The mother was a pretty woman with a round flat face. She was panting in a practiced way, her dark eyes glazed over. Heather stared down at her, wondering how one timed a contraction.
Mitch was pushing back the covers at the bottom of the bed, and she didn’t dare look there. Instead, she tried to smile in what she hoped was an encouraging way to the woman who seemed to be working so hard in front of her.
“You’re completely effaced,” Mitch announced from the bottom of the bed. “Dilation’s at about seven centimeters. Any minute now.”
The panting slowed, and Delores began to smile. “Did you get that one?” she asked Heather. “No? Okay, I’ll warn you before the next one starts.”
Next what? What exactly was a contraction anyway? Heather wished she were anywhere but in this stuffy room.
“Don’t we need to boil water or something?” she hissed to Mitch, but he shook his head.
“The ladies waiting in the living room are taking care of that. You just time the contractions and help Delores keep control.” He swore softly. “I forgot some things in the Jeep. I’ll have to run out and get them.”
“Not now!” Heather cried. “Oh, you can’t!”
“It’ll just take a minute.” He looked up and grinned at her. “Great, isn’t it?’
Great? It wasn’t great at all. Horrified, she watched him leave the room, then whirled to look back down at the woman she was supposed to be helping. “He’ll be right back,” she said, more to reassure herself than Delores.
“Oh!” Delores reached up and grabbed her hand, pulling it down onto her huge stomach. “Here it comes. Feel it?”
Heather’s first instinct was to snatch her hand away, but as it lay there, she felt the soft muscles that surrounded the baby begin to harden and pull together in a contraction, beginning the supreme effort of pushing a newborn person into the world.
“Oh, I do!” she cried, amazed. “I feel it.”
“Time it,” Delores reminded her as she began her concentrated panting.
Heather fumbled for the stopwatch and pushed the button. “Oh, oh!” Delores gasped. “The baby! It’s coming!”
“No,” Heather whispered, clutching her hands together. “Oh, no.”
“I’ve gotta push! Can I push?”
“Wait.” Some instinct told her that if Delores felt she had to ask for permission, she probably should try to hold her back. “Can you keep from pushing?”
“Not for long,” gasped Delores, but she began to blow out furiously like a small beached whale with something in his blow hole.
“Good, good,” Heather said soothingly, not sure what in the world she was doing. “Just keep doing that until Mitch gets back.”
“I can’t!” Delores cried. “Oh, I have to push!”
“No,” Heather ordered more calmly than she felt. “Blow out again.”
To her surprise, the order seemed to be just what Delores needed to strengthen her will to keep from pushing. Almost immediately she was blowing, puff after puff, and then Mitch was there.
“She wants to push,” Heather told him, and he nodded.
“Don’t push yet,” he ordered, slipping into a smock. “Wait until I’ve got my gloves on.”
He gestured toward the face mask which Heather quickly helped him don, then the gloves from a sterile wrapping in his bag. “Hold them out for me,” he said. “Don’t touch any more than you have to.”
She did as he told her, and he dove into them with both hands at once, then went to Delores and examined her condition.
“Okay,” he said at last. “You can push.”
Delores cried out in relief and immediately began to do just that.
“Help her,” Mitch told Heather. “Support her shoulders.”
Heather went quickly to hold Delores’s shoulders as she pushed. The woman seemed to gather together every bit of strength she possessed for every push, taking it all in and letting it out with an animal growl of effort. Heather found herself holding her own breath every time, mentally getting behind and adding her own muscle.
“Nice head of hair,” Mitch said. Then a moment later, “Here’s the head; go easy.” He chuckled. “He’s smiling already.” Another push. “The shoulders—okay—you did it, mama. You’ve got yourself a nice baby boy.”
“Oh, a boy? A boy? Let me see!”
Heather watched, spellbound, as Mitch held up the tiny infant, whose face was wizened and angry. His head looked misshapen and a white crust layered his body. As she watched, he let out a tentative cry, then gathered strength and turned it into a howl of outrage. He was absolutely beautiful.
