A Christmas Blessing (3 page)

For a moment he clung to the counter and tried to steady himself. It was going to be okay, he vowed. He’d delivered foals and calves. How much different could delivering a baby be? Of course, mares and cows had a pretty good notion of what they were doing. They didn’t need a lot of assistance from him unless they got into trouble.

Jessie, on the other hand, seemed even more bemused by this state of affairs than he was. She’d obviously been counting on a doctor, a team of comforting nurses, a nice, sterile delivery room and plenty of high-tech equipment. A shot of some kind of painkiller, too, more than likely. What she was getting was a drunken amateur in an isolated ranch house. It hardly seemed fair after all she’d already been through. After all he’d put her through, he amended.

An agonized scream cut through the air and sent panic slicing through him. He tore down the hall to the bedroom. He found her panting, her face scrunched up with pain, sweat beading up on her brow and pouring down her cheeks. Damned if he didn’t think she looked beautiful, anyway. The door to that place in hell gaped wider.

“You okay?” he asked, then shook himself. “Sorry. Dumb question. Of course, you’re not okay.”

He grabbed a clean washcloth from the linen closet, dashed into the bathroom to soak it with cool water, then wiped her brow. He might not be exactly sober yet, but his brain was beginning to function and his limbs were following orders. For the first time, he honestly believed they could get through this without calamity striking.

“You’re doing fine,” he soothed. “This is one hell of a pickle, but nothing we can’t manage.”

“Did…you…call…a doctor?” she asked.

A doctor?
Why hadn’t he acted on that thought back when he’d had it himself? Maybe because he’d figured it would be futile. More likely, because his brain cells had shut down hours ago just the way he’d wanted them to.

“Next thing on my list,” he assured her.

She eyed him doubtfully. “You…have…a list?”

“Of course I have a list,” he said, injecting a confident note into his voice. “The water’s boiling. The coffee’s on.”

“Coffee?”

“For me. You don’t want me falling asleep in the middle of all the fun, do you?”

“I doubt there’s much chance of that,” she said, sighing as the pain visibly eased.

Her gaze traveled over him from head to toe, examining him so intently that it was all Luke could do not to squirm. Under other circumstances, that examination would have made his pulse buck so hard he wouldn’t have recovered for days. As it was, he looked away as fast as he could. Obviously, this was some sort of penance dreamed up for his sins. He was going to be stranded with Jessie, forced to deliver his brother’s baby, and then he was going to have to watch the two of them walk out of his life. Unless, of course…

“Luke, can I ask you a question?”

He was relieved by the interruption. There was only heartache in the direction his thoughts were taking. “Seeing how we’re going to be getting pretty intimate here in a bit, I suppose you can ask me anything you like.”

“Are you drunk?”

He had hoped she hadn’t noticed. “Darlin’, I don’t think you want to know the answer to that.”

This time he doubted Jessie’s groan of anguish had anything to do with her labor pains.

“Luke?”

“Yes, Jessie.”

“Maybe you’d better bring me a very big glass of whatever it was you were drinking.”

He grinned at the wistful note in her voice. “Darlin’, when this baby turns up, you and I are going to drink one hell of a toast. Until then, I think maybe we’d both better stay as far away from that bottle as we can. Besides, as best I can recall, I smashed it against the fireplace.”

She regarded him with pleading blue eyes. “Luke, please? I’m not sure I can do this without help. There’s bound to be another bottle of something around here.”

He thought of the cabinet filled with whiskey, considered getting a couple of shots to help both of them, then dismissed the temptation as a very bad idea. “You’ve got all the help you could possibly need. I’m right here with you. Besides, alcohol’s not good for the baby. Haven’t you read all those headlines warning about that very thing?”

“I don’t think the baby’s going to be inside me long enough to get so much as a sip,” she said.

As if to prove her point, her body was seized with another contraction. Going with sheer instinct, Luke reached out and placed his hand over her taut belly. The skin was smooth and tight as a drum as he massaged it gently until the muscles relaxed.

He checked his watch, talked to her, and waited for the next contraction. It came three minutes later.

He wiped her brow. “Hang in there, darlin’. I’ll be right back.”

