Page 45 of Christmas for the Village Midwife (The Village Midwife #2)

In the end, their discussions had been a waste of time.

Alex’s car had barely made it out of the garage before it slid down an incline and into some shrubbery.

There was no real damage, but as he tried to reverse out, all that happened was the wheels spun, smoke poured from the engine, and it got stuck deeper in the snow.

He pulled on the handbrake and turned to her. ‘That’s that then. We’re not taking the car, apparently.’

Zoe glanced out to see Billie watching them from the window of the house, arms wrapped tight around herself. ‘Apparently. So it’s walking or nothing.’

‘Let me phone Victor,’ he said, getting out of the driver’s side.

Zoe sat back in the car to stay out of the snow while Alex dialled the number for Daffodil Farm. After a brief wait, he ended the call and stuffed his phone back into his pocket.

‘Doesn’t sound like there’s anyone home.’

‘They might all have gone to spend the evening with Penny and Leon.’

‘Who knows? Unless they’ve gone up to check on the alpaca.

I wouldn’t blame them for being worried about them in this weather.

I wish one of them would join the twenty-first century and get a mobile phone.

I don’t know how anyone used to manage without them.

I don’t have a number for Leon or Penny. ’

‘Sorry, neither do I. I’ve never had all that much to do with them since I arrived, other than to say hello in passing. They tend to keep themselves to themselves.’

Alex got back into the car and tapped his phone on his chin for a moment as he pondered their predicament.

At least, that was what Zoe hoped he was doing, rather than trying to find a way to tell her that she couldn’t go down to help Georgia, because nothing he could say would change her mind, and she didn’t want to have to fight him as well as the weather.

‘OK,’ he said finally. ‘We’re going to have to dig the car out and try again. Hang on here; I’ll go and get a shovel.’

While Alex went to find his equipment Zoe texted Emilia to find out how things were there and to explain their delay. Emilia replied immediately.

She’s OK at the moment . But we could do with you sooner rather than later. I’m sure I could deliver, but I’d feel better if you were here.

Zoe would feel better if she could be there too.

She had no doubt Emilia would be capable enough to get by, but Zoe didn’t like the idea of leaving them all to struggle when her expertise could make things a hundred times better.

She’d made a promise too, that she would take care of Georgia, and it was a promise she took seriously.

Come hell or high water, she was going to get back down to the village to be with her friend when she needed her most. If only she hadn’t left before being certain all was well.

If Zoe owed Georgia nothing else, she had that mistake to make up for.

A few minutes later, Alex came back.

‘You’ve only got one shovel,’ she said, getting out of the car.

‘I wasn’t going to have you digging.’

‘Faster with two.’

‘You slide into the driver’s seat, and when I say, see if you can reverse.’

Zoe did as she was asked, and through the side mirror, she could see Alex trying to dig around the back wheels.

Then he went to the front and did the same before stepping back and signalling for her to start the engine.

But the wheels only spun again, and though the car inched back a little, it slid forward again almost immediately.

‘Whoa!’ Alex yelled, and Zoe killed the engine.

‘What about some cardboard?’ Zoe asked. ‘We could slide some sheets of cardboard under the tyres so they’ve got something to drive on, and it might be enough to get us free.’

‘Cardboard?’

‘My dad got stuck once, and someone came out from a nearby house and helped him with flattened cardboard boxes.’

Alex scratched at his neck, studying the car. ‘I suppose it’s worth a try. Not sure what I’ve got, but I can look in the shed…might have some leftover from when we moved in.’

Zoe got out of the car and followed him.

They gathered what they could and went back to the car.

Zoe went around to each wheel this time, shoving the flattened sheets underneath each tyre to give them a surface to drive on, though no sooner had she done it than the cardboard itself began to disappear beneath a fresh layer of fast-falling snow.

‘OK!’ she shouted.

Alex revved the engine, and after a few seconds, the car began to move. And then it was free.

Zoe leaped back into the car and slammed the door shut, afraid to lose the momentum. ‘Let’s go.’

They’d barely gone twenty metres when the car began to slide again. This time it spun straight into a fencepost.

‘Shit!’ Alex leaped out to inspect the damage. ‘It’s caught one of the headlights, but it doesn’t look too bad.’

‘Can we still go?’

‘I don’t know…Zoe, I think you’re going to have to accept that we’re going nowhere in the car tonight.’

‘So I’ve wasted all that time when I could have been walking.’

‘You can’t walk it.’

‘Then how am I going to get there?’

‘Zoe’ – he leaned into her open window – ‘they have Emilia, and Simon is close by. If two fully qualified GPs can’t deliver a baby between them?—’

‘It’s not that simple!’

‘Ottilie did it. You told me she delivered Mackenzie.’

‘She was lucky – Mackenzie’s birth was straightforward, but they’re not always. What if Georgia’s is complicated? It’s not fair to ask Emilia and Simon to do it.’

‘But they could.’

The gaze that met his was challenging. ‘Would you want that for Billie? If Billie was in labour and there was no midwife, would you be like, that’s fine, as long as someone who knows a bit about medicine is there…?’

‘It’s not Billie.’

‘And that’s a bugger you, I’m all right, Jack , attitude to have. I’m shocked at you for having it. It’s not who I thought you were.’

‘Maybe it is, but I’m not going to apologise for it. I want you safe. To me, you’re more important than Georgia. I don’t care if you don’t like me saying it, but it’s the truth.’

Zoe folded her arms and stared straight ahead. ‘I don’t like you saying it.’

‘Then I’m sorry for that but not for the sentiment. They’ve called for an ambulance, and they’ve got Emilia. Leave it – accept that you can’t get there, that just this once someone is going to have to manage without you.’

‘Do you really think I can sit here and drink wine and not give it another thought? I can’t. If anything went wrong and they couldn’t deal with it, I’d never forgive myself. I’m going to have one more try. I’ll go on foot. You don’t have to come with me; you can stay and keep an eye on Billie.’

He paused, holding her in a frank gaze. And then he let out a sigh. ‘You’re determined to make my life as difficult as possible, aren’t you? I can’t let you go on your own, and Billie should be safe enough here for a few hours. If we’re going, then we’d better go now before it becomes impossible.’

The most difficult thing about going on foot wasn’t the snow itself, but the fact that the true path down the hill had all but disappeared beneath it.

They made their way as best they could, in visibility that was not only poor from the absent moon and driving snow, but from the glare of the lamps Victor had installed, which now bounced from the frozen ground and threw confusing shadows onto it.

Where there was a path looked like a dip, and where there was a fissure looked like it was safe.

They’d picked their way down the first slope that led up to Hilltop with relative success – certainly more than they’d had in a car.

The ground plateaued for a time, and that seemed straightforward enough, but they’d both been watching their feet and not their surroundings, and as there was little else to orient them, neither Alex nor Zoe had any clue just how badly they’d veered off course until they got into trouble.

As the ground began to tilt again, the incline felt wrong.

Zoe had walked this path many times since she’d moved to Thimblebury and even more since she’d started to visit Alex and Billie, and she could tell her feet weren’t feeling the undulations they normally did.

She wondered if she was simply on a different section of the correct path than she’d thought she was, and perhaps that was why it felt off.

But they’d gone off course, close to where the crest of the hill dropped away to one side, into a gulley that wasn’t necessarily steep but in the current circumstances was enough to cause a problem if someone found themselves at the bottom of it.

If she could have seen what was coming, of course, Zoe would have called a halt to their walk and taken time to reorient.

But she didn’t see until it was too late.

One wrong step, a bank of snow that gave way beneath her and a moment later she let out a squeal as she slid away from Alex, down the ridge and into the shadows below.