Mitch cut the cord and lay the baby facedown on the mother’s stomach. Laughing, he turned to look at Heather and she laughed back with him.
“Fantastic, isn’t it?” he whispered hoarsely. “No matter how many times...”
His voice broke and his eyes filled. Heather felt tears sting her own eyes, and she smiled at him with watery love. Suddenly his arms were around her, holding her close, so very close that she could hardly breathe.
Chapter Nine
When Mitch let her go, he was all business once again. He bustled about telling her how to prepare the baby, making Delores push again to rid herself of the placenta, and beginning the stitches necessary to repair a few tears to the perineum.
Heather did as he told her, enjoying immensely sharing the feeling of having accomplished something wonderful here today. But she also kept herself a bit apart, watching Mitch with what she hoped was an objective eye.
He was good. He was damn good, and he loved his work. How could she ever have been so blind as to think he’d come to the island to avoid facing his own lack of skill?
He’d come because he wanted to go where his work would make a difference. She could see that now. If only she’d known before... If only she’d listened.
“Thank you, nurse,” Delores said sleepily as they prepared to leave her to rest.
“Oh, I’m not—“ Heather began to explain, but Mitch cut her off.
“Heather says ‘You’re welcome,’” he told Delores. “’Anytime.’”
“Why confuse her?” he said as they were leaving the house to the friends and relatives who were celebrating the arrival of the new baby. “Besides, you’re the best nurse I’ve had in a long time.” Heather helped him stow the medical paraphernalia in the Jeep. “So good, in fact,” he went on, “that you deserve a reward. How about some beachcombing now?”
She tilted her head to the trade winds. “Don’t you have to make more calls?”
“Nothing serious. They can wait.” His eyes were smoky with promise. “But I can’t.”
She climbed in beside him, and they started off with a lurch. Soon they were threading their way along the shore, and Mitch was pointing out various beaches.
“There’s a different beach for every taste,” he told her. “This one is a sheller’s paradise.” She looked out at the black lumps of reef filling the lagoon like the coils of a lazy sea serpent. “This, on the other hand, is better for snorkelers.” They’d rounded a corner and found a sparkling lagoon with water that looked as though you could see for miles in it.
As they drove on, Mitch slowed by a long sandy beach at the mouth of a river. “This is where the lovers from the village come,” he told her. As they crept along, two girls in their late teens appeared from the brush along the side of the road, strolling casually toward them.
“Hi, Doctor,” one of them called, waving. They walked tall and unselfconsciously, although neither of them had a thing on except a length of cloth tied around their hips.
“Hi, Maria,” Mitch called back. “How are you today?”
He pulled over and the girls stopped to chat, but Heather didn’t hear a word they said. She’d plastered a false smile on her face, but she could think of nothing but avoiding looking at the young girls’ prominent breasts. Why were they walking around half naked like this?
The girls finally said good-bye and conti
nued on their way. Mitch returned the Jeep to the road and turned them toward the next beach. The road began to wind uphill, climbing to a ridge of cliffs. Heather stared straight ahead.
Mitch was chuckling. Of course, he’d noticed how she’d reacted to the naked girls, and he thought she was outraged. He was nearly right.
She bit her lip. “Just tell me why they were naked,” she advised him at last. “Don’t give me any lectures.”
His laugh was low. “You don’t see that too often now,” he told her cheerfully. “Girls closer to Ragonai village wouldn’t be caught dead dressing in that old-fashioned manner. But out here on the back side of the island, the old ways still hang on in spots.”
“I see.” She nodded. “I should take it as an anthropological phenomenon, just another curious item to mark down in my journal.”
He laughed again. “It does bother you, doesn’t it? Oh, Heather, you’re so straightlaced, I’m surprised you can breathe.”
“I am not!” she cried indignantly. “I have nothing against nudity—in its place.”
