her real agenda. Our schools.” Brad Winchester ambled forward, commanding the room. “Ever since Miss Hartsong got here, she’s been determined to ignore our values. She’s gone behind our backs, talked to our children without our permission, saying only God knows what. She sees us as a bunch of country hicks who aren’t capable of deciding what’s best for our own families. She wants our schools to do a parent’s job.”
Everything Tess yearned to say pushed at her tongue—that their school policy had less to do with a teenager’s well-being and more to do with parental anxiety—but the bouffant blonde was back on her feet. “I don’t want my kids getting an instruction book on all the ways to have sex!”
“Then you’d better keep them away from Miss Hartsong,” Winchester replied, “because that is the exact kind of information she’s handing out.”
A hoarse moan cut through the commotion as Savannah grabbed the wall and looked down at the floor in disbelief. “My water broke!”
Chapter Twenty
Savannah doubled over, clutching her abdomen as her mother had done earlier in this very same place. Kelly rushed to her side, where she was quickly joined by four other women. They crowded around Savannah, standing too close.
Just then, Ian came through the door. He looked travel-mussed and harried. Ignoring the disruption surrounding Savannah, he searched the crowd for Tess. His pace quickened as he spotted her. “I tried to get back earlier, but—”
“I want my mother!” Savannah cried from the doorway.
He turned toward the commotion. “What’s happening?”
“Savannah’s water broke.”
He took in the cluster of women. Looked down at Tess. Rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Shouldn’t you . . . Check on her?”
“No reason to.” Plenty of people were around to get Savannah to the hospital. This time, Tess was in the clear.
Savannah howled with another contraction. Tess didn’t have to look at her watch to know that barely two minutes had passed since the previous one. “She’ll be fine.”
He nodded slowly. “Maybe somebody should tell her that.”
“It’s her first,” Tess said firmly. “First babies take forever.”
Savannah cried out.
“Are you sure about that?” he asked.
“The night’s clear. The roads are dry. She can be at the hospital in no time.”
“You’re the authority.”
Tess carefully returned the stool to the back room. The crowd around Savannah had grown. Savannah cried out again. Ian returned to Tess’s side. She licked her dry lips and focused on the bridge of his nose. “Some women vocalize more than others.”
“That’s a lot of vocalization,” he said.
Savannah’s next outburst was the shriek of a woman in terrible pain. The intense pain a woman might experience if she were in precipitous labor.
Tess winced.
Ian regarded her quizzically. “This isn’t normal, is it?”
She managed a jerky shake of her head.
“Is there time to get her to the hospital?”
Before she could answer, Savannah screamed again. This time with a specific purpose. “Tess!”
Kelly spun around. “Tess, where are you?”
Panicked, Tess gazed up at Ian. “I can’t do this.”
“Sure you can,” he said.
“No! You don’t understand.”
“I do understand.”
“Then you know why.”
He looked into her eyes, taking his time, seeing everything, and then he nodded. “Okay. Tell me what to do.”
She looked away. “I can’t tell you what to do!”
“Sure you can.” But even as he said it, he was guiding her forward, a gentle hand in the small of her back. “I’m right here.”
“Let Tess in,” Kelly exclaimed.
His soothing, encouraging hand sifted up her spine, settled lightly on her shoulder, eased her through the women clustered around Savannah.
Savannah lay on the floor, her black knit maternity pants soaked, her face blotchy with pain and fear. Tess remembered how Savannah had kept pressing on the small of her back throughout the day. She’d been in labor and hadn’t known it.
Savannah’s breath came in short, hoarse gasps. “I didn’t want to be like Mom. Making a scene every time she had a cramp. I thought it was false labor.”
“If you’d a kept your legs crossed, you wouldn’t be in this fix,” Mr. Felder said.
“Out!” Ian ordered. “Everybody out of here!”
Artie grabbed Mr. Felder by the neck. “Let’s me and you have a little talk outside, Orland.”
Tess reached blindly for the hand of the woman standing closest to her. “You stay.” Only as the woman knelt beside her did she realize it was Kelly Winchester.
“It hurts so bad!” Savannah cried, looking younger than her nineteen years. “You didn’t tell me it would hurt this bad.”
Tess couldn’t control her own trembling. “Somebody call an ambulance.”
“Already on it,” Phish said.
The closest emergency service