Virgin River (27 page)

“Where?” he asked, smoothing her hair over her ear.

“The other side of Clear River,” she said, remembering what the man had said when he pulled up to the front of Doc’s clinic. In truth, she had no idea where they’d gone. He could’ve driven around in circles for all she knew.

“You’re trembling,” he said, pressing his lips to her brow.

“Yeah, a little. Coming down from the experience.” She tilted her head to look up at him. “Is it okay that I’m here?”

“Of course it is. Mel, what’s wrong?”

“The mother was going to deliver herself, but the
father got nervous and came for me.” She shivered. “I thought I had some wild experiences in L.A.,” she said with a weak laugh. “If you’d told me a year ago that I’d go out to some poor trailer in the woods, in the middle of the night to deliver a baby, I would have said, never gonna happen.”

He rubbed a knuckle along her cheek. “Who was it?”

She shook her head. If she told him she didn’t have the first idea, he’d flip. “They’re not from around here, Jack. He dropped by Doc’s a while ago, looking for someone who could handle a birth. I can’t talk about patients unless they say it’s okay, but these patients, I didn’t even ask. They weren’t married or anything. She lives in a crappy little trailer by herself. It’s a pretty horrid situation for her.” And she thought, I’m doing things out here in the mountains that I never, in a million years, thought I could do. Terrifying, impossible, dangerous things. Exhilarating things that no one else would do. And if no one had, there’d be a dead baby. Possibly a critical mother. She leaned her head against Jack’s chest and took a deep, steadying breath.

“He called you?” Jack asked.

Damn. Bold-faced lies to straight questions were so hard for her. “He was waiting at the cabin. If I’d stayed the night here with you, I’d have missed him and that baby wouldn’t have made it.”

“Did you tell him where to find you after hours?”

She shook her head before she thought about her answer. “He must have asked someone,” she said. “Everyone in Virgin River knows where I live. And probably half the people in Clear River.”

“God,” he said, tightening his arms around her. “Did
it ever occur to you that you could have been at risk?” he asked her.

“For a minute or two,” she said. She looked up at him and smiled. “I don’t expect you to understand this—but there was a baby coming. And I’m glad I went. Besides, I wasn’t in trouble. The mother was.”

He let out a slow, relieved breath. “Jesus. I’m going to have to keep a much closer eye on you.” He kissed her brow. “Something happened tonight. Something you’re not telling me. Whatever it was—never, never let that happen again.”

“Could we get in bed, please? I really need you to hold me.”

Jack was sitting on the porch of the bar, tying off flies, when a familiar black Range Rover pulled slowly into town and parked right in front of Doc’s. He sat forward on the porch chair and watched as the driver got out, went around to the passenger door and opened it. A woman carrying a small bundle got out of the car, walked up the porch steps to enter the clinic and Jack’s heart began to pound.

When the woman entered Doc’s, the man went back to his SUV and leaned against the hood, his back to Jack. He took out a small pen knife and began to idly clean under his nails. Because of the kind of guy this was, Jack knew he had seen him sitting there, on the porch. He would have observed everything worth seeing when he came into town; he’d know every escape route, any threat. Today, coming into town with a woman and new baby, Jack would bet there wouldn’t be contraband of any kind in that vehicle and if he had weapons, they’d be registered. And…his license plate was splat
tered with mud so it couldn’t be read. Lame trick. But Jack remembered it; he’d memorized it the first time this guy had come to town.

So, he hadn’t come to Virgin River for a couple of drinks a while back. He’d come to see if there was medical assistance here. Mel had said that the delivery that shook her up had occurred on the other side of Clear River and there was no doctor or clinic in that town. Grace Valley and Garberville were just a little farther away, but there were more people around.

It was a little over a half hour before the woman came out, Mel walking behind her. The woman turned and shook Mel’s hand; Mel squeezed her upper arm. The man helped her into the car and drove slowly out of town.

Jack stood and Mel met his eyes across the street. They were on their respective porches and, even from the distance, she could see the deepening frown gather on his face. Then he walked over to her.

