grandson to come to his rescue. He’d confront the person stealing the eggs from his chicken coop and carting off things from the pile of darn-near junk behind his barn.

Miguel made up his mind to increase the patrols in this part of the township, and the old ghost town of Silverton, a mile farther into the hills. It would mean overtime for his small force, and more than likely another go-around with the town council over the cost. He must have been crazy to take over the job when Chief Hadley up and retired after his wife hit a million-dollar jackpot on an anniversary trip to Reno.

He checked the dashboard clock as he headed back out the dusty track that connected his granddad’s place with the main road. It would take him fifteen minutes to reach the rendezvous, but once he crossed the creek he’d have a good overview of Desert Valley Road—the route Devon would have to take to bring Lacy Belton off the mountain.

By the time he got there, he wouldn’t have to worry about air-conditioning. He had no doubt Devon’s frosty welcome would cool him off just fine.

DEVON SCOWLED IN ANNOYANCE. Even with half of Arroyo County to patrol, it would have to be Miguel who showed up to accompany her back into town. Not that she needed an escort. Lacy was doing just fine in the back of her Blazer, and her husband, Tom, was right behind them in his pickup with their two kids, Luke and Angie. But once she’d radioed that she was bringing her patient into the birthing center to deliver, the outcome had been inevitable.

Devon eased over to the side of the road. Miguel was standing, arms folded, beside the big brown Durango emblazoned with the Enchantment Police Department logo. His gray Stetson shading his face, he straightened as she rolled to a halt and lowered her window.

“Everything okay, Devon? Where’s your backup?” Miguel knew The Birth Place midwives usually worked in pairs for a home birth.

“No one was available.” Lacy was one of Lydia’s most loyal patients, and she’d insisted her baby be born at home. So Devon had agreed to attend the delivery alone. Reluctantly. She was a registered nurse and a certified nurse-midwife. She couldn’t quite meet Miguel’s gaze. She’d choked again and he knew it. “Lacy’s running a fever. I felt it would be better if she delivered at The Birthing Place.” She was taking the safest course for her patient. She didn’t need to feel defensive, but she did.

“I picked up a bug from the kids, that’s all,” Lacy said from the back seat. She was a little thing, but she’d already had two successful pregnancies. She began to pant, making puffing sounds through pursed lips. Devon glanced at her watch, timing the contraction. “Wow. That was a doozy.” Lacy leaned back against the seat as the contraction eased.

“We need to be on our way.” Lacy was only about five centimeters dilated, but as this was her third child, her labor would probably progress quickly. The sun had already wheeled far over into the western sky. Once it dropped behind the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, darkness would fall like a blanket.

Miguel studied Devon from behind the concealing sunglasses for a few more unnerving moments before nodding his agreement. His khaki shirt and pants were as crisp and wrinkle-free as if he’d just put them on. He looked as if the heat didn’t bother him a bit. When she was sixteen and hopelessly romantic, she’d thought his apparent disregard of physical discomfort must be the result of his Navajo and Spanish-conquistador heritage. Now she’d realized it was just as much a function of his stubborn Scot/Irish/German genes. “I’ll lead you in.” He turned away, gave Tom Belton a thumbs-up and folded his length into the seat of the SUV.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. Lacy’s contractions were a steady four minutes apart. Her face was flushed and her eyes bright with fever, but she wasn’t unduly stressed. Miguel pulled into the small parking lot at the back of the adobe-style clinic. Devon parked in the space beside him and climbed out of her truck to help Lacy from the back seat. The graveled path into the clinic was screened from the view of the parking lot and windows so that a woman in labor could walk directly into the birthing rooms unseen, even if she was wearing only a bathrobe.

It was one of the many thoughtful details that stamped the clinic with Devon’s grandmother Lydia’s unique touch.

“Do you need any help?” Miguel asked, coming to stand beside her. Devon had to tilt her head a little to meet his gaze. He’d taken off the sunglasses and she got the full dose of his deep-brown eyes. His straight dark hair held unexpected hints of copper and gold. At least it had in that long-ago summer when she’d given him her heart—and her virginity. These days he wore it military short, a reminder that he was a Marine reservist, as well as a policeman.

Lacy waved Miguel off. “I’m okay.” But she accepted Devon’s arm around her swollen waist.

Tom Belton wheeled into the last parking space in the small lot. He’d gotten held up at one of Enchantment’s few stoplights. The children came tumbling out of the truck and ran to her.

“Are you okay, Mom?” Lacy’s son asked.

“I’m fine. I just need Daddy to put his arm around me and help me inside.”

Devon stepped aside to let Tom support his wife. She looked up and saw her grandmother standing, tall and straight, just inside the open door that led to the birthing rooms. Lydia’s hair was pulled back into her usual bun. She wore khaki slacks and a rough-weave cotton shirt with an open neck and sleeves rolled up to her elbows. On the days she was seeing patients, she often wore long, flowing skirts and rings and bracelets of silver and turquoise. But not when she was attending a laboring mother.

