A Christmas Blessing (2 page)

She found a station playing Christmas carols, turned up the volume and sang along, as she began the last hundred and fifty miles or so of the once familiar journey back to White Pines. Her back was aching like the dickens and she’d forgotten how difficult driving could be when her protruding belly forced her to put the seat back just far enough to make reaching the gas and brake pedals a strain.

“No problem,” she told herself sternly. A hundred miles or more in this part of the world was nothing. She had snow tires on, a terrific heater, blankets in the trunk for an emergency and a batch of homemade fruitcakes in the back that would keep her from starving if she happened to get stranded.

The persistent ache in her back turned into a more emphatic pain that had her gasping.

“What the dickens?” she muttered as she hit the brake, slowed and paused to take a few deep breaths. Fortunately there was little traffic to worry about on the unexpectedly bitter cold night. She stayed on the side of the road for a full five minutes to make sure there wouldn’t be another spasm on the heels of the first.

Satisfied that it had been nothing more than a pinched nerve or a strained muscle, she put the car back in gear and drove on.

It was fifteen minutes before the next pain hit, but it was a doozy. It brought tears to her eyes. Again, pulling to the side of the road, she scowled down at her belly.

“This is not the time,” she informed the impertinent baby. “You will not be born in a car in the middle of nowhere with no doctor in sight, do you understand me? That’s the deal, so get used to it and settle down. You’re not due for weeks yet. Four weeks to be exact, so let’s have no more of these pains, okay?”

Apparently the lecture worked. Jessie didn’t feel so much as a twinge for another twenty miles. She was about to congratulate herself on skirting disaster, when a contraction gripped her so fiercely she thought she’d lose control of the car.

“Oh, sweet heaven,” she muttered in a tone that was part prayer, part curse. There was little doubt in her mind now that she was going into labor. Denying it seemed pointless, to say nothing of dangerous. She had to take a minute here and think of a plan.

On the side of the road again, she turned on the car’s overhead light, took out her map and searched for some sign of a hospital. If there was one within fifty miles, she couldn’t spot it. She hadn’t passed a house for miles, either, and she was still far from Harlan and Mary’s, probably a hundred miles at least. She could make that in a couple of hours or less, if the roads were clear, but they weren’t. She was driving at a safe crawl. It could take her hours to get to White Pines at that pace.

There was someplace she could go that would be closer, someplace only five miles or so ahead, unless she’d lost her bearings. It was the last place on earth she’d ever intended to wind up, the very last place she would want her baby to be born: Luke’s ranch.

Consuela would be there, she consoled herself as she resigned herself to dropping by unannounced to deliver a baby. Luke probably didn’t want to see her any more than she wanted to see him. And what man wanted any part of a woman’s labor, unless she happened to be his wife? Luke probably wouldn’t be able to turn her over to Consuela fast enough. With all those vacant rooms, they probably wouldn’t even bump into each other in the halls.

Jessie couldn’t see that she had any choice. The snow had turned to blizzard conditions. The world around her was turning into a snow-covered wonderland, as dangerous as it was beautiful. The tires were beginning to skid and spin on the road. The contractions were maybe ten minutes apart. She’d be lucky to make it these few miles to Luke’s. Forget going any farther.

The decision made with gut-deep reluctance, she accomplished the drive by sheer force of will. When she finally spotted the carved gate announcing the ranch, she skidded to a halt and wept with relief. She still had a mile of frozen, rutted lane to the house, but that would be a breeze compared to the five she’d just traveled.

A hard contraction, the worst yet, gripped her and had her screaming out loud. She clung to the steering wheel, panting as she’d seen on TV, until it passed. Sweat streamed down her face.

“Come on, sweet thing,” she pleaded with the baby. “Only a few more minutes. Don’t you dare show up until I get to the house.”

She couldn’t help wondering when that would be. There was no beckoning light in the distance, no looming shape of the house. Surely, though, it couldn’t be much farther.

She drove on, making progress by inches, it seemed. At last she spotted the house, dark as coal against the blinding whiteness around it. Not a light on anywhere. No bright holiday decorations blinking tiny splashes of color onto the snow.