She slipped her hands into the pockets of her jeans as he approached. When he was near, he put one foot up on the porch steps and leaned his forearms on his bent knee, looking up at her. The frown was not angry, but definitely unhappy. “Doc know what you did?” he asked her.

She gave a nod. “He knows I delivered a baby, if that’s what you mean. It’s what I do, Jack.”

“You have to promise me, you’re not going to do that again. Not for someone like him.”

“You know him?” she asked.

“No. But he’s been in the bar and I know what he is. The problem isn’t him bringing a woman to the doctor, you know. It’s you being on his turf. It’s you
going with him in the middle of the night. Alone. Just because he says—”

“I wasn’t threatened,” she said. “I was asked. And he had been by the clinic before, looking for a doctor, so he wasn’t a complete stranger.”

“Listen to me,” Jack said firmly. “People like that aren’t going to threaten you in your clinic or my bar. They like to keep a real low profile. They don’t want their crops raided. But out there,” he said, giving his chin a jerk toward the mountains to their east, “things can happen. He could’ve decided you were a threat to his business and—”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “He wouldn’t let anything happen to me.
That
would be a threat to his business—”

“Is that what he told you? Because I wouldn’t take his word for that.” He shook his head. “You can’t do that, Melinda. You can’t go alone to some illegal grower’s camp.”

“I doubt there will be a situation like that again,” she answered.

“Promise you won’t,” he said.

She shook her head. “I have a job to do, Jack. If I hadn’t gone—”

“Mel, do you understand what I’m telling you? I’m not going to lose you because you’re willing to take stupid chances. Promise me.”

She pursed her lips and merely lifted her chin defiantly. “Never…never suggest I’m stupid.”

“I wouldn’t do that. But you have to understand—”

“It was down to me. There was a baby coming, there really was, and I had to go because if I hadn’t it could’ve been disastrous. There wasn’t time to think about it.”

“Have you always been this stubborn?” he asked.

“There was a baby coming. And it doesn’t matter to me who the woman is or what she does for a living.”

“Would you have done something like that in L.A.?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

She thought for just a moment about how life had changed since leaving L.A. After being picked up by a gun-carrying illegal grower and delivering a baby back in the woods, shouldn’t she be packing? Running for her life? Unwilling to ever be put in a position like that again? Instead, she was doing a mental inventory of what was in Doc’s refrigerator, wondering if it wasn’t about time to take a few things out to Paulis’s camp. It had been a couple of weeks since she’d last done that.

Although she really didn’t want a repeat of the scenario with the grower, something about the experience got her attention. When she’d left L.A., they didn’t have any trouble filling her job. There were ten people who could do what she did, and do it just as well. In Virgin River, and the surrounding area, it was her and Doc. There just wasn’t anyone else. There was no day off or week off. And if she had hesitated even long enough to fetch Doc to go with her, that baby wouldn’t have made it.

I came here because I thought life would be simpler, easier, quieter, she thought. That there would be fewer challenges, and certainly nothing to fear. I thought I’d feel safer, not that I’d have to grow stronger. Braver.

She smiled at him. “In L.A. we send the paramedics. You see any paramedics? I’m in this little town that you said was uncomplicated. You’re a big liar, that’s what you are…”

“I told you, we have our own kind of drama. Mel, you should listen to me—”

“This is a real complicated place sometimes. I’m just going to do my job the best I can.”

He stepped up onto the porch, put a finger under her chin and lifted it, gazing into her eyes. “Melinda, you’re getting to be a real handful.”

“Yeah?” she asked, smiling. “So are you.”

M
el didn’t tell Doc where she was going, just that there were a couple of people she wanted to look in on. He asked her, since she was out, to stop and check on Frannie Butler, an elderly woman who lived alone and had high blood pressure. “Make sure she has plenty of medicine and that she’s actually taking it,” he said. He popped an antacid.

“Should you be having so much heartburn?” she asked him.

“Everyone my age has this much heartburn,” he answered, brushing her off.

