Galahad in Blue Jeans

by Sara Orwig

  Now she wanted to try to get her car started, yet with her contractions, she was going to have to trust him to get them to the hospital. Even so, she couldn’t resist turning the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. Vivian bit her lip and hugged Mary Catherine.

  She prayed Matt Whitewolf was as trustworthy as he seemed. He said he would take her to Enid to the hospital. She had driven through Enid earlier, only noticing it was built around a shaded square and a large courthouse, but she had paid little attention to the town. When they reached the hospital, who would stay with Mary Catherine while she had her baby?

  Vivian patted her temple, looking at his blood-soaked handkerchief. Her head throbbed, but it seemed insignificant next to the possibility of having her baby now. The windows had fogged and she could no longer see the cowboy. As she swiped at the glass, a contraction gripped her, and she forgot everything but her pain.

  Cold, hard rain swept over Matt, soaking him in seconds. He jumped inside his pickup, slamming the door while he revved the engine and raced down the road. In seconds he had parked beside Vivian’s smashed vehicle.

  As he climbed out of his pickup, he yanked on a slicker. When he opened Vivian’s car door, mother and daughter were huddled together in the steamy car.

  “I’ll get Mary Catherine’s car seat buckled in first and then I’ll get her and come back for you.”

  “My car won’t start.”

  “I’ll check it later.”

  “Oh!” She bit her lip and placed her hand against her stomach again. It dimly registered with Matt that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but his thoughts were primarily on her contractions.

  He didn’t know anything about babies, but he knew a lot about calves, foals and puppies, and worry chilled him more than the cold rain. It took forty minutes in good weather to get from his place into town. In a storm it would take longer. “How often are you having pains?”

  “I haven’t timed them.”

  “Start timing,” he ordered bluntly as he unbuckled Mary Catherine’s car seat.

  “Take her bag and that small blue bag so she’ll have some of her things with her,” Vivian said. “My hospital case is the gray one, and I’d like the brown suitcase, please. There’s a small navy bag of baby things.” She glanced at the boxes with her computer and monitor and suffered a pang at leaving her business records behind. “I need to lock up my car,” she said, fumbling with her keys as she tried to extract the correct ones.

  He placed his hand lightly on her arm. “Lady, stop planning,” he ordered. “I’ll take care of the bags and car. Let’s just get going. Give me your keys.”

  With a flash of sparks in her eyes, she handed him her key chain, pointing to which keys to take. He pocketed the entire bunch. He picked up the bags and car seat and dashed to fasten it in the back seat of his pickup. He ran back to Vivian’s car and shed his slicker.

  “Come on, Mary Catherine. Let me carry you to my car.”

  She turned to cling tightly to Vivian, who gently pried the tittle girl’s arms loose. “Let Mr. Whitewolf carry you. I can’t carry you right now.”

  Mary Catherine was wide-eyed and solemn as Matt picked her up gently. When her thin little arm went around his neck, he turned his head to smile at her as he put the slicker over her head. “You’re going to get a little wet, but as sweet as you are, you’re not sugar so you won’t melt. Let’s go.”

  He dashed to the car and set her down on the front seat. Scrambling away from him swiftly, she. climbed into the back and buckled herself into her car seat.

  “Good girl. Now I’m going back for Mommy, so I have to leave you alone for just a minute, but you have your teddy bear with you. He’ll hold your hand,” he said, and she pulled her teddy up close to hug it. She stared at him with huge blue eyes filled with unmistakable fear.

  Matt closed the door and ran back to Vivian’s car, reaching in to hand his slicker to her. She scooted across the seat toward him.

  “It’s muddy and wet. I’ll carry you.”

  “I can walk.”

  “I’ll carry you,” he said more firmly, and she nodded. Handing her his slicker, he slipped his arms around her. She wrapped one arm around his neck and held the slicker over both of them. He caught the scent of tea roses while soft locks of her straight hair brushed against his cheek. Even though she was pregnant, she was easy to carry, fitting so well into his arms. The slicker wrapped them in a cocoon. Her body was warm, her soft breast pressed against his chest. He placed her gently in the seat and ran around the front of the pickup to slide behind the wheel.

