Читать книгу His Baby Surprise - Kathie DeNosky - Страница 7

“What’s wrong now, Martha?” Tyler Braden asked, sighing heavily.

He picked up a patient file from the top of the well-worn counter. In the three days since his arrival in Dixie Ridge, Tennessee, Ty had learned a very important lesson about Nurse Payne. Whatever thoughts she had, she freely shared.

“Are you gonna wear your Sunday-go-to-meetin’ clothes every day of the week, Doc?”

Ty opened his lab coat to look down at his white shirt, striped tie and charcoal dress slacks. “What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?”

Martha looked at him over the top of her wire-rimmed glasses as if she thought he might be a bit simpleminded. “Around here, folks don’t get gussied up like that unless they’re gettin’ married or buried.”

Ty arched a brow. “What would you suggest I wear, Martha?”

She patted the thick, gray bun at the base of her neck—a gesture he’d quickly come to recognize as Martha’s preamble to a lecture. When she walked around the counter to stand in front of him, her gaze raking him from head to toe, he had to fight the urge to reach down and make sure his fly was closed. A quick glance south of his belt buckle assured him it was.

“First of all, you need to lose the tie and white shirt. They make you look like you’re about to choke.” Martha looked thoughtful. “Doc Fletcher wears sports shirts, but you ain’t as long in the tooth as Doc, so a T-shirt or sweater would suit you best.” She pointed to his crisply pressed slacks, the creases razor sharp. “And while you’re at it, you might want to buy yourself some jeans and save those for church.” She shrugged. “Course it’s up to you. But I’m warnin’ you. Folks around here don’t care too much for somebody puttin’ on airs.”

“But I’m not—”

“If you don’t want to know, don’t ask.” Having pronounced judgment, Martha walked back around the counter and picked up the ringing phone. “Dixie Ridge Health Clinic.”

Ty bit the inside of his cheek to keep his epithet to himself. When he’d first phoned Dr. Fletcher to discuss temporarily taking over the clinic, the older man had warned him about the crusty nurse.

“Old Martha will be your most valuable asset, but she’ll also be your worst critic. Be sure to stay on her good side.”

But mere words could never have prepared Ty for the reality of Martha Payne. With a pleasant, grandmotherly face and the voice of a drill sergeant, she ran the clinic like a well-oiled machine. Serving as both receptionist and nurse, she demonstrated an efficiency that astounded Ty as much as her outspokenness irritated the hell out of him. Since his arrival, he’d been subjected to lectures ranging from his waste of gauze and tape to the appropriate way of answering the clinic phone. Now it appeared her opinions were taking a more personal turn.

Ty had noticed a quiet reserve about the patients. But preoccupied with their symptoms and complaints, he’d assumed it was because they didn’t know him. He’d never dreamed it could be because of the clothes he wore. Pulling at the knot of his tie, he yanked it free and stuffed it into the pocket of his lab coat. Thank God, when his six months here were finished, he’d head back to Chicago and not have to listen to Martha reiterate his shortcomings.

Fifteen minutes later Ty bid farewell to Harv Jenkins with a reminder to take his medication regularly, then walked up to the reception counter. “Is that it for the day?”

Martha shook her head and shoved a chart across the counter. “Freddie Hatfield just brought Lexi in. Her water broke and contractions are two minutes apart. She’s in the birthin’ room and I’d say it won’t be too long before it’s showtime.”

“Has she had any problems during the pregnancy?” Ty asked, scanning the chart. Dr. Fletcher had made few notations aside from the patient’s weight and blood pressure.

“Nope. I’ve known Lexi Hatfield all her life and she’s always been as healthy as a horse.”

“Has she expressed any concerns about the delivery?”

“Nope.” Beaming, Martha rounded the end of the counter. “She’s doin’ pretty good for a first-timer. But Freddie couldn’t get past the front door.”

“Nervous wreck?” Ty asked, following Martha down the narrow hall leading to the infirmary.

“Unless it’s a matter of life and death, Freddie Hatfield avoids this place like a bachelor avoids a widow’s convention.” Martha shook her head and laughed. “Always has been delicate. Faints dead away at the smell of antiseptic.”

Delicate?

Ty frowned at Martha’s description of Fred Hatfield. Of all the terms he thought she might use to describe a man with a weak stomach, delicate wasn’t among them.

A low moan from the infirmary broke through his musing. While Martha went to check the patient, Ty entered the locker room to change clothes.

All in all, he’d had a pretty good day, he decided, pulling on the blue scrubs. He hadn’t seen anything more serious than Harv Jenkins’s sore joints, and anticipated a routine birth.

