Marriage by Contract. Sandra Steffen

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      Prologue

      June 6, 1997, 10:00 p.m.

      “Somebody help me. It hurts. Make it stop. Please, make it stop.”

      Bethany Kent placed an ice pack on a patient’s swollen wrist, her feet already moving in the direction of the quavering voice. Wheelchairs and gurneys blocked her path, and men, women and children all looked up as she passed, worry and pain and shock in their eyes.

      It had been almost three hours since a mud slide took out the power in Grand Springs, Colorado, and the rain had yet to let up. Most of the people were here tonight because of car accidents due to the mud, the driving rain and the absence of street and traffic lights throughout the city. Some had sustained injuries from falling down stairs or tripping over furniture. Even the mayor had been brought in—the victim of an apparent heart attack. Beth was nearly asleep on her feet, and there was no end in sight.

      Thunder rolled in from the mountains, rattling the windows and stirring up the overwrought patients huddled together in the emergency room. The lights dimmed, sending a hush from one end of the room to the other. An old man’s gravelly voice cut through the tense silence. “The generator’s going out. Without lights, the doctors will have to wait until morning to fix us up.”

      Others took up the cry. By the time Beth slid her arm around the teenage girl who was doubled over in pain near the door, some of the patients were rocking back and forth, others were starting to wail.

      In a voice as sure and steady as her hands, Beth said, “I’ve worked in the ER long enough to know the ins and outs of the generators Vanderbilt Memorial uses during emergencies such as this one. And believe me, the lights are not going to go out.”

      Turning her attention to the girl who was moaning softly, she ignored the sheen of perspiration dampening the hair on her own forehead, and placed her hand on the girl’s abdomen, which was taut with another contraction. “Dave,” she called to a clerk near the desk on the other side of the room. “Find Dr. Petrocelli. Stat. Tell him we have another mother in labor.”

      The girl tried to straighten but couldn’t. “I can’t have the baby yet. It’s ten weeks early.”

      Beth did her best to hide the anxiety twisting the knot in her stomach as Dr. Amanda Jennings joined her. A baby born ten weeks premature would be tiny, its lungs dangerously underdeveloped. As the two women helped the young mother to a vacant wheelchair, Beth had her first glimpse of pale skin, big eyes and a narrow face framed with a tangle of wet, dark hair sticking out of a tattered baseball cap. Sweet heaven, the girl was just a baby herself.

      “What’s your name?” Beth asked as they wheeled her into a trauma room and prepared to move her to the examining table.

      Blue eyes rose to hers. “Annie. Annie Moore. Will you help me?” the girl pleaded, looking from Beth to Amanda Jennings.

      Beth had seen lives saved, and she’d seen lives lost. Neither ever failed to move her. But nothing in all her thirty-five years had ever touched her more deeply than the entreaty and the unusual flicker of bravery in Annie Moore’s eyes. Blinking back the tears that always seemed close to the surface these days, Beth nodded. “We’ll help you.”

      The girl folded over as another contraction racked her thin body. Beth didn’t like the looks of this. The pains were coming fast and furious with little time in between.

      She was in the process of helping Annie into bed when Dr. Tony Petrocelli pushed into the room, past Dr. Noah Howell. Dr. Petrocelli’s scrub suit was clean, and a face mask and stethoscope hung from his neck. The black stubble of his day-old beard was testimony to the fact that he’d been here for twenty-four hours, at least.

      “Hello,” he said matter-of-factly. СКАЧАТЬ