The Midwife's Little Miracle Read Free

unwrapped the sandwich and bit into it with small white teeth and with obvious relish. Labour must be hungry work, he thought, and the glow inside him flared a little more.
    ‘Is there anything you don’t have?’ she said just before the next bite, and the words were strangely prophetic.
    Someone like you, perhaps? Whoa, there boy. He was getting way out of his depth here and he needed to pull back urgently. He looked out at the mist below them in the valley.
    His voice came out a little more brusquely than he’d intended but he couldn’t help that. ‘I don’t have a trailer to bring your truck down with us—but I’ll come back and get it later for you.’
    She saw the mist had begun to dissipate lower down the mountain.
    Soon this interlude would be over, she’d be tucked up in a ward bed with Misty and Mia fussing over her, and everything would be as it should be, except Douglas wouldn’t be there.
    All the things she hadn’t said and now couldn’t share with Douglas were irretrievable and sheneeded to accept that. But she dreaded each day in her normal environment, which had become so entrenched in loss and memories.
    Her husband wouldn’t be in the maternity ward where she’d first seen him. Wouldn’t be in any of the familiar places where they’d both spent the last years of his life.
    How did one cope with this feeling of desolation? Or of the guilt-ridden feeling that Douglas had let her down somehow by dying? What of the fact that a stranger had been the first man to see Dawn and not Douglas?
    Her eyes stung and a tear rolled down her cheek. ‘I don’t want to go to the hospital. Actually, I don’t ever want to go back there. I don’t even want to go back to my house in town, which is ridiculous as I don’t have the energy to organise a clean break. I have no idea how I am ever going to go back to work there.’
    She bit her lip and then shook her head. ‘This is not like me. I’m sorry. I have no option. Ignore what I just said.’
    The understanding in his green eyes nearly triggered the tears again. ‘Anyone would think you’d had a big morning,’ he said, and the compassion in his voice told her he understood. He really did understand.
    Andy slid his arm across the seat and around her shoulder and it was as if he encased her in empathy.Despite the fact that she didn’t know him, it felt good to be hugged. Incredibly good.
    ‘It must be hard without your husband,’ he said. ‘I felt the same when my wife died.’
    He saw she knew his story. Misty would have told her. He hoped she hadn’t told her how he’d almost gone off the rails.
    ‘It’s harder than anything in the world,’ she said, ‘and sometimes I’m almost angry with him for leaving.’ Montana lifted her face to his. Her eyes shimmered with loss and he remembered that too.
    ‘I remember that feeling,’ he said.
    He squeezed the fine-boned shoulder under his hand and she responded to his understanding and told him.
    ‘The first of May. It was an aneurysm. There was no warning. Douglas went to bed smiling and never woke up. He was thirty-five and didn’t even know he would be a father.’
    Andy didn’t rush in with condolences because when his wife had died he’d hated that. The silence lengthened as they both reflected on their losses.
    Finally he said, ‘It was a tragedy. Though he has given you a beautiful daughter and he will live on through her.’
    She nodded. ‘I know. But I don’t ever want to hurt like that again.’
    Andy sighed. Amen to that. Time was a great healer—he knew that from bitter experience—but the early years were painful and something he’dpromised himself he’d never do again. She had to do it with a daily reminder in a child.
    It was good he had a direction in life with the hospital now. She needed something like that.
    Andy squeezed Montana’s shoulders once more and then let his arm drop. ‘I’ll get your things and put them in my car.’
    ‘I want to go home. Not to the