After the Storm
She was so cold. Alisha shivered on the small bed, her body weary as she stretched a hand toward the stack of blankets she’d dropped on the chair in the corner. Just as she reached out longingly to the soft warmth of a handmade quilt, an intense pain coursed up her spine, causing her to suck in her breath and cry out. She couldn’t reach the quilt. She needed it, needed the warmth she knew it could bring.
Alisha got up, bent over double, shivering and sweating at the same time now, but determined to get to her favorite quilt. The contractions were only three minutes apart. She could feel her lower body pushing and changing, could feel her baby dropping. Her mind was playing tricks on her now. She thought she heard a tapping at her door.
At first fear gripped her, every bit as intense and dangerous as the pain knifing through her stomach and legs. But then the fear was quickly replaced by hope. Someone had come to help her!
“Who is it?” she said, but the words were a weak whisper.
Did it matter who was at her door? Or was she just imagining that tapping noise? Was this her punishment then, to go mad while giving childbirth? To never know the sweet baby she’d dreamed about? To die alone here on this mountain, away from the city she’d once loved, away from her family and friends, without ever holding her little child in her arms?
“I won’t let that happen,” she said as she once again tried to reach for the flowered quilt. “I won’t—”
The pain became too much for her weary, frightened body. Alisha grasped air, just missing the stack of blankets and quilts in the padded rocker by the bed. Grasped and gasped, just as the knock at her door became louder. Then she felt her body falling, falling toward the hard, cold wood of the planked floor, felt the waves of pain ripping her apart as she tried to touch the fringed fibers of her mother’s quilt. The effort was too much. Her fingers brushed against the comfort she needed as her body turned treacherous and tried to break in two. Alisha accepted and gave in to the pain as she screamed out, a soft sorrow covering her as she fell into darkness.
Jared heard a scream coming from inside the cabin. Shocked into action, he hammered hard on the door. “Hello, is everything all right in there? Hello?”
He leaned in, listening. Then he heard another sound that brought a racing warning to his heart. A moan.
Someone was hurt.
Without thinking, he dropped his soaked duffel bag onto the porch and rammed his body full force against the sturdy door. He heard the splintering of wood as he fell through the door, his shoulder bruised and throbbing, then rolled over on the floor, his body briefly touching on a braided circular rug centered before the dying embers of the fireplace. He felt a gush of welcoming warmth before he jumped up and shouted out again.
“Hello? Where are you?”
“In…here.”
The reply was feminine and weak. Wondering if someone had broken in and left a victim, Jared rushed around the big, long room, noting in his confusion that the place was tidy and clean, with no signs of a struggle.
But that scream of pain still gripped at his system, so he forgot the formal tour as he raced toward the room down the hallway, just past a small bathroom.
The room with the single lamplight.
Jared stopped in the doorway, his eyes adjusting to the muted light as he took in the bedroom. A small iron-framed bed, with the sheets and covers tossed back. A pile of blankets and quilts on a chair. A long, battered dresser lined with trinkets and books. A cross on the pine-paneled wall.
“You’re safe now,” he said into the still room. “You can come out.”
“Down…here.”
Jared moved around the bed toward the chair in the corner, his gaze taking in the dark shadows.
And then he saw her.
A woman with long red hair, lying in a heap on the floor, her hand reaching up toward the rocking chair.
Bending down, Jared pulled her head around. “Are you all right?”
She tried to open her eyes, tried to speak, but in the next instant she gritted her teeth in pain and clutched a hand toward her stomach.
Her rounded, very pregnant stomach.
“What—”
“Help me, please,” she whispered through pale lips, her eyes wide with fear and pain. “Help me, mister. I’m…having a baby.”
Chapter Two
J ared immediately lifted the woman up, then gently sat her down on the bed. Even heavy with pregnancy, she didn’t seem to weigh very much. She looked petite and fragile. Her hair had come partially loose from her braid and it fell in gentle reddish-gold waves and ringlets around her heart-shaped, freckled-nosed face and down her shoulders.
“Are you sure you’re in labor?” he asked as he grabbed the covers and pulled them up over her body. Before she could answer, he saw the wet, stained sheets, his gaze moving from the bed to her face again.
