Guilty Secrets. Virginia Kantra

his deep voice patient and almost unspeakably gentle.

      Nell blinked. Who would have guessed shark-mouth Reilly the reporter could sound like that?

      Joe looked up. “Can you put up some kind of drape?”

      Relief flooded Nell. “Absolutely. In the drawer there.” She indicated the supply cart. “Get them all. We’re going to need them to absorb—” She caught an armload. “Good. Thanks.”

      She covered Laila with a blanket and draped her from the waist down with a paper sheet, tenting it over her bent knees. Folding a towel, Nell bunched it under the young woman’s right hip.

      Laila’s back arched. The baby’s matted head reappeared briefly at her opening. Laila grunted, twisting with strain.

      Nell placed her hands above and below the vaginal opening, applying gentle pressure to keep the baby from coming too fast.

      “With the next contraction, tell her to take a nice deep breath and hold it.”

      Joe relayed her instructions, holding his own breath to demonstrate.

      Laila nodded, her gaze never leaving his face. She spoke in urgent Farsi.

      “She wants to push,” Joe told Nell. His eyes were panicked, his voice perfectly calm.

      “She can push during the contractions,” Nell said. “Exhale and push for a count of ten. Then another breath, exhale and push, for another count of ten. As long as the contraction lasts. Got it?”

      “Breathe, push, exhale, count,” Joe repeated. “Got it.”

      But they didn’t. The next contraction was bad. Before Joe finished his explanation, it hit Laila like a train, leaving them all gasping and shaken.

      There wasn’t time to recover before another contraction struck. But Joe kept talking, and doe-eyed Laila exhaled and pushed like a champ.

      “Almost there,” Nell reported reassuringly. “Almost. She’s doing great. Tell her just a few more…Ah.”