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Jon stood. “I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”
“Meet me in the parking lot.” That would give her a chance to move the towels and swim gear she’d stashed in the front seat to the trunk and toss out the remnants of her fast-food breakfast and miscellaneous trash. She had the twins’ car seats in the back, since she was picking them up at day care today for Anne on her way back from the home visit and taking them to the lake. “The blue Outback.”
“I know.”
She warmed before it struck her. Of course he knew. Her car had been parked in front of the duplex for most of the weekend. “Right.”
He let himself out of the office and Autumn went in search of a plastic trash bag—ditching the brief thought she’d had of ducking into the ladies’ room to touch up her makeup and check her hair.
* * *
Jon pushed the back door to the birthing center open to see Autumn standing by her car stuffing things into a canvas bag with a mountain logo on it. The morning sun brought out silvery highlights in her pale blond hair. She set the bag on the pavement next to a white plastic bag and leaned into the open door. When she stood, she had two swim noodles in one arm and an inner tube in the other. She tossed the noodles over the seat into the back of the car and pressed her key tag to open the trunk.
“Need a hand?”
Autumn dropped the tube and it rolled toward Jon. He caught it and walked it back to her.
“You want it in the trunk?”
“Yeah, but I’ll have to rearrange a few things first.” She brushed by him and lifted the back hatch door, standing to one side as if she wanted to block his view of the storage area.
His curiosity got the best of him and he stepped behind her and peered over her shoulder. “Interesting collection of equipment,” he said, taking in the jumble of toys, a beach bag, her oxygen tank, an orange EMT bag with a stethoscope looped over the top of one pocket and an inflatable birthing pool mostly folded into its “Birth-in-a-Bag” canvas container.
Pink tinged her cheeks as she made room for the inner tube, reminding him of the wholesome touch of innocence that had first attracted him to her when they’d met at Samaritan Hospital. It was that quality that had prompted him to ask her roommate, Kate, out, rather than Autumn. Kate was more of a party girl. He knew she wouldn’t expect anything long-term, and that observation proved true. Contrary to the scuttlebutt that had spread through the Labor and Delivery wing, his breakup with Kate bruised her ego far more than her heart.
Autumn had struck him as a longtime kind of woman, and he’d known they both were at Samaritan temporarily. That thought had made it easier on him when she’d turned him down when he asked her out. He’d known that his timing wasn’t right, but there was something about Autumn that had compelled him to ask anyway.
“There.” She stepped back, causing him to jump out of the way.
He hadn’t realized how close together they were standing.
She waved over the cleared-out spot next to the beach bag. “I have to pick the twins up from day care on my way home and take them to their swim lesson at the lake. Anne has a web conference after her class this morning.”
Jon bit back a smile, getting a bittersweet kick out of the easy way Autumn went on about her family without knowing she was doing it. He lifted the tube into the car, and she closed the hatch.
Autumn got in and started the vehicle. “The visit is up in Schroon Falls. If you’ve driven Route 9 from the medical center in Saranac Lake, you’ve gone through it.”
“No, I’ve always taken the interstate.”
“Yeah, the Northway is a lot faster.”
His mind went back to Friday, when the drive to Crown Point had seemed interminable on the interstate Autumn called the Northway. “I take it your visit this morning isn’t off the interstate.”
“Right, but unless time is a real factor, I tend to avoid the Northway. I get that from my dad. He never takes a highway if he can take a byway. It drives Anne crazy sometimes.”
He could see that. In the case of these home visits, unnecessary time on the road would mean less time with that patient or another patient or in the office. “But you take the interstate when you’re called for a delivery.” He figured that was a given.
She shrugged. “It depends. We usually have time.”
Jon shifted in his seat. She seemed so nonchalant about it. As he was all too aware, a birth could be a life-and-death situation. Of course, rural Upstate New York wasn’t rural Haiti. He looked out the window at the mountain rising to his right. But it wouldn’t be unusual for a home-delivery patient’s house to be an hour from lifesaving equipment at the birthing center or the medical center in Saranac Lake.
The natural break in their conversation drew out into a lull that made the drive time drag. Might as well check in with the office. He pulled out his smartphone and touched the mail app, tapping the side of the phone while he waited for it to open. It took a moment for him to notice the no-signal icon in the right-hand corner.
