Free Caribou Crossing by Susan Fox

and cut off the oxygen supply, so she’d had to perform a C-section. But mom and baby had both come through beautifully.
    While he’d been talking to the doctor, Miriam had climbed out of bed again and was pulling warm clothes from the cupboard. After making sure she looked steady on her feet, he dialed her parents back. “The doctor says it could easily be nothing,” he told Rose, “but we’re going to the hospital. We’ll have to take Jessie with us, but—”
    With relief, he listened to his mother-in-law say that they’d come to the hospital and her husband would take Jessica home to their place while Rose stayed with Miriam and Wade.
    He thanked her, then hurriedly threw off his pajamas and dragged on clothes. “I’ll get Jessie,” he told his wife. “Don’t go downstairs by yourself. Wait for me.” The baby might kick and Miriam might slip.
    He’d do everything in his power to look after his family. . . .

    Wade snapped out of his daydream as Rose returned to the room. He lifted his head from Miriam’s pillow and settled back in his chair as Rose reclaimed her own.
    He remembered his promise to himself that he’d do anything to look after his family. Well, he’d done a shitty job of it, hadn’t he?
    Anger—at circumstances, partly, but mostly at himself—burned through him, bringing him to his feet. Though he was exhausted, he had to move. To walk, to get out of this room, to . . . “Back in a few minutes,” he said gruffly, and strode out the door. He headed down the long corridor, toward the entrance to the hospital. Hell, he wanted to run, to open the door and head out into the snowy day. To escape.
    To return to the ranch and ride out into the snow, where the world was cold and pure and simple. Where nothing existed but the crunch of a horse’s hooves breaking the snow, the jingle of the bit, the creak of the saddle, his breath and the horse’s puffing out in clouds. It was damned hard to feel crappy when he was riding.
    But he deserved to feel crappy. And he couldn’t abandon Miriam. He loved her more than life itself. He had to be there when the going got tough, and right now it was about as tough as he could imagine.
    Just a few minutes to himself, though.
    When he reached the hospital door, he opened it and stepped outside. Clad in only a flannel shirt and jeans, he was immediately chilled by air that was many degrees below freezing. But that icy bite was fresh and invigorating.
    He glanced past the plowed, slushy parking lot in the direction of the ranch. The hills east of town were clad in snowy blankets. Gaze fixed on the hills, ignoring everything else around him, he stood and breathed in and out, slowly. His nostrils and throat tingled with a sensation like burning, his lungs expanded, and a sense of calm filled him.
    Miriam was alive, and so was Jessie. Their family would return to Bly Ranch and they’d heal.
    He took one last bracing breath, squared his shoulders, then opened the door and returned to the heat, the noise, the smell of the hospital.

Chapter 8
    The cocoon was thinning and Miriam struggled to hang on to it, to still her fluttering eyelashes and keep her eyes closed. Instinct told her that she was safe inside, that something bad waited for her if the cocoon dissolved. Yet her body had its own ideas, and her eyelids lifted of their own volition. Vision blurry, eyes sore, she blinked. Where was she?
    Her mom’s face sharpened into focus. “Hello, baby,” she said, and squeezed Miriam’s hand.
    â€œMom?” Miriam gazed around, taking in her surroundings, and realization sank in bit by bit, in fierce jabs of agony. The contractions, the rush to the hospital, her doctor examining her. The sadness and pity in Dr. Mathews’s eyes when she said there was a serious problem with the baby.
    Miriam’s eyes filled and her voice quivered. “I lost the baby?”