She leveled a blue-eyed glare on him. “Don’t you dare leave me,” she commanded in a tone that could have stopped the D-Day invasion.

“I’m not going far. I just want some nice, sterile water in here when the baby makes its appearance. And we could use a blanket.” And something to cut the umbilical cord, he thought as his brain finally began to kick in without prodding.

He’d never moved with more speed in his life. He tested the phone and discovered the lines were down. No surprise in this weather. He sterilized a basin, filled it with water, then cleaned the sharpest knife he could find with alcohol. He deliberately gave a wide berth to the cabinet with the whiskey. He was back in the bedroom before the next pain hit.

“See there. I didn’t abandon you. Did you take natural childbirth classes?”

Jessie nodded. “Started two weeks ago. We’d barely gotten to the breathing part.”

“Then we’re in great shape,” he said with confidence. “You’re going to come through this like a champ.” The truth was he was filled with admiration for her. He’d always known she had more strength and courage than most women he’d known, but tonight she was proving it in spades.

“Did you call a doctor?” she asked again.

“I tried. I couldn’t get through. Don’t let it worry you, though. You’re doing just fine. Nature’s doing all the work. The doctor would just be window dressing.”

Jessie shot him a baleful look.

“Okay,” he admitted. “It would be nice to have an expert on hand, but this baby’s coming no matter who’s coaching it into the world, so we might just as well count our blessings that you got to my house. What were you doing out all alone on a night like this anyway?”

“Going to your parents’ house,” she said. “They invited me for the holidays.”

Luke couldn’t believe that they’d allowed her to drive this close to the delivery of their first grandchild. “Why the hell didn’t Daddy fly you over?”

“He offered. I’m not crazy about flying in such a little plane, though. I told him the doctor had forbidden it.”

Luke suspected that was only half the story. He grinned at her. “You sure that was it? Or did that streak of independence in you get you to say no, before you’d even given the matter serious thought?”

A tired smile came and went in a heartbeat. “Maybe.”

He hitched a chair up beside the bed and tucked her hand in his. He would not,
would not
allow himself to think about how sweet it was to be sitting here with her like this, despite the fact that only circumstance had forced them together.

“Can’t say that I blame you,” he said. “If you don’t kick up a fuss with Daddy every now and then, next thing you know he’s running your life.”

“Harlan just wants what’s best for his family,” she said.

Luke smiled at her prompt defense of her father-in-law. One thing about Jessie, she’d always been fair to a fault. She’d even told anyone who’d listen that she didn’t blame him for Erik’s death, even with the facts staring her straight in the face. It didn’t matter. He’d blamed himself enough for both of them.

“Dad’s also dead certain that he’s the only one who knows what’s best,” he added. “Sometimes, though, he misses the mark by a mile.”

Her gaze honed in on him. “You’re talking about Erik, aren’t you? You’re thinking about how your father talked him into staying in ranching. If Harlan had let him go, maybe he’d still be alive.”

And if Luke had been on that tractor, instead of his brother, Erik would be here right now, he thought. He’d known Erik couldn’t manage the thing on the rough terrain, but he’d sent him out there, anyway. He’d told him to grow up and do the job or get out of ranching if he couldn’t hack it. Guilt cut through him at the memory of that last bitter dispute.

He glanced at Jessie. The mention of Erik threw a barrier up between them as impenetrable as a brick wall. For once, Luke was glad when the next contraction came. And the next. And the one after that. So fast now, that there was no time to think, no time to do anything except help Jessie’s baby into the world.

“Push, darlin’,” Luke coaxed.

Jessie screamed. Luke cursed.

“Push, dammit!”

“You don’t like how I’m doing it, you take over,” she snapped right back at him.

Luke laughed. “That’s my Jessie. Sass me all you like, if it helps, but push! Come on, darlin’. I’m afraid this part here is entirely up to you. If I could do it for you, I would.”

“Luke?”

There was a plaintive, fearful note in her voice that brought his gaze up to meet hers. “What?”

“What if something goes wrong?”

“Nothing is going to go wrong,” he promised. “Everything’s moved along right on schedule so far, hasn’t it?”

“Luke, I’m having this baby in a ranch house. Doesn’t that suggest that the schedule has been busted to hell?”