“Luke Adams, you had better be home,” she muttered as she hauled herself out from behind the wheel at last.

Standing on shaky legs, she began the endless trek through the deepening snow, cursing and clutching her stomach as she bent over with yet another ragged pain. The wind-whipped snow stung her cheeks and mingled with tears. The already deepening drifts made walking treacherous and slow.

“A little farther,” she encouraged herself. Three steps. Four. One foot onto the wide sweep of a porch. Then the other. She had made it! She paused and sucked in a deep breath, then looked around her.

The desolate air about the place had only intensified as she’d drawn closer. There was no wreath of evergreens on the front door, no welcoming light shining on the porch or from any of the rooms that she could detect. For the first time, she allowed a panicky thought. What if she had made it this far, only to find herself still alone? What if Luke had packed his bags and flown away for the holidays?

“Please, God, let someone be here,” she prayed as she hit the doorbell again and again, listening to the chime echo through the house. She pounded on the glass, shouted, then punched the doorbell again.

She heard a distant crash, a loud oath, then another crash. Apparently Luke was home, she thought dryly, as she began another insistent round of doorbell ringing.

“For cripe’s sakes, hold your horses, dammit!”

A light switch was thrown and the porch was illuminated in a warm yellow glow. Finally, just as another contraction ripped through Jessie, the door was flung open.

She was briefly aware of the thunderstruck expression on Luke’s face and his disheveled state, only marginally aware of the overpowering scent of alcohol.

And then, after a murmured greeting she doubted made a lick of sense, she collapsed into the arms of the man who’d killed her husband.

Chapter Two

“W
hat in blazes…?”

Luke folded his arms around the bundled-up form who’d just pitched forward. Blinking hard in an attempt to get his eyes to focus, he zeroed in on a face that had once been burned into his brain, a face he’d cursed himself for cherishing when he had no right at all. He’d seen that precious face only minutes ago in the sweetest dream he’d ever had. For an instant he wondered if he was still dreaming.

No, he could feel her shape, crushed against his chest. He drank in the sight of her. Her long, black hair was tucked up in a stocking cap. Her cheeks, normally pale as cream, had been tinted a too-bright pink by the cold. Her blue eyes were shadowed with what might have been pain, but there was no mistaking his sister-in-law.

“Jessie,” he whispered, worriedly taking in the lines of strain on her forehead, the trickle of sweat that was likely to turn to ice if he didn’t get her out of the freezing night in a hurry.

When in hell had it turned so bitter? he wondered, shivering himself. There hadn’t been a snowflake in sight when he’d sent Consuela off. Now he couldn’t see a patch of uncovered ground anywhere. Couldn’t see much of anything beyond the porch, for that matter.

More important than any of that, what was his sister-in-law doing here of all places? Was she ill? Feverish? She would have had to be practically delusional or desperate to turn up on his doorstep.

He scooped her up, rocking back on his heels with the unexpected weight of her, startled that the little slip of a thing he’d remembered was bulging out of her coat. She moaned and clutched at her belly, shuddering against him.

She’s going to have a baby, he realized at last, finally catching on to what would have been obvious to anyone who was not in an alcohol-altered state of mind. No one in the family had told him that. Not that he’d done more than exchange pleasantries with any of them in months. And Jessie would have been the last person they would have mentioned. Everyone walked on eggshells around him when it came to anything having to do with his late brother. If only they had known, if only they had realized that his guilt was compounded because he’d fallen for Erik’s wife, they would never have spoken to him at all.

“You’re going to have a baby,” he announced in an awestruck tone.

Bright blue eyes, dulled by pain, snapped open. “You always were quick, Lucas,” Jessie said tartly. “Do you suppose you could get me to a bed and find Consuela before I deliver right here in the foyer?”

“You’re going to have a baby
now?
” he demanded incredulously, as the immediacy of the problem sank in. He would have dropped her if she hadn’t been clinging to his neck with the grip of a championship arm wrestler.

“That would be my best guess,” she agreed.

