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BRANDY WAS EXHAUSTED and fell asleep with Rylee on her chest almost immediately after delivering the placenta.
“What happens now?” Kennedy asked.
“When they wake up, it will be important to get Brandy nursing, but other than that, I think we’re just fine.”
“I was talking more about everything. The truck, the earthquake. How much longer before daylight?”
Willow chuckled. “Daylight’s already here, Miss Observant. Sun came up about half an hour ago.”
Kennedy looked out the truck window. “Oh.”
“But in answer to your first question, I don’t think Brandy can walk all the way to the highway after what she’s gone through. That probably means one of us should stay here and one of us should head toward the Glenn to see if there’s any way to get help.”
“I can do that.”
“I think you’ll have to.” Willow smiled. “Unless you’ve become an expert at breast-feeding and are ready to give Brandy and her baby a crash course.”
“No, you stay here. But how do you know so much about all this anyway, delivering babies and nursing and everything else?”
Willow shrugged. “I’ve always been there when the goats and sheep are born. Usually, everything goes just fine, but sometimes you have to step in and help. Plus my mom’s coached a few women around Glennallen who wanted to have home births. The clinic there won’t deliver babies, so if you get pregnant, you either have to spend the last two or three weeks of pregnancy in town so you’ll be close to medical care, or you plan on a home birth. Mom took me to a few of them when I was a teenager. Ninety percent of it is just keeping the moms from freaking out.” She grinned. “And keeping your assistant from freaking out, too.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry I wasn’t better help.”
“Don’t say that. You did great. Who would have thought that a crazy, Type-A germaphobe like you could have handled a delivery in a truck without completely losing your head? You should be really proud of yourself.”
Kennedy wasn’t sure if she was being complimented or insulted and changed the subject. “How’s your foot?”
Willow shrugged. “I’m fine. Here, you take the boot back. And take my coat on top of yours. You’ll need it more than I do. I’ll have to turn the truck off for now. We’re running kind of low on gas. You know how to get back to the highway from here? You just follow the tire tracks in the snow.”
Kennedy nodded. If her roommate could safely deliver a child in the middle of nowhere, Kennedy could walk a few miles without getting lost.
“So you sure you don’t mind heading out alone?” Willow asked. “It will be kind of long you know. You should eat before you go.”
“I’ll grab something from the cabin, or at least what’s left of it.”
Willow shook her head. “All that will be frozen. Didn’t you bring a few things back into the truck last night?”
“Yeah, I think there’s a can of spam around here somewhere.”
Willow grinned. “Bon appétit. And even if it’s totally gross, you’ll need the calories to stay warm. You probably don’t have to worry about it, but you know the basics about hypothermia, right? You’ll go from just shivering and cold to really exhausted. At that point, it messes with your brain. It will make you want to just sit down and sleep, and you’ll tell yourself it will only be for a few minutes, but you’ve got to make yourself keep going, right?”
Kennedy couldn’t believe she was actually getting a crash course in hypothermia in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness.
Willow gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. You can follow the tire tracks so you won’t get lost, and you won’t have to worry about going through the deep snow. Hey, you ok? You look like you’re about to cry.”
Kennedy shook her head. “This wasn’t how I expected to be spending the day before your wedding.”
Willow sighed. “Yeah, you and me both.”