Mel got Frannie’s blood pressure out of the way first, though it wasn’t quick. The thing about house calls in little towns like this was it involved tea and cookies and conversation. It was as much a social event as medical care. Then she drove out to the Anderson ranch. When she pulled up, Buck came out of the shed with a shovel in his hand and an astonished look on his face when he saw the Hummer. “Who-ee,” he said. “When did that thing turn up?”

“Just last week,” she said. “Better for getting around the back roads than my little foreign job, as Doc calls it.”

“Mind if I have a look?” he asked, peering into the window.

“Help yourself. I’d like to check on Chloe. Lilly inside?”

“Yup. In the kitchen. Go on in—door’s open.” And he immediately stuck his head in the driver’s door, taken with the vehicle.

Mel went around back. Through the kitchen window she could see Lilly’s profile as she sat at the kitchen table. The door was open and only the screen door was closed. She gave a couple of quick raps, called out, “Hey, Lilly,” and opened the door. And was stopped dead in her tracks.

Lilly, too late, pulled the baby blanket over her exposed breast. She was nursing Chloe.

Mel was frozen in place. “Lilly?” she said, confused.

Tears sprang to the woman’s eyes. “Mel,” she said, her voice a mere whisper. The baby immediately started to whimper and Lilly tried to comfort her, but Chloe wasn’t done nursing. Lilly’s cheeks were instantly red and damp; the hands that fussed with her shirt and held the baby were shaking.

“How is this possible?” Mel asked, completely confused. Lilly’s youngest child was grown—she couldn’t possibly have breast milk. But then she realized what had happened. “Oh, my God!” Chloe was Lilly’s baby! Mel walked slowly to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair to sit down because her knees were shaking. “Does everyone in the family know?”

Lilly shook her head, her eyes pinched closed. “Just me and Buck,” she finally said. “I wasn’t in my right mind.”

Mel shook her head, baffled. “Lilly. What in the world happened?”

“I thought they’d come for her—the county. And that someone would want her right off. Some nice young couple who couldn’t have a baby. Then she’d have young parents and I—” she shook her head pitifully. “I just didn’t think I could do it again,” she said, dissolving into sobs.

Mel got out of her chair and went to her, taking the fussing baby, trying to comfort her. Lilly lay her head down on the table top and wept hard tears.

“I’m so ashamed,” she cried. When she looked up at Mel again she said, “I raised six kids. I spent thirty years raising kids and we got seven grandkids. I couldn’t imagine another one. So late in my life.”

“Wasn’t there anyone you could talk to about this?” Mel asked.

She shook her head. “Mel,” she wept. “Country people… Small-town country people know that once you talk about it… No,” she said, shaking her head. “I was sick when I realized I was pregnant and forty-eight years old. I was sick and a little crazy.”

“Did you ever consider terminating the pregnancy?”

“I did, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I make no judgment, but it isn’t in me.”

“What about arranging an adoption?” Mel asked.

“No one in this family, in this town for that matter, would ever understand that. They’d have looked at me like I killed her. Even my friends—good women my age who would understand how I felt, could never accept it if I said I didn’t want to raise another child, my own child. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“And now what do you intend to do?” Mel asked.

“I don’t know,” she wailed. “I just don’t know.”

“What if they come now—social services? Lilly, can you give her up?”

She was shaking her head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Oh, God, I wish I had a chance to do it over.”

“Lilly—how did you conceal your pregnancy? How did you give birth alone?”

“No one pays much attention—I’m overweight. Buck helped. Poor Buck—he didn’t even know till it was almost time—I kept it from him, too. Maybe we can adopt her now?”

Mel sat down again, still jiggling the baby. She looked down at Chloe, who was burying her fist in her mouth, squirming and fussing. “You don’t have to adopt her, you gave birth to her. But I’m awful worried about you. You abandoned her. That must have almost killed you.”

“I watched the whole time. Till you and Jack came to the porch. I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. It was terrible hard, but I felt like I had to. I just didn’t know what else to do.”