“Do you often have trouble getting reception around here?”
“All the time,” Autumn said. “It doesn’t matter which service you use.”
“That could be a problem.”
“If you need to make a call, I’m sure Megan would let you use her house phone. We’ll be there in five minutes.”
“It’s not important. I was trying to check my office email. What I meant was for being on call.”
“It can be challenging. No one around here depends solely on a cell phone. Kelly and I give our expectant parents our home landline numbers and our cell numbers, in addition to the office number. If I’m at Dad’s or Aunt Jinx’s or an activity at church, I’ll often set my cell phone to forward my calls there to make sure I get them. Of course, the birthing center’s off-hours answering service has all of our numbers.”
Jon couldn’t imagine giving his former practice’s service his church’s phone number or any of his family members’ numbers, even if he were close to them. It seemed unprofessional. “I guess that’s the best you can do. A pager service wouldn’t work any better.”
Autumn’s expression hardened. “It isn’t that big of a deal. People get a hold of us. Neither Kelly nor I have missed a birth yet.”
He couldn’t shake the thought that they could, or he could, and the possible consequences. His cousin had died because she didn’t have a doctor at her birth to manage the complications. “I’d better call the phone company and have the landline connected.”
“Good idea. The house we’re going to is right up here.” Autumn turned left on Peaks Hill Road and followed it to the end, stopping in front of a small, boxy house.
He looked at the solar collectors on the roof. “Your dad’s work?”
She wrinkled her forehead in puzzlement. “Oh, the collectors. No. Dave, the new father, said he’d bought the system online and installed it himself. He’s interested in talking with Dad.”
Jon’s gaze went from the gleaming collectors to the blistered, peeling paint on the cottage and the dip in the wooden step to the front door.
“Ready?” she asked, swinging her door open.
He followed suit and stepped out of the car, walking around to meet her at the trunk.
She clicked the hatch open and grabbed her stethoscope from the EMT bag and a black-and-white pull-behind suitcase with pink hearts and a cartoon cat on it.
He tried to keep a straight face.
“Hello Kitty.” Autumn nodded at the bag. “My sister, Sophie, picked it for my last birthday. She thought my brown one was too dull.”
“That one isn’t dull.” He let the smile spread across his face and received a matching one from Autumn. His heartbeat ticked up a notch. He pulled his gaze from her and perused the trunk. “Need anything else?”
“Yes, can you grab the scale? It’s there under the inner tube.”
He reached under the tube for the scale, glad to have something to occupy his attention. Seriously. Undone by a smile. He’d thought himself too jaded for that.
Autumn walked ahead of him to the house. He placed his foot on the step gingerly, feeling it give a bit from his weight. She knocked on the screen door.
“Hi.” A teenager in a baggy T-shirt and cut-off sweatpants swung the door open for them. She pushed a strand of hair from her forehead. “Sorry about how I look. I don’t have anything else that fits comfortably. And I am not going to wear maternity clothes.”
This was the new mother?
Autumn laughed. “Someone should have told you that you wouldn’t fit into your regular clothes right away.”
“They did.” She grimaced. “But I didn’t believe them. I exercised and watched what I ate the whole pregnancy.”
At second glance, the girl didn’t look quite as young. He was just used to the thirty-and forty-something professional women he tended to see at his last practice.
“So, who’s your friend?” The girl motioned to Jon.
Evidently, Autumn hadn’t called ahead to tell her he was coming along.
“I’m sorry,” Autumn said. “Megan, this is Dr. Hanlon from the Ticonderoga Birthing Center. He’s interested in learning more about Kelly’s and my home-birth practice.”
The grin left Megan’s face. Autumn should have cleared his coming with the mother. And he should have thought first before he’d decided to come. A free-birther wouldn’t welcome an obstetrician tagging along. And he couldn’t stay without the mother’s agreement.
“I don’t have to stay if it makes you uncomfortable.” Of course, he had no idea what he’d do for the two hours Autumn had said the visit would take.
A gusty wail sent Megan rushing from the room before she could respond, leaving Jon and Autumn in the middle of the room facing each other.