Luke was so stunned—so damned drunk—he couldn’t seem to come to any rational decision. If Jessie had realized his condition, she would have headed for the barn and relied on one of the horses for help. He had a mare who was probably more adept at deliveries than he was at this precise moment. His old goat, Chester, was pretty savvy, too. Jessie would have been in better hands with them, than she likely was with him.

“Lucas?” Her voice was low and sweet as honey. “Could you please…”

He sighed just listening to her. The sweetest little voice in all of Texas.

“Get me into a bed!”

The shout accomplished what nothing else had. He began to move. He staggered ever so slightly, but he got her into the closest bedroom, his, and settled her in the middle of sheets still rumpled from the previous night. And several nights before that, as near as he could recall. He’d ordered Consuela to stay the hell out of his bedroom after he’d found little packets of some sweet-smelling stuff in his sock drawer.

He stood gazing down at Jessie, rhapsodizing to himself about her presence in his bed, marveling at the size of that belly, awestruck by the fact that she was going to have a baby here and now.

“Luke,” she said in a raspy voice that was edged with tension. “I’m going to need a little help here.”

“Help?” he repeated blankly.

“My clothes.”

“Oh.” He blinked rapidly as he watched her trying to struggle out of her coat. Awkwardly, she shrugged it off one shoulder, then the other. When she started to fumble with the buttons on her blouse, his throat worked and his pulse zoomed into the stratosphere.

“Lucas!”

The shout got his attention. “Oh, yeah. Right,” he said and tried to help with the buttons.

For a man who’d undressed any number of women in his time, he was suddenly all thumbs. In fact, getting Jessie out of her clothes—the simple cotton blouse, the oddly made jeans, the lacy bra and panties—was an act of torture no man should have to endure. Trying to be helpful, she wriggled and squirmed in a way that brought his fingers into contact with warm, smooth skin far too frequently. Trying to look everywhere except at her wasn’t helping him with the task either. Every glimpse of bare flesh made his knees go weak.

The second she was stripped bare, he muffled a groan, averted his gaze and hunted down one of his shirts. He did it for his own salvation, not because she seemed aware of anything except the demands her baby was making on her body. Surely there was a special place in hell for a man whose thoughts were on sex when a woman was about to have a baby right before his eyes.

She looked tiny—except for that impressively swollen belly—and frightened as a doe caught in a hunter’s sights. He felt a powerful need to comfort her, if only he could string an entire sentence together without giving away his inebriated state. If she knew precisely how drunk he was, she wouldn’t be scared. She’d be flat-out terrified, and rightfully so. He wasn’t so serene himself.

“Where’s Consuela?” she asked, then let out a scream that shook the rafters. She latched on to his hand so hard he was sure that at least three bones cracked. That grip did serve a purpose, though. It snapped him back to reality. Pain had a way of making a man focus on the essentials.

The baby clearly wasn’t going to wait for him to sober up. It wasn’t going to wait for a doctor, even if one could make it to the ranch on the icy roads, which Luke doubted.

“Consuela’s in Mexico by now,” he confessed without thinking. “She left earlier today.” When panic immediately darkened her eyes, he instinctively patted her hand. “It’s going to be okay, darlin’. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

“I’m…not…worried,” she said between gasps. “Shouldn’t you boil water or something?”

Water?
Water was good, he decided. He had no idea what he’d do with it, but if it got him out of this bedroom for five seconds so he could try to gather his scattered thoughts, it had to be good. Coffee would be even better. Gallons of it.

“You’ll be okay for a minute?” He grabbed a key chain made of braided leather off his dresser and gave it to her. “Hang on to this if another pain hits while I’m gone, okay? Bite into it or something.” It had worked for cowboys being operated on under primitive conditions, or so he’d read. Of course, they’d also been liberally dosed with alcohol at the time.

Jessie’s blue eyes regarded the leather doubtfully, but she nodded gamely. “Hurry, Luke. I don’t know much about labor, but I don’t think there’s a lot of time left.”

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he promised. Stone-cold sober, if he could manage it.

He fumbled the first pot he grabbed, spilled water everywhere, then finally got it onto the stove with the gas flame turned to high. With a couple of false starts, he got the coffee going as well, strong enough to wake the dead, which was pretty much how he felt.