The Midwife and the Lawman

by Marisa Carroll

  She wished she’d been able to find their aunt that night at Angel’s Gate. She’d been too busy since to go back. A phone call to the resort had gleaned little information beyond the fact that, yes, Lucia Molina did work there, but she was not on duty that day, and, in fact, not scheduled for the rest of the week. It was against resort policy to give out employee addresses or phone numbers, the polite but adamant voice on the other end of the line had told her. She would just have to check back at the beginning of next week.

  Sylvia sat down at the table with Devon while she pretended to eat. Maria climbed onto the chair next to her sister and leaned against her. She knew Sylvia was going to have a baby. Now and then she put her hand on her sister’s stomach to feel the baby kick, and Sylvia didn’t discourage her. But other than that, she didn’t ask many questions about the birth. She was a smart little thing and had picked up on the tension between her siblings. She must have realized the baby had something to do with it.

  Devon, too, had bided her time these past few days. It would be Sylvia’s decision whether or not to keep the baby when it was born. There were ways that help could be arranged for her, day care, medical assistance. But it would be much better if her immigrant status wasn’t in doubt. Immigration would have to become involved no matter what decision she made. If Sylvia decided to give the baby up for adoption, it would become very complicated. If she kept the baby, would she be able to care for it properly? She could be sent back to Mexico, even though the baby would be an American citizen. The legal questions surrounding the birth made Devon’s head spin.

  Maria wanted an apple, and Sylvia got up to go to the refrigerator to get her one.

  Devon looked out the window. The sun had already disappeared behind the mountain. She’d been inside all day, she realized, first at Carla and Rick’s home, then at the birth center and the hospital E.R. Suddenly she needed exercise and fresh air. “I’m going for a walk,” she said.

  “I’ll come with you,” Maria piped up, an apple slice poised halfway to her lips.

  Sylvia placed her hands on the little girl’s shoulders and turned her around. “No, you won’t. You are going to take a bath and wash your hair.”

  “I don’t need to wash my hair.”

  “Yes, you do. You and Sammy were playing in the sand all afternoon.”

  Devon had forgotten that Maria spent the afternoon with Nolan’s niece. “Did you have a good time at Sammy’s?” she asked.

  Maria’s pigtails bobbed up and down as she nodded. Seeing Maria so full of energy and happiness made Devon feel a little better. She had done the right thing in bringing the children to her home; she just had to remember that when the complexities of the situation conspired to overwhelm her. “Yes. We played with Brady. He’s almost two.” Brady was Faith Tanner’s little boy. Faith was Hope Reynolds’s sister. She lived with Hope and Parker, baby-sitting for Sammy and other children during the day and taking college classes at night and on weekends.

  “I’m glad you had a good time.”

  She nodded emphatically again. “I want to go back to Sammy’s house.” Her sunny smile disappeared. “I know she can’t come here.”

  “Of course she can come here,” Devon said. “We’ll invite her one day soon.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “¡Mil gracias!” She skipped out of the kitchen.

  “Thank you,” Sylvia said. “But do you think it’s wise?”

  “There’s no reason she can’t have a friend over if you don’t mind baby-sitting them. I’m sure Kim and Nolan won’t mind. I should have thought of inviting Sammy sooner.” It’s what she would do if the children were hers. Except that they weren’t hers. She had always wanted a large family, brothers and sisters, children of her own. But these children had family, at least an aunt they cared enough about to uproot themselves and come looking for. She, Devon, was only a substitute, a good Samaritan. She wasn’t family. She had no claim to them now or in the future. The thought made her heart heavy. She stood and picked up her plate and silverware. “I’ll help you with the dishes.”

  “No, go for your walk,” Sylvia said. “It will soon be dark. You might twist your ankle or step in a hole if you wait too long and can’t see where you’re going.”

  The sky had darkened slightly while they talked. “All right, I will. I’ll take my cell phone with me in case the clinic calls or in case you need me.”

