Elizabeth Grayson (21 page)

He stood helpless as the contraction grabbed her, grew in her, mastered her, and made her writhe. Ann arched her back, her head thrown back and her shoulders lifting right off the bed. Her face contorted as wavering cries pushed up her corded throat.

“Good girl!” he heard his mother say. “You’re doing well!”

Doing well?
Chase couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do more than stare at what was happening to his wife. He couldn’t seem to leave her, either.

“The pain is cresting,” Lydia encouraged her. “Take a breath.”

Ann gulped down air like water at an oasis. She tossed and strained some more. The tension finally seeped out of her. She lay back, panting.

“Tell her she did well,” his mother prompted him.

“You did well.” Chase’s mouth was so dry he could barely speak the words. He knew now why Goose had looked so worn and exhausted out there on deck. Chase needed to leave himself while things were quiet.

His mother had other ideas.

“What I want you to do,” she instructed, “is climb up into the bunk and sit behind your wife.”

“You want me to what?” Chase started to sweat.

“Ann’s going to need your help to push this baby out,” Lydia said, managing to sound both instructive and none too patient.

“Please, Lydia.” Ann sounded unbearably fragile. “Don’t make Chase stay.”

“Now, honey”—His mother turned and glared at him, though her voice was gentle—“wouldn’t it help to have Chase here with you?”

“I—I suppose.”

Panic backed up in Chase’s throat. A desperate need to run pushed at him. “But Pa never stayed ...”

Once Ma went into labor, Pa would send for one of the neighbor women and take the children fishing. Sometimes they fished all night. Twice they’d had to cut through the ice to fish, but when they went home, there Ma would be, tucked up snug in bed, cuddling another new baby.

None of them,
not even Pa,
had been within earshot when Ma was having a baby. Chase didn’t want to be in earshot now.

Lydia scowled at him again, and he could hear her unspoken admonition in his head.
She’ll die if you don’t stay
with her.

Chase looked down at his wife. In the light of the oil lamp, her face was translucent, milky pale. Veins ran in delicate blue-gray traceries beneath the surface of the skin. Her lips were bitten raw, and each breath she took seemed to require determination, effort.

He’d long since recognized the steely core in his wife, but giving birth to this child seemed to be demanding more strength and will than Ann could muster. It seemed to be demanding things only he could provide: encouragement, tenderness, his own determination to see Ann safely through this. If he cared for her, how could he deny Ann the help she needed?

Without another word, Chase climbed aboard the high, wide berth. It took a good deal of maneuvering to get the two of them settled. He ended up sitting with his back to the wall at the head of the bed. Ann lay between his raised knees, her back supported against his chest.

She hadn’t weighed much when he’d carried her up the stairs this morning. She seemed even less substantial now. She sprawled limp as wet wash, slack and flaccid against him. That scared him even more than his mother’s scowling admonitions.

Could Ann get through the rest of this?

Before he’d finished the thought, he felt her gathering what fortitude she had to meet the pain that grabbed at her.

As she stiffened and writhed in his arms, he looked along the length of her. He saw the muscles in her belly bunch and contract, realized the almost unimaginable force being brought to bear on her. She moaned as the agony caught her in its grip and dragged her down.

How could this sliver of a woman stand so much? he kept wondering. And just how long could she stand it?

By the time the tension ran out of her, Chase was panting and nearly as spent as Ann herself. She slumped against him and began to cry.

“Promise me,” she whispered, “promise me you’ll bury me in a proper churchyard ...”

“Oh, Annie, don’t,” he murmured and wiped her tears away. “I’m not burying you anywhere. We’re going to get through this.”

Down near the foot of the bed Chase saw his mother nod at him, encouraging him.

“Maybe it’s better,” his Annie went on, her tears falling faster, “if this child is never born. Maybe I have no right to ask you to take my child as your own. Maybe I don’t deserve ...”

Chase wrapped himself around her, gathered her close in his arms. “Damn it, Annie, I don’t care what you did or what you think you deserve. It doesn’t matter where this baby came from. It’s
my
baby now.”

“Yours?” Her voice faltered.

