OUT OF THE DARKNESS (THE PRESCOTT SERIES) (6 page)

Green, Jason could not remember
every seeing green eyes before, if he had, he would have remembered. He definitely had not seen green eyes and red hair together. An intriguing combination.

Margaret brushed her fingers across the sleeping girl’s forehead.
“What if she needs a doctor? There’s not one around here for miles,” she said in a worried voice.

“She didn’t seem to have any broken bones or bruises that
would suggest internal injuries,” Jason countered, as he surveyed what little of her that wasn’t covered.

“Jason, she’s pregnant. I’d say m
ore than five or six months along.”

Jason
jerked his head up with a snap. He looked at the girl’s body again. He couldn’t see a thing under all the covers Margaret had wedged around her.

H
ow had she gotten that way? No. He knew how. But by whom? If she’d been living with Indians, more than likely she would have conceived during that time. He hoped what she’d suffered wouldn’t leave her scarred emotionally. If she were nearly six months along, the baby would be due in the dead of winter. Another problem for him in the long list he already had. So much for his idea. Again, it still might be a solution, if the girl agreed. Her pregnancy might be an added incentive to his plan. His ace in the hole, in a manner of speaking.

“Let’s wait and see
what happens. We have her clean now. Why don’t you try to give her some water or some of Cookie’s rabbit stew?” Jason suggested. He couldn’t give up his plan to have his daughter near. “I’ll get it and help you.”

While Margaret spooned liquid from the rabbit stew down the girl’s throat, Jason sat behind her to help keep her in a sitting position
, so she wouldn’t choke. She swallowed what she could, the rest dripped down her chin. The broth slid down her slim throat coming to rest in the hollow of her throat.

Jason stared at the delicate lines of her slim neck, longing to let his tongue follow the trail of warm liquid. Sliding his lips across the pale, s
oft skin of her throat to sip from the hollow where it pooled. He glanced up quickly to see if Margaret could tell where his thoughts had strayed. She appeared not to notice as she cleaned the girl’s neck with a damp cloth. Clearing away the remnants of Jason’s sensual vision.

The a
che in Jason’s groin had grown uncomfortable. He suddenly realized he hadn’t been with a woman since his wife died. Had he been living from day to day for so long until he hadn’t noticed the passage of time? The ranch kept him busy, and his trips to town to see Emma took time, but surely, there had been a woman in there somewhere. He grimaced, if there was, he couldn’t remember one.

He shifted again
to ease the tight fit in the front of his trousers. Nothing seemed to help. Margaret finished feeding her patient and laid the spoon and bowl aside. Rising to her feet, she waited for him to lay the girl down. Now what was he going to do? He couldn’t stand up in front of his sister in the shape he was in. Better wait. Margaret eyed him curiously, as if she couldn’t understand his reluctance to lay the girl down and rise from the bed.

Moments ticked by
, and the silence had become awkward when a child’s scream distracted her. She slipped from the room. Saved. Now he could lay the girl down without embarrassing himself. By the time, he joined the rest of the family in the kitchen Margaret had the situation under control. Jason thought the same of himself.

D
ays slipped by as he prepared the ranch for winter. Margaret tended to the house, children, and ‘the girl’. Each day she gained strength and stayed awake longer. She never spoke, and after the trauma she’d apparently suffered, he didn’t press her. Green eyes would stare at him for a moment when he entered the room and then close. Sometimes she went back to sleep and other times he knew she feigned sleep. Margaret told him not to worry. Her body, which had been so long without sleep and proper nourishment, needed rest.

Anxious to set his plan into action, he checked on her ofte
n, hoping to get the answers he needed. Where had she come from? Was she free from any commitments? What was her name? He was tired of referring to her as ‘the girl”, especially, when he had begun to think of her as Jade, the color of her beautiful green eyes.

He shut the door behind him
, and the smell of fried meat and potatoes caused his stomach to growl. “Supper ‘bout ready?”

“Yes.
Seat the children, I have their plates filled and on the table. Are you very hungry?” Margaret asked as she piled his plate high with food.

“A herd of run-a-way buffalo wouldn’t stand a chance against my appetite tonight.” He winked at Tyler.

“Yer funny, Uncle Jason.” Tyler giggled and scooted into his chair.

Margaret cleaned the kitchen while the children played in the floor.
Seated in the rocker with Emma tucked into his arms, he gently rocked until her eyes closed in sleep. When assured she wouldn’t awaken, he laid her in her bed.

Tyler and Janey protested when Margaret ushered them to bed. “Get moving you two, your uncle
needs to get his rest, he has a hard day ahead of him tomorrow.”

“Night, Sis.”

“Night.” The click of the door echoed in the now silent room.

A
whimper and soft cry woke him. When the sobs continued, he realized it wasn’t one of the children or Margaret would have tended to them by now. He rose from his lonely bed and entered the girl’s room. She lay huddled under the covers, her head thrashing from side to side. Her small hands gripped the blanket until her knuckles had turned white. He sat by her side, uncurled her fingers, held her hand, and began to talk. The sound of his voice appeared to calm her so he talked about anything and everything. He told her about Sue Ellen and Emma. He poured out the hurt he felt over Emma having to live with Margaret. She couldn’t hear him, but it felt good to have someone to tell his troubles to.

The man’s voice drifted into the black void where nothing hurt, to soothe the ache in her heart like balm on an open wound. His voice, filled with pain and sadness touched her. Jade clawed her way to consciousness to offer comfort from the grief she sensed he suffered, but deep inside she knew she’d be alone.