  Sylvia nodded. “Enjoy yourself.”

  Devon changed into her running shoes and stepped out into the clear, calm twilight. She jogged down the driveway but when she reached the road she slowed her pace. She didn’t need physical exercise to tire her body, she needed peace of mind to rest her brain. Below her, she could hear cars on the more traveled roads leading into town. Above her, the sighing of night breezes in the pines were the only sounds to compete with her own soft footfalls.

  Sunset had come and gone quickly as it always did in the mountains. It was high summer now, so the evening had not yet cooled enough for her to wear the light sweater she’d tied around her waist. Dust tickled her nose and somewhere off to her right a small animal scurried through the dry grass at the side of the road, heading home before night-hunting owls and larger predators became active.

  She was abreast of Miguel’s driveway now and she glanced through the screen of pines that hid his house from the view of passersby. No lights flickered through the webbing of pine boughs. He was probably still on duty. The Enchantment force was small. Even if he was chief now, Miguel often had to fill in an extra shift.

  She hadn’t seen him since the morning after the fire at Manny’s place. The days had passed quickly, but now she realized how much she missed him. The sound of a powerful engine coming up the grade intruded on her thoughts, and moments later Miguel’s SUV pulled into sight, as though her musings had conjured him from the thin mountain air.

  He made the turn into his driveway, then stopped, waiting for her. She moved to the side of the truck. He rolled down the window. “Want a ride home?” he asked.

  She shook her head. They hadn’t been alone since that night on the mountain. She didn’t think it was prudent they take up where they’d left off. Besides, the only time she’d seen him since had been the altercation with Jesse. She was still a little miffed with him for the way he’d treated the boy.

  His thoughts must have been tracking along the same lines. “How’s the kid working out at Manny’s place?”

  “Fine.”

  “You’re still mad at me for giving him a hard time, aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  He grinned. Her stomach tightened with longing. God, his smile could turn her senses upside down in a matter of seconds. “You always were a lousy liar, Devon.” He might have meant the comment in jest, but she took it seriously, a warning of how easily he could read her mind and her heart.

  She focused on his words, not on his smile. “Manny says he’s been a real help. He should have his new coop ready for the chicks by the end of the week.”

  “Then what’s the boy going to do with his time?”

  She didn’t have an answer. He leaned his forearm on the window frame, and her eyes were drawn to the bandage on his hand and wrist. All thought of finding a suitable answer to his last query fled her brain. “Where have you been? That bandage is filthy.”

  He looked down at his hand, then back at her. “I was nosing around up at Silverton awhile this afternoon. Must have happened then.”

  A shiver skated up and down her spine, as if Teague Ellis’s ghost had walked over her grave. “Silverton?” What had he found “nosing around” the old ghost town? The kids’ pickup? The things they had left behind? The things Jesse had taken from Daniel’s place? Was there anything in the pitiably small accumulation of stuff that could identify them? She longed and dreaded to ask him more. Instead, she touched a finger to the dirty gauze. “You need that changed. Did they send supplies home from the E.R.?”

  “I have ev
erything I need. Bandage, tape, antiseptic cream.”

  “I can help you—”

  “I’ll do it later, after I shower.”

  “Oh.” She hadn’t thought of that. And she wasn’t going to run like a scared rabbit just because the thought of him coming out of the shower naked made her pulse pound in her ears. “I’ll catch you on the way back…after I finish my walk…”

  His hand closed over her fingers so quickly she couldn’t pull them away. “Don’t run away. Come with me now, Devon. We never finished what we started up there on the mountain Sunday night.” She didn’t know if he meant the conversation or the kiss. Repeating either was dangerous.

  “I’m not running away.” But of course she was, or should be, as fast and as far as her legs would carry her. Except that her traitorous feet were still planted firmly on the dusty roadway.

