Читать книгу Marriage by Contract - Sandra Steffen - Страница 6

June 6, 1997, 10:00 p.m.

“Somebody help me. It hurts. Make it stop. Please, make it stop.”

Bethany Kent placed an ice pack on a patient’s swollen wrist, her feet already moving in the direction of the quavering voice. Wheelchairs and gurneys blocked her path, and men, women and children all looked up as she passed, worry and pain and shock in their eyes.

It had been almost three hours since a mud slide took out the power in Grand Springs, Colorado, and the rain had yet to let up. Most of the people were here tonight because of car accidents due to the mud, the driving rain and the absence of street and traffic lights throughout the city. Some had sustained injuries from falling down stairs or tripping over furniture. Even the mayor had been brought in—the victim of an apparent heart attack. Beth was nearly asleep on her feet, and there was no end in sight.

Thunder rolled in from the mountains, rattling the windows and stirring up the overwrought patients huddled together in the emergency room. The lights dimmed, sending a hush from one end of the room to the other. An old man’s gravelly voice cut through the tense silence. “The generator’s going out. Without lights, the doctors will have to wait until morning to fix us up.”

Others took up the cry. By the time Beth slid her arm around the teenage girl who was doubled over in pain near the door, some of the patients were rocking back and forth, others were starting to wail.

In a voice as sure and steady as her hands, Beth said, “I’ve worked in the ER long enough to know the ins and outs of the generators Vanderbilt Memorial uses during emergencies such as this one. And believe me, the lights are not going to go out.”

Turning her attention to the girl who was moaning softly, she ignored the sheen of perspiration dampening the hair on her own forehead, and placed her hand on the girl’s abdomen, which was taut with another contraction. “Dave,” she called to a clerk near the desk on the other side of the room. “Find Dr. Petrocelli. Stat. Tell him we have another mother in labor.”

The girl tried to straighten but couldn’t. “I can’t have the baby yet. It’s ten weeks early.”

Beth did her best to hide the anxiety twisting the knot in her stomach as Dr. Amanda Jennings joined her. A baby born ten weeks premature would be tiny, its lungs dangerously underdeveloped. As the two women helped the young mother to a vacant wheelchair, Beth had her first glimpse of pale skin, big eyes and a narrow face framed with a tangle of wet, dark hair sticking out of a tattered baseball cap. Sweet heaven, the girl was just a baby herself.

“What’s your name?” Beth asked as they wheeled her into a trauma room and prepared to move her to the examining table.

Blue eyes rose to hers. “Annie. Annie Moore. Will you help me?” the girl pleaded, looking from Beth to Amanda Jennings.

Beth had seen lives saved, and she’d seen lives lost. Neither ever failed to move her. But nothing in all her thirty-five years had ever touched her more deeply than the entreaty and the unusual flicker of bravery in Annie Moore’s eyes. Blinking back the tears that always seemed close to the surface these days, Beth nodded. “We’ll help you.”

The girl folded over as another contraction racked her thin body. Beth didn’t like the looks of this. The pains were coming fast and furious with little time in between.

She was in the process of helping Annie into bed when Dr. Tony Petrocelli pushed into the room, past Dr. Noah Howell. Dr. Petrocelli’s scrub suit was clean, and a face mask and stethoscope hung from his neck. The black stubble of his day-old beard was testimony to the fact that he’d been here for twenty-four hours, at least.

“Hello,” he said matter-of-factly. “Who have we got here?”

“We don’t have anyone. I’m here by myself. And my name is Annie. Am I going to die?”

Dr. Petrocelli glanced at the girl, obviously taking her terse words in stride. “No. I’m Dr. Tony Petrocelli. It’s nice to meet you. How old are you, Annie?”

“Seventeen. How old are you?”

An arched eyebrow was the doctor’s only indication of surprise. “I’m thirty-six. Nice night to have a baby.”

The line creasing his lean cheek and his notorious half smile didn’t seem to faze the girl. Squaring her jaw and straightening her shoulders, she said, “I’m not having the baby tonight. It’s too early. I’m not ready. For once in my life, I’m going to do something right. So just make it stop.”

