A Touch of Flame

by Jo Goodman

  “I’m counting on it.”

  When he was gone, Ridley took her medical bag to the washstand to give Phoebe time to compose herself. In truth, even if she hadn’t needed to clean her instruments, she would have required the distraction. Seeing them together touched her more profoundly than she could have imagined. She had only ever witnessed an approximation of that affection in the relationships between her father and his occasional mistresses. Marital infidelity aside, it was still not an example she wished to emulate. Her father had found ease from his volatile marriage in arrangements that were as comfortable as his slippers and as orderly as his library.

  Ridley appreciated comfortable slippers and order to her bookshelves, and it pained her to think that once upon a time, she might have been satisfied with that tidy life. Watching Remington and Phoebe together was a revelation, but so was being with Ben on any given day . . . or night.

  Ridley gripped the corners of the washstand, steadied herself. She knew something about a contraction just then. This one squeezed her heart.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Doctor?”

  Ridley snapped to attention. “Yes?”

  “That last time . . . I think I soiled myself.”

  Ridley cleared her throat, found her voice. “It’s all right. Perfectly normal.”

  “Maybe, but it’s still mortifying.” Phoebe smiled crookedly. “I put a towel under my backside in anticipation of all this normal. That’s something I learned the last time. I could use some help.”

  “Of course.” Ridley’s approach was straightforward. Her efficient handling of the mess, the cleaning, and the changing made what had to be done marginally less discomforting for Phoebe. She slid a fresh towel from a stack in the linen cupboard under Phoebe’s bottom. “You need another shift,” she said as Phoebe drew the blankets up to her naked shoulders. “I don’t suppose—”

  “We didn’t plan to spend the night,” Phoebe said.

  “Maybe one of Ben’s shirts?”

  “No!”

  Ridley laughed at the vehemence of her reply. “All right. I’ll go next door and bring back a couple of mine.”

  “Will you check on Colt again, please?”

  “Of course.” Ridley looked in on him twice, once before she left and once when she returned. Both times he was burrowed so deeply under the covers that only the top of his head showed. He slept through both interruptions.

  Phoebe took the shift that Ridley handed her and slipped it over her head. When she emerged, the other shift was already hanging on the wardrobe door and Ridley was taking off her coat. “Tell me about Colt,” she said.

  “Sleeping soundly. Tell me about your contractions. You should have had one while I was gone.”

  “There’s no point in lying, is there?” With a mildly guilty expression, Phoebe held up two fingers.

  Ridley’s eyebrows lifted. “Two of them? How long? Please tell me you counted.”

  “Fifty seconds each, give or take a few.”

  “And in between? They must have been close together.”

  “I don’t think you could have been out of the house when I had the first one. I heard you coming up the stairs when the second one was ending.”

  Ridley estimated the interval at about six minutes. She began setting her instruments out on a clean towel.

  “It’s happening faster than before,” Phoebe said. The anxiety that tugged at her features earlier was now a note in her voice. “Should I have known that? I didn’t. I thought it would be the same.” She closed her eyes. “Lord, I should have read that book Remington brought home.”

  Ridley washed her hands and then carried the towel with the instruments over to the bed. She placed it at the foot. “There are many ways a woman experiences labor, and a woman who gives birth multiple times can have a different experience each time. She can also have a labor similar to the ones before, but that does not seem to be the case here. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong; it only means that it’s different.”

  Phoebe pressed the heels of her hands into the pillows on either side of her. Her fingers curled. Her eyes, already closed, were squeezed tight.

  Ridley counted. When the contraction passed and Phoebe sank back against the headboard and opened her eyes, Ridley said, “Sixty seconds.”

  “Are you certain? It felt like forever.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Here’s what I know, Phoebe, and every textbook, every mother-to-be, confirms it. Babies are born on their timeline, not ours. This one’s eager, but that’s not exactly surprising when there is a family like yours waiting to welcome him—or her.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I really do.” And with that last assurance, Ridley began her examination.

  “Well?” asked Phoebe when Ridley emerged from under the sheet and she could finally lower her knees and scoot back toward the head of the bed. She was nearly sitting upright when another contraction laid her back. She pressed one hand to her belly; the other squeezed the corner of a pillow. She folded her lips together and muffled the cry that sounded as if the baby were lodged in her throat.

  “Don’t push,” said Ridley, and when Phoebe stared at her with evil intent, she merely smiled back. “You’re not the first woman to consign me to one of the lower circles of hell. Do you know Mary Cherry?”

  Phoebe gave a shout of laughter that quickly spiraled into a groan. She panted, catching her breath after the final wave of the contraction rolled through her. She tried to relax, find a comfortable position. She couldn’t. “Well?” she asked. “Did you see anything interesting? My tonsils?”

  “No, but I think I found your sense of humor.”

  Phoebe’s short laugh ended in a snort. “It seems you did.”

  “Your cervix is dilated to about the diameter of a lemon slice. That’s good. I thought the opening might be bigger given the frequency and duration of your contractions.”

  “The size of a slice of lemon. I don’t want to push a baby through there.”

  “No, you don’t, and your baby will thank you for it.”

