Never Too Late by RaeAnne Thayne Page A

“He’s a tiny one.”
    Mariah started to weep and shake in reaction. “Why isn’t he crying? What’s wrong? Is he okay?”
    Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hunter rise to his feet, the boy still sleeping in his arms, but she had no more than half a second to register that. “I’m working on him. Let me clean him up.”
    With the bulb syringe from her medical kit, she suctioned out the tiny boy’s nasal passages, then rubbed him vigorously with a clean towel, both to clean off the birth fluids and to wake up his nervous system.
    The baby wasn’t breathing on his own, though his little heart was still beating. She had to hope he was getting some oxygen from the placenta that Mariah had yet to deliver but without a monitor, it was impossible to know for sure.
    She needed to get him breathing fast. Off the table she’d set up as an improvised instrument tray for the few inadequate supplies she had with her, Kate grabbed her pocket mask and covered the infant’s nose and mouth.
    She gave two gentle puffs of air and saw the infant’s lungs expand. Come on kiddo, she thought. Take over now.
    Her own heart raced as she waited. Just when she was afraid she would have to start compressions, the infant gurgled a little then started to cry, weak at first then building in intensity.
    Kate grinned as a vast relief washed over her. “There you go. You get good and mad at me. That’s the way,” she crooned, wiping off the rest of the fluids then wrapping the tiny figure in another towel before handing him to Mariah.
    “Will he be all right?”
    “He’s pinking up great now. He’s tiny, probably no more than five pounds, but I think he’ll be just fine.”
    For a few moments, Kate admired the elementally beautiful sight of a mother holding the tiny life she had brought into the world, then she got down to business cutting the cord and delivering the placenta.
    Just as she was wrapping things up, voices and a flurry of activity in the hallway signaled the arrival of the paramedics—a good hour after they’d been called.
    “I guess this is our patient?” A burly Navajo with a solid chest and two thick braids led the way with a stretcher.
    “Yeah, but now you get two for the price of one,” Kate answered.
    “Bonus.” He grinned at her and then at the new mother and her baby. His eyes widened when he saw the woman. “Mariah Begay? That you?”
    “Charlie Yazzi! Last I heard you were in Phoenix.” Mariah’s eyes lit up despite her obvious exhaustion.
    “No. I married a woman of the Bitter Water clan, born for the Salt Clan. My wife, her folks live here. She wanted to be close to them so we been back in Shiprock for a few years now.” His features sobered. “Heard about your pop. I guess you came back to the Rez for his funeral, yeah?”
    Mariah nodded and held her baby just a little tighter.
    “Mike with you?” the paramedic asked.
    She shook her head, her chin wobbling a little, but didn’t speak as the other paramedic started checking vitals.
    “He’s stationed in Iraq and is trying to swing leave right now,” Kate said quietly.
    “You’re by yourself? Didn’t I hear you already had two little kids?”
    Mariah gestured to the other room, then sudden panic flickered across her tired features. “Joey and Claudia! I can’t leave them here. What will I do with them while I’m at the hospital until my mom can come up from Naschitti?”
    Kate started to offer to watch them but Charlie Yazzi cut her off. “They can stay at our place tonight. Marilyn and the kids will love the company. My house is just a block away and she can be here in five minutes to get them. Don’t even think about arguing. It’s the least we can do. Now let’s get you two to the hospital, where you belong.”

    Forty-five minutes later, Kate shut the door after Charlie Yazzi’s wife had bundled up Claudia and Joey and taken them out into the night.
    The room seemed unnaturally quiet after all the chaos of the evening. She