The Rescue Doctor's Baby Miracle Read online

  “If you’ve looked and dated, it’s not so anyone would notice.”

  Oh, I’ve noticed, Gideon thought as he grabbed up the first crate of kitchen supplies to sling into the transport. He’d definitely noticed. Mostly Lorna. Always on the telly.

  Unfortunately, any other notice of anyone else simply hadn’t stacked up.

  Francisco do Monte. When she’d learned they were going to a village on the edge of a Brazilian jungle, this hadn’t been what she’d expected. Somehow, she’d had images of thatch-roofed huts, and genial natives, and children playing among the palms, being observed by the wary capivara, or shooing off a basking red-necked tuiuiú. But she’d flown into Rio de Janeiro, a beautiful city barely inconvenienced by the rains, and traveled south in a truck leant to her by one of the television stations to this. It wasn’t quaint, and it wasn’t a village in any way she defined one. It was a washout, a gully of mud and water, and houses slid down from their precarious perches on the mountain and crashed into the houses just below them. House heaped upon house, like pancakes in a stack.

  And so much mud. Dear God, this wasn’t at all the village trek she’d been expecting.

  Lorna Preston climbed out of the truck that had brought her halfway from the helicopter, grabbed her overnight bag and makeup case, and immediately sank up to her ankles in the mud. But instead of fighting her way back out of it, she simply stood there and stared at everything surrounding her, trying to make sense of it all. Mud-caked people were everywhere—running, walking. Some carrying children, some carrying personal objects—big baskets and bundles of a life’s possessions. Some were helping the elderly while others were simply trying to make it on their own.

  Everywhere around her the screams of babies cut through the other noises, while the barking of dogs being coaxed along with their owners was almost as loud as the babies. People were working hard to get through the mud and the congested knot of other people—people trying to get away from Francisco do Monte just like everybody else. But no one was panicked. Some actually smiled, others laughed. It was like the blow life had dealt them wasn’t as great as their resilience. Such an amazing thing to witness, and while she’d initially complained about coming here, especially when she’d found out about Gideon, she was already glad she had. This was going to make a great story.

  “Frayne,” she called to her cameraman. “Are you getting any of this?”

  She turned around to see if he had his camera going, but he was already out of the truck, making his way through the hordes of people. There probably wasn’t much that Jim Frayne, a veteran of world disasters and wars, hadn’t seen, but for Lorna this was a first. As a doctor, she’d witnessed firsthand the worst of human suffering, but always in a contained setting. In the hospital, in the emergency department, at a patient’s bedside. Never anything in the up close and personal sense like this was. Somehow, on television, which was her narrow view of the world, it always looked different. Buffered, maybe. Or from a wide-angle shot to spread it out. But here…this wasn’t spread out, and nothing was buffered.

  It was a mix of tragedy and spirit and the sheer determination to hold on. For her, if nothing else, this first glimpse was humbling.

  So, was he here yet? When she’d learned that her producer was hooking her up with her ex-husband, she’d begged off the assignment, asked to turn it over to someone else or drop it altogether. Five years between them now, and she was nervous. For the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what would have possessed him to propose a rescue effort as a documentary filmed by her? There were others who could have done it justice, others who wouldn’t have come here fighting it like she had. Others who hadn’t walked out on him and dragged him through a divorce the way she had.

  Had Gideon finally gone round the bend? Had he forgotten their two-year try at married life, or had be decided there hadn’t been enough of it to matter? Whatever the case, filming this rescue as a documentary was a brilliant idea. Filming it with Gideon a miserable one because there were two things she always stayed away from…chocolates and her ex-husband. Both gave her an excruciating headache.

  “This way!” Frayne called. “They’re setting up their base camp in the clearing on the knoll down at the bottom of the hill, and I’m going on ahead to start shooting it from the beginning.”