  Phoebe nodded. “Will you look out the window and tell me if you see my husband?”

  “Of course.” Ridley went to the window that faced the front street. The Butterworth Hotel blocked much of her view of the main thoroughfare. “Nothing. Would you like me to go outside and look? I could see more if I walked to the corner.”

  “Would you?” She sighed. “I sound needy, don’t I?”

  “Nonsense. I’ll go right now.” Ridley didn’t think about her coat until she was outside. She hugged herself rather than go back inside and took the diagonal path to the corner of the cross streets and the hotel. Ben and Remington were coming abreast of the Songbird when she saw them.

  Ridley waved and waited. Ben was stripping off his coat before they reached her, and because he did not look as if he would entertain an objection, she let him put the coat around her shoulders.

  Remington didn’t pause as he passed her. He’d begun to lengthen his stride as soon as he saw Ridley. His pace was now double what it had been. He called back to Ridley over his shoulder. “What’s happened? Is it Phoebe? Is it the baby?”

  She hurried after him, Ben at her side. “She’s fine. They’re both fine. She asked for me to see where you were. She wants you there, lunatic or not.”

  Remington took the front steps in a single leap but slowed as he crossed to the door. “She wants me?” He raised an index finger, pointing to the upper floor. “There?”

  “I don’t know about that.” Ridley caught up to him, slightly out of breath. “She wants to know that you’re in the house, I think. It probably seemed as if a long time had passed.”

  Nodding once, Remington went inside. By the time Ridley and Ben were there, he was almost at the top of the stairs. Ridley started to follow, but Ben caught her
elbow and held her back.

  “He needs time,” said Ben. “He’ll want to see for himself that what you said is true.”

  Ridley nodded. He was right. She returned his coat.

  “What about you?” he asked.

  “Me? There’s nothing wrong with me.” She watched him make his own assessment, blue eyes grazing her rather warmly from head to toe.

  “There certainly isn’t.”

  “Are you flirting?”

  “Not very well, if you have to ask.” He threw his coat over the newel post and tossed his hat on top. “You took my breath away this afternoon. Did I tell you that?”

  “No. Did I?”

  “Uh-huh. You probably saved my life, or if not mine, then Phoebe’s or Colt’s. I don’t know where Gordon’s bullet would have gone. Did you think at all?”

  “No.”

  “So it was blind luck.”

  “I think it might have been. I’m fairly sure my eyes were closed at the end.”

  He sighed, nodded. “I wish you had it in you to be a little dishonest.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Ben sank his fingers into his hair, separating the strands with deep furrows. “Can I at least depend on you not to do something so brilliantly reckless in the future?”

  “Yes, you can depend on it.”

  His expression was immediately suspicious. “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but only to prove to myself that I can.”

  He kissed her. Hard. Her splendidly wry smile made it a moral imperative. She raised her hands, placed them on his shoulders, and then moved them to the back of his neck. She laced her fingers against his web of scars, rose on tiptoes, and kissed him back.

  Ben seized her at the waist, pulled her to him. Her breasts flattened against his vest. He would have let her crawl inside his clothes if she could have, burrowed under his skin if such a thing were possible. His hands moved to the small of her back; her fingers wrapped themselves in his hair.

  The moment, the kiss, could easily have lasted this side of forever. The wanting was clear. The need was evident. The hunger was real. The opportunity, though, was miserably mistimed.

  Ben drew back the fraction necessary to whisper against her lips. “Later, Edwina. I swear I mean to have you.” He felt her warm chuckle at his mouth. “Not Edwina?”

  “No.” She lowered her heels to the floor and let her fingers drift from his hair to his shoulders and then down his arms. “Not Edwina.”

  “All right.” He brushed her lips, set his forehead against hers. “I still mean to have you.”

  “I hope so. Do you think we’ve given Remington enough time?”

  “You didn’t hear him at the top of the stairs?”

  Ridley reared back and set herself from him. “What? You’re making that up.”

  Ben held up both hands. His eyes were full of mischief. “I swear I’m not. Don’t worry, he knows I’ve kissed girls before.”

  Ridley let him know she was not amused. She shouldered right past him to reach the stairs, but she didn’t fight him when he caught her on the first step, spun her around, and offered what she imagined he thought was a contrite expression.

  “Don’t pretend you’re sorry when you’re not,” she said.

  “I’m a little bit sorry. I told you I wouldn’t mind for myself if we were found out. Do you remember? I said I would mind for you. And I do, but only because you’re distressed. It was Remington who saw us. He’s hardly the town crier. You can expect that he’ll say something to Phoebe, but she’s not going to tell anyone.”

  “Hmm.” Ridley’s gaze faltered; she looked away. “Sometimes I take things too seriously, myself included.”

  “Sometimes.” He paused, bent his head to catch her eye. “And sometimes I fail to see when things are serious.”

  She shook her head. “No, you don’t. I never think that. You merely wear a different suit of armor than I do.”

  Ben said nothing. She had captured it exactly. His hands fell to his sides.

