Captain O'Reilly's Woman - Ashes of Love 1 (12 page)

“Whadya gonna do, shoot me if I say no?” he barked crazily.

“No. I blow at marksmanship. But he doesn’t,” Samantha added, nodding over her shoulder. She’d just caught the sound of David’s boots as he hurried back to her and she felt him behind her now, even before she heard the curtain draw back. All this before she heard him release the safety on what was probably a modified AK57, one of the new rifles on the post-GW market. All ERs set up by the army kept a weapons case behind the admissions desk. For all their advances, there were still a lot of vicious criminals in the un-reclaimed areas of New North America. An eighteen-hour drive by car, in any direction other than the one she and David had come in, would qualify.

“What’s your name?” Samantha asked firmly.

The man’s attention spun back to her. “Ethan.”

“Go on then, Ethan. And don’t be gone long. She’ll want you here when the baby comes.” That said, Samantha deliberately turned her attention back to her patient and made a careful, shallow slit up the side of Rebecca’s wrist. Cheryl groaned and Samantha shot her a hard look until she stopped. Working quickly, she isolated a vein. Inserted a catheter needle into it then let the wound close around it. She taped the needle in place then hooked up the IV. The nurse hung the bag for her, set the drip rate and finished taping the needle securely in place. Samantha quickly returned to the end of the exam table. She put one hand on Rebecca’s belly and slid the other carefully into her vagina. “Okay, Rebecca, big breath. This is going to hurt.”

Rebecca held back for a second or two, grimacing. Then she paled and yelled. Working smoothly, visualizing the woman’s internal structures, Samantha simultaneously pushed and pulled. From inside and out. Another contraction started and Samantha stopped. This time she listened to the baby’s heartbeat. It slowed markedly during the contraction and took too long to speed up again after. She had to try again, pushing and pulling until she felt a subtle shift, until she could no longer feel the flaccid buttock plugging the mouth of Rebecca’s womb. Instead she felt a narrow but discernable backbone. Pressing deliberately on Rebecca’s abdomen now, Samantha continued easing the baby around. It didn’t happen often but this might just be their lucky day.

With a suddenness that made Samantha grin, the baby rolled, somersaulting inside its mother’s womb. Samantha grinned wildly when she clearly felt the baby’s buttocks rise up to the top of her abdomen and sit there.

“Okay, Rebecca, today’s our lucky day. Next contraction, I need you to push.”

“Can’t,” Rebecca panted wearily then sank back. “Done in.”

“The hell you are,” Cheryl barked at her. “You carried this baby for nine months. Now suck it up and finish the job.”

“You yell like my momma does,” Rebecca grumbled then made a visible effort to rally herself.

“Comes with the job. You’ll get good at it.”

Samantha heard footsteps outside. Heavy ones, several men. Ethan re-appeared at Rebecca’s side. He blanched and swallowed convulsively at the sight of her—at the heavy bandaging on her wrist, then stepped up to her and patted her shoulder awkwardly.

It was over fairly quickly after that. Two more contractions was all it took, which was good. The nurse confirmed that Rebecca’s BP was bottoming out. She turned up the IV drip to full volume and her blood pressure began to slowly rise. Some color came into her pinched cheeks and the rattle in her breathing eased.

Samantha got to do what she liked best as a medic—play catcher and she caught the baby’s head and shoulders neatly in a sterile towel as they shot clear of Rebecca’s body. The rest of its body slid out easily. The nurse handed her a suction bulb and she cleared its nose and mouth. It started to cry, turning, in a matter of seconds, from sickly blue to pink. The color spread from its chest throughout the rest of its body.

“You’ve got a daughter,” Samantha informed them happily. “And a beautiful one at that.” She lay the shaking, protesting infant on its mother’s chest, attached two umbilical clips to the cord then handed the scissors to Ethan. “Cut the cord. There. Between the clips.”

He looked scared, then proud and weepy at the same time and, holding his breath, cut the cord. He grinned madly, revealing his rotten teeth in all their glory.

A little while later, after Rebecca had delivered the birth sac and Cheryl had left, muttering something about drinking heavily, Samantha carefully sewed up the small tear in the mouth of Rebecca’s vagina after giving her a healthy injection of local anesthetic.