“Oh, Lilly,” Mel said. “I’m not sure you’re okay yet. This is just too crazy.” She passed the baby back to Lilly. “Here, nurse your baby. She’s hungry.”

“I don’t know that I can,” she said, but she took the baby. “I might be too upset.”

“Just hook her up—she’ll do the work,” Mel said. When the baby was again at the breast, Mel put her arms around Lilly and just held them both for a few minutes.

“What are you going to do?” Lilly asked, her voice a quivering mess.

“God, Lilly, I don’t know. Do you understand that doctors and midwives protect your confidentiality? If
I’d been here when you’d discovered your pregnancy, you could have trusted me with your secret. You could have trusted Doc, or Dr. Stone in Grace Valley. The people in the family planning clinic keep confidential records—they would have helped. But…” She took a breath. “We’re also bound by laws.”

“I just didn’t know where to turn.”

Mel shook her head sadly. “You must have been so scared.”

“I haven’t ever been through anything as difficult in my life, Mel. And me and Buck, we’ve had some real hard times holding this family and ranch together.”

“How did you keep the breast-feeding from your kids? I assume they’re around quite a bit—and don’t your boys work the ranch with Buck?”

“I give her a bottle if anyone’s around, and I nurse her when we’re alone.”

“Even though you planned to let her go, you nursed her? You didn’t have to do that.”

Lilly shrugged. “It seemed like the least I could give her, after what I did. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. You just don’t understand what it’s like—spending your whole life raising kids—and then having another one on the way when you’re a grandmother. Me and Buck—we’ve struggled with money our entire marriage! You just don’t understand.”

“Oh, Lilly, I know you were terrified and desperate. I can imagine. But I’m not going to kid you, this is complicated.”

“But will you help us? Will you help Chloe?”

“I’ll do what I can—but those laws…” She sighed. “I’ll do whatever I can,” she said gently. “We’ll find a way to sort this out. Just let me think.”

Not long after, when Mel was sure that Lilly was calmed down and safe, Mel left her. She’d been with her about forty minutes, but Buck was still combing the Hummer with envious eyes. “Helluva ride, Mel,” he said, grinning.

“Buck, go in the house and comfort your wife. I just walked in on her nursing your daughter.”

“Oh, boy,” he said.

It was on the ride back to town that Mel realized Doc Mullins was onto this. In fact, he might’ve given birth to it, so to speak. He’d always said the mother would turn up, and she had. Weeks ago when Mel had told him that Lilly had offered to take in the baby, his eyebrows had shot up in surprise. He hadn’t expected it to be Lilly. He had
never
called social services. And yet, he never brought her into the conspiracy.

By the time she got back to his house it was after four and she was steamed up pretty good. Doc was seeing a patient who was coughing and hacking like a dying man. She had to wait. And while she waited, she began to seethe. When the man finally left with a butt full of penicillin and a pocket full of pills, she faced him down. “Your office,” she said flatly, preceding him in that direction.

“What’s got your dander up?” he asked.

“I went to the Andersons’. I walked in on Lilly nursing the baby.”

“Ah,” he said simply, limping around her to sit behind his desk, his arthritis obviously kicking up again.

She leaned her hands on the desk and got in his face. “You never called social services.”

“Couldn’t see the need. Her mother came for her.”

“What do you plan to do about the birth certificate?”

“Well, when we get this straightened out a little better, I’ll sign and date it.”

“Doc, you can’t pull this shit! That baby was abandoned! Even though her mother came back for her, it might still be considered a crime!”

“Settle down. Lilly was a little overwrought is all. She’s fine now—I’ve been keeping an eye on it.”

“At the very least, you could have told me!”

“And have you go off half-cocked like this? Snatch up that baby and turn her in? That woman was at the end of her rope—and turned out all she needed was a little time to cool down, come to her senses.”

“She should’ve seen a doctor.”

“Aw, Lilly had all her kids at home. She’d have come in if she was sick. Fact is, if Lilly had turned up any sooner—I’d have insisted on examining her, just to be safe. By the time she came around, it was obvious she was in good health.”

