Now and Forever: Time Travel Romance Superbundle

by Bobby Hutchinson

  "How often are they coming?" Paige directed the question to Dave, who was monitoring his wife's labor. His rugged face was drained of color, and Paige felt a pang of sympathy for him. He looked in far worse shape than her patient did.

  "They're still five minutes apart, they haven't changed one bit since the beginning. She's in a lot of pain, Doctor. Can you give her something?"

  Paige'd been over this before with both Liz and Dave during one of their early office visits, but she patiently explained again why she preferred not to use drugs on her laboring mothers unless it was absolutely necessary.

  "No matter what I give her, Dave, it's going to have a depressive effect on the baby. I'd really like to avoid that if we can. And the drugs don't take the pain away; they often just make it harder for the mother to cope. They make her groggy, less in control. But as I told you before, the decision is Liz's to make. If she truly feels she can't manage a bit further down the line, then certainly I'll give her something."

  The contraction ended, and Liz shook her head from side to side vigorously. "I don't want anything, I'm okay, I'm not taking anything that might harm our baby." She curled her arms protectively around her belly, careful not to disturb the monitor.

  Paige put an arm around the other woman's shoulders and hugged her close, feeling the tension in her body. "Good for you, love. Dave, why don't you try getting on up the bed behind Liz and holding her against you, cradling her between your legs, rubbing her tummy for her so she really feels your support when the next contraction comes."

  In practical terms, it wouldn't help the pain a damned bit, Paige mused, but being held in her husband's arms would be emotionally comforting for Liz, and would also make Dave feel as if he were doing something constructive beyond timing contractions. This was a husband and wife whose love for one another was palpable, and it touched Paige to see that visible bond between them. It made her sad and envious as well; it pointed up the emptiness of her own solitary lifestyle as nothing else could.

  Dave did just as Paige suggested, kicking off his worn Adidas and carefully clambering up behind his wife. He had a hole in one blue sock.

  Another contraction came and went. Liz seemed more relaxed now, propped against her husband's body. But the monitor indicated that the baby's heart rate was fluctuating more than ever, dropping to 120 and then 110. Paige went out of the room and found Annette.

  "I'm not sure what's happening with this kid, the heart rate's pretty uneven. I think you'd better get me an infusion setup and make sure we have her blood cross matched and a supply on hand, just as a precaution."

  It made sense to have everything in place in case things went bad fast and she needed to rush Liz into surgery for a c-section, God forbid.

  Paige fervently hoped it wouldn't be necessary. She wasn't fond of cesarean section. Surgical delivery, although essential and lifesaving in many instances, still should be treated only as an absolute last-ditch emergency measure, in her opinion. She was all for letting nature take its course, if at all possible.

  Annette quickly found the infusion setup, and she followed Paige back into the labor room, not batting an eye at the sight of husband and wife curled up together on the high bed.

  Grace Maternity Hospital believed that people came first, which was why Paige had her patients admitted here. She'd had a blind lady in labor a few months ago, and the hospital had routinely admitted the Seeing Eye dog along with the patient.

  "What's that for?" Liz looked at the infusion setup with alarm, and Paige explained calmly what it was and why she felt it was necessary.

  "The baby's heart rate is fluctuating more than I'd like, so we want to be prepared." She'd carefully explained her stance on cesarean birth to the Jacksons at one of their office visits, and now she told them what exact circumstances would make a section necessary.

  "I want to be ready just in case your baby gets into serious trouble. You know I prefer vaginal delivery, but we also don't want to take chances."

  Paige did her best not to alarm them unduly, but she explained about the combination of the baby's head not descending, and the fetal heart rate being low. After all, it was Liz's body, and her baby. In Paige's opinion, that entitled her to the whole truth, and the right to be clued in to whatever was going on. As she talked, she set about finding a vein in the back of Liz's hand and inserting the needle and drip.

  Liz had another contraction, and Annette, who was watching the baby's heartbeat on the monitor, said in a soft voice to Paige, "Down to one hundred."

