Talking About My Baby

“Grandma?”

Tara flushed. “Sometimes I forget she’s not mine.” She had brought Laura’s car seat inside, and she settled and strapped the newborn in it.

When she stood and lifted the car seat, he stood, too, but Tara didn’t raise her eyes again until she reached her mother.

FRANCESCA SPOKE IN a low voice to Tara. “If I have to see another woman deliberately frightened by those men...” Francesca knew she was overstating the point. It was hard for physicians like Dan McCrea to see women in labor and not want to relieve their pain. Dan wasn’t a drug-pusher, he was just trying to help, in the way he believed was best.

But it’s just unnecessary interference. If Millie had asked for pain relief, had asked for a monitor... Francesca had seen a few women stuck at seven centimeters dilate to ten in an hour on an epidural. But most of the time she felt it slowed labor.

If only obstetricians and midwives could truly coordinate their efforts. But the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said homebirth was unsafe. All over the country, midwives were attending homebirths with no physician backup—because there was none to be found. Ivy’s situation in West Virginia was unusual; her backup physician, Mata Iyer, saw the need for a midwife who would visit homes in her impoverished rural area—and undoubtedly, Mata had never said the word “homebirth” to her insurance provider. Francesca’s own backup physician had retired a year before, after battling endless hospital politics.

Francesca appreciated the risks. For years, she’d kept all homebirths within five minutes of the hospital, attending women at the Victorian if they lived too far from town. The more she saw, the less sorry she was to work in the hospital.

Until she actually worked in the hospital.

I am so tired of all this. Maybe it was time to quit, or take up nursing full-time.

“Did they leave?” Tara asked, knowing the answer.

“He’s ordered the epidural and monitor. I’m going back to see how she’s doing.”

“We’ll come with you.” She and Laura.

“Tara, it won’t help. Please go home and sleep. You need it. And Laura needs you.”

“If Millie doesn’t mind, I’d like to stay. I’ll wait till the boys have done their thing and left, so we won’t crowd the room.”

Tara’s dark eyes were eager, yet failed to hide her fatigue. Francesca knew this aspect of her daughter too well. Tara relied on births for some kind of spiritual recharge. But now she needed physical recharge.

“Tara, you’re trying to produce milk, and you need rest for that.”

Her mother was right. But Tara longed to see Millie’s labor through to its magical conclusion. There was nothing more intense, more complete, than birth. It fulfilled something in her that nothing else ever would. Except, perhaps, Laura.

“I’m really wide-awake, Mom.”

Francesca knew that was untrue. But Tara was an adult. “Millie asked where you went.” She sighed. “Let’s go see how she’s doing.”

THE BABY’S HEAD crowned four hours later. Francesca caught the head when it emerged, and Tara guided Millie’s hands toward her child. She remembered Laura’s birth, Julia’s apathetic eyes. But there was nothing like this joy. The experience of meeting a person never met before.

No cord. More pushing.

“Ahhh... ahhh... ”

“Hey, you handsome guy.” Admiring the newborn—and double-checking Francesca’s quick suctioning—Dan smiled at Millie and her husband. “This one’s going to play for the Broncos.”

“My baby! Oh, sweet baby!”

In the bliss of seeing mother and child, Tara could even feel warmth for the obstetrician, could even appreciate that he was smiling over the newborn. She settled in a chair at the edge of the room and savored the experience of the birth.

But her eyes dropped shut.

Snow...

Walking with Isaac. He asked her why she’d become a midwife.

It’s what I am. It’s all I am.

There are other parts of you.

They’d stopped, and he touched her.

“Tara.”

Her eyes opened. It was her mother. Laura slept in the car seat at Tara’s feet, while Millie Rand dozed on the bed, her newborn in a bassinet beside her.

No Isaac.

Just herself, aroused by a dream of him.

Francesca spoke softly. “Time to go home.”

Silently, Tara gathered her things. As she lifted the car seat, Laura’s eyes opened. Don’t cry. Carrying the baby and her diaper bag, Tara slipped through the door with her mother. Outside the suite, in the bright lights of the hall, Francesca said, “I didn’t want to waken you.”

While Tara paused to transfer Laura to the sling, Francesca collected the car seat.