“Your schedule maybe. Obviously the baby has a mind of its own. No wonder, given the way you take charge of your life. You’re strong and brave and your baby’s going to be just exactly like you,” he said reassuringly.

“I think I’ve changed my mind,” she said with a note of determination in her voice. “I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready to be a mother. I can’t cope with a baby on my own.”

Luke laughed. “Too late now. Looks to me like that horse is out of the barn.”

Moments later, a sense of awe spread through him at the first glimpse of the baby’s head, covered with dark, wet hair.

“My God, Jessie, I can see the baby. Just a little more work, darlin’, and you’ll have a fine, healthy baby in your arms. That’s it. Harder. Push harder.”

“I can’t,” she wailed.

“You can,” Luke insisted. “Here we go, darlin’.” He slid his hands under the baby’s tiny shoulders. “One more.” Jessie bore down like a trooper and the baby slipped into his hands.

“Luke,” Jessie whispered at once. “Is the baby okay? I don’t hear anything.”

The baby let out a healthy yowl. Luke beamed at both of them. “I think that’s your answer,” he said.

He surveyed the squalling baby he was holding. “Let’s see now. Ten tiny fingers. Ten itsy-bitsy toes. And the prettiest, sassiest blue eyes you ever did see. Just like her mama’s.”

“Her?” Jessie repeated. She struggled to prop herself up to get a look. “It’s a girl?”

“A beautiful little angel,” he affirmed as he cleaned the baby up, wrapped her in a huge blanket and laid her in Jessie’s arms.

Even though her eyes were shadowed by exhaustion, even though her voice was raspy from screaming, the sight of her daughter brought the kind of smile to Jessie’s face that Luke had doubted he would ever see again.

She looked up at him, her eyes filled with gratitude and warmth, and his heart flipped over. A world of forbidden possibilities taunted him.

“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” Jessie said, her gaze locked on the tiny bundle in her arms.

“Just about the most gorgeous baby I’ve ever seen,” he agreed, thinking how desperately he wished he could claim her as his own. His and Jessie’s. He forced the thought aside. “Do you have a name picked out?”

“I thought I did,” she said. “But I’ve changed my mind.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“Because she rushed things and decided to come at Christmas,” she explained. “I’m going to call her Angela. That way I’ll always remember that she was my Christmas miracle.” She turned a misty-eyed gaze on Luke. “Thank you, Lucas.”

If he lived a hundred years, Luke knew he would trade everything for this one moment out of time.

Later the guilt and recriminations would come back with a vengeance. Jessie would remember who he was and what he had done to ruin her life. The blame, no matter how hard she denied it, would be there between them.

But right now, for this one brief, shining moment, they were united, a part of something incredibly special that he could hold in his heart all the rest of his lonely days. They had shared a miracle.

Chapter Three

J
essie felt as if she’d run a couple of marathons back-to-back, but not even that bone-weary exhaustion could take away the incredible sense of joy that spread through her at the sight of her daughter sleeping so peacefully in her arms. Her seemingly healthy baby girl. Her little angel with the lousy sense of timing.

For perhaps the dozenth time since dawn had stolen into the room, bathing it in a soft light, she examined fingers and toes with a sense of amazement that anyone so small could be so perfect. Her gaze honed in on that tiny bow of a mouth, already forming the instinctive, faint smacking sounds of hunger even as she slept. Any minute now she would wake up and demand to be fed.

“Luke, she’s hungry,” Jessie announced with a mixture of awe and pride that quickly turned to worry. Not once during all the hours of labor or since had she given a single thought to what happened next. “What’ll we do?”

Given their past history, it was amazing how quickly she’d come to rely on Luke, how easily she’d pushed aside all of her anger and grief just to make it through this crisis. And, despite his less than alert state on her arrival, despite all the reasons he had for never wanting to see her again, he hadn’t let her down yet.

Of course, judging from the way he was sprawled in the easy chair in a corner of the bedroom with his eyes closed, the last bit of adrenaline that had gotten him through the delivery had finally worn off.

Faint, gray light filtered through the frosted window and cast him in shadows. She studied him surreptitiously and saw the toll the past months—or some mighty hard drinking—had taken on him.