  A rate much below 100 signaled fetal distress, but sometimes the fetal heart rate slowed considerably and then picked up again. There was no telling ahead of time what might occur.

  C'mon, baby, don't do this to me, Paige pleaded silently. Give me a little help here. But even as she watched, the heart rate dropped to 90, then within minutes, down to 80.

  She felt tension in every fiber of her being, but outwardly she stayed calm and spoke in a quiet voice to the Jacksons. "I'm going to scrub. Annette will keep an eye on things here and keep me posted. Liz, honey, the baby's heart rate is dropping pretty fast; it looks as if we might have to do a cesarean after all, but we'll let you know exactly what's going on every minute, all right?" She squeezed her patient's hand.

  Liz swallowed hard and nodded, face drained of color, tears evident.

  There wasn't time to linger, however. Paige hurried out to the sinks in the alcove adjoining the delivery room, instructing one of the nurses to tell the resident what was happening so he could make the calls necessary for an operating room and a team to assist should they be needed in a hurry.

  She started scrubbing. Before she'd donned her sterile gear, a young nurse hurried in. "Doctor, the heart rate's down to sixty and still dropping rapidly."

  "Damn. The kid's not far enough into the cervix for us to get it out vaginally. Hit the emergency switch. We'll have to do a section."

  She hurried into the operating room a few moments later. Two other doctors were already there, waiting to assist, as well as the anesthesiologist, Dr. Larry Morgan, and the operating room nurses. A call was out for a neonatal specialist. Paige hoped he'd be arriving any moment.

  Liz's abdomen had been washed with disinfectant and shaved. She was still awake, looking terrified. The anesthetic would affect the baby, so it wouldn't be administered until the very last possible moment.

  "We're going to put you to sleep now, Liz, and then we'll have your baby out in a couple of minutes," Paige assured her. "You'll wake up in about an hour."

  "Is my baby going to be okay?" Liz's voice trembled.

  "I'm sure he is," Liz lied. Honesty surrendered to compassion at times like this. "You know we'll do everything we can for her, and for you too. And we'll tell Dave exactly what's happening."

  Paige nodded to Larry, and the procedure began.

  As soon as he indicated that Liz was under, the nurse handed Paige a scalpel. Aware of the dual needs for speed and caution, she went down quickly and carefully through the abdominal layers, and when she reached the uterus she cut across the front and pushed the bladder out of the way while the other doctor suctioned out the fluids that accumulated. Making a small incision in the uterus itself, she used her fingers to carefully spread the incision wider so she wouldn't cut into any large blood vessels.

  At last her hand encountered the baby's head, facedown. She cupped the tiny skull in her hand, carefully turning the child so it was face up, and lifted. The head emerged slowly, covered with wet, dark hair, and the other doctor immediately inserted a bulb syringe in the tiny mouth and began suctioning mucus in an effort to get the baby breathing as quickly as possible, before it was even out of Liz's body.

  Paige slid her hand down the wet little body, supporting the shoulders, easing them out sideways. The rest of the baby, slippery and blood streaked, slid out easily as Paige cupped the minute buttocks in her hand and lifted.

  The child was a good-sized boy, but Paige didn't like the way he looked or fe
lt. Beneath the sticky white coating of vernix, his skin was white and his body limp, without muscle tone. Paige clamped and cut the thick, blue umbilical cord as quickly as possible, but in spite of suctioning, the baby made no effort to breathe.

  There was palpable tension and an ominous silence in the room as one of the delivery room doctors rushed him over to an adjoining table. The specialist had arrived, and he immediately inserted a tube down the baby's trachea.

  Liz was doing well, and Paige surrendered the next step in the procedure, the delivery of the placenta, to her assistant and moved over to the table where the minuscule boy lay inert and lifeless except for the oxygen being forced into his narrow chest.

  Nausea swirled in her stomach as she watched the specialist squeezing oxygen into the baby's lungs. Losing a baby was horrendous; it didn't happen often, but each time it did, she went through days of silent agony, wondering what she could have done to prevent it.