The clock at the nurses’ station read five-thirty, and Pilar was talking to the nurse on the next shift. Moving on, Francesca and Tara waved, and she waved back.

“Thank you for the sleep, Mom.” Tara covered her yawn with her hand.

Francesca caught her peering up and down the halls. “What are you looking for?”

Tara hid any reaction in drowsiness. “The way out.”

BY THE FOLLOWING afternoon, her plan was set in stone.

She wanted to adopt Laura legally, and she knew the other midwives at the birth center in Sagrado would help her. But in her case, the authorities would insist on a prerequisite. A husband.

Tara didn’t have time to “fall in love,” as her mother had suggested the other night. It would take a century. But a “suitable” man to marry lived two miles away, and she had the tool to bribe him. Herself. She could care for his children, and she could clean that chalet. Isaac wouldn’t be likely to toss his new mother-in-law out in the street, either.

Are you crazy, Tara? What made her think he’d marry her because he needed childcare—or a housekeeper? As far as she knew, he didn’t even like her. His brother was a better choice.

No.

It had to be Isaac. He’d said they could talk again....

And, in some way she couldn’t define, he seemed safe.

Stretching out with Laura on the downstairs couch, preparing for a half-hour nursing session, she said, “Yes, kiddo, I’ve got it figured out.”

Francesca, who’d been working on an article for a midwifery journal at her computer, asked, “What have you figured out?”

“How to adopt Laura.”

When Francesca turned her chair and waited, Tara realized her mother expected the whole story. “I’ll explain after I know it’s going to work.”

“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”

“Because you’re a pessimist. Millie Rand’s baby could have been born at home, and we both know it.”

“That was a smooth change of subject, Tara. How are you planning to adopt Laura?”

“You’ll feel better about it once it’s accomplished. Hey, do you care if I carve those pumpkins on the counter?”

Francesca hid her alarm. “More pie?”

“Pumpkin bread.”

“Not for Isaac?”

“The way to a man’s heart.”

Francesca was aghast. When she’d imagined Tara finding a husband, it was something that would happen slowly. Friendship blossoming to love. But not with—

This was a disaster. She didn’t know why, but it was. That reserve of Isaac’s was strong, as strong as Tara’s outgoing passion. He had lived in Rwanda, and his wife had somehow died in Rwanda—and Tara was so...heedless. She and Isaac McCrea were loaded freight trains that ought to pass on separate tracks. Instead, they were going to collide.

When she abruptly remembered Tara and Isaac sitting together in the waiting room at the hospital, Francesca realized something had already begun.

And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

“ISAAC, ARE YOU really all right?” Dan asked for the second time since Isaac had called, after his return from Silverton.

“Sure. Mom’s giving me a breather this weekend. I’m stronger than I look.”

“Yeah, right. What stunted my growth anyway?” Dan was six-one.

“I’ll die sooner.”

“I think Tara prefers you.”

Well, he hadn’t had to say her name first.

“You know, I can’t stand her,” Dan added. “I hate her clothes. I hate her politics. I hate the way she uses her body. She flirts with me for an hour, and then, I ask her out, and she says no.”

“That makes my ears hurt.” All of it.

“No kidding. She’s a thorn in my side. I thought if we got it on, things might improve. What about you? Do you like her?”

Isaac traced the inside of his cheek with his tongue. “I don’t know her.”

The doorbell rang, and Isaac headed to answer it, the cordless in his hand. “Hey, Dan. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I was getting around to that. I’m on call. Rich had something come up.” Rich Scarborough, the Chief of Obstetrics.

They’d planned a climb, but Isaac wouldn’t mind the solitude.

He opened the door, and the black cat, the one Danielle called Meow, shot in from the cold. She found the tabby kitten he’d adopted outside the market and began hissing.

Tara, with Laura in a sling against her breasts, held two foil-wrapped packages. The night had sprouted stars behind her.

Isaac spoke into the phone. “I’ve got to go.”

The alpine cold was numbing, and he let her in. She handed him the still-warm loaves of bread and continued into the living room with its rustic furniture.

“What’s the hurry?”

