Hell!

He didn’t need to be told what was happening here. The pig’s belly was so swollen, there had to be more than half a dozen piglets trying to get out. But now… Something was clearly obstructing the birth canal. The girl was trying to clear it and it was no wonder she looked like she was in pain. Every time the sow had a contraction, massive muscles would be squeezing this girl’s arm with power beyond endurance.

‘I said stand up,’ Jacob barked behind them, but he was ignored. The police sergeant sighed and lifted Jacob’s rifle so it wasn’t pointing downwards, but the girl didn’t care. She was only intent on one thing. The pig.

Mike could only admire her singlemindedness.

Once, when he’d been a junior resident in a large teaching hospital, he’d been watching open heart surgery when the fire alarm had sounded and the smell of smoke had wafted through Theatre. The hospital staff had reacted in well-ordered panic, but the surgeon had kept right on operating.

‘Forget the alarm,’ he’d growled. ‘You can have any fire you like, but not until I have this closed!’

That determination was what he saw again in this girl’s face. She was in pain and Jacob’s threats must have got through to her, but she was concentrating on one thing and one thing only-clearing the birth canal.

There was nothing he could do to help. There certainly wasn’t room in the birth canal for two of them.

‘Talk me through it,’ he said urgently, his face almost touching the girl’s. ‘What’s going wrong?’

‘There’s a piglet stuck…’

She had a voice to match her face. It was exhausted and pain-filled, but it was soft and lilting and…gorgeous!

‘You can feel it?’

A contraction hit. Doris’s body strained in a massive movement of muscle and the girl’s body jerked sideways.