“Are you awake?” a deep, gentle voice inquired.

Annie opened her eyes. A black-haired woman in green scrubs leaned over her, both hands braced on the side rail. Her deep blue eyes were steady, piercing, unnerving in their focus. She looked tired—smudges of fatigue darkened the lids above sharp cheekbones. But even fatigued, she radiated strength.

“I…I…remember you. You were in the emergency room,” Annie said.

“Yes. I’m Dr. Monroe, the obstetrician. I delivered your baby. She’s beautiful. Green eyes like yours.”

Annie smiled. “The nurses said she’s all right. Is that true?”

“Yes. No one here will lie to you.”

“Everyone lies,” Annie said softly.

The doctor’s dark eyes flashed, but she said nothing. Annie was too weary and in too much pain to care that she might have offended her.

“There’s something you need to know, Ms. Colfax,” the doctor said. “You had what we call an abruption—the placenta separated from the wall of the uterus, causing you to hemorrhage and endangering the baby.”

Annie’s pulse tripped, stuttered, and started again. “I thought you said the baby was all right.”

“She is. She isn’t as close to term as we’d like, so she’s being monitored for any signs of immaturity.”

“I wanted to wait. To be sure she would be safe.” Annie’s chest tightened. Why wouldn’t anyone listen? Why must she always fight to be heard?

“I understand, but that wasn’t possible.” Hollis stifled her impatience. She understood women wanting to deliver vaginally, to be alert and aware so they could remember the birth, but sometimes safety—the mother’s and the child’s—was more important.

“But you said she’s all right…”

“She is. And you will be too.” Hollis looked into Annie’s eyes—the green verged on black, her irises almost eclipsed by her pupils. “How much pain are you having? I ordered morphine, but—”

“I’m all right. Tell me.”

“I had to do more surgery in order to stop the bleeding.”

A chill settled in Annie’s depths. “More surgery?”

“Yes. After the C-section, the bleeding didn’t stop. Usually it will once the rest of the placenta is removed. You were bleeding very heavily.”

“But that’s stopped now, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.” Hollis knew she’d made the right decision, but still, it was hard to admit she hadn’t been able to alter the outcome. “I had to remove your uterus, Ms. Colfax. It was the only way to stop the bleeding and save your life.”

Annie’s mind went blank. She was so cold. So cold.

Warm fingers clasped her hand. “I’m sorry, I know it’s a shock. I had no choice. You’re going to be fine now.”

Annie withdrew her fingers from between the surgeon’s. “You don’t know that. You have no way of knowing that.”

“You’re going to recover, you have a beautiful baby, and you’re going to go on with your life.”

“I never would have agreed,” Annie said, looking deep into Hollis’s eyes. “And I never should have trusted you.”

Chapter Two

Four and a half years later

Linda propped her feet on the coffee table in the flight lounge and sipped her unsweetened iced tea. She had thirty minutes left on her shift and then she could head home for a breakfast of pancakes and eggs prepared by her loving wife, who had miraculously managed to go through this three times herself while making it look easy. If only her ankles weren’t the size of cantaloupes at seven o’clock in the morning, her pregnancy would be perfectly easy too. She still had four months to go. This was going to be the longest summer of her life. When the door opened, she held her breath and prayed it wasn’t McNally coming to tell her they had a call-out. She loved to fly, but she’d had enough for one night. “Oh, thank God it’s you.”

“As opposed to—?” Honor eyed the coffeepot warily. “How old is that?”

“Last night’s. And McNally.”

Honor frowned, as if searching for a connection as she poured coffee and doused it with cream. “Oh—you’re glad I’m not Jett coming to tell you there’s a call. Why don’t you just go home? Eddie’s in the locker room already. If something comes up in the next twenty minutes, he can start his shift early.”

“Nah. I don’t have all that much longer to fly.” She patted the mound of her belly. “One more month and I’m grounded.”

“Oh gosh, Ms. Flight Nurse, then you’ll have to work in the boring old ER like the rest of us for a while.”

“You know I won’t mind working with you again,” Linda said. Honor’s tone had been teasing, and her deep brown eyes were filled with affection, but Linda couldn’t help think Honor was still a little hurt she’d left the ER to fly with the medevac team. “I miss you.”

“Ditto.” Honor flopped on the nearby sofa and pushed her honey-brown hair back from her face with an idle motion that always managed to look sexy. Not that Honor probably ever intended to look sexy—she just was one of those women who naturally looked hot.

