Chapter Twelve
Shit.
Cameron slid to a stop in the lobby. Vea crashed into her, wrapping her small arms around Cameron’s thighs. She pulled the girl into her arms and surveyed the room. Luci and Aimee stood in the doorway, Esme propped between them. Sweat dotted the foreheads of all three women.
“What happened?” Holding the toddler close to her chest, she marched forward.
“I don’t know,” Luci answered. “Benita came over. Scared. She said her mami was in pain.”
Cameron bent to look into Esme’s watery eyes. Her friend bared her teeth and scrunched her face as she groaned in pain.
She turned to the older woman. “Contractions?”
“I think so.”
Not what they needed. As best she could tell, Esme was thirty-two weeks along. Her baby could survive, but likely not without complications.
She nodded. “Let’s get her to a room. I’ll get some fluids in her. Maybe we can stop labor and—”
Another inhuman growl escaped the pregnant woman, moments before a rush of water gushed onto the floor.
Shit.
So much for stopping labor. With Esme’s water broken, the time to get her baby out was now running low.
“Andres,” she called to Aimee’s son, who stood by wide-eyed. “Can you take the girls and get Edmund? Tell him we need his boat.”
“No.” Esme’s head popped up. Life suddenly returned to her. She clutched Cameron’s arm. “No boats. Please, Cameron, I can’t get on a boat.”
“Esme, that’s the only way off an island. Your baby’s early and when I checked you two days ago, he wasn’t in position for you to deliver naturally.” Of course, there had been no signs he would try to get out this early either.
“Please.” The woman’s grip tightened. “I can’t get on a boat. What . . . What if something happens . . . again?” Tears and fear swam in her dark eyes. “My girls. I’m all they have right now.”
“I’ll watch the girls,” Aimee offered.
But that wasn’t what worried Esme. She knew her friends would look after the girls for a day, a week, however long she may need. She wanted to make certain she didn’t leave them forever.
Meeting her friend’s determined gaze, Cameron nodded. “Aimee, will you take Vea?” She pried the girl’s arms from around her neck. “Go with Aimee un petit. Let me help your mami.”
“Bebe?” The girl stared back at her with Brodie’s deep brown doe eyes ringed with thick, black lashes.
Cameron’s heart squeezed. “The baby is ready. I’ll take care of it.”
“Ou pwomét?”
Do you promise?
No. She couldn’t, wouldn’t promise. There were no guarantees. Especially in these circumstances.
“I’ll do my best,” she vowed, kissing the girl’s head then handing her over. “Luci, help me.”
“I’ve got her.” Ian stepped forward.
Ian. Somehow, she’d forgotten all about him and the most recent round of mistakes concerning him.
“Esme,” he spoke quietly, soothing. His bedside voice. Not to be mistaken with his bedroom voice that was low, rumbling, and stirring. Like the husky way he’d spoken to her only moments ago when he professed to still love her. Her stomach fluttered.
No. Now was definitely not the time for flutters. She had to assess Esme and figure out what the hell they were up against.
* * *
When Cameron entered her office after examining Esme, she found Ian leaning against the corner of her desk with his arms crossed over his hard chest.
“How’s Esme?”
She closed her eyes and released a deep sigh. Unfortunately, the gesture did nothing to change their current predicament.
“That bad?”
Opening her eyes, she shrugged. “She’s in labor. Active labor. I can’t stop it at this point.” She tugged at her tattered braid. “She won’t get on a boat. It’s too late at night to get someone from the big island to come here.”
“Why would you need someone to come here?” He pushed off her desk, closing the distance between them.
“The baby is breach. Her blood pressure is elevated. Likely she’ll need a cesarean.” Just the thought caused her to shudder.
Pursing his lips, he raised a brow. “I still don’t understand why you would need anyone from the big island.”
She threw her arms out. “Look around you, Ian. We’re in a fucking cinderblock building. We have scant supplies, no incubator—”
“So, you need stuff, not another doctor?”
“There’s a doctor on the big island. I trust him.”
His eyes narrowed. “Is he an OB?”
She shook her head. “Around here we take what we can get.”
He scoffed. “Do you hear yourself? Take what you can get? Cam, you’re the best damn OB I’ve ever met.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he barreled on.
“Don’t tell me you don’t have what you need. I’ve seen you work in tents. Esme doesn’t need anyone else. She already has the best.”
He wouldn’t understand. This was different. She hadn’t performed a C-section in over four years. And the last one… She shook her head in an attempt to rid herself of that memory.
“I’m rusty,” she admitted. Hopefully, that would be enough for him.
“Esme has like twelve kids. Have you not delivered them?”
Her lips quirked at his exaggeration. Esme and Brodie only had three children, but the other woman had been pregnant for most of the time Cameron had known her. “Those were simple, straightforward deliveries. Those babies were ready. This baby is only thirty-two weeks.”
The color drained from Ian’s face and his smile melted. “Thirty-two weeks?”
She nodded.
Turning his face away, he swallowed. She watched his Adam’s apple travel along the column of his throat. Her lips itched to press against the skin. She gave her head a quick jerk.
“A baby can survive at thirty-two weeks.” He choked out. “Just because…”
Yes. Just because their baby hadn’t survived at thirty-two weeks didn’t mean Esme’s wouldn’t. Of course, she knew that. The premature delivery hadn’t killed her baby. Her carelessness had.
He met her gaze. “You can’t let that matter—”
“But it does matter. Thirty-two weeks, Ian. That’s enough time to love that baby. To dream of the life it will have. To be devastated if something happens to it.”
He bit his lip. His nostrils flared as he nodded. When he met her gaze, his eyes were red, glassy. “Then you’re the doctor she needs, baby. If anyone can get them through this, you can.”
Her vision blurred and her hand shook. “Ian, I don’t know—”
“I do.” He gripped her shoulders, then gave her a gentle shake. “Cam, look at me, baby.”
She lifted her head to meet his dark eyes.
“You can do this. You were made for saving women and babies. I believe in you. And I have your back. If you need me.”
She released a pent-up breath. Ian was the best surgeon she knew. If she could get Esme’s baby delivered, he could handle any other problems that arose. She nodded. “Okay. But Ian, we can’t fail. Right now, I don’t think Esme could take another loss.”
His gaze bore into hers, somber and intense. Her heart pounded harder as goosebumps bloomed on her flesh.
The corner of his mouth turned up. “There’s no way I’m letting that woman down,” he vowed. “She’s the only one on this island rooting for me.”
Before she could ask what he meant, he dropped a quick kiss on her mouth and hurried from the room.
She pressed her fingers to her tingling lips. Ian helping her didn’t change anything—but the way he’d looked when she mentioned the baby being thirty-two weeks, the haunted look in his eyes when she talked of loving it and picturing its life, made her question the beliefs she’d held about Ian’s feelings. She’d heard him say he didn’t want a child. But she’d also awakened many mornings to his lips against her belly as he whispered to their daughter. She’d watched the smile explode on his face the first time he’d felt a tiny kick. Maybe some of that had been real after all.
* * *