  "C'mon, kid, c'mon, you can do it, breathe a little here," she entreated half under her breath as the seconds ticked away and cold sweat beaded her forehead, trickled down between her breasts and under her armpits.

  She glanced up at the clock. They all knew there wasn't much time left before brain damage would occur. Her mind went frantically over the possibilities; was this child congenitally damaged, heart, lungs ... brain? He looked all right, but there was no way of telling for sure.

  The stethoscope now confirmed that the baby's heart rate was slowing. Paige prayed, hard and frantic, willing the small form to breathe, and another long moment passed, and then another.

  The specialist shook his head. The silence in the room seemed to deepen as his shoulders slumped and he slowly removed the equipment. The baby was gone.

  Nausea swelled inside of Paige as she watched a nurse bundle the lifeless form in a towel and carry it off.

  Behind their surgical masks, several of the nurses had wet eyes. Paige had to squeeze her own eyes tightly shut to clear them of tears as she turned to the operating table.

  She went back to overseeing the long procedure necessary to clean and repair Liz's uterus and abdominal cavity, ruthlessly blocking out the emotions that would envelop her later. Right now, there was Liz to see to. Then she'd have to go out and talk with Dave.

  In about an hour, Liz would be allowed to wake up at last—and Paige would have to tell her that her baby was dead.

  Paige swallowed hard, and as her hands deftly completed the surgical procedure, her mind drifted back to Liz's first office visit eight months ago.

  Liz had stared at Paige and then blurted out, "But nobody told me you were so young." Her fair skin had then flushed with embarrassment at her own gauche words, but Paige was accustomed to patients commenting on her youthful appearance.

  "Actually, I'm on the sunset side of thirty something, not really all that young," she'd joked. The truth was, she was only 34, but she found patients preferred to believe she was older than they were ... and with so many women having babies in their late 30s, she'd learned to perpetuate a white lie about her age.

  "I just got stuck with looking eighteen and can't seem to age decently," she said to Liz with mock chagrin. "But I intend to get around to it one of these days when I have more time." She'd given Liz the wide, crooked grin and overdone wink that usually managed to both charm and reassure.

  Liz had relaxed somewhat. "My husband and I heard from lots of our friends that you're the best obstetrician in Vancouver," she'd said next.

  Liz meant it as a compliment, but Paige wished like hell they hadn't heard anything of the kind. It would be so much easier if her patients didn't expect miracles; she did the very best she could, but she was all too aware she wasn't omnipotent.

  She glanced over at the empty table where Liz's boy had lain a few moments before.

  God, at times like this she didn't even feel competent.

  Liz and Dave Jackson had relied on Dr. Paige Randolph to see them safely through this delivery... and present them with a healthy baby at the other end. And she'd failed.

  Forgive me, she whispered under her breath to the inert form on the table below her. But Paige knew it wasn't Liz and Dave Jackson's forgiveness she needed.

  It was her own.

  It was after nine that morning when she finally left the hospital. She'd taken Dave for coffee and done her best to comfort him until Liz awakened. Then they'd shared the awful task of telling Liz.

  Paige had settled them in a private room and asked Annette to bring them their baby and leave them alone for as long as they desired.

  They needed a chance to say goodbye.

  Paige, sick to her very soul, had then visited her other patients, pasting a smile on her face and deliberately taking more time than usual on rounds to chat because this morning she had no office hours. Sam was filling in for her.

  At last, the necessary paperwork finished, she left the hospital and walked slowly over to her car. It was still raining, a gray, ugly drizzle that chilled her to the bone.

  She got in and slammed the door. She glanced into the rearview mirror, and her own bleak face stared back at her, haunted green eyes with dark circles beneath them, normally creamy skin pasty white.

  With a muffled groan, she rested her forehead on the steering wheel and released the tears that she'd subdued for hours now. Sobs shook her, and the acid taste of the coffee she'd drunk came burning into her throat. After a few moments, she sat up and blew her nose hard, wiping away the tears, and anger took the place of sorrow.