“I think I hate you,” Linda said.

“Why is that?” Honor said.

“You look great and I’m a blimp.”

“You’re pregnant and beautiful.”

“Okay—I don’t hate you quite so much.”

Honor laughed. “So, you and Robin still set on going the natural route?”

“Yep. Got the birthing room all ready.” Linda studied Honor’s pensive expression. “It’s just because you work in the ER—you see the worst of everything. That’s why you think it’s a bad idea.”

Honor shook her head. “I never said I thought it was a bad idea.”

“You didn’t have to.” Linda stared at her elephant feet. “You didn’t have to say anything. You’ve got that little frowny thing between your eyebrows, just like the first time I told you.”

“What frowny thing? I don’t have any frowny thing.”

“Yes, you do. You get it when you disagree with something, but you’re being too polite to say so.”

“Linda—you’re my best friend. If I thought you were doing something crazy, I’d tell you. All I said was to make sure you researched everything and that you had a Plan B if Plan A doesn’t work out.”

“I know, I know. Robin wants to do it as much as I do, or I wouldn’t even think of it. My mother and my sisters all think I’ve got bats in the belfry.” Linda sighed. “It’s the last one, Honor. I want it to be special, for all of us.”

“I don’t know how you do it with three, let alone four. The two I’ve got seem like an army sometimes.”

“Robin and I come from big families—four won’t be a stretch.”

“As to you being crazy,” Honor said, “I know the stats. Home delivery is becoming more common all the time, and let’s face it…women have been having babies at home, out in the fields, and every other place far from modern medical care for centuries with no problem. All the same, I want you and the baby to be safe.”

“Believe me, so do I.” Linda shivered, too many images of what could go wrong indelibly etched in her mind. “I’m a nurse, I’ve seen what can happen. But I’ve done my time on Labor and Delivery too, and I’ve seen hundreds of births with no complications. I don’t want to deliver in the hospital when I’m half out of it and the baby gets whisked away somewhere for me to see every couple of hours. I want to deliver at home with Robin and the kids there, so they can share in it.”

“I understand. I would’ve given anything for Arly to have been able to see Jack right after he was born. To see me and know that I was all right.” Honor turned her coffee cup between her hands, remembering. She’d hated being away from her family at one of the most important times in their lives, seeing the fear in her daughter’s eyes while she was recovering from surgery, seeing the fear in Quinn’s eyes when all there should have been was joy. “But I have Jack, and I’ll always be grateful for the surgeon who kept us both safe.”

“Amen.” Linda squeezed Honor’s hand. “I don’t think I could go ahead with this if you weren’t behind me on it. After all, you’re Robin’s backup.”

“I’m behind it as long as you agree that at the first sign of trouble—and I get to make the call—we whisk you over to the hospital and get one of the OB people involved.”

“Not one of the OB people—I want Hollis Monroe,” Linda said. “I’m forty, and I know there could be problems, and Hollis is the best with high-risk pregnancies. If it makes you feel any better, I’ll even see her for a prenatal visit so we can be clear that I’m okay for home delivery.”

“Fine. Hollis is the best. And you’re all set with the midwife?”

“Absolutely. Robin and I both love her.”

“All right, then. I’m on board.”

*

“I’m not entirely on board with this,” Hollis said at the eight a.m. staff meeting. “Integrating certified nurse anesthetists or nurse practitioners into established medical teams is one thing. Having a group wholly devoted to natural birthing methods functioning as independent copractitioners is totally different.”

“That’s pretty much what midwifery is all about,” David Elliott, the chairman of the obstetrics and gynecology department, said dryly. “Although maybe your definition is a little narrow for today’s reality.”

“I know what today’s reality is about,” Hollis said, and she doubted much had changed in the years since her brother’s widow had decided she’d flee the unsafe city after 9/11 and go back to her roots in the hills of West Virginia. Nothing Hollis or any of the rest of the family had said could stop Nancy from leaving with Rob’s unborn child. And nothing they had said could stop her from choosing to give birth far from traditional medical care. Hollis pushed the memories and the unabating pain aside. Her personal feelings weren’t the issue. “I’ve seen some pretty hairy situations arise during these home births, even with low-complication pregnancies, and you’re talking about giving primary responsibility for high-risk pregnancies to nonmedical professionals.”