  “Oh! There’s another,” she cried, biting .her lip and squeezing her eyes shut, one hand clutching the seat and her other hand rubbing her abdomen. “The contractions are four minutes apart.”

  “I’ll try to get you to the hospital as quickly as I can, but the rain will slow us down.”

  “I wasn’t in labor a long time with Mary Catherine.”

  “Jeez!” He leaned forward, struggling to see through the blinding downpour and silently cursing the rain that slowed his driving.

  Hearing her breath come out in puffs, Matt glanced at his passenger. She sat white-faced and tense. His gaze ran over her swiftly, taking in her simple pink cotton shirt and skirt. Her brown hair was thick and shiny and fell below her shoulders. She was pretty, with a straight nose, prominent cheekbones and smooth, flawless skin. Matt wondered where her husband was. The man was about to become a dad again and he should be with her now.

  “Would you like to call your husband?” Matt asked, offering her the cellular phone.

  Her eyes widened, and she looked startled before she blinked and shook her head. “No. I’m divorced.”

  Surprised, Matt glanced at her, wondering how a man could end a marriage to a beautiful woman and an adorable little girl. And another baby on the way. Along with his surprise, Matt felt a swift rush of annoyance with a man he had never met. Vivian shouldn’t be here with a stranger when she was in labor. She should have her husband beside her. A protective sense stirred within Matt, and he decided be would stay at the hospital while she had her baby.

  “Any other relatives to call? Your parents?”

  She shook her head. “Both of my parents are deceased. It’s all right. No one was with me when Mary Catherine was born.”

  “You were divorced then?”

  “No, I’ve been divorced a year now. Back when Mary Catherine was born, my husband was closing a deal. A wife and family always came second to his business,” she said.

  A foul word directed at her ex-husband ran through Matt’s mind as he placed the phone on the seat and hunched over the wheel. “We’re really getting it now,” he said, trying to see the road through the rain-covered window.

  “Oh,” she exclaimed softly, and bit her lip. Matt glanced at her and then returned his attention to the road. In minutes he heard her suck in her breath.

  “Are you still timing?” he asked, thinking the last contractions were closer than four minutes apart.

  “Three minutes almost,” she said in a tight voice. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “I can’t, either,” he remarked dryly, praying Rabbit Creek hadn’t filled up out of its banks.

  He picked up the phone and called 911. As soon as the dispatcher answered, Matt spoke tersely. “This is Matt Whitewolf on the county road about a mile from Rabbit Creek. I have a woman in labor with me and we need an ambulance to get her to the hospital.”

  He listened as the dispatcher repeated his statement, checked his location and said the ambulance was on its way. Matt switched the phone off.

  “Sorry to be trouble,” Vivian said quietly.

  “Babies aren’t trouble,” he said, hating that she and her little girl were alone. “They’re very special miracles,” he added, glancing at her.

  She turned to look at him. “Do you have children?”

  “No, I’m not married,” he said, suspecting that would not be reassuring news. “I’m not a m
arrying man,” he said, and then wondered what it was about Vivian Ashland that had him telling something so personal. Maybe it was the trust that she and Mary Catherine had been forced by circumstances to place in him.

  He returned his attention swiftly to the road, slowing more in the blinding rain and feeling tension knot in him because he knew what this rain might be doing to Rabbit Creek. It might not matter whether there was an ambulance on the way. They rode in silence and he glanced once in the rearview mirror. Mary Catherine stared ahead with frightened eyes, her thumb in her mouth and her blanket and teddy bear against her cheek.

  Vivian turned to look at her daughter and twisted in the seat, reaching back to hold Mary Catherine’s hand. “We’re all right, sweetie,” she said. “She doesn’t like storms,” Vivian remarked to Matt.