  What was wrong with her, that she couldn't develop the protective shell that other doctors had? Why did every dead baby remind her on this visceral level of her own baby, so long ago?

  She'd never been able to admit, even to Sam, how losing a patient made her feel, how it affected her for days and weeks afterward. God, maybe she needed a psychiatrist. Well, she didn't have time to consult one this morning, that was certain.

  She started the car, drove out of the lot and into heavy morning traffic. There was just about enough time to drive home, shower, pack, and hurry out to the airport to catch her flight to Saskatoon.

  She pushed the morning's tragedy to the back of her mind and mentally went over her wardrobe, planning what to take. Business stuff for the conference, her plain black silk chemise for dinners.

  Jeans and boots for the ranch; her spirits rose a little as she reminded herself that she'd get to spend a couple of days with Tony and the kids when the conference was over.

  And Sharon, she reminded herself. She and her sister-in-law had never been close, but maybe this time it would be easier.

  She was even going to pack her running strip. She hadn't had a chance to go for a good long run in over a week. She'd learned way back in medical school that hard physical exercise was a good release for tension.

  A taxi pulled out directly in front of her, and she hit the brakes to keep from broadsiding it, swearing as her car swerved and the tires screamed in protest. Heart pounding, she stopped for a light, the taxi directly in front of her.

  Idiot. Maniac, she silently screamed at the driver. She was trembling violently. She even considered getting out and hammering on his window before sanity claimed her.

  You're turning into a nut case, Randolph.

  No doubt about it, a relaxing couple of days at Tony's ranch, far away from women in labor and Vancouver's congested traffic, was exactly what she needed. And if Sharon wasn't exactly overjoyed to see her, well, Tony and the little boys would more than make up for it.

  Now and Then: Chapter Two

  "So was this conference you were at worthwhile, Paige?" Sharon ladled cold soup carefully into her best china, handing the bowls to Tony to serve, not looking at Paige as she spoke.

  "It was interesting. There were a couple of seminars on midwifery that—"

  "I don't like this green stuff, Daddy, do I have to eat it?" Matthew's plaintive voice interrupted Paige's comment, and she stifled a grin at the martyred look on her seven-year-old nephew
's face as he stared at the bowl of vichyssoise in front of him

  "Yes, you have to eat it. And don't interrupt again or you'll go to your room without supper." Tony's voice was harsh and he glared at his son.

  Matthew's fair skin turned fiery red, and as he bent his tawny head over his soup, Paige caught the hint of tears.

  She glanced over at her brother, surprised at Tony's bad temper. Normally he was easygoing, lenient, and good-natured with the boys, but ever since her arrival several hours ago, she'd been aware of an undercurrent of tension in the household.

  Tony and Sharon had sniped at one another from the moment she'd arrived, and as usual, Sharon had gone to a great deal of trouble with dinner, managing to appear martyred and overworked in the process.

  Paige was sure her sister-in-law didn't really have time to prepare this kind of special meal, and undoubtedly resented doing it. Even a city person knew that late August was a busy time on a ranch. Harvest was in full swing with extra hired men to feed, garden produce needing to be frozen or canned for winter, the boys undoubtedly needing a million things done before they were readied for another school term.

  So why, Paige thought now, had Sharon refused to accept her invitation to take all of them out for a special, fancy treat? Or, if that wasn't convenient, why couldn't her sister-in-law just relax with her for once and serve a simple meal on the wide wooden table in the comfortable kitchen, as if... as if Paige were really part of the family?

  It hurt to be treated like a formal visitor. They were eating in the narrow dining room. The silverware shone, a soft linen cloth covered the oak table, and her nephews wore white shirts, their small faces and hands gleaming from a recent and severe scrubbing.

  They'd been told they couldn't wear the fancy western hats she'd brought them to the table, but both boys sported their matching tooled leather boots and belts.

  At least the kids are glad to see me, Paige reflected.