“All right,” Samantha said, straightening and stretching her back when the job was finished and both Rebecca and the baby were wrapped in blankets. She glanced down at her sandals ruefully. They were soaked in amniotic fluid and some blood. A total write-off. Oh well. She turned to Ethan. “Someone will be here from maternity soon. Rebecca and the baby will likely stay overnight for a few days to get some good food in them and some rest.”

“Um, listen, I can’t pay for any of this,” Ethan whispered hoarsely. “So maybe we should just, you know, leave before they get here.”

“Not a good idea, Ethan.” Samantha answered firmly, pulled off her gloves, tossed them in a biohazard container then started washing her hands. “David?”

She’d known he’d been behind the curtain the whole time, had known he wouldn’t leave her.

“Yes.” His deep, dark and resonate voice was just about the sweetest thing she’d ever heard.

“Anything you can do to help these folks out?”

He sighed unhappily then lifted one edge of the curtain. “Come on out, Ethan. We’ll discuss it.”

David shot Samantha a look but it faded quickly when he caught a glimpse of her face. She looked tired and exhilarated at the same time. Strong and confident in a way he’d never seen before. And he knew that, here, his Samantha really was in her element.

He looked down at the skinny, scruffy man in front of him. He was dirty and smelled worse. The Great War had ended twenty-one years ago. People didn’t need to live like this any more.

“What can you do?” David asked evenly. “Do you have a trade?”

Ethan looked around evasively but then his tiny daughter started to cry. He straightened deliberately and, for the first time, looked David in the eye. “I was an auto mechanic before the Great War.”

“Auto mechanic,” David repeated thoughtfully. Then walked over to the admissions desk and picked up the phone. “Pete?” he said into the receiver. “David O’Reilly here—could you use a hand in your shop? For, say, three weeks?”

Pete, one of David’s old fishing buddies and owner of the town’s only repair shop, was silent for a moment before answering. “I believe I could,” he replied slowly. “Why?”

“I’m going to bring a fellow around. His name’s Ethan. His wife just had a baby girl here and he needs to barter his labor to pay the bill. Can you help us out?” David kept his eye on Ethan. “Ah. Terrific. We’ll see you in a couple of hours. Bye for now.”

“Three weeks, huh?” Ethan repeated warily. “Where we gonna live then?”

“In town. Pete’ll set you and your wife up somewhere. It won’t be fancy but it’ll have electricity and running water. And Ethan, for the sake of that baby in there, give some thought to staying. I’m pretty sure I can guess what kind of a life you’ve been living for the past twenty-one years and I’ll be honest with you—that’s not how people live around here. Here, it’s better. But they won’t tolerate criminal behavior. As long as you’re willing to work, you’ll fit in. Make a new start. You and that family of yours can live like you did before the war.” He looked over Ethan’s head and saw an orderly push a wheelchair into the cubicle where Rebecca and the baby were waiting. “Go on with them for now. See her settled in and I’ll drop by her room to take you to Pete’s for an introduction in two hours or so.”

Ethan looked at David warily for a long time before, slowly, extending his hand. David shook it then watched the skinny man turn and walk back to his wife and baby. When Samantha appeared, David grinned and looked at her feet. She was now wearing blue paper slippers instead of the pretty little sandals she’d put on that morning.

“Don’t ask.” She cut him off when he opened his mouth and pointed at her feet.

Chapter Six

About fifty minutes later, the two of them were sitting in the hospital’s small boardroom along with Cheryl, two other members of the hospital board, the administrator and their lone OB/GYN.

As much as David was put off by the idea, he agreed to lending his name to the new emergency wing. Construction would start that summer and it would double the available space. In the fifteen years since the Army had come in and reclaimed the town, the population had grown. Babies had been born, certainly, but most of the increase came from outside. Word had spread about what a good place it was to live, raise a family, and the trickle of people kept coming.

The meeting was over quickly and, as she rose to leave, the Gynie placed his hand on Samantha’s forearm. She and David waited for the others to leave.

“Doctor Nichol,” he introduced himself, although they’d already been told his name. He looked pointedly at Samantha. “You’re a medic?” he asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “A, what, a sergeant?”

“A corporal,” she answered evenly.

“Hmm.” Doctor Nichol looked at her carefully. “You’re twenty?” Twenty one?”