“Your trouble,” he told her as he pulled the Jeep under a thick grove of mango trees, “is that you equate nakedness with sexuality.”
“I won’t concede that I have any ‘trouble,’” she protested.
“Yes, you do,” he said, stretching back lazily in the seat. “You can’t accept that those girls dress that way just because it feels good to them. They’re not trying to entice anyone. They’re just out for a walk.”
“I can accept that,” she stated, though she really wasn’t sure she could. “I believe it fully. Nakedness has nothing to do with sexuality.”
“But you couldn’t do what they do,” he scoffed slyly. “You, with your Puritan background, would rather die than go without your top.”
“Don’t be silly,” she snapped, falling into the trap. “I could do it if I wanted to.”
“Could you?” He laughed scornfully. “Don’t try to put me on, Heather. We both know you’re much too inhibited.”
“I am not!” Her sense of pride was tangled with the thread of jealousy she’d felt while watching the girls talking to Mitch. For just a moment she felt it was really important that Mitch think her capable of an equal freedom of spirit.
“Prove it,” he said softly, his black eyes shining.
She opened her mouth for a new retort, but there didn’t seem to be anything to say. “Prove it?” she echoed lamely.
He nodded. “Prove it:”
“But... Oh, I don’t think I need to...”
His hand shot out and took her wrist in an iron grip. “Prove it,” he repeated.
She tugged at his grasp, then gave up and glared at him. “And just how am I supposed to do that?”
He grinned wickedly. “By spending the rest of the afternoon with your top off.”
She gasped. “Oh, Mitch...” she pleaded desperately.
His dark eyebrows rose questioningly. “Can’t do it, can you?” he jeered.
She stared at him, wide eyed. How could she possibly accept his challenge? Yet, what better opportunity to show that she’d changed, that she could face new ways of living and working.
And she had changed. Suddenly she realized how true that was. She’d learned things about Mitch and about herself that had surprised her. And she’d found a reservoir of strength in herself she hadn’t known she possessed.
But was she strong enough to do something this silly— not to mention embarrassing—just to prove a point?
“I knew it.” He dropped her wrist and turned away, “Forget it.”
She hated the sense of having failed some enigmatic test at the same time that she resented him making her feel that way. If only she could show him... what exactly? She wasn’t sure, but a nebulous longing filled her.
Mitch was preparing to leave the Jeep. “We’ll have to climb down to this beach. It’s one of the most private. Not many people make the effort to get to it when there are so many others around.” He dropped to the ground and she followed.
“I didn’t bring along any food this time,” he warned her. “Think you can cope?”
She tried to smile at him. “I’m not hungry.”
She couldn’t read his expression. “Good,” he said shortly. “Let’s go.”
They walked through the grove of mango trees and began a sliding descent down the face of the cliff to the black sand beach below. Mitch held out his hand, but Heather refused it except when absolutely necessary. She intended to do things on her own.
The view from the beach was enchanting. White foam sprayed over the protective reef, leaving the waters of the turquoise lagoon to lap lazily at the fine black sand of the crescent beach. A jungle of tropical trees and vines grew at the foot of the cliff, providing cool shade from the relentless sun.
As they walked through the small jungle, Heather listened for the calls of exotic birds and wild monkeys. It seemed a perfect setting for them, but all she heard was the pounding of the surf against the barrier reef.
There wasn’t a soul to be seen, and only the seabirds flying high above kept them company. They might have been on a deserted island far from civilization.
Then they were walking across the warm sand. Heather kicked off her sandals to enjoy the soft sifting of the grains beneath her feet.
“No panty hose, anyway,” Mitch observed casually as he spread the blanket he’d brought on the sand. “How brave you are today.”
Inside she was seething, but she held back the sharp retort that sprang to her lips. She’d argued too often in the past, jumped at his bait and let herself fall into rages that got them nowhere. She was learning, wasn’t she? This time it was going to be different.
