Free All of Me by Heatherly Bell

a meeting. Take me home.”
    This was a new turn of events. He’d never known a time when Ivey would pass up a chance to talk. And she loved talking about pregnancy. For his part, it was all rather disconcerting. Early on he’d decided to steer clear of obstetrics when he’d done that rotation and witnessed a woman in labor scream like a hyena. He didn’t do screaming women.
    He’d always assumed that one day he’d be a father, and until that time he’d have preferred to not think about it for the most part. No such luck with this subcommittee assignment. He was elbow deep in all the gritty stuff that happened between two pleasant events.
    “Why aren’t we going to bother?”
    “I met with the local midwife I told you about—Marissa. Let’s just say it didn’t go well.”
    “Elaborate.” He drove well under the speed limit, and hoped she didn’t notice.
    Ivey turned to him. “It’s not only the doctors that don’t like the idea of midwives in a hospital setting. The midwife I talked to seems to think it’s a crazy idea. The last place she wants her patients to be is in a hospital.”
    “Why?” Granted he hadn’t specialized in obstetrics, but he understood and had studied how much could go wrong. It made sense to be in the hospital.
    “Because this seems to be an ‘us-versus-them’ argument. I guess we’re messing with thousands of years of tradition, and no one likes change. I thought I would get support from a midwife, because women who are too paranoid to give birth at home at least have another option.”
    “But again, why would women give birth at home when they could go to the hospital?” A stupid question, he was almost certain of it, but he dared to ask it anyway.
    She blinked. “Haven’t you been listening to anything I’ve told you?”
    “Yeah. Listening.” Mostly. Between, of course, the hard pulls of lust he felt every time she was in the room. But he could do more than one thing at a time, and he’d be willing to prove it too.
    “If you’d been listening, you would know that birth is a natural event, and it shouldn’t be treated like a medical condition. The less intervention, the better. Unless absolutely necessary.”
    “You had me at absolutely necessary.”
    “Fair enough. It happens sometimes. Unexpectedly. We can’t anticipate every problem. That’s why I thought a good compromise would be the women’s center.”
    “It makes sense. Why does the midwife object?”
    “Because, as you said about your pal Dr. Stewart, she sees it as a slippery slope.”
    They sat in silence for a few minutes, then he spoke because before long he’d be pulling into the exclusive gated condo he knew her aunt lived in. It was the only one in town. “So what are we going to do?”
    She turned to him, the light in her eyes that made him a goner. “We? Does that mean I’ve already convinced you, Dr. Garner?”
    He couldn’t help but grin. “Congratulations. I think we should make our recommendation that the board hire a staff of midwives and let them decide.”
    She stared out the window. “I don’t know.”
    He didn’t either, because he was afraid he’d left something unfinished with Ivey. And it wasn’t because he was lonely, but because he’d been an idiot.
    He wasn’t quite done with being an idiot. He pulled up to the condo gate, and Ivey recited the security code, which he punched in. “So—dinner Friday night? We have to make it look good. Make it clear to everyone in town that we’re friends and they can stop taking sides.”
    “I don’t know,” she said, uncertainty wavering in her eyes. That one look hit him square in the gut, because he could see the worry etched in her brow. She didn’t trust herself with him. “You mean you’re not working this Friday?”
    “I meant next Friday.”
    Ivey looked gratifyingly disappointed. “That’s right. I forgot you’re not spontaneous.”
    “Hard to be, with a schedule like mine.”
    Now she looked guilty. “Of