“Mine since the day we spoke our vows,” he swore to her. “Mine the same way you are my wife.”

Tears hung on her lashes. “Truly yours?”

“Yes.”

Ann looked to Lydia as if she needed permission to take what Chase was offering her.

“And who does this one—” Lydia tilted her chin toward Chase. “Who does
he
belong to if not to me? Blood’s not all that matters when it comes to loving a child. Wouldn’t Chase understand that better than anyone?”

Ann nodded as if she realized what Lydia meant. Chase was proof that blood wasn’t the only thing that made men fathers. Or women mothers, either.

“All right, I’ll try,” she promised.

And she did. The next pain came stronger than the ones before, making her thrash and twist, grind her heels into the mattress and push back against Chase’s chest. She flailed and sobbed as the contraction escalated. Then after what seemed like forever, she finally sagged against him.

Almost before that pain subsided, another began. To Chase it was like riding a skiff across the wake of a fast-moving steamer. They’d fight to the crest of one pain, slide into the trough between, and up the crest of the next.

Chase lost track of how many of the contractions they struggled through together, lost track of the time of night and where they were. He lost track of everything but Ann, writhing in his arms, straining against him. Of pouring every ounce of his strength, every ounce of his will into her.

She was fighting so valiantly to have this child, but each fresh effort drained her more. He could see how worn she was, how weak and tired of fighting, how discouraged and frightened.

The words she’d whispered earlier came back to him:
Promise me you’ll bury me in a proper churchyard.

He’d agreed to appease her, but now he was afraid. He knew Spotted Fawn Woman must have died struggling just like this, and maybe even Ann’s own mother. He knew women died in childbirth far more often than anyone talked about. What would he do if his Annie died?

Then as the next spasm began, Lydia stepped in close at the foot of the bed. “I need you to push now, Annie girl. We need to get that baby born.”

“Can—can I do that?” Ann whispered.

“It’ll come soon,” Lydia answered. “Fight just a little longer.”

“I’ll help all I can,” Chase swore to her. “I’m eager to see my new son or daughter.”

Ann seemed somehow stronger and more focused as she strained against him this time. Chase curled himself around her and pushed back, holding her, supporting her.

“Good,” Lydia told her. “Lie back and breathe.”

All of them took a moment’s respite. When the next pain came, they began again.

Ann pushed until every muscle was trembling, pushed with her teeth bared and a low growl rising in her throat. She pushed until she ran with sweat, and tears of effort slid down her face.

As she fought to bring their baby into the world, Chase willed her his fortitude, willed her his strength.
He
willed the goddamned baby to come out before it killed her.

Lydia bent nearer and spread her hands at the apex of Annie’s legs. “Here it comes!” she cried.

Chase bowed his body, and Ann strained against him. They struggled and panted.

Then all at once, the child slid from Ann’s body in a gush. Before it was fully born, it gave an impatient, high-pitched yelp.

At the sound, Chase laughed, then felt himself go soft and quivery inside. Ann sobbed with pure relief.

“This one will never make a secret of what she wants,” Lydia prophesied and held up a red-faced dab of humanity, small and squalling and utterly perfect.

Chase had to swallow before he could speak. “Oh, Annie,” he whispered and nuzzled her temple. “Just look what you’ve done! You’ve given us a wonderful little girl. Have you ever seen a baby so pretty?”

“I’ve got a little girl?” Ann’s voice was soft with wonder and muffled with weariness.

“Indeed you do,” Lydia assured her. “She’s the sweetest little thing I’ve ever held in my arms.”

She settled the baby on her mother’s belly, and Ann ran her fingertips down her daughter’s cheek. She stroked the damp filaments of her dark hair, the tiny, almost star-shaped hands.

His Annie cried with joy this time.

“So what are you going to call her?” Chase asked when her tears were over.

“I want to call her Christina,” Ann said, then turned to Chase as if his willingness to claim the child gave him a right to object to that.

Chase just nodded.

“That’s a lot of name for someone so little,” Lydia warned.

“She won’t always be little,” Ann answered as if to confirm her choice. “And she won’t always be weak. No one’s going to force their will on my Christina.”

