LITMIR.BIZ

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telling her that would make her realize what a blessing this event was. How important. How special.

      The contraction passed, and the girl’s expression eased. She studied Carrie’s face. “You can’t have kids?” she asked.

      Carrie met her eyes. “Nope. I was born with defective fallopian tubes and—”

      “Oh, shit! Something’s happening. I have to push. I have to—”

      “Go ahead, push.” Carrie got low and flattened her hands against the bottoms of the girl’s feet so she would have something to brace against. The contraction eased, and the girl fell back, heaving a sigh.

      “Relax until the next contraction,” Carrie told her. “Then we’ll push again.”

      “It’s odd, me meeting you out here like this,” the girl said.

      “We haven’t officially met, though, have we?” Carrie pointed out. “I’m Carrie Overton. Doctor Carrie Overton. And you are…?”

      The girl didn’t answer. She was gripped by another contraction, and then another, and the opportunity for conversation was gone, aside from the necessary bits. Breathe through it. Push harder.

      It wasn’t long before the baby’s head came into sight. And with the next push, the shoulders began to emerge. “You’re so strong,” Carrie said. “This is going to be over in no time, hon. Two more pushes, maybe three.”

      “I want it to be over with now!” the girl cried.

      “I don’t blame you. Come on, push with me now.”

      The girl pushed, and Carrie talked and comforted, and in short order she was holding a tiny, wriggling baby boy in her arms. He released a series of congested bleats, making her laugh softly. “A boy,” Carrie said. “And he’s got a great set of lungs on him, too.”

      “Is he okay?” the girl asked. “I want him to be okay.”

      “He’s fine. He’s absolutely…beautiful. God, look at him. He’s perfect.” Carrie sniffled, then tied off the cord, cut it and wiped the baby down as best she could with gauze and sterile water. She suctioned his nose and mouth with a small blue aspirator, wrapped him in her own jacket, and for just a moment held him in her arms, smiling down at his tiny face. When tears burned in her eyes, she blinked them away and gently placed the baby in his mother’s arms.

      “You should try to nurse him,” Carrie whispered. She couldn’t speak any louder than that for the tightness in her throat. The idea of never being able to have a baby of her own…it was a constant twisting blade in her heart. She knew she would be a far better mother than her own volatile, passionate, hot-tempered mother had been. “I can hardly wait to see what he weighs,” she added, mentally trying to change the subject.

      She helped the new mother clean herself up, got her sitting upright, watched her trying to nurse and then nodded. “Okay, listen. I passed a house a few miles back. I’m going to drive back there, see if I can use their phone to get an ambulance out here for you, and we’ll get you and your little guy to a nice clean hospital where you can recover properly. Okay?”

      The girl lifted her face, her expression oddly detached. “I thought doctors all had those car phones nowadays.”

      “Not this one. Not yet. Anyway, I doubt it would work out here even if I did. But I’ll be quick.”

      “And you’ll come right back here?” the girl asked.

      “Right back. I won’t be more than ten or fifteen minutes. And you’ll be fine, I promise.”

      “And the baby, too? He’ll be fine, too, alone for that long?”

      Carrie tilted her head. “He won’t be alone, honey. He has you.”

      “I could fall asleep, or—”

      “He’ll be fine. I promise.” Carrie started to back away, but the girl reached out and gripped her hand.

      “This was supposed to happen. You finding me here. It was meant to be. I know it was.”

      “Maybe so.”

      “For sure. I knew a man once. He always said everything happens for a reason. And that if you want something bad enough, it can happen.”

      “Well, I’ll bet you wanted help pretty badly. Maybe he was right.”

      The girl nodded slowly, her gaze turned inward. “Please hurry back.”

      “I promise. I’ll be just as fast as I can.”

      “Thank you,” the girl whispered, and she squeezed Carrie’s hand before she let her go.

      Back in her own car, Carrie held her tears in check until she got the vehicle turned around and was headed in the direction she’d come from. But then the dam broke, and the insistent tears spilled over. She knew it was stupid, because there were other ways to have children besides giving birth to them. There were lots more babies in the world than there were suitable homes or deserving families.

      She drove through the darkness, her eyes peeled for the house she’d passed, squinting to see better through the stupid tears. She was starting a new life, a new job—no, a fabulous career—in an idyllic New England town. She was buying the cutest little house she’d ever seen, and she had every intention of raising kids there someday. The adoption process was slow, slower yet for a single parent with a demanding job—so it would take a long time. But someday…Someday she would have a child, and she would give it the kind of solid, stable home she’d never had. No way was her child going to be uprooted and moved from place to place every time its father got itchy feet. The Overton home would be a permanent one, a solid one, and it would always be calm and quiet. No loud screaming matches. No physical altercations with the neighbors. No temper tantrums from people old enough to know better. None of the drama she’d grown up with.

      No. Her child would have a quiet, loving, peaceful existence, and a hometown. She’d always wanted a hometown.

      And she was on her way to the one she’d chosen, she reminded herself. Part One of her dream, all but complete. And even though the waiting lists were long, and even though adoption agencies tended to give preference to married couples over single women, she would get her baby someday. She would.

      There! There was the house she’d passed.

      She flipped on her signal and prayed the place was entirely dark only because it was 2:00 a.m. But there was no car in the driveway, and after at least five minutes’ worth of pounding on the door and jabbing the doorbell repeatedly, she realized no one was home.

      Well, all right. She would just bundle the mother and baby into her car, and take them with her until she found a phone. Or maybe she would just drive them the rest of the way to Shadow Falls herself. It couldn’t be more than two hours away.

      Returning to her car, she reversed out of the empty driveway and headed back to where she’d left the young woman and her son.

      When she got to the spot, however, the primer-colored sedan was gone.

      A jolt of alarm shot through her as she drove nearer, wondering if she had the right spot, but she was sure she did. There was her jacket, the one she’d wrapped the baby in, lying in the grass along the roadside, right near where she was sure the other car had been parked. Her headlights picked out the pale green fabric. Carrie pulled over and stopped. Surely that young woman couldn’t intend to drive the rest of the way on her own, could she? She’d just given birth, for heaven’s sake. She needed rest, and the baby needed—

      The jacket was moving.

      “No,” Carrie whispered. “No. Tell me she didn’t—” She wrenched open her door and hurried out, hopping the slight ditch to where her jacket lay, still wriggling.

      Almost afraid to look, she bent and unwrapped the fabric. The tiny newborn lay inside, pink and healthy and squirming.

      “Oh,

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