Free Deborah Camp by Lady Legend Page B

apartand giving him access to the opening of the birth canal.
    The next contraction lifted her hips off the bed and made her howl. He was surprised that she cried out his name. Oddly, it made him more frustrated with his inability to assuage her.
    “I’m here, Copper.” His eyes filled with sympathetic tears as he gazed at her swollen genitals. Fluid spilled from her, creating a dark pink circle on the sheet. “Lord have mercy on us,” he whispered, grabbing clean rags and dousing two of them with alcohol. “Help me do the right thing,” he prayed.
    He bathed her thighs, stomach and privates with the cleansing fluid while she writhed and moaned and chanted in the Crow language. The next minute of pain undulated the ridge of her stomach. Then Tucker saw the dark crown of the baby’s head.
    “I see it.” His gaze sought hers. “Bear down now, Copper. Let’s get this behind us.”
    “It’s coming qu–quicker than the last t–time.” She gripped the rope tugs and ground her teeth as pain washed over her.
    Tucker removed his belt and made her take the thick leather flap between her teeth. “Bite on that, sugar.” Horrified, Tucker saw her flesh tear as the baby forced its way into the world.
    “Christ.” Tucker stared at the rip in Copper’s flesh and the oozing blood. He wanted desperately to do something—anything—to lessen her agony. If only he could take her pain, but he couldn’t. His torture was to watch hers. All for the bite of an apple, he thought, recalling his Bible studies. God certainly believed in getting His pound of flesh.
    With the next contraction, the baby’s head emerged and slipped free, face down. Nature turned it sideways, just as Copper had told him it would. He could hear her voice in his head tellinghim not to try to turn the baby; that the baby would do that by itself. Copper whimpered and then sucked in air. The area between her legs seemed to swell. She shook all over. Even her face jiggled. Fear struck Tucker a blow.
    She spat out his belt. “Get out of there!” she screamed, knuckles white, veins standing out in her temples and in her neck and down her slim, white arms.
    The baby’s shoulders cleared, and then in one slippery slide, the newborn plopped into Tucker’s waiting hands. He stared at it and at the twisted cord connecting it to its mother. The baby twitched. Tucker jerked, only then comprehending that he held a new life in his hands—that he was the first to touch this tiny human.
    “Oh, Copper. Here it is, darlin’. Here’s the baby.” He held it up for her glazed eyes. He realized she was still in too much pain to take much notice of her achievement. After what she’d been through, it was a wonder to Tucker that she was still conscious.
    As Copper had instructed, he laid the child on her stomach and took up the length of sterilized cords Copper had prepared for the separation. His hands trembled and he stared at them, feeling completely out of control. He took a minute to breathe deeply and gather his wits. His breath shuddered out of him and he had to laugh at his own emotional state. He stared at his trembling hands and at the beet-red baby on Copper’s stomach—a baby that had been
in
her stomach only minutes ago.
    “Have you cut it?”
    “No … I am, though.” His voice came out choked and foreign. “Got sweat in my eyes.” He ran a knuckle across them, clearing them of his tears. “That’s better.” Tucker tied off the cord and severed it. “Done, Copper.”
    “Girl or boy?” she asked, breathlessly.
    “Dagburn it, I didn’t even look. Uh …” He turned the baby toward him. “A girl.” He poked a finger between the baby’s soft lips and cleaned out her mouth. “Breathe, darlin’,” he crooned. “Take a big, ole breath for me.” He pinched the baby’s cheek. Pinched harder. The baby made a terrible face, scooped in a breath, and let it out in a hiccuping cry. Tucker fell in love. “Yes, yes, sweetcheeks. That’s the last