Rotating his shoulders, Ty found much of the tension that had plagued him in recent weeks had begun to dissipate. Now if he could just get the nightmares under control….

Shaking off the guilt and regret, Ty scrubbed, plastered a smile on his face and shouldered open the door to the birthing room. He wasn’t about to let the tragic events that led to his being here intrude on his good mood.

“Where’s Freddie?” the patient asked.

Martha laughed. “Where do you think?”

“Over at the Blue Bird.”

A tingle raced the length of Ty’s spine at the patient’s familiar soft southern drawl. Only one woman’s voice had ever affected him that way. He glanced over at the bed, but Martha blocked his view. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear—

He shook his head at the ridiculous thought.

“Freddie took off out of here like a scalded dog,” Martha said.

As he tied the bottom strings of the mask around his neck, Ty listened to the patient groan, then huff and puff her way through a contraction. When it finally eased, she blew out a deep cleansing breath.

“Freddie’s a big wimp,” she said, her voice raspy.

He couldn’t have said it better. No matter how queasy old Fred was, the guy could at least try to be present for the birth of his child.

“O-o-oh, why do they…have to come…so close together?” the woman moaned a split second before she began panting her way through another pain.

His disdain for the weak-kneed Fred increased. Compelled to reassure his patient, Ty walked over to the side of the bed. “You’ll do just…”

His voice trailed off as he stared openmouthed at the woman in the final stages of labor. Alexis Madison, popular talk radio hostess and, until almost a year ago, Ty’s next door neighbor, was about to give birth in a rural health clinic in eastern Tennessee.

The last time he’d seen Alexis had been the night before she left Chicago. Due to a station buyout, she’d been told to move her show to Los Angeles or find work elsewhere. She’d chosen to quit and move back to Tennessee. In fact, she was one of the reasons he’d taken the job in Dixie Ridge. When he’d been looking for a place to hide from the media, he remembered her talking about the peace and quiet of the Smoky Mountains. After sending out a few feelers, he’d jumped at the chance to temporarily take over the clinic.

The disappointment tightening his chest surprised him. He’d been more than a little attracted to her from the moment they met and had intended to look her up while he was here in the hopes of becoming better acquainted. But there wasn’t any reason to do that now. She’d obviously found some guy named Fred as soon as she moved back, gotten married and started a family.

He forced a smile as he gazed down at her. “Hello, Alexis.”

Lexi figured it had to be the pain causing hallucinations. It had been almost ten long months since she’d heard Tyler Braden’s rich baritone. Besides, the location was all wrong. She was back home in the mountains of Tennessee, not the concrete jungle of Chicago.

But when she opened her eyes, the metallic taste of fear spread through her suddenly dry mouth and she let out a horrified moan. “N-o-o-o…not you!”

“You knew Doc Fletcher wouldn’t be here for the delivery,” Martha reminded her. She reached up to pat Ty’s shoulder. “This here’s Doc Braden. He’s fillin’ in.”

Panic swept through Lexi and she grabbed the front of Martha’s white uniform. “Get him away from me!”

“Simmer down, Lexi.” Martha disengaged herself and turned to Ty. “Don’t take offense. They all act like they’re devil possessed by the time they reach this stage of the game.”

“Please, Martha,” Lexi pleaded. She had to make the woman understand she didn’t want Tyler Braden anywhere near her. “I don’t want him delivering my baby.”

“Lexi, you know there ain’t another doctor within thirty miles of here,” Martha said, her voice stern.

“Then you do it!”

“Now, cut that out.” Martha shook her finger. “You know the only time I catch a baby is when the doctor can’t get here in time.”

“Then go tell Freddie to get the car…and take me to Granny Applegate!” Lexi felt like a beached whale as she struggled to sit up.

“Who the hell is Granny Applegate?” Ty asked.

“An old woman up on Piney Knob,” Martha said, pushing Lexi’s shoulders back down when she finally managed to prop herself up on her elbows. “Granny takes care of some of the folks around here with her home remedies. And she’s delivered more babies than a porcupine has quills or time to count ’em.”

Upset and completely unprepared for the next contraction, Lexi moaned. Pain pulled at her insides, demanding her body take action. Closing her eyes, a guttural sound rumbled in the back of her throat as she strained with all her might to push her baby into the world.

When the contraction ended, she opened her eyes to see Ty shaking his head. “Don’t be ridiculous, Alexis. There’s no other choice. You wouldn’t make it as far as the front door before you give birth.”

“You two know each other?” Martha asked curiously, her keen eyes assessing the situation.

“We’ve met,” Ty said, a muscle along his lean jaw tightening.

“A long time ago-o-o,” Lexi added as her body demanded another push.