“Then Christina it is.” Chase grinned. “Christina Hardesty ... I think I like the sound of that.”

THEY WERE UNDERWAY. ANN RECOGNIZED THE MOVEMENT and the sound of the engines even before she was fully awake. Well underway, she realized, blinking at the angle of the sun. How long had she been sleeping?

Hours, she figured. Hours and hours. Ever since the gaggle of Hardestys had cleared out of the cabin just before sunup.

She hadn’t been sleeping nearly long enough.

She rolled over, moaned, and lay still again. She felt as if she’d been stretched like a wishbone, but not quite broken in two. The muscles of her back and belly and legs protested her slightest movement. Her jaw ached from grinding her teeth, and her throat was raspy.

Every part of her hurt—but somehow it was a good hurt, a productive hurt. It was a hurt that had accomplished something wonderful. It had accomplished Christina.

Christina, her daughter.
Her baby girl.

Ann yearned to hold her, to feel the weight of her baby in her arms as she had last night. To cuddle her, stroke her, and breathe her in.

But first Ann had to get out of bed.

She moved again, slowly and with exaggerated caution. She wriggled to the edge of the berth and eased her feet toward the floor. Her knees nearly buckled when she tried to stand, but she wobbled as far as the laundry basket Lydia and Chase had pressed into service as the baby’s bed.

The basket was empty.

Ann jerked around. Concern surged up her chest. Where was Christina? Who had taken her? Was she all right?

Weaving on her feet, Ann palmed her way along the wall toward the sitting room, then sagged against the doorjamb in relief.

Chase had settled in one of the big, rush-seated rocking chairs just outside the cabin door. He was rumpled, half-dressed, and barefoot, holding Ann’s tiny blanket-wrapped daughter close against his chest. Something about the way his broad workingman’s hands cradled her child, something about the way he bent his head above her wrinkly red face, something about the quiet tenor of his voice when he spoke to her awakened the deep, powerful ache of tenderness beneath Ann’s breastbone.

She loved this child with all her heart—and she’d come to love the man who was holding her. She might as well admit it, at least to herself.

The two of them were breathtakingly beautiful nestled together in the rocking chair, the soft, buttery sunlight melting over them. They were beautiful, inexpressibly precious, and undeniably hers. Ann’s eyes blurred with tears.

Last night Chase had wrapped her up close in his arms. He’d told her how brave and strong she was, how good a mother she was going to be. He’d convinced her she could give her daughter life, then lent her the strength to do it.

This morning he held that baby in his arms, claiming her with quiet tenderness. Just watching the two of them together, Ann could see how seriously Chase was taking the responsibilities of fatherhood, and how Christina was going to grow to adore him.

Drawn by the serenity and love she saw between the two of them, Ann eased close enough to hear what Chase was saying.

“—far as I know, there’s never been a woman pilot,” he was murmuring to their daughter. “But that doesn’t mean there can’t ever be one. And it seems to me that actually being born aboard a riverboat gives you a leg up on the competition.”

Another swell of love for him broke over her.

“What if she doesn’t want to be a riverboat pilot?” she asked, her voice as soft and lulling as his had been.

Chase looked around in surprise, then came to his feet in a single lithe movement. “I think our daughter should be whatever in the world she wants to be,” he told her, then gestured for Ann to take the rocking chair. “Are you well enough to be up and wandering around?”

“There’s no one here to say I’m not, is there?” Ann asked him. She settled herself gingerly in the chair, and he hunkered down beside her.

“Well, no, there isn’t. Ma didn’t leave any instructions except to be sure you got some rest. Then she lent us Evangeline to look after Christina, so you can. Evie’s had nearly as much practice tending youngsters as I have.”

Ann wagged her head. “I wish you’d awakened me before we left Hardesty’s Landing so I could thank Lydia again for all she did, and say good-bye.”

“Wake you and risk making Ma mad?” Chase gave a delicate shudder. “I take care not to do that deliberately.”

Ann reached out to stroke her daughter’s hair. “I’d never have gotten through last night if it hadn’t been for Lydia.”

If it hadn’t been for you.

“Ma says babies pretty much bring themselves,” he said with a shrug. “All they need us for is the fancywork.”