The Doctors' Baby Miracle Read online

  “Still holding. Let’s ease up on the Pitocin and see if things continue. Is she conscious?”

  “No.” He and the nurse said the word together.

  “Let’s get a blood count so we can see how much volume she has left.”

  During pregnancy, a woman’s blood volume increased by about fifty percent, so some bleeding was normal. It was just when it went beyond a certain level that it turned into a crisis. At its worst, they would have had to perform a hysterectomy in order to save the mother’s life. Thankfully it hadn’t come to that.

  It was as if the lab had been waiting right outside. Or maybe the pediatric nurse had alerted them, because they were there in less than thirty seconds.

  Samantha’s eyelids fluttered as they were doing the blood draw.

  A few minutes later they had their answer. The red-cell count was low, but not dangerously so. With the help of the two nurses, he and Kady worked to clean her up and make her as comfortable as possible.

  “Can I see my baby?” The patient’s voice was a mere whisper. “Is she all right?”

  Kady came around and held her hand. “She’s fine. You’re the one who gave us a little scare. I can let you see her, but just for a few minutes. I want to send you to ICU for observation to make sure the bleeding doesn’t start back up again.”

  “What caused it?”

  “When the placenta detaches it can cause some bleeding, which is normal. You just lost more than we expected. You were also pushing for a long time. The important thing is that your body was able to do what it needed to do to stop it.”

  “What about the baby? Can she go with me?”

  “To ICU? No, I’m sorry. But I’m hoping you’ll be able to have her with you before the night is out. I’ll check on you periodically to see how you’re doing.”

  That made Tucker frown. She’d already been working for six hours straight. And she wasn’t even a resident at this hospital. She could very easily turn the case over to another doctor.

  But that wasn’t the Kady he knew. She cared deeply about her patients, even ones she hadn’t followed through the prenatal phase.

  When he went to say something, though, she gave a quick shake of her head. She’d evidently known exactly where he was headed. It was fine. The hospital was undoubtedly glad to have her on hand during this crisis. And because she worked at a sister hospital, it made the process a little more fluid than it might have been otherwise.

  “I’ll get the nurse to bring your baby in to you for a few minutes.”

  “Can I nurse her?”

  Kady paused as if thinking. “Yes, I think that might be a good idea, actually, if you’re feeling strong enough.”

  Nursing was another way to trigger the body to clamp down on the uterus, signaling that childbirth was over and it was time to close up shop.

  The baby latched on without difficulty, and Kady smiled and squeezed Samantha’s shoulder. “We’ll be right over here, if you need us.”

  She wasn’t going to step out of the room, not while her patient needed her.

  “I can stay with her,” Tucker said. “Why don’t you take a break?”

  “I’m fine. I’d rather be on hand.”

  He smiled. “You always were stubborn.”

  “No more stubborn than you.”

  The urge to put his arm around her and give her a quick hug came and went. Not smart, Tucker. You’re colleagues now, remember? Nothing more. What he felt right now, though, went far beyond professional admiration. Kady’s calm determination had been one of the things he’d loved about her. She never gave up.

  Not even when it came to wanting another baby.

  “Good job, by the way. I thought for sure she was going to need more aggressive measures.”

  “I did too. I just wanted to give her body another minute or two to figure things out.”

  The process for a PPH was similar to resuscitating a cardiac patient. It was a tense situation that could quickly deteriorate into a life-threatening emergency. Tucker had seen a woman die from blood loss. Not common in this day and age of emergency surgery, but when a patient arrived who had already lost over half her blood volume, there sometimes wasn’t enough time to reverse things. Thankfully it had only happened once in his memory, but since he didn’t deal with this end of things very often, it could occur more than he’d thought.

  “You made the right call.”

  “This time. You’re never quite sure when things are happening so quickly.”

  He knew what she meant. Sometimes you had to go with your gut instincts, because there wasn’t time to think through every remote possibility. Had his gut instinct been wrong about getting a vasectomy?

  It was too late to do anything about it now. He could see now that his head hadn’t been screwed on straight during Grace’s last days or afterward. He’d been operating on a ball of pure emotion and grief, while doing his best to hide both of those things from his wife. Not exactly the best conditions under which to make decisions.

  It hadn’t been a rash one, though. He’d wanted to save his marriage—had hoped that by having the procedure they could have normal relations again. Instead, he’d ended up sending a wrecking ball straight into it.

  Divorce had seemed inevitable by then. They had wanted different things out of life.

  No, not out of life. Out of one area of that life. She wanted more kids, and he didn’t. And the fear of her getting pregnant again messed with a certain region of his brain, which in turn shut down an important region of his body.

  “I think the baby’s done.”

  Their patient’s quiet voice called him back from his thoughts. Kady had been silent as well. Had she been thinking about the past? Probably not. She’d been able to move on quite easily after the divorce. And she certainly hadn’t seemed brokenhearted during the workshop. Or afterward. Shocked to see him maybe. But distraught. Not hardly.