Beth spared another glance at Dr. Petrocelli. She’d heard all the rumors and tall tales about the sexual prowess of the Don Juan of Vanderbilt Memorial. She’d seen him in the cafeteria, the corridors and elevators, but until now, she’d never actually worked with him. And she’d certainly never understood how a man with his image could also have the reputation for being one of the best obstetricians in Colorado. It didn’t take long for her to understand.

While Beth held the girl’s hand, showed her how to breathe and bathed her face with cool water, Tony conducted a quick examination. All the while, he talked to Annie, asking her questions about her pregnancy, the weather, and then moved on to about a dozen other topics. His voice was a husky baritone, his lips prone to smiling. His touch was strong and sure and was meant to put patients at ease, even through his latex gloves. “I’ll be right back,” he said, then motioned Dr. Jennings and Dr. Howell out to the hallway. Moments later he returned. Going around to the other side of the bed, he looked directly into Annie’s eyes and said, “Your labor is too far advanced to stop. This baby wants to be born tonight. Let’s get to work. Dr. Jennings here is going to help out.”

Beth had expected panic, stark and vivid, to glitter in Annie’s eyes, but she hadn’t expected the shuddering breath the girl took or the pride and determination thickening her voice as she said, “My sister’s name was Christie, so if the baby’s a girl, I’m going to name her Christina. Christopher, if it’s a boy. I just want you to know. In case something happens.”

The girl cried out with the next contraction, and there was no time to reassure her. She groaned, bore down and cried out again, clutching Beth’s hand, straining, hurting. She breathed when she could, pushed when she had to, and wept, her face contorting in pain a girl her age shouldn’t have to endure. And then, after a momentary stillness, a baby’s weak cry wavered through the room.

“It’s a boy!” Dr. Petrocelli called.

“A boy?” Annie cried. “Is he all right?”

“He’s tiny, but he has all ten fingers and toes.”

Smiling around the lump in her throat, Beth wrapped little Christopher in a blanket, then held him up so his mother could see. Lord, he was small, but he was alive.

“Can I hold him?” Annie asked.

Beth placed the baby in his mother’s arms for but a moment while the doctor cut the cord, then she whisked him away into a mobile incubator for his trip to the neonatal unit upstairs. Annie’s voice stopped her at the door. “Promise you’ll take care of him for me?”

Touching the baby gently, Beth turned. The young girl looked weak and exhausted and so alone Beth would have promised her anything. “I’ll take care of him, Annie. You have my word.”

For some reason, her gaze trailed to the foot of the bed where Dr. Petrocelli was standing. He was tall and dark, and looked as if he could have just stepped off a steamship from southern Italy. Even tired, his features were striking and strong—his nose, his chin, his cheekbones. But it was his eyes that held her spellbound. She knew the moment only lasted for the span of one heartbeat, but in that instant, everything went strangely still. His look warmed her in ways she hadn’t expected, and didn’t want to examine.

The baby moved beneath her hand, and the moment broke. With one last glance at Annie, Beth turned and left.

Tony heard the swish of the door and saw the blur of an auburn braid as Bethany Kent disappeared. He was aware of the whir of a fan, the strong scent of disinfectant and the floor beneath his feet. But he felt frozen in time, and in place. He’d delivered hundreds of babies, had been yelled at and kicked and hit. He’d witnessed countless moments of joy and tears and happiness at that first tiny cry. But he’d never felt exactly the way he had during that brief instant when his gaze had met Bethany’s.

He’d seen her around the hospital and had heard rumors about a recent divorce. Although she kept to herself, he’d noticed her the way all men notice all women. But he hadn’t had this gut-wrenching, knee-jerk reaction to her before. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so…so—hell, he didn’t even know what to call it.

Telling himself the jolt of longing that pulsed suddenly in the very center of him was a result of too little sleep, too many patients and an adrenaline surge due to the emergency, he shook his head to clear it, then turned back to the seventeen-year-old girl who was crying, and trying not to let it show.