“I’m very much in labor,” she said, fear making the words a mere whisper. “And so glad you came along.” Then she gave him a weak smile. “You’re soaked to the bone. Go by the…fire.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Jared replied as he ran a hand through his drenched hair to get it off his face.
“Cold out there,” she whispered, a visible shiver going through her body. “A cold Easter.”
“What can I do?” Jared asked, looking around for a phone while he dripped puddles of water on the plank floor. “Have you called anyone?”
“No phone,” she said as she gripped the covers, her eyes going wide.
She had green eyes, Jared saw. And right now they were filled with fear and concern.
“You don’t have a telephone?” He hadn’t meant the words to sound so harsh, but who in this day and age didn’t have a telephone, even on a remote mountain?
“I never needed one before,” she replied with a bit of defensive fire. “The baby’s coming early. We have to go to plan B.”
Jared let out a sigh then took off his wet jacket, dropping it on a thick rug at the foot of the bed. “What was plan A?”
“Dr. Sloane and a midwife—Miss Mozelle—to assist.”
“And where is Dr. Sloane? Where is the midwife?”
Grimacing, she grabbed the bed railing, her next words coming out in a gasp of pain. “Up the mountain. Can’t make it.”
“I have a cell phone,” he said, grabbing at the inside of the jacket he’d just dropped on the floor.
“No good. The reception here is terrible, even on a good clear day.”
Jared had to try anyway. Frantically he tried dialing 911 on the fancy silver gadget—several times. He got only a weak signal message, then the phone blinked out of commission completely. With this storm, even if there was a tower close by, it probably wouldn’t be very receptive anyway. Tucking the useless phone back into the hidden pocket, he said, “Okay, then what’s plan B?”
“You and I get to do it. And I’m making up the rest as I…go.”
She collapsed into another contraction while Jared watched helplessly, grimacing at the intensity of her pain. What now? He didn’t think he was ready for plan B.
Jared decided he’d ask questions later. And he had a lot of questions. Right now, this woman was going into labor and she needed his help.
“Okay, what do I do?”
“Ever lived on a farm?”
“No. I grew up in Atlanta.”
“Atlanta?” Her eyes grew wide again, and seemed even more green. Warily, she stared at him with a wild, anxious expression. “Where…what part of Atlanta?”
“North of the city. Buckhead.”
That seemed to satisfy her, even though she still looked almost afraid of him. Her eyes darted across the room, then back to his face, questioning and unsure.
“Look, you’re going to be fine,” Jared said, thinking she was probably worried about a stranger helping to deliver her baby. “I’ve never done this before with any animals or humans, but surely between the two of us, we can manage to bring your baby into the world.”
“I hope so,” she said, forcing a weak smile. “He must be ready to get going.” She grimaced, her gaze searching his face. “Do you have children?”
“No. I’m…not married.”
She stared up at him, as if measuring his credentials. “Why not?”
Jared shrugged, thinking that was a very good question. He could see Meredith’s tear-streaked face, could still hear her weak excuses. “Just never worked out that way. I’ve come close a couple of times, but—”
“You don’t have to explain,” she replied, her eyes widening with pain. “At least not right now.”
“Okay, then. How are you right now?”
“Not so hot. Waiting for the next wave.”
“You mean, a contraction?”
She nodded. “Book, down on the floor.”
Jared followed the direction of her finger. Moving around the bed, he glanced down and saw a big, dog-eared paperback book lying open-faced by the bed. He reached to pick it up, amazed by the title. “A how-to book, huh?”
“Yes. Find the page about giving birth at home.”
Jared stared sharp-eyed at the woman, then started searching the pages of the book. He was usually pretty good with directions, but…this? Delivering a baby? Suddenly, he realized the magnitude of the situation. What if he did something wrong, something to harm her or the baby?
“Are you sure we can’t get you to a hospital?” he asked. “My car’s stalled out in a big mud hole, but if you have one—”
“I don’t have a car.”
No phone. No car. This woman definitely lived the old-fashioned way.
“Do you think you could hold on until I try to get my SUV out of the bog?”