Mel fumed. “I can’t work like this,” she said. “I’m here to give good, sound medical care, not run around in circles trying to guess what you’re dreaming up!”

“Who asked ya?” he threw back.

She was stunned quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Shit!” And she turned to leave his office.

“We’re not done here,” he bellowed. “Where are you going?”

“For a beer!” she yelled back.

When she got to Jack’s it was impossible for her to hide the fact that she was all riled up, but she couldn’t talk about it. She went straight to the bar without saying hello to anyone.

Jack took one look at her and said, “Whoa, boy.”

“Beer,” she said.

He served her up and said, “Wanna talk about it?”

“Sorry. Can’t.” She took a drink of the icy brew. “Business.”

“Must be sticky business. You’re pissed.”

“Boy howdy.”

“Anything I can do?”

“Just don’t ask me about it, because I’m bound by confidentiality.”

“Must be a doozie,” he said.

Yeah, a doozie, she thought.

Jack slid an envelope across the bar to her. She looked at the return address—it was from the clinic in Eureka he had visited. “Maybe this will brighten your mood a little. I’m clear.”

She smiled a small smile. “That’s good, Jack,” she said. “I thought it would come out like that.”

“Aren’t you going to look?” he asked.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I trust you.”

He leaned forward and put a light kiss on her brow. “Thanks, that’s nice,” he said. “You go ahead and sulk in your beer. Let me know if you need anything.”

She began to calm down with her beer. It was probably a half hour later that Doc Mullins came into the bar and sat on the stool beside her. She glared at him, then focused again on her glass.

Doc raised a finger to Jack and he set up a whiskey. Then wisely, left the two of them alone.

Doc had a sip, then another, then said, “You’re right. I can’t leave you out of the loop like that if you’re going to help take care of the town.”

She turned and looked at him, one eyebrow lifted. “Did you just apologize to me?”

“Not quite, I didn’t. But in this one instance, you’re right. I’m just used to acting on my own, is all. Meant no disrespect.”

“What are we going to do?” she asked him.

“You’re not going to do anything at all. This is on me. If there’s any malpractice involved, I don’t want it on you. You were always prepared to do the right thing. I wanted to do the right thing, too—but I had a different right thing in mind.”

“I think she should be examined. I can do it or we can make her an appointment with John Stone.”

“I’ll call John,” Doc said, taking another sip of his whiskey. “I want you away from this for now.”

“And this time, you’ll actually make the call?”

He turned and regarded her, glare for glare. “I’ll call him.”

Mel just concentrated on her beer, which had gone warm and dull.

“You do a good job, missy,” he said. “I’m getting too old for some things, especially the babies.” He looked down at his hands, some fingers bent, knuckles swollen. “I can still get things done, but these old hands aren’t good on the women. Better you take care of women’s health.”

She turned toward him. “First a partial apology. Then a partial compliment.”

“I apologize,” he said without looking at her. “I think you’re needed here.”

She let out her breath slowly. She knew how hard that was for him. She took another deep breath and put her arm around his shoulders. She leaned her head against him.

“Don’t go soft on me,” she said.

“Not a chance,” he returned.

Jack had no idea what had passed between Mel and Doc, but she said they were going back to the clinic and would have a bite to eat together there. He assumed they had issues to work out. Then she promised to come back to the bar before going home.

He served quite a few people at six. By seven the crowd was thinning and there were only a few people there when the door opened. Charmaine. She’d never come to Virgin River before; he’d let her know that he wanted to keep those two parts of his life separate. She wasn’t wearing waitress clothes tonight, so her intention was pretty obvious. She wore a nice pair of creased slacks, a crisp white blouse with the collar folded on the outside of a dark blue blazer. Her hair was down and full, makeup thick but perfect, heels. It pleased him to be reminded that she was a handsome woman, especially so when she didn’t wear those tight clothes that drew attention to her large breasts. She looked classy. Mature.