Page 93 of His Tenth Dance

She needed to get out to the barn today and make sure everything was ready for winter. She used a mobile chicken coop in the colder months, so the hens could be wheeled outside in good weather and kept warm and safe when it snowed. October was a temperamental month, and Lindsay wanted to have the generators full and tested before the baby came.

She stepped out onto the front porch, pulled her door closed, then went down the steps, being careful to hold the handrail. She put one hand on her very pregnant belly and turned back to the door to admire the new wreath.

“Very festive,” she said with a smile, and then she went around the house to the backyard.

They had a couple of barns and a big stable back here, as well as her outdoor chicken coop, a back lawn that had served them well through picnics and parties with both her family and Keith’s. A pasture occupied the rest of the space, and Lindsay headed over to say hello to her horses before moving into the barn to deal with the generator and mobile chicken coop.

She loved being a hobby farmer, and she once again wondered if she should tell her uncle that she wouldn’t be returning to Blackhorse Bay after the baby was born. Keith could support them on his salary, and Lindsay knew she could ask Uncle Jack for a favor any time she needed it.

She didn’t move nearly as fast as she once had, and since she couldn’t eat very much either, her stomach growled as she finished with the latch on the last nesting box. She took an extra moment to make sure it was right, and then she checked all of them again.

This six-by-six contraption would hold all of her hens, and give her enough room to leave a few boxes down on one end for sick bays.

She unlocked the wheels and leaned her weight into the wire chicken coop. She needed to take it outside so she could scrub it down, rinse it clean with the hose, and then place wooden slats on the bottom and fill the boxes with straw.

But the mobile coop didn’t budge.

It felt like she still had the brakes on, but she’d just released them. She stepped around the back wheel to check, and sure enough, the red pedal was lifted up into the unlocked position. She only had to glance down ten feet to see the other one, and it was also unlocked.

So why wouldn’t the coop move?

Lindsay walked around the whole thing, didn’t see a problem, and tried again. It moved a little bit and then stalled completely all over again.

“What in the world is going on?” she grumbled.

She moved behind it again and pushed it forward.

It moved in that direction, and Lindsay wondered if the wheels needed to be greased. She only used this coop in the winter, so it had endured several months of sitting against the back wall of the barn, neglected.

She moved it forward as much as she could, and then she definitely needed to push it sideways.

“Move,” she told Hamlet, her blue heeler. Since she’d been pregnant, he had not gotten too far from her, and this trip out to the barn was no exception.

Hamlet moved, and she walked around to the end again, braced her palms against the upper half of the coop, and once again gave it a mighty shove.

This time, itmoved.

In fact, it slid right out from under her, and Lindsay toppled forward, the weight of her baby belly dragging her down.

She cried out, knowing she was going to fall. She didn’t want to break a wrist or an arm, and she tried to roll—and ended up landing on the outer ridge of her belly. She quickly rolled onto her hip and braced her head for impact. Thankfully, that never came, and she settled onto her back, which was the most uncomfortable position for her at nine months pregnant. She sucked in a lungful of air as the baby kicked and kicked.

Then a white-hot pain slashed through her lower abdomen.

She cried out again, the sound turning into a groan as she clutched the bottom of her baby belly. She rested her head on the cement, trying to take stock of all the different parts that had been hit, and unable to do so as she realized?—

Her water had just broken.

She gasped, her mind flying through where she had put her phone.

She suddenly felt it pressing into her backside, and she managed to slide one hand around her hip to get it out.

She groaned as a dull, aching pain moved from her back along the bottom of her baby belly and up over the top, settling almost right between her breasts, and causing her to gasp over and over as she struggled to breathe.

She needed to call Keith. She needed to get to the hospital.

She lifted her phone and found the screen cracked.

“No,” she whimpered, praying with everything she had that she hadn’t broken her phone.

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