  He didn’t like this one, either. Concentrating on his driving, he didn’t bother to answer her. They turned a bend and he swore softly. “Dammit.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  As the windshield wipers swished away rain at their top speed, he could see well enough to view the tumbling water that had spread out of the banks of Rabbit Creek. The gray asphalt disappeared from view beneath the surging, muddy water and a road sign stuck up above the surface, looking out of place. He swore again and pumped the brakes, slowing and staring in consternation. Alarm engulfed him. A baby was not a calf or foal. He didn’t know anything about delivering a baby.

  He glared at the water that he was helpless to fight and reassured himself that women had been having babies since the beginning of time and this was not Vivian Ashland’s first baby.

  “I can see the rails of the bridge. Can’t you drive through the water?” she asked.

  “No. If that water is going fifteen miles an hour—it looks like it’s going a lot faster than that—it can be twenty-five thousand pounds of force against the pickup,” he said tersely. “It’s an old bridge and it’s held so far, but it could go at any time. The county was supposed to replace it last spring.”

  “What do I do?”

  He carefully turned the pickup, heading back the way they had come. “The creek is up and over the bridge. I can go around, but the only way open will take a couple of hours, and in this storm, I think the best thing to do is get you back to my house. When you had Mary Catherine, did you have any complications?”

  “No,” she said in a small voice that made him think of Mary Catherine. “I’m sorry to cause you trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble,” he lied. “We’ll get out of this storm,” he said, heading back as fast as he dared, knowing some of the low-lying areas of the highway could flood if the downpour continued and they could be cut off from his house as well. He picked up the phone and called 911 again. “We can’t get through,” he told the dispatcher. “Rabbit Creek is out of its banks, and the bridge is under water. We’re headed back to my house. I’ll keep in contact with Doc Bently in Dakani.”

  He gave his cellular phone number and his home phone number and listened to the dispatcher talk about an ambulance coming as soon as the water subsided.

  Next, Matt called his family physician in the nearby small town of Dakani.

  “Doc, Matt here. A woman had a wreck on my place and she’s in labor. I was taking her to Enid, but water is over the bridge on Rabbit Creek and we’ve had to turn back. We can’t even get to Dakani and her contractions are not quite three minutes apart. I’m taking her back to my place.”

  “Call me when you get home or if she goes into hard labor. I’ll tell you what to do,” Dr. Bently replied.

  “Can you get here?” Matt asked.

  “I’ll head down south and avoid Rabbit Creek. I’ll be there when I can get there. I’m on my way.”

  “Thanks. And hurry.”

  He switched off the phone and set it on the seat between them, glancing at Vivian. Perspiration beaded her brow and she was still covered with streaks of blood on her cheek and throat and over her pink blouse from bumping her head on the windshield.

  “How’s your head?”

  “Oh, it’s fine. A little headache,” she answered, sounding distracted. He suspected she was wrapped in her own world of labor contractions. Matt glanced in the rearview mirror at Mary Catherine, who was wide-eyed, rubbing her face with her blanket and looking terrified.

  Thunder boomed and the child jumped, squeezing her eyes closed. “Mommy!”

  “It’s all right. We’ll be out of the storm soon,” Vivian said gently, twisting in the seat to reach back and hold Mary Catherine’s hand again. “Mr. Whitewolf is taking us home with him.” She turned slightly to face him. “I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” he answered, glancing at her and wondering what had happened to her marriage.

  “How’d Mary Catherine find you?”

  “I had a flat and was changing it.”

  She didn’t reply and in seconds groaned softly, and he fought the urge to jam his foot hard on the accelerator.

  When he turned the pickup at his gate and rattled across the cattle guard, he lost his concern that he might be unable to get through to his house. From the gate there would be no more deep water to go through.

  Driving along the muddy road, he was aware this was the first time he had ever brought a woman home. His home seemed an extension of himself, something he guarded as closely as he guarded his heart. But a woman in labor who was a complete stranger was different from a woman he dated. Even so, he was aware of the first in his life.