* * *
Autumn spoke first. “I should have called and cleared your coming with Megan.” But she’d been too peeved at Kelly for suggesting she take Jon along and with him for wanting to come to think of it.
“Yes, you should have.”
Autumn tensed. Even if she was in the wrong, he didn’t have to agree so readily. She waited for him to lecture her on medical protocol as she’d heard him do more than once during their time at Samaritan.
“You can unclench your hands.” He smiled the killer smile that she’d insisted to the other nurses at Samaritan had no effect on her. “What do you propose we do?” he asked.
Autumn relaxed her hands, warming at his acknowledgment that she was the person in control here. Except she wasn’t in control, nor was her reaction to Kelly’s suggestion that Jon come on the visit very professional. “Let’s leave it up to Megan. We should respect her wishes.”
“Definitely,” he agreed.
“There you go. All nice and dry,” Megan crooned as she returned, patting her son on the bottom.
Autumn held out her hands and took the baby from his mother’s arms. “Looking good,” she said, holding the little boy so that Jon could see him.
Jon rocked back on his heels and nodded slightly in the direction of the baby.
She wasn’t sure what that was about.
“Isn’t he perfect?” the new mother asked, looking from Autumn to Jon and back to her son.
Autumn drilled her gaze into Jon’s. If he wanted to observe the visit, admiring the baby would be a good start in getting Megan to agree.
Jon cleared his throat. “He’s a good-size boy, and his color looks healthy.”
Autumn resisted the inclination to roll her eyes at Megan. “I apologize for not checking ahead to ask about bringing Dr. Hanlon.”
“Jon,” he said, turning his smile on the young mother.
Her expression softened. “That’s okay.” She turned to Jon. “You’re just here to observe, right?”
That was it? One smile from Jon and Megan was fine with him being here? Autumn focused her attention on the infant in her arms, looking into his blue eyes as if he could give her an answer.
“That was the idea,” Jon said, his tone light and, to Autumn’s ears, flirtatious.
What’s wrong with me? she silently asked the baby. Jon wasn’t flirting and, if he was, why should she care? The infant scrunched his face as if he were going to cry. Right. It was Jon’s attitude. She continued her unspoken conversation. The fact that he obviously thought his good looks were a balm to the situation. And that it seemed to be true.
“Is Dave going to join us?” Autumn asked.
“No, he got a call for work last night, framing a new camp on the lake.” Megan hesitated. “We figured it was okay for him to go, since you’d be here this morning and I’m sure Mom will stop by this afternoon on her way home from work.”
Autumn caught Jon’s thin-lipped expression before Megan did. He must not approve of Dave’s not being here. While it was nice to have someone to help with a newborn, from what she’d seen, Autumn was sure Megan would be fine by herself for the day.
“Dave does construction and lawn care during the summer,” Megan said as if she had to explain. “We’ve had so much rain this year that he hasn’t had a lot of work.”
Autumn glared at Jon before turning to the new mother with a cheery, “Let’s take a look at this guy. Can I use the changing table in the bedroom?” Autumn had used the beautiful maple table to examine the baby following his birth.
Megan gazed sideways at Jon. “Ah, the bed isn’t made. We went back to sleep for a while after Dave left for work.”
Autumn forced a laugh. “We’re here to see you and the baby, not to check on your housekeeping. I’ll wash up in your bathroom and meet you in the bedroom.”
“Okay.” Megan stepped toward the bedroom.
“Jon, can you bring the scale?” Autumn pointed to where they’d left it by the door when they’d come in.
“Yeah, sure.”
Megan already had the baby on the changing table when Autumn joined her and Jon. She started undressing him. “This is a really cute onesie.”
Megan beamed. “Yes, don’t you love the little blue-and-yellow elephants? I bought it at the Hazardtown Community Church bargain shed. Mom said newborns outgrow things so fast, we should get as many things as we could there.”
Autumn placed the baby in the sling of the scale Jon was holding ready. A frown marred his handsome face.
“I know what you mean,” Autumn said. “Gram saved all of Aunt Jinx’s clothes. She’s only eight years older than I am. Dad didn’t have to buy me anything new himself until I was ready for kindergarten.”
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