“My babies are too early.”
“Babies?”
“Twins.”
Ryan closed his eyes briefly.
“Of course.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means God has a sense of humor.”
Under different circumstances Natalie might have slapped him.
Instead she laughed once despite herself.
Ryan took the reins.
They reached the shack eleven minutes before the storm broke.
The second baby was not coming easily.
Natalie knew from Ryan’s silence.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I’m a cowboy, Natalie.
I’ve delivered calves.”
“I am beginning to deeply resent that sentence.”
Ryan almost smiled.
“Fair.”
Another contraction struck.
Natalie pushed.
Pain ripped through her.
She screamed until her throat burned.
Nothing happened.
Ryan examined as carefully as modesty and necessity allowed.
Then he went still.
“What?”
He swallowed.
“I think the baby’s coming feet first.”
Natalie’s heart dropped.
She had heard stories.
Every frontier woman had.
Babies turned wrong.
Mothers bleeding.
Graves dug behind farmhouses before sunrise.
“No.”
“Listen to me.”
“No.”
“Natalie.”
“My mother died giving birth.”
Ryan stared at her.
It was the first time she had told him.
“She had my brother,” Natalie continued.
“He died too.”
Ryan moved closer.
“You’re not your mother.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“No.”
The honesty stopped her.
Ryan looked directly into her eyes.
“But I can promise you that I am not giving up on either of you.”
Something in Natalie steadied.
“Tell me what to do.”
They worked through the next hour together.
Ryan remembered things he had seen ranch wives do.
Natalie remembered instructions from women in Promontory.
They changed her position.
They waited.
They prayed.
The storm became almost impossible outside.
The first baby lay wrapped against Natalie’s chest, his breathing shallow but regular.
Then finally—
A tiny foot appeared.
Ryan exhaled.
“All right.”
Natalie screamed.
Another foot.
“That’s it.”
One terrible minute later, the second child slid into Ryan’s hands.
A girl.
This one screamed immediately.
Loudly.
Furiously.
Ryan laughed.
Natalie sobbed.
“She’s angry.”
“Good.”
“She sounds like James.”
Ryan’s smile disappeared.
Natalie noticed.
Again.
That strange reaction.
But exhaustion swallowed the question before she could ask it.
Ryan wrapped the girl.
He placed both infants together against Natalie, skin to skin beneath the blankets, remembering something an old midwife had once taught his sister.
“Keep them warm.”
“They’re so small.”
“They’re alive.”
Natalie looked down.
The boy’s fingers were scarcely larger than matchsticks.
The girl’s face was red and furious.
She touched their heads.
“James wanted names from the Bible.”
Ryan turned away.
Natalie studied him.
“You knew my husband.”
His shoulders stiffened.
The shack became very quiet except for the rain.
“Ryan.”
He placed another piece of wood on the fire.
“You knew James.”
“Rest.”
“Don’t tell me to rest.”
“Natalie—”
“Every time I say his name, you look like someone drove a knife into you.”
Ryan did not answer.
Natalie shifted painfully upright.
“You recognized my surname on the trail.”
Still nothing.
“Who are you?”
At last Ryan faced her.
His gray eyes carried something she had not seen before.
