The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(76)

“Okay.” She took a breath. “Can you get undressed please, I’ll be right back.”

She walked out of the room, heading to the bathroom to quickly sterilize her hands. She heard the door open, and Colt called her name. “I’m in the back, I’m with a patient,” she said.

“Okay,” he said.

“Don’t leave.”

She knew how to handle emergencies. This wasn’t her first time ever dealing with a client hemorrhaging. And she had a feeling they were going to have to go to the hospital. But she would look at her first. Mallory was not one to take any chances. If a mother or baby could be served better in a medical facility that had more resources than she did, then that’s where they would go.

She rushed back into the exam room, keeping her expression neutral. “How are you feeling? Do you have any cramping?”

“I... No. I... I need to call my husband.”

“Yes. We will call your husband. Let me examine you first.”

Lizzie winced. “I’m having cramping now.”

Lizzie was twenty-eight weeks. If she had to deliver, it was... It was not ideal. Survival was possible, that was definitely true. It would just be better if they could keep her pregnant.

But Mallory was beginning to have doubts. Lizzie was lying back on the bed, and Mallory felt her abdomen, checking for signs of rigidity. Lizzie winced.

“My concern is that you may have had a placental abruption,” Mallory said after a moment. “We need to go to the hospital.”

Lizzie started to cry, immediately. “I don’t... I don’t have a car, and my husband works an hour away...”

“I’ll go with you. I’ll sit with you. Colt will drive us.”

“I need to call my husband,” she said, her breathing getting sporadic.

“It’s okay.” She got out the Doppler and put it on Lizzie’s abdomen. The baby’s heartbeat was still strong. Lizzie wasn’t bleeding uncontrollably, but based on what she was feeling in her uterus, Mallory was definitely concerned. “But I do want to take you to a hospital. We need you to have more intense monitoring than what I can offer you.”

Lizzie dressed, and then Mallory helped her from the exam room. “Colt,” she said. “Will you drive us?”

She noticed that Lily wasn’t with him. “Where’s Lily?”

“I’ll explain later,” he said. “My family has her. Don’t worry about it.”

He picked up on the situation immediately, and she felt a little bit bad about co-opting him, but he didn’t seem to mind. Instead, he did everything she asked him to do absolutely seamlessly.

She sat in the back of her car with Lizzie, and Colt drove them toward Tolowa. All the while, she monitored Lizzie for distress. She had thought that sending her in an ambulance would only create more trauma, and since the baby’s heartbeat was strong, and so was Lizzie’s, it made more sense for them to drive.

Her husband was also on his way, and Colt had done the hard work of calling him too. When they arrived at the hospital, Colt dropped them at the front entrance, and they went inside. “You won’t leave me, will you?”

“No,” Mallory said. “I’m not going to leave you. As long as you want me here, I’m here. You can trust the doctors, but if you need me...”

“I need you,” she said.

Mallory explained the situation to the nurse at the emergency room. Rather than staying in the ER, they were immediately taken to the birthing center. At that moment, Lizzie was with it enough to text her husband and let him know where they’d gone. When they were settled, Mallory texted Colt. It took an hour, but Lizzie’s husband finally arrived. At that point, she had already been examined by the doctor. She had begun to bleed more, though the baby’s heart rate still looked good.

Mallory was thankful that the doctor was respectful of her desire to stay. It was important to her that whatever Lizzie needed, Lizzie got.

“What am I going to do?” Lizzie whispered. “What if I lose my baby?”

Mallory blinked. Tears were pushing against her own eyes, but she tried not to show them.

“I don’t know if it’ll all be okay,” Mallory said. “The miracle of birth is not always a simple one. And sometimes... Sometimes in life bad things happen. But you are strong. We don’t know what will happen. But what I know is that you can keep breathing in this moment. Just focus on breathing now. On staying calm. Focus on what you can do.”

Hours passed, and the situation remained in flux. And so Mallory stayed.

It was everyone’s goal to keep Lizzie pregnant. But it became clear as the bleeding worsened and the baby began to enter into fetal distress that they were not going to be able to accomplish that. And when they took Lizzie in for the C-section, it was just her and her husband. It was also nearly midnight. Mallory stumbled out of the room and was shocked to see Colt sitting in the waiting room.

“You’re still here.”

Sitting in those mauve chairs under fluorescent lights. Her cowboy in very shining armor.

“Yeah,” he said. He stood. “I saw them take her out.”

“She has to deliver. I want to... I want to wait. Is that okay?”

“Whatever you need.”

“You were just there, the whole time?”