Dance Away with Me(14)

She’d thrown salt on the sidewalk in front of the shop, but the pavement beyond was pure ice, and she hugged the sides of the buildings. The highway was eerily quiet. No eighteen-wheelers blasting through, no motorcycles or junkers missing a muffler. The sidewalk ended at The Rooster. She could barely make out the flooded gravel road, let alone the trail that led up the mountain, but with the aid of her flashlight, she eventually found it and began her climb. Ice coated everything, and even with the light, it was hard to keep her footing.

The hood of her rain jacket blew off. Sleet slithered down her neck and icy slivers cut at her cheeks. The locals had assured her the weather wouldn’t last long, but that was no help now.

Her sneakers slipped in the weeds, and she fell for the third time, getting even colder and wetter. All this for a minimum-wage job at a coffee shop that wasn’t really a coffee shop in a town that led to nowhere. Her hands throbbed and her toes were going numb. By the time she reached the cottage, she was a shivering, sodden mess.

Naturally, the propane furnace had gone out, so she wrapped herself in blankets until she stopped shivering. Why had she ever thought coming here would be a good idea? This is your fault, Trav! You’re the one who wanted to move to Tennessee, not me.

She was too worn out to cry and too cold to dance.

*

Something awakened her in the middle of the night. The storm still pounded the cabin, but it was another sound, loud enough to be heard over the rain and the sleet.

A church bell. Ringing again and again. Deep, loud bongs. She rolled to her back, slowly orienting herself to the ugly room with its strips of floral wallpaper curling at the seams instead of the sunny yellow bedroom she and Trav had painted together.

She closed her eyes. The bell continued to sound. Loud. Persistent.

She huddled deeper into the covers. The church high on the mountain had fallen into ruins long ago. It must be the school bell. And after Ian North had made a big frickin’ deal out of her loud music. Yet now it was one o’clock in the morning, and he thought it was perfectly acceptable to—

Her eyes shot open. With a groan, she climbed out of bed and grabbed her nearest dry clothes. Minutes later, she was out the door.

*

The light shining through the long windows testified that the schoolhouse generator was working. She let herself in without knocking and took off her rain jacket. “Bianca! Where are you?”

North answered from the downstairs bedroom. “Back here. Hurry!”

Let this be a false alarm. Bianca was only around thirty-four weeks. Tess had delivered preemies before, but she’d had access to fetal monitors and a neonatal intensive care unit. Here, she had no equipment: no stethoscope, instrument packs, syringes, or suture kits. Most of all, she had no heart for it. And yet here she was.

She forced herself toward the downstairs bedroom and stepped over the threshold.

The room was a soothing amalgam of soft gray walls, brushed nickel lamps, and filmy white curtains. Bianca lay uncovered on a low, platform bed; a pewter-colored nightgown twisted around her body, her face contorted with panic. “Tess! It’s too early! My water broke, and I’m having contractions. It—it wasn’t supposed to happen yet.”

Tess’s heart sank. This didn’t look like false labor, and Tempest had no doctor. Even if they could have reached the nearest hospital in this weather, it was fifty miles away.

She fumbled in her jeans pocket for a tie to twist up her hair. “Babies are little dickheads. They have a will of their own.”

Her irreverence made the corners of Bianca’s mouth temporarily ease. Tess secured her hair and crossed to the bed. Bianca grabbed her hand in a fierce grip. “I’m scared.”

“You’ll be fine,” Tess said with false certainty. “I’ve delivered more babies than I can remember, and we’ve got this. How far apart are the contractions?”

“About six minutes,” North said from behind her.

She gently disengaged from Bianca’s grip. “I’m going to go wash up.”

Bianca’s hand tightened into a fist. “Hurry!”

North led her to the adjoining bathroom, but instead of leaving her there, he followed her inside. As she stood at the sink, the mirror reflected his hard jaw and too-long hair. “Bianca said you used to be a labor and delivery nurse. Is that right?”

His intensity made the small room claustrophobic. She pushed her sleeves above her elbows and turned on the water. “That’s right.”

“Exactly what does that mean? Have you ever delivered a baby by yourself?”

What would he do if she said no? She reached for the soap and began to scrub. No matter how famous, how talented, how wealthy this man was, she didn’t like him. Didn’t like the way he was so uptight with his wife. Didn’t like watching Bianca cling to him one minute and snipe at him the other. “I’m a certified nurse midwife. I’ve delivered preemies before.”

But not without backup.

In the mirror, she saw his shoulders slump so that he no longer looked so aggressive. “I—I can’t get a cell connection,” he said. “I thought maybe a helicopter could get through. We were leaving for Knoxville in a couple of days. There should have been plenty of time.”

“Your baby didn’t get the memo.”

He winced, and she regretted her sharpness. She’d dealt with a lot of difficult fathers, and she knew better. “I need you to gather up some things.” She reeled off a list: clean towels, hand sanitizer, sterilized scissors, string, any gauze pads he could find, a big pitcher of ice water. “Do you have receiving blankets? Anything for the baby?”