Instead of retorting, she smiled at him, tilting her head and narrowing her eyes. “I may be braver than you think, Mitch Carrington,” she said provocatively, reaching down to take the hem of her shift in her hands and pull it slowly over her head.
She wore her two-piece bathing suit under it, but he watched with amused enjoyment. When she pulled free of the shift and dropped it to the blanket, he stepped forward as though to take her in his arms.
“Heather, darling,” he told her lightly, “I’d rather see you in a blue bikini than a dozen other girls in nothing at all.”
“That’s very kind of you, Mitch,” she said archly, quickly sidestepping his advance, “but I’m not going to be wearing my blue bikini.”
Holding his surprised black gaze with her own, she unhooked the top of her suit and let it drop to the ground. “You see,” she told him evenly, “I’m taking you up on your challenge. I’m going to prove I can be as uninhibited as the the girls we saw on the highway.”
Her heart was beating so loudly, it seemed to drown out the noise of the surf, but she had to keep him from knowing how much meeting his challenge was costing her. Her inate modesty was making her cringe inside. She had to pretend this wasn’t really happening so that she could go through with it.
She watched, fascinated, at the changing emotions reflected in Mitch’s face. At first he was surprised, then amused and suitably impressed by the picture she made standing half naked in the sunlight. But quickly on the heels of those feelings came a bright surge of desire, which was what she’d been waiting for.
“Now,” she said firmly, moving away again as he tried to close the gap between them, “the rest of the ground rules for this little experiment.” She put as much confidence in her smile as she could. “We’re proving how uninhibited I am. We’re also proving your case— that nakedness has nothing to do with sexuality.”
His grin vanished in a look of absolute dismay. “But, Heather, wait, that was just a theoretical discussion. It had nothing to do with you and me.”
“Ah-ah,” she warned him, waving a finger as he reached for her. “No touching. I’m not going naked to entice you. Remember that. To prove my point, I’ll stay this way as long as we remain on this beach. And to prove your point, you won’t touch me. Fair enough?”
/> Another warring of emotions was mirrored in his eyes. Anger, then consternation filled through his eyes as he stood before her, arms at his sides. Finally a low laugh rumbled from his wide chest, and soon he was laughing heartily, his head thrown back.
“Okay, Heather, you got me,” he admitted at last. “I’ll admit defeat. We’ll do the experiment your way.” He shared a smile with her. “But just be careful, lady,” he murmured warningly. “Watching you like this is going to build such a vast reservoir of lust in me, I may become unmanageable.”
She ran her tongue over dry lips. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she answered. “Shall we go for a swim?”
They walked slowly across the sand, close to each other, but not touching. A wild excitement fluttered in her breast as she felt the intensity of his desire reaching out to her as strongly as the hot sun was beating down on her shoulders. A few feet from the edge of the water she began to run, as much to escape the compulsion to turn to him as to reach the cooling water. She splashed along with giant steps, sending a silver spray high around her and threw herself down into the silky blue lagoon.
He splashed in beside her, diving into the deeper basin farther out and coming up like a porpoise, only to dive again. She followed him, opening her eyes beneath the surface, finding a whole new world hidden below the waves.
They both broke back through into the sunny day at the same time, laughing into one another’s eyes as water cascaded down about them in bright sheets.
“Did you see that purple fish?” Heather gasped, short of breath. “Wasn’t he beautiful?”
“Come on,” Mitch urged, gesturing for her to follow his lead, “I’ll show you where to look for beautiful fish.”
He began a slow graceful crawl that she imitated in her own more haphazard style. The effort of looking up to see where he was taking her left her falling farther and farther behind, but she caught up quickly enough once he’d stopped.
“These pieces of wood sticking out of the water are pilings left from a pier used during the Second World War,” he told her. “Fish and other sea animals consider this sort of thing the latest in condominium dwellings.”
Charmed By You ((Destiny Bay Romances-The Islanders 5)) Page 14