“I have a visitor.” He shut the door behind her. The tabby had retreated to a recess beside the broom closet. Meow rubbed Isaac’s legs, but he knew better than to touch her. They all did.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” Dan found the chalet beautiful but lonely. His own place was actually farther from town, in an enclave. The locals called it “on the mountain.”

“Bye.” Isaac switched off the phone.

“Sorry,” he apologized and sniffed the foil-wrapped loaves. Pumpkin. “What did I do to deserve this?” My brother likes you. Even if he says he doesn’t.

“Nothing.” Tara’s smile was mischievous. “Yet. Where are the kids?”

“Silverton. Spending the weekend with my mother.”

Tara helped herself to a seat on the ancient couch. The disarray had worsened, if anything. Lunch boxes, probably not empty, sat in various places, and the laundry mound now extended to the floor. She spotted a bread crust under the opposite couch. “He sold both houses furnished, didn’t he?”

The former owner. “Yes.”

Tara sensed his impatience with her visit. It gave her a bad feeling, but it was too late to stop. She couldn’t stop—and couldn’t think of a better approach. Not here, in his presence, under that gaze. “I have a proposition for you.”

Isaac’s eyes darkened. He pulled a footstool toward him and dropped down on it.

It would be easier to speak without that hot feeling in her chest, the feeling that wouldn’t let her stop, the feeling that made her tremble. “I’d like to propose—” she waited a beat, trying to read his face “—a marriage of convenience.”

CHAPTER THREE

The midwives at Maternity House treat us with respect. Tara, she holds my hand; her brow creases when I feel the pain. “Your baby will be here soon,” she says, and she embraces me. She is like my oldest, Elana. I tell her she is like my daughter, and she gives more hugs.

—Inez Martinez, age 44, Maternity House, Sagrado, Texas, after the birth of Juan Diego

ISAAC HAD HEARD perfectly and didn’t ask her to explain.

But she tried. “I need a husband, you need a wife. We treat it as a business decision and a business partnership—”

“Slow down. I need a wife? And that’s a business decision?”

The only way to save face was by never lowering her head. Anyhow, what kind of reception had she expected? She’d known she would have to persuade him. “I’m thinking of a temporary arrangement. You can bail when you find someone you like better. You don’t have a girlfriend, do you?”

He only stared.

Tara forced out the words. “I can take care of your children.”

“This seems like an extreme suggestion.” She knew his brother’s desire for her—and she doesn’t know me at all. He smelled sexual abuse or an absent father or both. Heloise’s younger sister Dominique, the midwife, had shown similar traits. A girl loses her father when she is ten, Heloise had explained, she looks for him her whole life. Maybe with her sexuality, she tries to call him, to retrieve what she lost.

Isaac asked, “Why do you want this?”

Tara counted the chances that he would agree to her plan. Slim. In which case she shouldn’t reveal the truth about Laura. “A male father figure for Laura.”

“You said temporary. How will it help the bébé?” His control was slipping. Anger, fear, emergency. Under any of these emotions, he became le docteur en médecine of Kibuye, Rwanda. He was angry. “Who is her mother?”

Tara heard the change in his voice, the lapse into French followed by carefully enunciated English. She heard the anger, too, and her pulse quickened. In the past ten years, she’d learned to stand up to her fear and to anyone who frightened her. Birth had taught her that. “Calm down.”

Her eyes were on his, unblinking.

Isaac returned her stare, measure for measure. “Who is the mother?”

Still angry. It was the emotion men did best, one reason she and men were a bad combination. Intimacy always led to this.

But if she wanted to adopt Laura, with Isaac McCrea, the story would have to come out. Trust. That he won’t tell his brother or the police. Trust that he’s not a law-and-order kind of guy. He couldn’t be—not after the things he must have lived through.

Trembling, she began the story. She told him about the border and about Maternity House. Then, Julia. Finally, Laura.

Outside, a screech owl called. A floor lamp with holes cut in the metal shade flushed the huge room in shadowy wood tones.

When she’d finished, Isaac still waited.

“That’s it.” Tara eyed Laura, now asleep beside her on a plastic-sided changing blanket laid over his couch.