  “I’m right behind you!” And to think, this time yesterday she’d made plans for a day off. Her first one in months. Between her duties as an on-air medical consultant five days a week, and her medical duties as a regular consultant and teacher at Newport General Hospital just outside New York City, she barely had time to sleep. So she’d planned this day as a treat for herself. A little shopping, an hour at the spa, indulging in an absurdly expensive lunch with Lucy Bergen, her best friend ever since the divorce—yes, all that had been in the planning stages yesterday. Then today, here she was! Ankle deep in mud, and soon to be up to her knees.

  And on her way to see Gideon.

  Between the two, she wasn’t sure which was the worst—Gideon, or the mud.

  Sighing, Lorna looked down at the ground. Mud washed off easily. Gideon didn’t. Even after five years away from him, there was a little bit of him still sticking to her somewhere.

  The grueling trudge down the hill took longer than Lorna expected. She was fighting against the flow of a mass exodus, trying to tote her two bags, and people were none too observant of the crazy American woman oozing her way into the place they all wanted to leave. Several times she was knocked flat into the mud, and she was forced to push herself up against the odds. And several times she succeeded, only to be shoved back in. People were nice about it. They always stopped to help her to her feet, but that didn’t change the fact that she seemed to be down more than she was up. “And to think I was actually going to pay for a mud bath at the spa today,” she muttered, accepting the hand of a stranger as she forced her way back up for the fifth time in a dozen minutes.

  “Obrigado,” she said, as she made it to her feet. Thank you. One of the dozen or so Brazilian Portugese phrases she’d had time to learn on the trip down.

  “Is that your lipstick?” the man said, pointing to the cosmetics that had spilled out of the case.

  She wiped away the mud from her eyes with the muddy back of her hand, and looked up at her ex-husband. “Well, I thought of a lot of things to say at our first meeting, but I didn’t expect it to be like this.”

  “I thought of a lot of things not to say,” he retorted.

  “So is this where we make nice, ask each other how we’ve been, what we’ve been doing with our lives, and pretend to be civil?” She squatted to retrieve her lipstick and foundation makeup and stashed them back into her case. Then she handed it up to Gideon, while she pulled her overnight bag from the mud.

  “This is where I go back to base camp and you keep up with me if you can.” He handed the bag back to her.

  She studied him for a moment, head to toe, most of it covered in mud. “So tell me, Gideon, what am I getting myself into here?”

  “Nothing you’re going to like, Lorna.”

  Gideon might have been more handsome than she remembered. All the brief television clips she’d seen of him told her he was. Some people withered with age, some improved. Some exploded with good looks, and according to the last rescue clip of him she’d watched, Gideon had exploded. “Well, I’ll admit, I was surprised when you asked for me…”

  “For the record, my partner asked. I objected. He won because we need your publicity. So don’t go getting some stupid notion that this is our reunion, because it’s not, Lorna. We have a need which you can fulfill. If anybody could have done it better, they’d be here instead of you.”

  “Always the practical one, weren’t you? Practical and not polite. Now, that’s the old Gideon I remember.”

  “At least people know where I stand. No surprises.”

  Not even two minutes in, and they were right back where they had been five years ago when they’d signed the final decree o
fficially ending their legal misery. “Where you stand, and from where you never, ever move.” But what did she expect? A miracle transformation? A warm embrace at their first meeting? This was Gideon, after all, and Gideon was…Gideon. Except he was leaner now. More fit. Even in the muddy cover he wasn’t much like the Gideon she remembered. That one was OK, this one was…better?

  Instead of responding, Gideon turned and prepared to start down the trail. Lorna prepared to follow, but she’d taken only one step when she tripped over a tree branch sticking out of the mud and immediately started her spin back down to the ground. Gideon grabbed her, though, breaking her fall. And for that split second when he held on, a slight spark broke from the mud and sizzled all the way up the arm he held onto. She felt it, felt the pause in her thinking, felt an instant of confusion before she regained enough sense to break away from him, effectively short-circuiting the moment and the mood. “Thank you,” she mumbled, uncharacteristically shaken. Just tired, she reasoned. Tired and overwhelmed by everything going on around her. That’s all it was. All it could be.