  Vivian gasped and gripped the door handle, her knuckles white. “How far is your house?”

  “Not much farther. Doc said to call when you’re in hard labor.”

  “Not yet.”

  They lapsed into silence until he slowed as he approached the sprawling ranch house built of weathered timbers with a wraparound porch. Usually the sight of his house gave him a deep sense of satisfaction, but today fear outweighed all else.

  Matt pulled into the open three-stall garage of his rambling one-story ranch house. “Here we are.”

  Vivian Ashland looked paler than before. She frowned and bit her lip.

  “Still three minutes apart?”

  She shook her head. “No, two minutes.”

  Sweating, feeling nervous and swearing silently at the rain, Matt climbed out and reached back to get Mary Catherine out of her seat. Before he could, she unbuckled it and climbed over the seat, scooting out beside Vivian. Matt gathered their bags and opened the back door.

  As they started to enter his house, he looked into Vivian’s wide eyes and he could see her fear.

  “I can call Doc Bently again, and he’ll give you a character reference about me if it would make you feel better.”

  “No!” She blushed a deep pink, the color looking pretty in her pale face. “I don’t need that. I just didn’t expect to be with a stranger.”

  “I know. Let’s go inside.”

  “Oh!” She grasped the door and paused and his concern heightened.

  “I think I better get you to bed and call the doctor. I can carry you,” he offered, following them inside the kitchen and setting down the bags. He switched on a light, barely glancing at the familiar room with its warm oak cabinets and round oak table, the reddish-brown terrazzo floor. Dishes were piled haphazardly on the counter and in the sink. Once again he was aware of the oddity of a stranger in his home.

  Vivian shook her head in response to this question. “I can walk,” she replied.

  His phone rang and he crossed the room to pick up the receiver.

  “Matt.” He heard Walt Bently’s deep voice.

  “We just got here,” Matt replied.

  “How are the contractions?”

  “I think they might be two minutes apart. This is her second baby.”

  “I called Meg Preston, and she’s on her way to your place now. She should be able to get to your house.”

  “Thank God!” Matt exclaimed, for the first time thinking about the older woman who had been an R.N
. in obstetrics before she retired. The Prestons’ farm was about twenty miles from his place, but there were no major creeks to cross between them.

  “Meg will be there soon. Here’s my car phone number,” Bently said, and Matt reached for paper and pen, jotting down the information. “Now, put the little mama in bed and get her ready for Meg. She’s got her instruments, but just in case, you get yourself all washed up, have a knife sterilized, and if this baby comes before Meg does, you call me and I’ll tell you what to do.”

  “Thanks. Bye, Doc.” Matt replaced the phone and told Vivian that help was on the way.

  “If you have television,” she said to him, “Mary Catherine can watch the children’s programs, or she has a video in her bag.”

  “Sure,” Matt answered, looking at the small child. “Let’s go down the hall to the den.” Matt watched as Vivian stood and took her daughter’s hand. Mary Catherine clutched her small bag tightly to her side along with her teddy bear, as if she needed them for defense.

  When they reached the den, Matt switched on lights. As he moved around the room, Vivian handed him a video.

  Her knees shook, and she knew it was from nerves, not labor. She was with a total stranger and no one except Mary Catherine knew where she was. She had to trust Matt Whitewolf and she prayed this baby came without complications.

  She had thought it would be better to move before the baby came, instead of after, but now it seemed a poor choice. She thought of her friends and her doctor in Denver—everything that was familiar. Too late now.

  She watched the tall cowboy as he slipped the cassette into the VCR and turned on the television. In minutes Mary Catherine was curled up on his maroon leather sofa, watching a fuzzy white dog dance across the giant screen.

  Vivian leaned close to hug Mary Catherine, knowing her child was frightened, too, and wishing she could give her more comfort. “You be good and watch your show. I’m going to lie down a little while. Okay?”