Was she some kind of volunteer paramedic? This was sounding crazier and crazier.

He turned away and surreptitiously checked his phone. Sure enough, no reception. Okay, he conceded. No ambulance.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked, trying to figure where to start.

‘Maggie. We’re wasting time.’

‘How pregnant are you?’

‘Thirty-two weeks.’ And all of a sudden there was a quaver in her voice. ‘He’s okay.’

‘Can you feel him?’ Even asking that hurt, he thought. Hell, he’d lost his son six years ago. Would he ever get over it?

Luckily she’d only heard his professional question. ‘Yes.’ But there was still the quaver. ‘He’s kicking.’

‘Good.’ Kicking was good. But as Maggie had said, he needed to check the heartbeat. He wanted a stethoscope. Add it to the list, he thought grimly. Ambulance, X-rays, stethoscope, ultrasound, a medical team to take over while he walked away.

It wasn’t going to happen. Meanwhile, there was the small problem of the mess blocking the road.

‘If someone else comes round this bend…’ he said, trying to figure out priorities.

‘It’s not used much,’ she told him. ‘But there’s the odd out-of-towner stupid enough to try and get to the highway this way.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

She winced. ‘Sorry. Yes, that was rude. But we do need to clear the road.’ She stared across at the mess. ‘You’ll need help pulling the crate out of the way. Hang on.’ And she put her hands onto the ground to push herself up.

‘No!’ He was down beside her in an instant, taking a shoulder in each hand and pressing back.

And his preconceptions were changing all over the place. At first he’d thought she was little more than a teenager, like the young mothers he saw clustered outside the prenatal clinics near his consulting suite in the hospital he worked in. They were mostly scared kids, forced by pregnancy into growing up too fast, but the more he saw of this woman the more he acknowledged maturity. There were lines etched around her eyes-smile lines that had taken time to grow. And more. Life lines?