Ty frowned and stepped to the end of the bed. “Unless I miss my guess, your protest is about to become a moot point. How long have you been having contractions, Alexis?”

When he tried to lift the sheet, Lexi planted her feet on the end of it. “My name is Lexi. And leave that sheet alone.”

He pulled at the linen. She pressed her feet down more firmly.

“All right, Lexi. How long have you been in labor?”

“Since early this morning.” She couldn’t think of a more humiliating situation than her current position, and where Ty was about to look. They were really no more than casual acquaintances. “Get away from me.”

He ignored her protest, freed the sheet and arranged it over her bent knees. “Why did you wait so long before you came to the clinic?”

“I didn’t realize…I was in labor-r-r.” Another wave of pain swept over her and she completely forgot her embarrassment as she rode the swell of the contraction. “I just…had a backache…until my water broke. That’s when…the pain really became intense.”

Ty’s examination confirmed his earlier suspicions. Alexis was fully dilated and the fetus had entered the birth canal. “We’ll have to put this argument on hold for a while, Lexi. You’re about to have your baby.”

Pushing his personal feelings aside, Ty’s physician instincts took control. “We need to get her feet in the stirrups, Martha.”

Martha nodded and moved the retractable equipment into place. “These new birthin’ beds are the best thing to come along since penicillin. Maybe we’ll get more maternity cases here at the clinic now that we have this little jewel.”

“Where do most of the women go?” Ty asked as he tied his mask in place. “Granny Applegate?”

“Yep. Most of the women on the mountain have Granny come to their house.” Martha chuckled at his disapproving frown. “Now, don’t go gettin’ your shorts in a bunch, Doc. She’s a licensed midwife and when she runs into trouble, she always gives us a holler.”

Ty didn’t have time to respond to Martha’s explanation when Alexis moaned and voluntarily lifted her feet to brace them in the stirrups. As he positioned himself at the end of the bed, his gaze locked with hers. Limp from perspiration, her golden brown hair had been pulled back with some type of clip, drawing his attention to the exhaustion marring her beautiful face. His chest tightened at the tears filling her emerald eyes, the trembling of her perfect lips, and the bright spots of color staining her creamy cheeks. She was extremely tired, in tremendous pain and understandably frightened. She needed the baby’s father at her side, lending his strength, letting her know he was there for her when she needed him most.

“You’re doing great, Lexi,” he encouraged. “I can see the baby’s head.”

She nodded and squeezed her eyes shut. “It really hurts, Ty.”

He felt her pain all the way to his soul. On impulse, he reached out, took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “It won’t be much longer. I promise.”

The simple act of reassurance quickly had his insides churning with emotions he didn’t have the time, nor the inclination, to sort through. Another contraction demanded their attention.

Supporting the baby’s emerging head, he automatically urged, “I need you to give me one more big push and it will all be over.”

As Alexis pushed with all her might, first one shoulder, then the other slipped free and the baby slid into Ty’s waiting hands. Quickly suctioning the mucus and blood from the baby’s mouth and nose, he watched the infant stare at him bleary-eyed for a moment, scrunch its little face, open its mouth and wail at the top of its tiny lungs.

The kid had the temper of a Chicago cab driver and enough volume to put a banshee to shame.

Ty smiled. “Martha, mark the time of birth,” he said, clamping the umbilical cord in two places.

“It’s a boy, Lexi!” Martha said happily, recording the numbers.

Alexis laughed. “Are you sure? I just knew I’d have a girl.”

“Unless little girls have started comin’ with extra plumbing, that’s a boy,” Martha said, chuckling. “What are you gonna name him?”

“Matthew.”

Ty barely heard the two women as a crushing tightness filled his chest. No matter how many times he witnessed the miracle of birth, it never failed to fill him with a humbling sense of wonder, as well as a twinge of regret. Since he didn’t intend to have children, he’d never have a moment like this to call his own.

Fred the Cream Puff was one hell of a lucky man. And the wimpy little jerk wasn’t even here to realize it.

A mist clouding his eyes, Ty examined the squirming infant. Ten fingers. Ten toes. He grinned. An impressive sprinkler system.

But as Ty looked more closely at the baby, his smile faded and he felt the blood drain from his face. A tiny dimple dented the infant’s chin, an inch of black hair covered his head and a small cowlick at his forehead caused his hair to part on one side.

Ty thought back to that night in Chicago. The one and only night he and Alexis had—

He stared in awe at the miracle he held, his gut clenching painfully as realization slammed into him with the force of a physical blow. The resemblance was more than just coincidental. It was undeniable. And that telltale little cowlick proved it. It had been a family trait for generations.

Tyler Braden had just delivered his own son.