‘Yes.’ He scrubbed his hand back across his scalp, his short dark hair spiking untidily. ‘I have everything I need, and I’ve delivered babies plenty of times before.’
‘Really?’ Jack was saying everything she wanted to hear, and Cass wondered how much of it was just reassurance.
‘It’s not ideal, but we’ll get her to the hospital as soon as the weather lifts. In the meantime, you’ve done your job and you can rely on me to do mine.’
A small curl of warmth quieted some of the fear. ‘Thanks. This baby is...’ Important. All babies were important, but this one was important to her.
‘I know. And he’s going to be fine.’ His eyes made her believe it. ‘Is the father on the scene?’
‘Very much so. He’s not here, though; Lynette’s husband is in the Royal Navy and he’s away at the moment. My father works abroad too; Mum was going to come home next week to help out.’
‘So it’s just you and me then.’ He contrived to make that sound like a good thing. ‘You’re her birth partner?’
‘Yep.’ Cass pressed her lips together. Going to classes with Lynette had seemed like the most natural thing in the world. The most beautiful form of sharing between sisters. Now it was all terrifying.
‘Good.’ His gaze chipped away at yet another piece of the fear that had been laying heavy on her chest for days, and suddenly Cass wondered if she might not make a half decent job of it after all.
‘I’d rather be...’ Anything. ‘I’d rather be doing something practical.’
He laughed. ‘This is the most practical thing in the world, Cass. The one thing that never changes, and hopefully never will. You’ll both be fine.’
She knew that he was trying to reassure her, and that his You’ll both be fine wasn’t a certainty, but somehow it seemed to be working. She walked over to the coil of ropes and pulleys that had been dumped here while she’d taken the bags through to the vicarage.
‘I’ll get these out of your way.’
‘Let me help you.’ Before she could stop him, he’d picked up the rope, leaving Cass to collect the remaining pulleys and carabiners up and put them into a rucksack. ‘You used this to get the bags across?’
‘Yeah.’ Hopefully he was too busy thinking about childbirth to take much notice of what he was carrying. The cut end was clearly visible, hanging from the coil of rope. ‘I borrowed the gear from one of the guys in the village who goes mountaineering.’ She slung the rucksack over her shoulder and led the way through to the storeroom, indicating an empty patch of floor, but Jack shook his head.
‘Not there; it’s too close to the radiator and rope degrades if it dries out too fast. Help me move these boxes and we’ll lay it flat over here.’
Cass dumped the rucksack and started to lift the boxes out of the way. ‘You know something about rope?’
‘Enough to know that this one’s been cut recently, while it was under stress. Mountaineering ropes don’t just break.’ He bent to finger the cut end and then turned his gaze on to her.
The security services had missed a trick in not recruiting Jack and putting him to work as an interrogator. Those quiet eyes made it impossible not to admit to her greatest follies. ‘I...cut the rope.’
Somehow that wasn’t enough. He didn’t even need to ask; Cass found herself needing to tell him the rest.
‘Mimi shouted across, asking if we had a harness. They both seemed determined to try and get across, and medical bags are one thing...’
‘But lives are another?’ he prompted her gently.
‘Yeah. I was worried that they’d just go ahead and do it, and as soon as one of them put their weight on the ropes I wouldn’t be able to stop them. So, when we got hold of the second bag, I cut the rope.’
He grinned. ‘I couldn’t see Mimi letting you haul a bag over and staying put herself on the other side. Nice job.’
Cass supposed she might as well tell him everything; he’d hear it soon enough. ‘Not such a nice job. I miscalculated and the rope snapped back in their direction. Another few feet and it would have taken Mimi’s head off.’
‘It was...what, thirty feet across the river?’
‘About that.’
‘Weight of the bags...’ He was obviously doing some kind of calculation in his head. ‘Wouldn’t have taken her head off. Maybe given her a bit of a sting.’
‘Well, it frightened the life out of me. And what’s-his-name...’
‘Rafe...’
‘Yeah, Rafe tackled her to the ground.’
Jack snorted with laughter. ‘Oh, I’ll bet she just loved that. Rafe always was a bit on the protective side where Mimi’s concerned.’
‘She didn’t seem too pleased about it. What is it with those two? Light the blue touchpaper?’
‘Yeah and stand a long way back.’ Jack was still chuckling. ‘Shame, really. They’re both good people, but put them within fifty feet of each other and they’re a disaster. Always will be.’
‘I know the feeling...’ All too well. Only Cass would be a disaster with any man. She’d never quite been able to move on from what Paul had said and done, never been able to shake the belief that he was right. She’d felt her heart close, retreating wounded from a world that had been too painful to bear.
He didn’t reply. As Jack bent to finish arranging the ropes so they’d dry out properly, Cass couldn’t help noticing the strong lines of his body, the ripple of muscle. That didn’t just happen; it must have taken some hard work and training.
‘So you’re a mountaineer?’
He shook his head, not looking at her. ‘No. My father. It’s not something I’d ever consider doing.’
That sounded far too definite not to be a thought-out decision. ‘Too risky?’ Somehow Cass doubted that; Jack had just braved a flood to get here.
‘There’s risk and risk. My father died when I was twelve, free climbing. Anyone with an ounce of sanity would have used ropes for that particular climb, but he went for the adrenaline high. He always did.’ The sudden bitter anger in Jack’s voice left Cass in no doubt about his feelings for his father.
‘I’m really sorry...’
He straightened up. ‘Long time ago. It was one of the things that made me want to go into frontline medicine. Going out on a limb to save a life has always seemed to me to be a much finer thing than doing it for kicks.’
‘And of course we both calculate the risks we take pretty carefully.’ Cass wondered whether Jack knew that the current calculation was all about him. She wanted to know more about the man who was responsible for Lynette’s safety, to gauge his weaknesses.
He nodded. ‘Yeah. Needs a cool head, not a hot one.’
Good answer. Cass turned to the door. ‘Shall we go and see whether there’s any more tea going?’
* * *
They collected their tea from an apparently unending supply in the kitchen, and Jack followed Cass as she dodged the few steps into the back of the church building. She led him along a maze of silent corridors and through a doorway, so small that they both had to duck to get through it.
They were in a closed porch. Arched wooden doors led through to the church on one side and on the other a second door was secured by heavy metal bolts. Tall, stone-framed windows, glazed in a diamond pattern of small pieces of glass, so old that they were almost opaque. A gargoyle, perched up in a corner, grinned down at them.