The Mountain Midwife Read Online Free Page A

call.”
    “You’re bound to get those after you’ve been in the news,” Dad said. “You shouldn’t have a listed phone number.”
    “Probably not, and I’d put this down as too ridiculous to think about, except the woman called me Zachariah.”
    Silence crackled along the phone line for half a minute, then Mom said, “Well, it is on your birth certificate.”
    “But no one has used it since I was in kindergarten, so how would some woman in the 540 area code know to call me that unless . . . unless—” He couldn’t bring himself to say the words “unless she’s telling the truth.”
    It was too absurd, too impossible.
    “Never mind,” he said again. “I think I’m suffering from delayed shock along with jet lag. Let me get some—”
    “Five-four-oh?” All of a sudden Dad sounded his sixty-five years and then some.
    “That’s southwest Virginia.” Mom’s voice had gone squeaky.
    And Hunter’s blood ran cold.
    “What—” Dad coughed. “What did she say?”
    His throat thick, Hunter shook his head to clear it from the nonsense of that message. But the twanging voice rang in his ears as if the message were playing over a loudspeaker in the room. “I feel ridiculous even bringing this to your attention, but she said . . . she said she’s my mother.”

C HAPTER 3

    A SHLEY BOWED HER head and kneaded the taut muscles on the back of her neck. Unfortunately, the action brought her gaze in contact with the bloodstains marring the ivory tiles of her examination room floor. Now more brown than red, the stains lay as a stark reminder of what had taken place in her home during the night.
    “I don’t know what else to tell you, Jase.” She shifted her eyes to the sheriff’s deputy seated at her kitchen table, a cup of coffee before him, forearms resting on the pale wood with the relaxed posture of someone who had sat in that chair at that table with a cup before him many times.
    He had, from after-school snacks, to pizzas after high school dances, to a hundred glasses of sweet tea or cups of strong coffee in the intervening twelve years. He was her friend and had been since kindergarten. Not once had he sat at that table in an official capacity.
    The crackle of his radio blasted a reminder of his official capacity into the room, the words loud and clear. No one had seen the trucks Ashley described—for what her description had been worth. No hospitals within a fifty-mile radius reported the arrival of a woman who had given birth that night.
    “Let’s go through it all over again.” Jason Fox rose and crossed the room to the coffeepot. He held up the nearly empty carafe. “I don’t want to take the last of this.”
    “Go ahead. I can make more.”
    Or not. She had already drunk twice her daily caffeine intake. Though Jason was at least six foot four, he probably didn’t need any more either. On the other hand, both had been awake half the night and she had an appointment in four hours.
    She looked at the bloodstains again. “When can I clean that up? I have a patient to attend this morning.”
    “You may need to reschedule her.” Jason returned to the table.
    Ashley gave him a look of exasperation. “I don’t have any time to reschedule her, and it’s not like pregnancy can be put on hold.”
    “I’ve been assured the state boys will be here any minute.” Jason straddled his chair. “Now come sit down and let’s go through this again just in case you remember something else.”
    “I don’t know what to say.”
    A cat meowed and began to weave around her ankles.
    “If that was advice,” she said, stooping to pet the calico, “you need to be clearer.”
    “Meow.” The cat headed for the door to the basement, where plastic bins held cat food.
    “Ah, I understand that.” Ashley held up a hand for Jase to wait for her, then descended the basement steps to scoop food into the three cat dishes. Four more cats appeared, seemingly materializing from thin air, and began to purr around