LITMIR.BIZ

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stick to ice water.”

      He followed Kim down the hall, leaving Devon and her grandmother alone.

      The clinic was unusually quiet. The office staff had gone home for the evening and there were no expectant mothers in the whitewashed waiting room comparing symptoms, while their children squabbled over the toys in the sunny corner opposite the fireplace, no women in labor being cared for in the other pastel-colored birthing rooms.

      “She probably has some run-of-the-mill virus that poses no harm to her or the baby,” Devon responded at last. “But without tests I can’t rule out a urinary-tract infection or Group B strep, even an amniotic infection, although I don’t think that’s the case. In any event, intravenous antibiotics would be the safest course to follow.”

      “We don’t do IVs here.”

      “I know. That’s why…”

      Hope opened the birthing-room door in time to overhear the last of the exchange. Hope had been a labor and delivery nurse before she returned to Enchantment with her sister. She had recently become a licensed midwife under Lydia’s tutelage. She was newly and happily married to Parker Reynolds, the clinic’s administrator, and helping him raise his son, Dalton. But eleven years earlier, things had been very different. Hope had been a seventeen-year-old runaway from a polygamous religious cult, pregnant and alone. On the night Hope’s baby was born, Devon, only a teenager herself, had overheard her grandmother agreeing to sell the infant on the black market. Paralyzed with shock and betrayal at her adored grandmother’s unethical actions, she had done nothing to save her friend’s baby. Hope had left the area a few days later, and Devon hadn’t heard from her again until Hope had returned about a year ago, apparently reconciled to the loss of her child and ready to move on with her life. It seemed Hope had forgiven Lydia for what had happened, but Devon could not so easily forget what her grandmother had done.

      She’d kept the secret of that night sealed in her heart for more than a decade, confronting her grandmother with her knowledge only when Lydia decided to step down from the center’s board of directors and asked Devon to take her place. Lydia had refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing, insisting she’d done what she had to do to save the center and begging Devon to believe her when she said that Hope’s baby had gone to a good and loving home. The issue remained unresolved between them, straining her relationship with her grandmother almost to the breaking point.

      “I have a suggestion,” Hope said, taking on the role of peacemaker between them as she so often did these days. “It’s not routine, I know, but couldn’t Joanna Carson order antibiotics for Lacy? She takes care of both Lacy’s kids. She knows her as well as any of the OBs.”

      Devon relaxed a fraction. Hope was right. It was a little out of the ordinary to ask a pediatrician to prescribe for a woman in labor. But it was a way out of the standoff.

      Lydia’s expression remained tight. She fingered the pendant at her neck, a nervous gesture she’d acquired in the stressful weeks since Devon had agreed to move back to Enchantment and practice at the clinic. “I don’t see any other solution, short of sending Lacy to the hospital. Dr. Ochoa would certainly not be receptive to coming here to start the IV.” Carlos Ochoa was one of the OBs who backed up The Birth Place midwives at Arroyo County Hospital. Their professional relationship was cordial but not close.

      Hope shot Devon a glance that said as plainly as words not to mention they were both qualified to administer drugs by IV if the doctor so ordered. That was not Lydia’s way.

      “I’ll call Joanna,” Devon said, reaching out a hand toward her grandmother. A hug or a touch had always been the signal they used to convey an apology when they’d clashed during Devon’s growing-up years. And they had clashed, often. They were too much alike, Devon’s mother, Myrna, always said. But Lydia didn’t see, or chose to ignore, her granddaughter’s tentative gesture. These days the distance between them was too great for a simple ritual to make things right.

      “I suppose you must,” Lydia said, “if Lacy can deliver here. It will be less stressful for her and the baby.”

      Devon nodded. “Good. That’s settled, then. Let’s get back to our mother.”

      Lydia smiled at Hope and reached for the door-knob. She didn’t give Devon a backward glance.

      IN ANOTHER HOUR it would be daylight. Lydia turned away from the window. Lacy Belton, her new daughter asleep in the crook of her arm, dozed on the high bed. Nearby, her husband was stretched out in a recliner that the parents of one of her mothers had donated to the center. The older children were curled up in the corner on an air mattress.

      The delivery had taken longer than she’d anticipated, but everything went smoothly. Another life brought safely into the arms of a loving mother, one more small atonement for the sin of giving her own firstborn away.

      Feeling every one of her seventy-four years, she turned her thoughts from the past—she knew from long experience there was no comfort there. It was so quiet now she could hear the beat of her heart. Steady and strong. No pain, no shortness of breath. Just weariness, and the ever-present weight of despair. How was she ever going to make things right with Devon? If she’d known that long-ago night that Devon had overheard her making arrangements with Parker Reynold and his father-in-law to buy Hope’s baby, could she have done something, anything, to mitigate the damage?

      Probably not. Devon was as stubborn and bull-headed as she was. And what she had done was wrong, criminal even, though it had all turned out right in the end—Hope had been reunited with her son. But at seventeen, would Devon have been able to understand her grandmother’s motivations, her desperation? She might have. If only I had known she was there, hiding, listening to every word.

      Hope opened the door and stuck her head inside. “Everyone asleep?” she asked in a whisper, moving closer in her soft-soled shoes. At Lydia’s nod, she said, “Come and have a cup of tea.”

      Lydia cast one last look at the sleeping family, then walked with Hope to the staff room just down the hall. Tom could find her easily if Lacy or the baby needed her.

      “Where’s Devon?” she asked, blinking a little at the light Hope flicked on.

      “I sent her home. She’ll have to do most of the prenatal visits tomorrow because you’re sleeping in.” Hope motioned Lydia to a seat and poured her a cup of her favorite herbal tea.

      “I’m not.”

      “Yes, you are. The cardiologist gave you permission to come back to work part-time. Part-time doesn’t mean eighteen-hour days.”

      “I feel fine.”

      “You don’t look fine,” Hope said bluntly. She took a seat beside Lydia, her own mug cradled between her hands. “We can’t go on like this, Lydia. The tensions between you, Devon and me are spilling over into our work.”

      “I’m tired. I really don’t want to discuss this tonight.” Her voice sounded like a tired old woman’s even to her own ears.

      “You won’t want to discuss it tomorrow or the day after, either.” Hope’s tone remained quiet but firm.

      “I tried to explain to Devon why I did…what I did.” The guilt of it still lay heavily on Lydia’s soul, and she couldn’t say the words aloud without pain. She couldn’t say, I sold your baby to Parker Reynolds. “She still holds me responsible.”

      “She will always hold you responsible, unless you tell her the whole truth.”

      “No. I can’t. Not after all this time.”

      “Lydia, Parker and I both agree Devon should know that Dalton is my son. You can’t let her go on believing I don’t know where my child is. My uncle is in prison. I’m not afraid of him anymore. I release you from the promise you made me to keep Dalton’s identity secret.” She reached out and covered Lydia’s hand with her own. Tears sparkled in her eyes. “I thought you’d told her the truth about his adoption months ago.”

      Lydia pulled

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