  Ridley turned and mounted the steps. She felt his eyes on her back all the way to the top.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Remington and Phoebe were whispering when Ridley walked into the room. That ended abruptly. Remington, who was sitting at his wife’s side, his head bent toward hers, immediately sat up straight. They wore identically innocent expressions, the kind that guilty children everywhere produced when caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

  Ridley cut through the pretense. “I know you know.” She appreciated they had the grace not to ask her what she meant. Their simultaneous sighs were rather amusing. With that out of the way, she was all about the business at hand. “How are you, Phoebe?”

  “Doing well, I think. Remington thinks so, too.”

  Ridley sat on the bed opposite Remington. She removed a stethoscope from her medical bag, fixed the ear tips in her ears, and placed the bell against Phoebe’s rounded abdomen. She moved it around until she found where the baby’s heartbeat was the strongest. Keeping the bell in place, she removed the ear tips and offered them to Remington. His disbelief and subsequent hesitation were charming. “Go on,” she encouraged him. “You’ve probably put your ear to your wife’s belly before. This is like that, only better.”

  Remington looked sideways at Phoebe. “You don’t mind?”

  She smiled, shook her head.

  He took the ear tips, inserted them, and listened, fascinated by the steady beat of his child’s heart. He reared back slightly when the baby kicked and he felt the vibration through the ear tubes. Grinning, he handed the ear tips back to Ridley. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She dropped the stethoscope back in her bag and then asked Phoebe about her contractions. There had been no change. “Your labor’s stalled. That happens sometimes. Your cervix needs to soften and stretch. It will.” She noticed that Phoebe took this information in stride. Remington had gone a little pale. “Are you going to be all right?” she asked him. “You can leave anytime, but you can be certain I will call for Ben to escort you out when Phoebe’s ready to deliver.”

  Phoebe said, “Ben’s assistance will not be required.”

  Remington did not contradict his wife.

  She found his hand, squeezed it. “Stop thinking about those illustrations.”

  “I can’t. They’re burned like wood etchings at the back of my eyelids.”

  “You know what would help?” said Ridley. “Some of my good whiskey. I’m not inviting you to get drunk, only suggesting that in moderation those images might fade.” When Remington didn’t move, she shrugged. “Or you can sit right here.” She caught sight of Phoebe’s pinched features, a precursor to the next contraction. “And here we go.”

  Phoebe squeezed Remington’s fingers bloodless. She drew her lips inward, pressed hard, and managed not to draw blood. Pain was a rolling tide. She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to breathe when Ridley reminded her, and dug her heels into the mattress to shift positions. There was no ease to the pain, but a minute later, when it had run its course, she felt loose jointed and separate from her body. It was lovely. Her grip on Remington’s hand relaxed. She laughed a little jerkily when he slipped his hand out from under her fingers and shook it.

  Ridley laid a damp folded cloth across Phoebe’s perspiring brow and then gently wiped her face.

  “I hate it when you tell me not to push,” Phoebe told her.

  “Do you remember I said your cervix is open about the diameter of a lemon slice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, to accommodate the baby, it needs to be dilated to the diameter of a”—Ridley paused while she considered her analogy—“the diameter of a doughnut. A fat doughnut.”

  “A fat doughnut,” Phoebe repeated, as she looked at her husband. He was significantly paler than he
had been before. “Go on, dearest. Have that medicinal whiskey like the doctor suggested. And when Ben says you’ve had enough, you’ve had enough.”

  Remington nodded, kissed Phoebe on the cheek, and exited the room muttering “doughnut” under his breath.

  Watching him go, Phoebe sighed. “He’s a comfort to me until he isn’t. It was definitely time for him to go. He was done in by the doughnut.”

  Laughter bubbled on Ridley’s lips. A moment later, Phoebe joined her.

  * * *

  • • •

  “You hear them?” Remington asked Ben when he reached the front room. “Where’s your liquor? They’re laughing at me, and you don’t want to know what about. I wish I didn’t know. I was satisfied with the mystery, and then I read that damn book, well, mostly looked at the illustrations, and what I didn’t know, Dr. Woodhouse just explained. You’d think breeding horses all these years would prepare a man for the facts, but it’s different when it’s facts about your wife. You’ll see. Where’d you say your liquor was?”

  “I didn’t,” Ben said. “I’m pouring you a drink right now.”

  “What?” Remington pulled in his focus. Ben was indeed standing by a drinks cabinet holding a glass in one hand and a bottle in the other. “Is that yours or the doc’s? She said she had some good whiskey at her house.”

  “The doc’s,” said Ben. He handed Remington the glass and then poured a drink for himself. “I went next door and stole it.”

  “Good.” He tipped the glass against his mouth and took a large swallow. “Smooth,” he said when it reached the pit of his stomach. “Better than what you usually have on hand.”

  “I know. Her liquor selection was a revelation. I thought she only had a taste for blended teas.” He shrugged. “I guess you never know. Have a seat, and don’t knock back what’s left of that drink. I’m pouring. You’re not.”

  Remington dropped into a large overstuffed chair. He slumped, stretched his legs, and rolled the glass between his palms. “Talk about something,” he told Ben. “Whatever you like.”