His head spun. She’d just...kept the baby. In other cultures, in other places, it wouldn’t be an issue. For Isaac the man, it wasn’t an issue. But for Isaac McCrea, M.D., it must be. He didn’t even want to know about this situation.

But now he knew. “What’s your plan?”

“Get married. Get a home study. Go back to Maternity House with every single thing we need in hand. I’ll level with them, tell them the whole story. From that point on, I’m counting on friends, and it’s a prayer, but at least I know people in the system.”

“You should have talked to them before now.”

“Then Laura would have gone to another home.”

“That may happen anyway.”

His words made her shiver. No chance. No way. He could help! His children needed a mother, needed her. Especially the little girl, Danielle. Kids shouldn’t live...like this. She could clean up. She’d known a guy who worked for Orkin. She knew how and where to place bait and seal up a house, and she could get rid of these mice.

And she needed Isaac so she could keep Laura.

“I don’t even know you, Tara.”

Before he could formulate more words, she said, “Let’s have a few dates. I’ll even try to find a sitter for Laura.”

Her smile was full of affection, compassion for his anger. She didn’t know his anger. Like grief, it was bigger than a man. Were all emotions the same? Isaac wondered. Could all heal with time? Lost love and rage and...

“But do I need to point out that mutual attraction isn’t necessary?”

He blinked. Was she saying she wasn’t attracted to him? Isaac squeezed the bridge of his nose. “This is supposed to tempt me?”

“I came prepared to offer you money.”

Money? That was how much she valued herself as a potential mate? For him? “I need to think about this, Tara.” And about Dan.

He was going to say yes. Tara knew it.

Isaac wished he wasn’t curious. And suddenly aching for the body across from him. Just the fact that she’d chosen him, even with rodents. “What’s with you and Dan?”

Regret. The cafeteria. Dan had asked her to dinner. Had he told Isaac? A lie wouldn’t be smart. “We flirted. He asked me out. I didn’t want to go. Look, I’m a friendly person. That was about my mother’s client. And unnecessary medical intervention.”

“So you flirted with the obstetrician on call?”

“He knew it. He told me so when we sat down.” It had the ring of truth; they’d gone from flirtation to argument in a heartbeat.

“I hate people interfering needlessly with women in labor. It’s oppression.”

“I appreciate the sentiment. I don’t like your tactics.”

Shame overtook her. She wasn’t going to stick around someone who made her feel like this. So much for Isaac McCrea. Tara moved to pick up Laura. “I’m sorry to take your time.”

Everything whirled, flooding. A baby in the car. Inducing lactation. Isaac held it off. This should be the end. He didn’t like her ways, didn’t like women—or men—who threw their arms around people at random. But she was in a bind and so was he, handling the second-to-second immensity of caring for his children without the help of Heloise’s family. And the grief and guilt. Who was he to throw stones? At anyone? “I’m sorry.”

She hadn’t yet lifted her child, and she faced him. “Don’t be. Not everyone likes me. I can take it.”

He couldn’t. “Tara—” Searching for words, he covered his face with his hand. When he removed it, she was holding the child and slinging her diaper bag over her free shoulder.

He stood and took the bag from her. “I’ll walk you to your car. The steps are frosty.” You might trip over a cat.

“You’re going to have six feet of snow up here before you know it.”

Her voice never shook.

The alpine air was frigid. Isaac would return inside alone and try to find sanity in the company of cats and mice.

Unconsciously, he steadied Tara on the steps.

She seemed unaffected by the touch. “You ever lived in the mountains before, doc?”

“Dan and I grew up in Silverton. Our father drove the snowplow on the Million Dollar Highway.”

Avalanche country. “Boy, I bet he was a local hero.”

“Yes.” His father had been dead three years, and his mother preferred to stay in Silverton, among her friends and neighbors.

They took his frosty path to Tara’s car, and he opened the passenger door for her, so she could settle Laura in her car seat and bundle her up. Not a sound stirred the night. Tara finally backed away from the infant, and he shut the door and followed her to the driver’s side.

When she was in, he crouched beside the door, close enough to feel the heat of her body. He didn’t want her to leave, especially not after some of the things he’d said. Eyes on the steering wheel, he spoke from his heart, the way he’d been trained all his life. “You’re too special to do what you did tonight.” Any woman was.