Her eyelids flickered opened.
In the dim light, she saw a man sitting next to her on the bed. Not alone! Her heart lurched, fear escalated. The fragile hold she had on her sanity unraveled like the threads of a loose knitted scarf. She cringed in fear then relaxed as she shook off the remnants of sleep and became more aware of her surroundings.

He
nestled her hand in his and rubbed the back in a gentle soothing motion, telling her about a child he loved and the wife he missed. He spoke of the ranch that was his dream, of the people who made up his daily life.

T
he voice flowed over her wounded spirit. The fluid motion of his warm hand on hers lulled her back to sleep, to rest quietly in the soft gray of tranquility, not the unrelenting-darkness of despair.

Noise
broke into Jade’s quiet world with a vengeance. This was not the soothing sounds from last night. Pans rattled, children giggled, and the smell of food made her realize how long she’d been without a solid meal. Nuts, berries and the dried buffalo in Three Feather’s pouch had sustained her, but now her stomach was putting up a fuss for the delightful aroma emitting from the other room.

She lifted
a hand to her pounding head, her fingers brushed against her hair. She brought a lock forward and stared at the red tresses, not the dark hue it had been in the village. The Indians forced her to wear animal fat in it to cover the luster of her own natural color. Now, her hair felt silky as she ran her hand through the mass of curls. Lifting a strand to her cheek, she sniffed. It smelled clean. A smile tickled the corners of her lips. No doubt, the voice that said she smelled bad had washed her hair and bathed her.

She
peeked under the blankets. Naked. No buckskins. Just buck-naked. Embarrassed by her state of undress, Jade pulled the covers up and tucked them under her chin. She couldn’t remember a time when she had ever been completely unclothed, except for bathing.

Her gaze slid around the room seeking some clue as to where she was.
Who had found her on the side of the wagon trail that she’d given up hope of finding? Vague images of a family, a husband, a wife, and children filtered across her memory. By the sounds of rustling of pots and pans, the wife must be cooking. The partially closed door helped muffle the shrieks of children’s laughter. Was the husband the soothing voice she heard during the night, or was there another man?

Little
fingers curled around the edge of the door, and a small head peered into the room. The little, dark haired, boy’s eyes grew round as he looked at her. He jumped back, giving the door a resounding slam, hollering loud enough for Jade’s head to start pounding anew.

“
She’s awake. She’s awake,” he yelled at the top of his voice.

Jade grimaced as the noise vibrated in her head, reducing coherent thought into tiny scattered images.

The door opened. A woman stood there wiping her hands on the apron tied around her waist. The little boy shyly peered around her right leg, and a small girl peeked around the other. Over the woman’s shoulder, about a head taller than she was, stood a man holding another child. The group moved in unison as they converged into the room. None became misplaced within the small circle as they shuffled toward the bed.

Distorted images swirled around the family as
her mind superimposed other blurred features on each face. Images of her past? A past she couldn’t remember before she had lived with the Indians. Her headache worsened.

T
he woman must have realized they must look like a batch of newly hatched chicks huddled together for protection against a hawk circling overhead. She stepped from the small cluster. A grin tipped the corners of her mouth upward.

“Goodness, you must be starved. I’ll bring you some breakfast.
” She shooed everyone from the room, talking as she gave the small boy an extra nudge to get moving.

The man backed out the door
. His blue gaze held her captive. It was like looking into the azure blue of a bright summer sky.

Only muffled noises wormed past the
completely closed door. Why couldn’t they be this quiet when she had been asleep? She was accustomed to the hushed noises of the village in the early mornings. In fact, the People never made an abundance of sound. They were always afraid of discovery.

The woman came bustling in carrying a tray loaded with buttered bread, eggs,
bacon, and coffee. She set the tray on a chair next to the bed.

“I know
you won’t be able to eat much, but eat what you can. You will gain your strength much faster if you do. Oh, by the way, my name is Margaret. What’s yours?”

Jade
scooted up in bed and reached for a piece of butted bread but stopped with it half way to her mouth. Name, she couldn’t tell these people her name. She sat there with her mouth wide open, then stuffed a large bite of the bread in and closed it. Maybe with her mouth full, the woman wouldn’t think it strange that she didn’t answer her question.

Margaret, arms crossed over her bosom, waited
for Jade to provide her name. Ignoring the woman, she continued to eat. When she remained silent, Margaret gave her a sympathetic smile and left the room saying she would return for the tray. Jade let out her breath in a long sigh.

Her gaze darted around the room.
What was she going to do? When these people discovered she would remain a stranger without a name and unable to communicate, they would ask her to leave. Where would she go if she couldn’t stay here with this woman and her family? The future didn’t look bright for her or her child. She placed her hand on the roundness of her stomach and slid down under the covers. Somehow, she would survive.

Hip leaned against the sink and a cup of hot coffee in his hand, Jason waited for Margaret to come from the ‘girl’s’ bedroom. He blew into the cup trying to present a casualness he couldn’t quite achieve.

Finally.
The door opened, and he straightened.

“Did you fin
d out anything about her?”

Margaret wore a slight frown when
she returned to the kitchen and placed the soiled dishes in a pan of water.

“W
ell, who she is? Where is she from? What was she doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“No. I don’t know. She didn’t say. And I have no idea.” Margaret answered each of Jason’s rapidly fired questions. “It’s too soon
to start asking questions. Let’s give the poor girl enough time to make sense of everything before we start plaguing her with questions and demanding answers.”

“Well, we can’t keep calling her ‘the girl’,” Jason complained. For some reason it irritated him to hear her called ‘girl’, yet, in some ways he didn’t want to know her name either. He liked to think of her resp
onding to the special name he’d given her in the wee small hours of the night when he’d held her hand and talked to her.