  Even the bikini mishap hadn’t seemed to faze her, unlike Tucker, who’d almost turned her around to see if that part of his body could follow through to completion.

  Another line of thought he needed to stay away from.

  Samantha gave her baby one last kiss on the forehead, her eyes filling with tears, before allowing her to be wheeled away in her bassinet. “It’s so hard to let her go.”

  A pang went through him. At least Samantha was only handing her daughter over on a temporary basis. Not letting her go forever.

  “It’s not for long. We want her to leave with a strong and healthy mom.” Kady’s words rang with a sincerity that made a believer out of him. There was no hint of remembered grief in her voice. “Let me check you one more time before we have you transferred.”

  The gloves snapped off a few seconds later. “The flow looks normal.”

  “Does that mean I can just go to a regular room?”

  “Let’s play it safe, okay? It’ll just be for a few hours. You don’t have anyone you want to call?”

  Okay, so Kady was going to ask. He’d wondered.

  Samantha shrugged. “My roommate, maybe, but she’s at work until midnight.”

  “Do you know her number?”

  Once Kady had written it down, she tucked it into her pocket. “We’ll see if we can reach her.”

  We? A figure of speech, surely. She wasn’t looking to spend more time with him than she already had. They’d worked these cases together for almost seven straight hours. She had to be dead on her feet.

  He was tired too, but that didn’t necessarily mean he wanted to go home. Sometimes the rush of adrenaline needed to carry you through a difficult case also made it hard to sleep when the time came. He just wanted to go and get something to eat and get away from the noise of the hospital for a while.

  They got their patient prepped and an orderly came up to wheel her to ICU. “I’ll check on you a little later tonight.”

  Surely she wasn’t planning on staying at the hospital all night? Then again, knowing Kady...

  With their patient gone, Tucker surveyed the room, still cluttered with the evidence of their battle. “I certainly didn’t expect the night to end this way.”

  “It’s not over yet. I need to see if they need help with any other cases.”

  When she went to leave the room, he stopped her with a touch. “What you need to do is take a breather.”

  “I’m okay. Seriously. I’m just happy to be useful.”

  “I thought you were taking a mini-vacation.”

  “Sometimes things are taken out of your hands.” She paused. “I needed this, Tucker.”

  He could agree with that. Sometimes things were taken out of your hands, even when those hands tried to hold on as tightly as they could.

  “If you’re going to insist on staying, I’ll go with you. I probably couldn’t sleep anyway.”

  Strangely, after some of his most devastating cases, he had come home and held Kady all through the night. She’d never asked for details about what had happened, just hugged him back, maybe sensing that’s what he’d needed more than anything. Those days were gone. It was one of the things he missed the most about their life together. He doubted he’d find that kind of intimacy with another person.

  But he wouldn’t find it with her either. Not now. A wisp of regret curled through his skull, searching for a place to land. He hardened his heart. He didn’t need intimacy. Not when it involved losing a piece of your soul.

  The earlier chaos in the hallway had died down considerably. They had changed shifts somewhere in the middle of it. He went over to the nurses’ station where one of the regular RNs, Gloria Luther, was tapping away at a computer keyboard. “Any other cases from the birthing center?”

  “I think yours was the last one. Thanks for your help, Dr. Stevenson, and...” She slid her glasses a little further down her nose and sent a glance to Kady. “Things have been so busy I didn’t even get a chance to learn your name. I take it you are a real doctor.”

  Kady laughed. “About as real as they come.”

  “This is Dr. McPherson from Wilson-Ross in Atlanta. She’s here for the conference and is helping orient some of our medical students so you’ll be seeing her from time to time this week.”

  “Nice to meet you.” The woman reached across the top of the desk to shake her hand. “And great timing, by the way.”

  With graying hair scraped back in a severe knot and a gruff appearance, this was one case where appearances were deceptive. Gloria was one of their patients’ favorite nurses. She didn’t put up with any nonsense but would stand toe to toe with any doctor who wasn’t moving quickly enough to help those in her care.

  “Thank you.” Kady smiled at her.

  The nurse looked at her a little longer than necessary and then back at Tucker, before saying, “Oh, I see.”

  “I’m sorry?” he said, frowning.

  “Nothing. You’ve been at the Atlanta hospital for a while?” she asked Kady.

  “I’ve been there ever since graduating from medical school.”

  “I think Dr. Stevenson came from that same hospital, didn’t you?” She sent him a sly glance. “Did you know each other there?”

  You could say that. But he wasn’t about to admit they were ex-spouses, although if she went looking on the internet, he was pretty sure there would be pictures of the two of them together at some of the Atlanta hospital’s functions. Back when they had probably still been smiling.

  Kady saved him from answering. “Yes, we knew each other. We were married for a while, actually.”

  His gut sucked tight. Why had she admitted that? Gloria wasn’t known for being part of the rumor mill, but word could still get around and make things awkward for both of them.