“At the hospital—or here?”

“Both.”

She laughed. “I love being alive. I love helping women have babies. I love this kiddo here, and I could love your kids, too. What can I say?”

The words sounded brittle, and he glanced at her face. She was defending who she was. He’d slandered who she was.

Standing, he tried to make his smile an apology. “I think you just said it. Good night, Tara.”

BY THE TIME SHE turned the car around, to head back to the Victorian, she was crying. And it wasn’t because she hadn’t found a husband to help her with Laura’s adoption.

It was because she’d offered herself to Isaac McCrea.

And he had kept her at arm’s distance and said, “No, thanks.”

ISAAC COULDN’T SLEEP, and finally he rose and dressed for winter cold, and when he went outside the stars were gone. He knew the paths around the property and above the trees, the old mining trails that wouldn’t disturb the fragile tundra, and he chose one of them to take him to the talus beneath the far ridge. An unnamed trail led to an unnamed peak, and he followed it, his eyes sharp for the mountain lion whose dried scat and scratch marks he’d found weeks earlier.

Cold, he zipped his parka higher. As the rocks clinked beneath his feet, the first snowflake wet his cheek. Then another.

He was thinking of her body. She was leggy and narrow-hipped, with pretty breasts—A burn on her breast? He shut his eyes, wondering.

She’d offered to marry him, offered to keep house, offered him money! How much money did she think he was worth, seeing that she was willing to buy a spouse?

Undoubtedly, she’d give her body, too, in order to adopt that child. But he wanted her to want him—more than desire. Much more.

He reached the peak, and a dusting of snow covered the top. Isaac tried to see the distant mountaintops and couldn’t. He waited in the wind.

He’d hurt her tonight.

And she’d hurt him.

But it was less painful than hurting his own flesh and blood.

“HOW DID ISAAC like the pumpkin bread?”

Tara knew her mother didn’t mean to be cruel, but she was fragile right now, still feeling the sting of rejection. “Fine. I’ve got to nurse Laura. Excuse me.”

Francesca trailed after her to the kitchen. “You know, he might think you’re throwing yourself at him, Tara.”

Great. Tara didn’t answer. Wordlessly, keeping her thoughts focused elsewhere—away from Isaac and her recent humiliation—Tara began the process of making fenugreek tea, getting ready to nurse. Turning suddenly, she held one hand at knee level and snapped, “You make me feel about this high, Mom.”

Francesca winced. It was the last thing she’d meant to do. “Tara, I didn’t mean to imply that you were throwing yourself at him. I’m just saying that Dr. McCrea is a little standoffish. Not everyone likes to be hugged.”

“I didn’t hug him.”

Laura began to cry. “It’s all right, sweetie,” Tara murmured. “Oh, I love you.”

Regarding the two of them, Francesca frowned. Had Isaac discouraged her? Was there nothing to worry about from him? “Have you looked up any of your old friends in Precipice? Tim?” Tim with his waistlength blond dreadlocks? “Scooter?” Who was thirty-two and still rode a skateboard. “Jack?” Whose claim to fame was having made the “Bartenders of Precipice” calendar.

“No, haven’t had time, Mother.”

But time for two rounds of baking for Isaac McCrea. Well, he was several grades above Danny Graine as husband material, several grades above anyone Tara had set her sights on before—at least, from what Francesca knew about him, which was scant. Unfortunately, Francesca couldn’t see the reserved Dr. McCrea appreciating her lively, sensual daughter.

I’m imagining all this. He’s not Tara’s type.

The way to a man’s heart?

Francesca went to the stove and hugged Tara and kissed both her and the sweet new baby. “I wasn’t putting you down, Tara.”

“Not intentionally, I’m sure.”

What had she said? Francesca reviewed her words and saw what she’d implied, that Tara chased men.

“I just want to keep you from being hurt.”

Tara cast her a sharp look. “Why don’t you start by not hurting me yourself?”

WITH LAURA AGAINST her shoulder, Tara crept out of the house just after six the next morning. It was snowing, and she hurried to the Safari station wagon and prayed it would start.

It took five tries and assorted prayers.

Now, to stay on the road.

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