  “From here, it only gets worse,” he quipped.

  “I take it you’re referring to the conditions. Not the great chasm between us.”

  “The chasm can’t get worse. The physical conditions here can.” Without asking, he took her overnight bag in one hand, then took hold of Lorna’s arm in the other, practically pulling her through a cluster of people and donkeys making their way up the hill.

  At the bottom of the hill, where the masses of people had thinned out, Lorna pulled out of Gideon’s grasp and simply stopped to take a good look around. Beautiful area, overall. At least, without all the mud and destruction it would have been. “Why were you the ones called out?” she asked Gideon.

  “Because we have not only the search-and-rescue capabilities, we also set up a hospital of sorts, since half our volunteers are medical. They needed someone with both those capabilities in here because it’s a small enclosed area and transporting the people out is difficult. Plus Texas is in relatively close proximity to Brazil as rescue teams go.” He waved at a man who was carrying an armload of blankets from one tent to another, and as the man saw them, he gave the blankets to yet someone else and hurried over.

  “My partner,” Gideon explained, then turned his back to answer his two-way radio.

  “Some people call me the co-owner, but the only reason they want me is because I own the airplane that gets them where they need to go.” The man stuck out his hand in greeting, grinning sheepishly when he saw how muddy it was. “My name’s Jason Getty.”

  “And I’m—”

  “I know who you are, ma’am. My wife watches you every morning, and swears by your health advice more than she does mine.”

  “You’re a doctor?” Lorna asked.

  “Yes, when I’m not a pilot.” He took hold of her arm and pulled her away from Gideon, who was still involved with someone on the other end of his radio. “We’ve already got volunteers out on the search, and casualties should start rolling in any time. So, take a look around. Get your bearings. Ask questions now, because when things pick up, we won’t have time to answer.” He glanced up at the sky, frowning. “We’ve got a storm coming in, and it’s going to get crazy, especially if we have another section of the mountain wash down.”

  “How about I just observe for a while? My cameraman is off getting some background footage, so unless you have something specific in mind, let me walk around and see what’s here. OK?” She glanced back at Gideon, who hadn’t noticed in the least that she’d been pulled away from him. Just like when they’d been married.

  “Sounds OK to me.” He pointed to the two tents straight ahead. “Hospital tents. And the one adjacent is for supplies. That’s the strategy center, too. Normally, we search by the grid, don’t go out without a plan unless it’s an emergency. So everything is plotted and planned in there. Over there, the food tent. We try to keep food and coffee going all the time.”

  “And you’ve set this up in how long?”

  He glanced at his watch, even though the crystal was covered with mud. “A couple of hours now.”

  “And you’re ready to go?”

  Jason grinned. “We’re never ready to go. We just do what we need to when we have time. Pretty much it’s always something we don’t expect.”

  Something they didn’t expect…She knew all about that. Gideon had taught her well. One week out of the hospital and still so vulnerable and hurt over losing her baby that all she’d wanted to do had been to curl up in a fetal ball and die, she’d never expected Gideon to trot himself off to an emergency field services symposium. Which is exactly what he had done. But by that point in their marriage, she shouldn’t have been surprised. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that she had been surprised by him leaving her then. “How many patients can you handle?” she asked, trying not to think about the past.

  “Forty comfortably. Fifty’s a stretch but we manage. Sixty’s a problem but we can work it out. More than that…” He shrugged, heading off to the hospital tent, gesturing for her to follow. “We do what we can.”

  “And how many people do you have to work the rescue?” Lorna asked, following.

  “This callout is a dozen. We’ve taken as many as twenty, but we had too much weight to carry down this trip since the area isn’t equipped with anything. You know…generators, supplies…We had to carry it all in. But sometimes we’re lucky and get called out to an area that’s already been set up by another group and we can share some of the basics. We weren’t so lucky this time. Space is too limited, which meant we had to sacrifice volunteers for equipment.”

  “You’re the only search-and-rescue group to come in?” she asked, quite amazed by that fact.