“Nineteen.” This time it was David that answered. He ignored the way the much older man’s brow came up.

“RI,” Samantha supplied as she felt David’s arm come around her waist.

“Ah,” Doctor Nichol breathed, “well desperate times and all that. I’m actually a dermatologist,” he explained. “But after the Great War, there was a lot more need for delivering babies than treating acne. So I changed specialties on the fly. But you,” he fixed his dark eyes on Samantha. “You’ll make a good obstetrician. You should apply to medical school.”

“She’s going. Next year,” David spoke up. He gave her an apologetic grin. “I signed your admission papers last month.”

“Good,” Doctor Nichol replied decisively then headed for the door. “Come back here to finish your residency, Corporal. We’ll have a spot open for you.” With a final nod, he left.

“Listen, David, I’m telling you, you should think this through.” Cheryl paced her kitchen then stood in front of the window, plucking at the oven mitt on her hand. Looking over the back yard, she watched her two oldest children play.

Cheryl, David and Samantha were alone in the house, except for the baby who was napping. Dinner, a roast of pork and potatoes, was simmering in the oven while they waited for Cheryl’s husband to get home from work. Jason had been an investment broker before the war. Older than Cheryl by at least fifteen years, he’d moved to town after plague had wiped out what was left of his family in the city. They’d owned a cottage up here and he’d sought shelter after their deaths in the only other place he knew. The year after Cheryl had turned sixteen, they’d married. He now managed the local bank and was the town’s treasurer.

David rubbed his forehead wearily. “If we want to start a family, it’s our business and nobody else’s.”

Samantha kept her mouth shut but mentally cursed the grocery-store manager who, as predicted, had spread the news that she and David were there to get pregnant. Instead of getting in the middle of their argument and stirring things up even more, she pet Cheryl’s dog. The big, rangy mongrel smiled up at her adoringly. With his long tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, he turned in front of her, offering up various body parts for her to scratch.

“You wouldn’t say that if you saw that little girl, Rebecca, like I did today. Barely a scrap of meat on her bones. Little more than a baby herself.” Cheryl glanced over at Samantha compassionately. “Jason and I waited. We’d been married six years before I got pregnant with Alicia. Samantha’s still so young and—”

“You gave up any right to have a say in my life when you married Jason instead of me,” David bellowed. He turned on Cheryl and his eyes were hard and cold like ice. “Our friendship will only carry you so far, Cheryl.”

“Er, did I come in at a bad time?” A man, balding and in his fifties, walked into the kitchen and set down a leather satchel beside the counter. “David,” he greeted their guest, nodded, then walked over to Cheryl and pressed a fleeting kiss to her cheek before stepping away from her bristling anger.

“Fine then,” Cheryl spit out at David and threw the oven mitt onto the counter. “My mouth is shut on the subject.”

“Good,” David barked back, although less vehemently than earlier.

“But you’re still getting fat,” Cheryl tossed out at him, her eyes narrowing.

David’s mouth thinned and he shot her a dark look, but he held his temper and his tongue. Eventually, he shook his head wryly. “Well, that’s none of your business either. Now can you please feed us before we find something else to argue about?”

“I’ll second that,” Jason piped up happily then, grinning, held out his hand to Samantha.

*
   
*
   
*

David cut the ignition on his Jeep after pulling into one of the garages on the access lot for the cottage. “Some day, huh?”

“Some day,” Samantha agreed wryly then reached out and wove her fingers into his.

While he’d taken Ethan to the auto repair shop, she’d stayed in the ER to help out. Working with Doctor Nichol, she’d sutured wounds, dispensed antibiotics, been an ear for people more lonely and distressed than hurt. She monitored a patient with an irregular heart rhythm before he was taken to intensive care.

Everyone she spoke to told her how happy they were that their David had found a woman for himself, and a new doctor for them.

Maybe Cheryl’s right,” David admitted grudgingly. He got out of the Jeep, came around Samantha’s side and gave her a hand out. She didn’t need it, he just liked doing it.

“About?”

“About waiting to have children. I saw what happened today. That kid almost died, didn’t she?”

Samantha couldn’t lie to him or sugar-coat what had happened. She nodded and watched him secure the garage before he took her hand and led her down the stairs to the dock.