CHAPTER ONE

      CERTIFIED NURSE-MIDWIFE Carmen Sanchez swiped the back of her wrist across her forehead, careful to avoid the blood staining her glove. “One more strong push and the baby will be out.” She gave Teena, her twenty-eight-year-old patient, an encouraging smile. “You can do it.”

      “I can’t!” Teena panted, her head lolling to one side on the pillows. “I’m too tired.”

      Fifteen hours of labor would do that to a person, but there was only one way out of this and it was through. Having Teena’s husband there for moral support would have been ideal, but the poor man was working on a fishing boat somewhere in the Bering Sea right now and couldn’t be reached.

      “I know you’re exhausted, Teena,” she said, her Caribbean accent drawing out the name. “But you’ve done such a wonderful job so far. All you need is the strength to push one more time on your next contraction and you’ll have your son in your arms. Don’t you finally want to hold him? After all these long months? Think of your husband’s face when he sees his son.”

      Teena bit back a sob and nodded.

      “Right.” Carmen used her most authoritative voice. “Then push as hard as you can when I tell you, okay?”

      The patient nodded and took a deep breath.

      It was Teena’s first pregnancy, and she’d been a difficult case from the outset, with sickle cell anemia complicating matters. Carmen had worked in conjunction with an obstetrician and a hematologist to monitor the patient and provide a safe delivery.

      Another contraction hit and time seemed to slow as Teena groaned.

      “Go!” Carmen got into position. “That’s it. Good. Good. Push!”

      Teena leaned up on her elbows and bore down hard, toes curled and muscles straining. Finally the baby’s head crowned, followed in short order by one shoulder, then two. At last the tiny infant slipped into Carmen’s waiting hands and her patient flopped back onto the bed, exhausted.

      Carmen cut the umbilical cord, then handed the baby to a waiting nurse, who wrapped the new arrival in a blanket and suctioned its tiny mouth and nose. Soon the boy’s wailing filled the room and Teena cried again, this time with relief and joy.

      Once the afterbirth was dealt with, Carmen took a moment to enjoy the wonder. Even after years in practice the addition of a new life into the world still amazed her.

      She slipped out into the hall, walking over to the desk at the nurses’ station so she could decompress and document the backlog of charts awaiting her.

      Before she’d finished with the first one, she was interrupted.

      “Just the woman I was looking for.”

      Carmen’s heart tripped at the deep male voice, and she glanced up to see Zac Taylor. The zing of attraction she felt was decidedly inconvenient, given he was a paramedic and they saw each other a lot, both in the course of their work and hanging out with mutual friends. Also, they’d spent a steamy night together a few months back, after copious amounts of alcohol at the Anchorage Mercy Hospital holiday staff party, and since then things had been a bit awkward.

      Flings weren’t her usual MO. Actually, love—the romantic kind—wasn’t even on her itinerary, so the way her heart continued to flutter whenever he was around, despite her wishes, was beyond annoying.

      It wasn’t that she was against hearts and fluff. It was just that she didn’t have time for such nonsense. Not with her mother to care for, in the early stages of dementia. Some days her mother was fine, other days she didn’t recognize her own family. It was heartbreaking, the slow loss of the person who’d been the one constant in her life. Plus, Carmen was saving to put her younger sister through nursing school at the University of Alaska this fall, after she graduated high school. Between her own busy work schedule and her responsibilities at home Carmen was lucky to have time enough to eat and sleep, let alone date.

      In fact, given her past, it was probably better for her to stay alone anyway. Growing up with virtually nothing in the poorest part of Port of Spain, Trinidad, had taught her self-reliance and self-sacrifice. There had only been so much to go around, and you’d had to look after what you got.

      Carmen considered herself a tough, responsible, independent woman. Prudent. She didn’t need a man to make her life happy. And if she was lonely sometimes—well, that was the price she paid for safety and security. Lord knew she couldn’t rely on anyone else to give her anything.

      Only problem was, she needed a favor. From Zac.

      She bit her lip and watched him through her lashes as she finished her documentation.

      The guy was temptation on legs. Gorgeous and charming. And the very things that drove her nuts about him were the very reasons he was the perfect choice for her needs. He had a reputation as a player. Which meant he was not a man for long-term, serious relationships. But he sure fit the bill for Mr. Fix-It-Right-Now.

      “Hey, Zac,” said Priya Shaw, coming out of another delivery room down the hall, and Carmen tensed.

      Priya was a fellow midwife and friend. She also happened to be Carmen’s biggest rival for the supervisor position at a new state-of-the-art birthing clinic in California. The job paid twice what her current salary was here at Anchorage Mercy, and the extra funds would go a long way toward getting her ailing mother into an assisted-care facility for dementia patients and also help offset the tuition fees for her sister’s university education.

      “Hey, P,” said Zac, but his focus remained on Carmen.

      He leaned an elbow on the counter beside her and his scent—soap and fabric softener mixed with warm, clean male—wrapped around her, teasing her senses and making her far more aware of the man than she liked.

      “Tell Lance I’ll call him later about this weekend,” Zac said to Priya.

      “Will do,” she called back, tucking her long dark hair behind her ear as she picked up a chart and headed into a delivery room.

      Priya was engaged to Zac’s best friend, local firefighter Lance Marranto—a fact that only made the favor Carmen needed more complicated. But she’d find a way to deal with it because she was a survivor.

      First, though, she needed to finish this chart.

      Carmen sighed and blinked down at her writing. Her normally crisp cursive was going a bit wonky from fatigue. Teena’s long delivery had burned through what little energy she’d had left, considering she’d already been up late with her mother before coming in for the delivery.

      Mama’s memory had begun deteriorating faster recently, and the poor thing had a hard time remembering she was in Alaska now, and not back home on her warm tropical island. The night before last she’d wanted to go outside in her nightgown and walk along the beach, meaning Carmen had been up constantly to stop her. It was only early spring, and the wilds on the outskirts of Anchorage were hardly a place for a sixty-five-year-old woman to traipse around in the middle of the night.

      Thankfully, Carmen’s shift was almost done now. All she wanted to do was hand over Teena’s care to the nurses on duty and go home for a shower and a long nap. Clara was on Mama-watch duty until tomorrow.

      She yawned before she could stop herself.

      “Long