  “In this spot, yes. There are others further north, but we’ve got about all the high ground there is to be found right here, so pretty much the whole face of the mountain on this side is ours to search.”

  Amazing. Impressive. So few people had already done so much. This story was getting better and better. “And you’re all volunteers?”

  “Everyone but Gideon. We need someone to co-ordinate and be on call twenty-four seven, and he’s the one. The rest of us have day jobs.”

  “So this is how Gideon makes a living? He’s not a practicing surgeon?” That was a surprise. When they’d been married, he had been a surgeon who’d volunteered occasionally with a rescue outfit. She hadn’t known he’d made the change.

  Jason chuckled. “If you want to call it a living. Let’s just say it’s a good thing he’s a man of few needs.”

  He’d been in a lucrative medical practice. Showed lots of promise. And now Gideon was a man of few needs? She was still a little surprised by that. He’d had so many dreams and expectations for his surgical practice. “So, is your wife a doctor, too?”

  “No. She’s an accountant. But she comes out with us as a general volunteer. And she has a rescue dog.”

  “Then you don’t have children?”

  “We have two, and they’re always glad to go off to Grandma’s house when Mom and Dad have to go rescue someone.”

  He talked as if this was merely a casual way to spend a few days. Send the kiddies to Grandma, then go to a mudslide, a tsunami or an earthquake. “Your partner…Gideon…is he married, too?” Honestly, she didn’t know. She’d taken a quick check of his left hand for a ring, but all she’d seen had been mud.

  Jason barked out a sharp laugh. “Gideon, married? Not a chance in hell. It’s just him and Max, and God help the woman who tries to come between them.”

  “Max?” she asked, almost too shocked to say the name. Gideon had ended up with someone named Max?

  “His best friend, partner…got him as a pup, and spent two years training him. I’ll swear the man lets him sit at the dinner table. Although he won’t admit it.”

  “He’s a dog,” she said, actually relieved over that.

  “Not just a dog. He’s the best we’ve got on the team, although
don’t tell my wife I said that because she’ll tell you her dog is the best.” Jason waved to someone at the foot of the hill, a pretty blond woman Lorna took to be his wife, judging from the look on his face as he waved. “Look, I’ve got to get to work. Have a look around. Grab yourself something to eat if you’re hungry. And stay out of Gideon’s way.”

  “His rule?”

  Jason nodded. “He’s busy. Doesn’t like being bothered.”

  By anybody? she wondered. Or just by her?

  “If you need me, I’ll be covering the critical injuries in the other tent.” With that, he left her there as he trotted off to join the blonde. Standing in the mud, wondering what to do, Lorna was on her own. She took a wide turn to look for Gideon, and didn’t see him anywhere. But why should she be surprised? This was the way she’d spent those last months of their marriage. Always looking, and always alone.

  CHAPTER TWO

  WELL, it wasn’t what she’d expected. Lorna wasn’t sure exactly what she’d thought she would find in the base camp hospital, but whatever kind of tidy arrangement she’d assumed she would discover, this wasn’t it. For that matter, wasn’t anything like it. On the bright side, there were floors—temporary sheets of plywood and odd planks thrown down over the muddy ground. And the tents were enclosed with mesh screens. They were erected straight into the mud and sagging against the wind, but they weren’t collapsing. Inside the makeshift quarters were several cots, but twice as many beds were being set up on the floor. At first glace, Lorna saw that only the most elderly or badly injured were being given a bed off the ground. The others were made comfortable in blankets piled atop the splintery wood.

  The jagged, stitched edges of a patched a hole in the screen mesh siding of the hospital caught her attention. There were several such patches. The top of the tent was patched, too. A large piece of brown canvas sewn over the green. She’d always known Gideon had worked under rough conditions when he’d gone out on a rescue, but somehow, she’d never imagined this. What she saw was medicine reduced to the barest elements. Wincing, she thought back to just last week when she’d mentioned to her hospital administrator that her office needed a fresh coat of paint. The faded yellow of her walls compared to all this…Lorna winced again.