  Miguel apparently wasn’t taking any chances. He reached to his right and opened the passenger door of the Durango. “Get in.” He wasn’t asking her, he was ordering her. She didn’t move for a moment, just held her gaze. The heat and challenge in his eyes called to something primitive and female in her. She might be a dozen times a fool for not turning her back and walking away, but she’d be damned if she let him think her a coward.

  She walked around the hood of the truck and slid in beside him. “I can’t stay,” she said with a hint of challenge of her own. “The kids will miss me. I told Sylvia I was only going for a walk.”

  “You’ve got your cell with you, right? They can call you if they need you.” She had no rebuttal for that and he knew it. “I won’t make you stay one minute longer than you want to,” he said, and put the truck in gear.

  HE HADN’T TAKEN THIS FAST a shower since boot camp, Miguel thought as he ran a towel through his hair, then tossed it toward the hamper. He squinted at his face in the mirror above the sink. He needed a shave, but he wasn’t going to stop for that, either. Devon was as skittish as a fawn caught in the open without its mother. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d hightailed it for home as soon as he’d shut the bathroom door, thinking he was bent on seducing her.

  He was bent on seducing her, he thought as he pulled on his jeans. Maybe consuming her was more accurate. He had to put a tight rein on himself not to get hard just thinking about being with her, inside her, loving her. He did love her, damn it. Had loved her for almost as long as he’d known her. He’d just been too young and too stupid to recognize it for the enduring passion it clearly was.

  She loved him, too, or was on the verge of it, he was convinced. But she had too many other things on her mind right now to let her heart overrule her brain.

  He wasn’t going to be able to walk into his kitchen, sweep her up into his arms and carry her to his bed like he wanted to. He was going to have to be more subtle. Besides, he didn’t only have lovemaking on his mind. He was too much a cop for that. He needed more information about the Molina kids from her. He’d have to be as subtle going about that as the lovemaking. He slid his feet into a pair of moccasins his mother had picked up on the big reservation and pulled on a flannel shirt. Not bothering to button it, he scooped up the sack of supplies the hospital had sent home with him to bandage his burn and headed for the kitchen.

  She hadn’t bolted. She was sitting at the pine table staring out at the summer sunset that had turned the sky a dozen shades of purple and orange. She didn’t look up, and he had a moment to study the clear, sweet lines of her profile. Her hair was pulled up into a knot on top of her head. She’d fastened it with some kind of clip that looked like tortoiseshell, all the same soft golds and brown of her hair. Tendrils had escaped to curl around her cheek and the nape of her neck. Faint lines bracketed her mouth and the corners of her eyes. She looked tired. Since his scouting mission up at the old ghost town, he knew it wasn’t only the pressures of her job that had caused the worry.

  She turned her head and her eyes widened a fraction in surprise to see him standing there. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  He lifted his foot to display the doeskin moccasin. “Stealth shoes.”

  “I’ve never seen you wear them before.”

  “Have you ever seen any Indian outside of the movies wear them?” he asked with a grin as he set the sack of bandages in front of her on the table.

  She thought about that, then shook her head. “No, I guess not.”

  “That’s because moccasins make great slippers, but they’re useless for anything else. In this country you need boots. And good ones.”

  “Hmm…like your grandfather told me once. The Navajo have thrived when other tribes didn’t because they take the best of other cultures and adapt it to their own.”

  “Damned straight,” he said. She didn’t seem too skittish, so he sat down beside her and laid his hand on the table. “You look like you had a rough day.”

  “I did. One of my mothers miscarried this morning. It was the woman who my grandmother called about the last time I was here. Do you remember?”

  “I remember,” he responded with a wry smile.

  “It turned out there was a problem with the pregnancy, after all, although it seemed to be progressing normally.” She looked past him out the window. He felt a little jab of pain near his heart. Babies were her business. She would be feeling the loss of this potential life almost as acutely as the mother. “It couldn’t be helped, but still…”

  “You aren’t blaming yourself, are you?”