  “I thought maybe that was the case. Well, at least you can get along well enough to still work together. My ex and I aren’t nearly as lucky.”

  It was lucky, wasn’t it? They weren’t ranting and raving at each other, and he was pretty sure Kady didn’t actively hate him, although she’d probably felt pretty strongly about him when he’d filed for divorce. But all of that had to be looked at based on where they’d been in their lives at the time.

  And that had been in separate bedrooms.

  Grief combined with fear of discovery was a potent combination, he’d found out. In all the wrong ways.

  “I’m not sure I would call it lucky.” Kady threw a smile at the other woman. “But being angry doesn’t do either of us any good.”

  He well remembered that anger...and the pleading. But neither had changed his mind.

  Nothing had. And he still didn’t regret his decision. It had given back a part of him that he’d feared dead. Not that he’d slept with many women in the years since the divorce, but at least he knew he could, if he wanted to.

  And with Kady at the pool? Oh, yeah, he’d wanted to.

  “Well, I’m happy for you. You put in a long shift together, from what I heard. And you both came through it alive.” She sent them a quick smile.

  Yes, it really had been a long day. And those words brought back the bone-weary tiredness he’d been struggling with for the last half-hour. Maybe he’d be able to sleep after all. “Yes, it was. You’re sure that was the last case from the birthing center?”

  “Yes. It looks like it’s going to be a quiet night from here on out. Our beds are full from the new arrivals, but we should be able to cope.”

  “Any losses?”

  “No, thank God.”

  Samantha Peters had probably been the closest call they’d had. And Kady had handled it all like the pro she was.

  “We’re going to take off, then.” He paused, realizing something. “We missed the evening’s conference sessions.”

  Kady shrugged. “It’s fine.” Then she glanced at the board to the right, where a long string of names and room numbers were listed. “I want to be kept updated on Samantha Peters, if you don’t mind. I’ll be in to check on her around midnight.”

  Gloria wrote something down. “Will you be close by?”

  When his ex looked flustered for a moment, Tucker stepped in. “She will. I’ll set her up in my office.”

  “Okay.” She glanced at the board in front of her. “Room 301’s call button just went off, so that’s my signal to skedaddle. If you’ll leave your number on the desk, I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

  How would the nurse even know if there were changes since Samantha had been transferred out of the unit?

  “She’s not in Maternity anymore—she’s in ICU.”

  Gloria’s brows went up. “You’re not the only one who likes to check on their patients’ progress. I’ll call up to ICU from time to time and see how she’s doing.”

  “Thank you.”

  With that Gloria hurried toward a room to the left and Tucker was left wondering what the hell he’d been thinking, offering to let Kady sleep in his office.

  It was just for a few hours.

  Then it would be one more day down.

  And not many to go.

  Tucker had no idea how he felt about that. Neither was he going to try to figure it out.

  He was just going to put his head down and keep moving. Until Kady finally caught her flight back to Atlanta.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KADY DOG-PADDLED AROUND CONSCIOUSNESS, going past it a few times before circling back to find it.

  Where was she?

  Even when she opened her eyes, the darkness remained. She’d been sleeping, but this wasn’t her hotel room, since her cheek was against something that was like leather, only cushier.

  If not the hotel, then where?

  She allowed her senses to drift, snuggling a little further under the thin blanket or whatever was on top of her.

  Wait. She’d been at the hospital. Was supposed to check on someone.

  A patient!

  This time she sat up, struggling to see.

  “It’s okay. It’s not midnight yet.”

  Low earthy tones drifted across the space as her eyes tried to adjust—as objects began materializing through the gloom. A desk. A chair. The shape of a person.

  Tucker.

  How long had she been asleep? From her groggy, cotton-stuffed head, she was going to say it was only a couple of hours.

  Had he been sitting in that chair the whole time, watching her?

  The thought unnerved her. “What time is it?”

  “Eleven thirty. I was going to wake you up in fifteen more minutes.”

  “I’m awake. Did you get any sleep?”

  “Not yet.”

  Well, now she felt horrible. He had to be as exhausted as she was. They could have taken turns. Kady was used to getting in power naps when things were busy at the hospital in Atlanta. And the cots in the doctors’ rest area weren’t nearly as comfortable as this couch was. Which was probably why she’d slept so long.

  Or maybe it was the way his scent clung to everything in the room, including the throw pillow.

  Damn. Not a good thing to be thinking about when the room’s occupant was just a few yards away.

  He clicked on the light, and what she saw made her breath catch in her chest. Not because he looked atrocious. Tucker could never look anything other than gorgeous. But right now that attractive face was shadowed by a haggardness that made her heart ache. He looked like he’d gone to war and come out on the losing end. Well, he had been through a battle. They both had. And there was nothing she could do to make it better. That was what hurt the most. Her husband had ducked out of her life back then, and no amount of begging or pleading had brought him back.

  “Sorry. You should have woken me up. Why don’t I take the chair for a while? Or, better yet, you could go home, if you wanted to.”

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