A stethoscope hung around her neck, and under it Devon could see the rare, rose-onyx pendant Lydia was never without. If you looked at it closely, you could just make out the design of a Madonna and child, in the pink and rose swirls at its heart. Except for a few new lines around her mouth and a shadow of fatigue in her blue eyes, Lydia showed no visible signs of the heart attack she’d suffered six weeks earlier.

Behind her grandmother Devon noticed the clinic’s accountant, Kim Sherman. Devon still found it hard to believe that the somewhat abrasive and aloof young woman was really her cousin, the daughter of the baby girl Lydia had been forced to give up at birth years before Devon’s own mother was born. The discovery had been a shock, but learning Lydia had kept her daughter’s birth a secret all those years didn’t surprise Devon as much as the others. Lydia was good at keeping secrets.

And because Lydia kept secrets, Devon had secrets, too.

“Lydia, I’m glad you’re here,” Lacy said, and the relief in her voice was so evident Devon felt color rise in her throat and cheeks.

“Let’s take your vital signs and check you out, then we’ll decide whether to call Dr. Ochoa and head over to Arroyo,” Lydia said in her bracing, no-nonsense voice.

Hope Tanner Reynolds, Lydia’s assistant, joined them. “Hope, will you help Lacy get settled? Tom, you and the children are welcome in the birthing room, as well. I need to speak to my granddaughter and then I’ll be right with you.” The door closed behind them. “Do you have reason to believe Lacy’s fever is caused by something more serious than a cold?” Lydia asked without preamble.

Devon took a moment to compose her answer. She always felt as if she was back in college taking an oral exam when her grandmother queried her about a birth.

“Miguel, would you like something cold to drink? Or a cup of coffee?” Kim asked, covering the small, telling silence that followed Lydia’s question.

“I could use a glass of ice water,” he responded, taking his cue.

“That’s an even better choice. I was just getting ready to empty the coffeepot. It’s been simmering away all afternoon. It’s probably the consistency of roofing tar by now.”

“Then I’ll definitely stick to ice water.”

He followed Kim down the hall, leaving Devon and her grandmother alone.

The clinic was unusually quiet. The office staff had gone home for the evening and there were no expectant mothers in the whitewashed waiting room comparing symptoms, while their children squabbled over the toys in the sunny corner opposite the fireplace, no women in labor being cared for in the other pastel-colored birthing rooms.

“She probably has some run-of-the-mill virus that poses no harm to her or the baby,” Devon responded at last. “But without tests I can’t rule out a urinary-tract infection or Group B strep, even an amniotic infection, although I don’t think that’s the case. In any event, intravenous antibiotics would be the safest course to follow.”

“We don’t do IVs here.”

“I know. That’s why…”

Hope opened the birthing-room door in time to overhear the last of the exchange. Hope had been a labor and delivery nurse before she returned to Enchantment with her sister. She had recently become a licensed midwife under Lydia’s tutelage. She was newly and happily married to Parker Reynolds, the clinic’s administrator, and helping him raise his son, Dalton. But eleven years earlier, things had been very different. Hope had been a seventeen-year-old runaway from a polygamous religious cult, pregnant and alone. On the night Hope’s baby was born, Devon, only a teenager herself, had overheard her grandmother agreeing to sell the infant on the black market. Paralyzed with shock and betrayal at her adored grandmother’s unethical actions, she had done nothing to save her friend’s baby. Hope had left the area a few days later, and Devon hadn’t heard from her again until Hope had returned about a year ago, apparently reconciled to the loss of her child and ready to move on with her life. It seemed Hope had forgiven Lydia for what had happened, but Devon could not so easily forget what her grandmother had done.

She’d kept the secret of that night sealed in her heart for more than a decade, confronting her grandmother with her knowledge only when Lydia decided to step down from the center’s board of directors and asked Devon to take her place. Lydia had refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing, insisting she’d done what she had to do to save the center and begging Devon to believe her when she said that Hope’s baby had gone to a good and loving home. The issue remained unresolved between them, straining her relationship with her grandmother almost to the breaking point.

“I have a suggestion,” Hope said, taking on the role of peacemaker between them as she so often did these days. “It’s not routine, I know, but couldn’t Joanna Carson order antibiotics for Lacy? She takes care of both Lacy’s kids. She knows her as well as any of the OBs.”

Devon relaxed a fraction. Hope was right. It was a little out of the ordinary to ask a pediatrician to prescribe for a woman in labor. But it was a way out of the standoff.

Lydia’s expression remained tight. She fingered the pendant at her neck, a nervous gesture she’d acquired in the stressful weeks since Devon had agreed to move back to Enchantment and practice at the clinic. “I don’t see any other solution, short of sending Lacy to the hospital. Dr. Ochoa would certainly not be receptive to coming here to start the IV.” Carlos Ochoa was one of the OBs who backed up The Birth Place midwives at Arroyo County Hospital. Their professional relationship was cordial but not close.