“No,” she said in a loud moan of pain. “No. This baby is coming now. Right now. Even if you got your car going, we’d never make it down the mountain to a hospital—the roads are probably washed out. I don’t think I could even make it the half mile to the doc’s clinic in the village. Now, are you going to argue with me or are you going to help me?”
Jared didn’t know how to answer that. He knew he’d have to assist her, but there must be a better way.
“Look, mister,” the woman said after the contraction had stopped, “all night long I’ve been praying for God to send me somebody. And now that you’re here, I don’t have time for you to decide if you’re up to the task. I need you to boil some water and get a pair of scissors out of the drawer by the sink in the kitchen. Then I need you to prop my bottom up with those sheets in that chair. Then I need you to—”
She stopped, mortification covering her face in a soft blush. “You’ll have to look in that closet by the rocking chair. There’s a piece of netting in there I was saving to put over the baby’s bassinet, to protect against bugs. You can place that over my…my…private parts.”
Jared had to smile at that endearing euphemism. “You want me to help you give birth through netting?”
“For modesty’s sake,” she said, her tone reasonable and defiant all at the same time. “I don’t know you, after all.”
“I’m Jared,” he said, enamored by her need to use discretion. Under the circumstances, he didn’t see how it could matter, but his grandmother had taught him to be a gentleman and so he’d abide by this woman’s wishes. “Jared Murdock,” he added. “I’ll try to keep my eyes closed until the big moment.”
“I’d appreciate that.” She leaned back, her face filled with weariness and strain. “I’m…Alisha Emerson.” Then she waited, as if expecting him to say or do something.
Jared thought he saw that trace of fear back in her eyes. Hoping to ease her worries, he said, “Nice to meet you, Alisha, although I must admit I never dreamed—”
She relaxed, a great sigh of relief seeming to wash over her body as she lay back and closed her eyes. “It’s about to start again. I have to do my breathing and concentrate. Soon I’m going to have to push. You’d better get those things we need.”
Before Jared could turn and do her bidding she let out a wail and sat up, huffing and holding her stomach. Jared rushed to the side of the bed. “Are you—”
She waved him away without a word, her pretty face contorted in agony. Jared watched her for a minute, noticing that she was focused on the cross hanging on the opposite wall from the bed. She’d said she’d prayed for God to send her someone to help her.
“Did it have to be me?” Jared asked the heavens as he went about finding a kettle to boil water. After fumbling with lighting the ancient stove, he continued to ponder that question. Alisha Emerson was obviously a woman who believed God actually sent people to help other people in need. Jared couldn’t wrap his practical, logical brain around that concept, but then nothing about this night was logical or practical. He’d booked this trip on impulse and anger, emotions he tried to avoid, hoping to find something familiar and comforting in these old woods, but he had taken a wrong turn and found the wrong cabin.
Or maybe the right one, he thought as he set the kettle to boil then hurried back to the bedroom and Alisha.
He didn’t seem to know her.
Alisha fell back as the contraction passed, thankful that the handsome stranger from Atlanta hadn’t recognized her name. She’d been so afraid, but this fear had nothing to do with having a stranger in her cabin. It had everything to do with wanting to keep the world at bay, though. Especially the world she’d left behind.
But she had lived on the other side of town, south of Atlanta, in Riverdale. People from Buckhead rarely kept up with the happenings south of Hartsfield International Airport.
But what if he did remember her? What if he’d read something in the papers? Connected on the name? There had been a couple of short, terse articles in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution just a few months ago. After that, things had died down. And she’d left the city for good.
It didn’t matter now. She had to take her chances. She needed this man’s help and he seemed willing to do what he could. At least, she wouldn’t have to go through this alone. Her baby had a better chance now. Believing God would show her the way, Alisha said a prayer of thanks, then hoped she wouldn’t regret letting Jared Murdock help her deliver this baby.
He came barreling back into the bedroom, dropping the scissors on a rag he’d brought from the kitchen. Carefully, he placed both on the table by the bed before he went to the closet. “The water is hot. I put it on low to let it keep boiling. Now where did you say that netting is?”
She pointed toward the small add-on closet. “Up on the top shelf.”