  She shook her head. “No. There was nothing anyone could do. The baby wasn’t developing properly. It leaves an empty hole in your heart, though.” She looked up at him and her smile was sweet and sad. “They’re not just little blobs of tissue, you know. They’re babies, even then, arms and legs, eyes, a beating heart.”

  And babies grew up to be children, homeless on the run, in need of care and loving. Devon had a big heart. She’d take them all in. Hell, she probably hadn’t given it more than thirty seconds thought. Not just big-eyed cuties like Maria, but the ones that were trouble on the hoof like Jesse, or an almost-woman having a baby of her own like Sylvia.

  “This woman can have another child, right?”

  “Yes.” Her smile widened. “I’m sure she will. A healthy beautiful baby. Or two. Or three.”

  She always talked of babies in multiples, he’d noticed. Did she want a big family of her own? Like so many other important things, he couldn’t remember ever having discussed the matter with her. He had lost so many years with her. He would regret that to his dying day.

  “And you’ll be here to deliver them?”

  The smile faltered. “I hope so.” She wiggled her fingers. “Let me see that hand.”

  The subject was closed. She wasn’t going to let him closer to help ease the hurt. A shiver crawled over his skin, a tendril of doubt that he wouldn’t let take root. He didn’t know how to get past the roadblocks she kept throwing up in front of him, but he was damned sure going to try.

  Her fingers trembled slightly as she turned his hand palm up. She slid the point of the scissors he’d brought to the table with the medical supplies beneath the soiled, wet gauze. “Sing out if I hurt you,” she said. The kitchen was warm with the leftover heat of the afternoon sun. He could smell her hair, the flowery scent of her soap. There were tiny gold studs in her ears, and he remembered the feel of them from their night together as he had nibbled the soft lobes. She was wearing a pale-yellow T-shirt and cutoffs, which let him gaze his fill at the long, smooth length of her legs. He gave an involuntary jerk at the thought of those legs wrapped around him in the darkness of his bedroom as he drove himself into the heat of her body.

  She stopped immediately. “Did I nick you?”

  “No. The blade’s cold, that’s all.”

  “I’m almost done.” She unwound the last of the bandage and turned his hand over, laying it flat on her own. He held himself very still. She lifted the medicated squares the E.R. doc had placed over the blistered skin on the back of his wrist. A little frown appeared bet
ween her brows. She touched the reddened skin on the back of his hand with a gentle pressure. Her nails were round and unpolished, her touch gentle. He suppressed the urge to sweep the tape and bandages off the table and make love to her right there and then. “Is it still painful?” she asked in a voice that wasn’t quite steady.

  “It’s not bad unless I forget and twist my wrist too quickly.”

  “It’ll be tender for a while yet. It looks like it’s healing well, though. You should probably keep it covered for another few days.” She slipped her hand from beneath his, and he had to stop himself from closing his fingers around hers and holding her close, pain or no pain. He waited as she applied the antiseptic cream to a sterile square and placed it over his blistered skin. Then with quick, deft movements she replaced the wrapping, and the warmth of her touch was lost under the layers of gauze.

  Once more she turned his hand palm up and secured the bandage with two short strips of tape. “Keep it clean and dry for another day or two and it’ll be fine.” She laid down the roll of tape. “All done,” she said, and the words came out a breathy sigh.

  He lifted her chin with the tip of his finger. “No,” he said. “We’re not all done.”

  She didn’t pretend to misunderstand his intent. “I can’t stay here, Miguel. I need to get back to the children.”

  “They seem pretty self-sufficient to me,” he said as she whisked the soiled bandage and paper wrappers into the empty sack they had come in.

  “They’ll be worried about me if I don’t get back before dark.” She stood up. “I…I should wash my hands.”

  He took the sack from her hands and pointed to the sink. “There’s soap and a clean towel.” He disposed of the plastic bag while she ran water over her hands and dried them with the towel. She turned around, her back to the sink, her eyes large and the color of the rain clouds that seemed to have vanished from the sky over Enchantment forever.