Alisha took the minutes between contractions to study her birthing partner. Tall, rugged, muscular. He had been wearing a nice black leather jacket, but it was gone now. His light-blue sweater, damp in spots from the rain, looked to be cashmere. His hair, still wet and glistening, was almost as dark as the jacket he’d had on. And so were his eyes. They reminded her of jagged coal waiting to become diamond chips. He was a big man with a nice smile. And he looked expensive.
Buckhead meant he came from money. Probably old money. That gave her some sense of peace. Jared Murdock probably didn’t travel in the same circles as the people she’d left behind. The people who couldn’t know where she was now.
“Got it,” he said, tugging out the gauzy white fabric. “Want me to drape it over…you?”
“Please,” Alisha said, clutching her stomach again. “You need to get yourself dry, too.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll dry out by the fire later. Let’s just take care of you right now.”
Alisha nodded her thanks, then grabbed the blanket as another wave of pain centered in her stomach.
Jared hurriedly helped her lift her hips so he could push a couple of cushiony blankets underneath her, then with his eyes on her face, he gently placed the sheer net material over her exposed legs. “I guess I can deliver this baby by touch,” he teased.
“I don’t care how you do it,” Alisha replied, her back locked in a spasm as she gritted out the words. “Just so it gets done.”
“Okay, I’m think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
Alisha nodded, then took a long breath. “Good, ’cause here comes another one. We’d better get me ready—we’ve got extra sheets, the gauze over my legs and waist. What else? Did you sterilize the scissors?”
“Yes, and wrapped them in a clean ironed rag.” He shrugged. “I read that in the book. It said to iron a rag to help sterilize it. Found the iron on a corner shelf, right by the clean dish towels. Since we had no power, I heated the iron on the gas stove.”
“You’re doing good for a beginner.”
“So are you.” Then he glanced down at her. “I mean, this is your first child, right?”
She nodded, huffed, concentrated on trying not to push as painful memories tore through her with the same consistency of the pain in her center. “Yes, my first.”
“What about…where’s your husband?”
She stilled. “He’s…dead.”
His reaction was pure polite shock. “Oh, I’m sorry. That must be tough.”
She swallowed, closed her eyes to the truth. “It happened a while back, right after I found out I was pregnant.” Eight months ago, to be exact.
“Any other relatives nearby?”
“No.” She wanted to tell him she had no one but herself and the baby she had to protect, and that she didn’t need anyone either, by the way, but she didn’t say that. Instead she closed her eyes and willed her heart to stop racing.
“You don’t have to talk about it now,” he said, obviously sensing her agitation and probably mistaking it for grief. Well, she was grieving. For so many reasons.
“Thank you,” she managed through a groan. Then to distract herself from the sharp cut of clawing memories, she said, “Music. Could you put a cassette in the player? It’s over by the window.”
She watched as Jared turned and spotted the pile of old cassettes she kept in a wicker basket by a bigger basket of books. “I guess you don’t buy CDs, huh?” he asked over his shoulder. “Just lots of books and old cassettes.”
“No, can’t afford CDs.” She struggled to talk. “Bought those secondhand in the village. Player’s secondhand, too.”
He gave her another questioning stare, as if he couldn’t quite figure her out, then said, “What would you like to hear?”
“Harps.”
“Harps?”
“There’s a mountain music one in there somewhere. Harps and fiddles, guitars and mandolins. Soothing—”
Pain caused that word to come out in a scream.
“Okay,” Jared said, spinning into action. “Breathe through it while I put on those harps.”
Groaning, Alisha reached out a hand toward him. “I don’t think I can breathe through this. I…can feel the head—”
“Oh, oh, okay.” Jared turned as soft music filled the room. “Hang on, now. Everything is going to be just fine.”
Even in her fit of pain and trying not to push, Alisha had to smile. The man looked positively terrified.
But then, so was she.
It had all been over in a matter of minutes.
Jared stood at the kitchen window, looking out into the sloping woods behind the tiny cabin. The Easter dawn glistened through the trees and shrubs, the sun’s first tentative rays giving the drenched forest an ethereal, mist-filled glow. The storm had passed, but it had left a soggy, whitewashed stillness that was only interrupted by the sound now and then of ancient tree limbs hitting against the cabin walls in a gust of defiant wind.
There was a pretty garden in the backyard, complete with an aged wooden bird feeder shaped like a tiny house, and a squirrel feeder made so a corncob could be placed where the squirrels were sure to find it. A couple of cardinals dug through the soggy feed, strewing it on the ground below. A wooden picnic table and two sturdy chairs sat near an ancient oak tree. Delicate crushed blossoms from flowering plants lay about on the table and chairs and ground. Everything was covered with a fine sheen of water. It was as if the whole world was frozen in a lake of flower blossoms and trees.
The coffee he’d set to brewing earlier smelled fresh and enticing, causing Jared to turn from the window. It would probably be strong, but he really needed a cup. He wasn’t surprised to find his hands shaking as he tried to pour from the aged percolator. He’d just witnessed something he couldn’t explain.
And on Easter morning at that.
He’d witnessed the birth of a child. A tiny little baby. A boy.
“One more push,” he remembered telling Alisha after the baby’s head began to crown and it was safe for her to finally give in to the urge. “You’re doing great. And don’t worry, I’ve got the baby. I’ve got the head in my hands.”
Jared grinned, still amazed at how tiny that little head had been. So tiny and so soft, with reddish-brown tufts of wet hair.
And then after all the huffing and puffing and pushing, out came the whole baby. Jared stood there, his eyes wide as he stared up at Alisha, a grin splitting his face. “It’s a boy.”
She cried, of course. With joy. With relief. Then she instructed him on how to open the baby’s nasal passages. At first, Jared panicked. Weren’t newborns supposed to cry?
“Keep rubbing on him,” she gently ordered, the trace of concern in her voice making the words shrill. Then because he could tell she was about to panic, Jared handed the naked baby to her. Alisha cooed and cried and even blew on the baby’s little nose.
And that’s when he’d heard the first soft wail.
It was the sound of a tiny miracle.
“He’s okay, I think,” Alisha shouted, tears rolling down her face.
Quickly, Jared cut the cord and wrapped the baby in fresh clean blankets to hand up to his mother. After delivering the placenta, he helped Alisha get herself and the bedding cleaned up—she insisted he turn away while she struggled with a clean gown and underclothing. Then he let her hold the little boy for a while before she suggested he give the baby a quick bath, too.
That had been over two hours ago.
Since then, he’d had time to get to know this tiny cabin full of books and knickknacks. The books ranged from the classics to a stack of romance novels. There were also some textbooks scattered here and there, mostly to do with physiology and social work. The knickknacks ranged from antique dishes to dime-store finds.
Her home, just like the woman, was a paradox to Jared. How could she live here with no phone and no transportation, and yet seem so well-educated and worldly?
Jared drained his coffee and went for more, too weary to figure out Alisha Emerson, but too keyed up to sleep or eat.
Deciding he’d better check on mother and child, he took his cup of coffee into the bedroom. Standing just inside the wide door, he smiled at the sight of Alisha sleeping peacefully. Then Jared walked to the white wicker bassinet over by the bed and peeked inside.
The baby slept wrapped in swaddled blankets. The baby he had delivered, and bathed and held.
Jared held out one of his hands and looked at the size of it, marveling that he’d held that little head inside it just hours before. Bringing a child into the world truly was a miraculous thing. Being a part of that, being a witness to that, had left Jared shaken and changed. He couldn’t put his finger on the change inside him. He just knew it was there.
Not one to put too much store in religion, Jared thought about Mother’s Day. It was only a few weeks away. That, and this Easter morning, made him think of his deceased parents. They’d died in a plane crash when Jared was a small boy. He’d lived with his grandparents after that, in the big, rambling mansion in Buckhead. Mother’s Day had always been hard for him. He couldn’t remember his mother, nor his father, for that matter.
He thought about Christmas, too. Maybe because Grandmother Fancy Murdock had always insisted on telling him those particular Bible stories when he was growing up. He’d heard the story from the book of Luke about the birth of Jesus, of course. But not until this night had Jared ever considered how that story could affect his own life. This morning, he stood reliving the whole Easter story, and remembered how Christ had suffered and died on a cross, then had risen on the third day.