by Lisa Jackson
“Can’t get through,” the deputy said, and Hale nodded.
This was on him and Savannah. He looked back at her, struck by how capable she was. It got him in the gut. Tightening his own resolve, he skated the few steps past her toward the TrailBlazer, thinking about the carpet and the blanket and the toolbox with its box cutter if he needed to cut the umbilical cord himself.
Deception Bay was a white world illuminated by windows of light. Through the windshield Ravinia saw there was a gathering place still open—the Drift In Market.
The man slowed the car and remarked, “They musta stayed open to help people in the storm.”
Thank God.
“Thank you,” Ravinia said to the couple, then practically bolted from the car when it slid to a stop. Quickly, she half walked, half ran over the powder, snow crunching beneath her boots as she reached the steps of the market. She had been here before a few times and knew the owners normally closed at ten. She didn’t care why they were still open this night. She was just glad she might be able to get help.
Stepping inside, she noticed a small crowd hanging out not far from the cash register. Several tables with red-checkered cloths were situated off to one side, near a deli counter. A number of people were seated at them, drinking coffee or tea, and the smells of cinnamon and other spices wafted through the warm interior. Ravinia’s mouth watered as she wound her way through the tables to the counter, dripping a trail of wet snow and water like most of the others before her, if the wetness of the wood floor was any indication. There was a woman at the cash register, and Ravinia recognized her and thought she was one of the store’s owners.
“I need a phone. It’s an emergency.”
“Ravinia?” a voice called from behind her.
She whipped around and was blindsided to see Earl’s familiar, slightly stooped form. “Earl! What are you doing here?” She was so relieved to see someone she knew, she could have cried.
“Came to get groceries for you all, but there was some need for my truck. People stuck.”
A young man with jet-black hair that fell over his forehead and a suspicious look in his blue eyes sidled up next to him and studied Ravinia. She ignored him, had no time for strangers.
“I . . . we need help,” she said tautly. “It’s Aunt Catherine. She’s unconscious. Something happened after she was talking to you. I found her in the snow outside, and we took her into the lodge, but she was out cold. I need to call nine-one-one.”
“Catherine?” Earl blinked. “She’s okay, though?”
“I don’t know!”
“You don’t have a phone?” the suspicious man with Earl asked in disbelief.
“We use public phones,” Ravinia snapped back. It was Catherine who gathered phone numbers and made calls whenever she went into town. The rest of them didn’t have any reason to use a phone, according to Catherine, and now the worst had happened.
The man pulled a cell phone from his pocket, handed it to Earl, and said, “Hit the green phone button and then nine-one-one.”
Earl didn’t hesitate. He did as he was instructed and began talking to the 9-1-1 operator. The task out of her hands, Ravinia felt her legs tremble, and she grabbed one of the chairs and sat down hard at a table with a middle-aged couple who were bundled in ski jackets and holding gloved hands.
“Our car broke down,” the man said to her, though she hadn’t asked. “Earl, there . . .” He nodded toward the groundskeeper. “He helped us.”
Ravinia nodded. Earl helped everybody. That was apparently what he did, though she knew little about him as a person. She’d rarely spoken to him herself. He and Catherine were thick as thieves, and it generally kind of pissed Ravinia off, though she couldn’t say why.
“What’s your story?” the man at the table asked her.
Ravinia hesitated from years of training and secrecy, then realized all the solitude and rules of Siren Song were about to change and she didn’t need them anymore, anyway. “My aunt is unconscious and was lying in the snow for a long time. I came for help.”
The woman placed a hand to her chest, empathizing. “Oh, no. Is she all right?”
Ravinia was saved from engaging in further explanations by Earl’s approach. “They already sent someone,” he said gruffly. His gray hair, once black, was shaved beneath the hat on his head, and he frowned, looking around the room.
“What? What do you mean?” Ravinia demanded. “To the lodge?”
“Someone called in before I did.”
“Who? How? To nine-one-one?” Ravinia asked in disbelief.
Earl turned away, handed the younger man back the phone, and said, “The truck’s all loaded. We should go.”
“Go?” Ravinia was on her feet, hands balled at her sides. “Where?”
“Back to the lodge,” he told her. “Climb in beside Rand, if you’re coming.”
Ravinia followed them outside and toward the truck. The truck’s bed was covered by a bright blue tarp, which was now almost obliterated by snow. “What the hell?” she demanded as Earl got behind the wheel and Rand yanked open the passenger-side door, which screeched in protest.
“We’re going to see that Catherine’s okay. You can come or not.” Earl clearly didn’t care what she did. She turned from him to the younger man, who was holding the door open for her. Too relieved that help had come for her aunt to object, she simply climbed into the cab and Rand squeezed in beside her.
For a moment she narrowed her eyes at Rand as they sat there nose to nose, and then he said, “Ravinia. You should have black hair with that name.”
“Yeah, well, we’re all blond. Mine’s the darkest.”
Earl pulled onto the highway, his chains ching-ching-chinging as the truck lumbered down the road.
“You’re the one that escapes all the time,” the younger man said.
“Rand,” Earl admonished as he fiddled with the truck’s heater and stared through the windshield to where the wipers were fighting with the ever-falling snow.
“Who the hell are you?” Ravinia demanded.
“I’m Earl’s son. We’re related, you and I. Somebody in the past that—”
“Rand,” Earl barked with more heat, and the younger man desisted.
But Ravinia was having none of it. Her mother’s journal—the treasure she’d stolen from Catherine’s room—felt hard against the small of her back. “Somebody in the past that what?”
“One of your kind that fooled around with mine.” Rand stared past her at Earl. A challenge.
She’d heard the tales, of course, but now maybe this man had some real information. “Who?” Ravinia asked as Earl turned onto the main highway. The old truck shuddered, its wheels catching.
“Your mom,” Rand said, with a “Duh, stupid” hiding in his words.
Earl growled low in his throat, whether from frustration or anger, she couldn’t tell. But Ravinia was through asking Rand questions, anyway. She found she didn’t like talking to someone who obviously knew so much more about her ancestry than she did.
But Rand’s comments made her all the more determined to learn some home truths about her family.
“You okay there?” Hale asked Savannah, staring down at her in the backseat.
“Just drive,” she gritted. Despite the cold, her hair was damp, her face warm. “Fast as you dare.” The contractions were coming more rapidly and hard—so hard she could barely breathe.
He nodded, then climbed behind the wheel. She waited impatiently for him to get the engine going and hit the accelerator. She wanted to go.
But the deputy was standing outside the TrailBlazer, and Savannah chafed at the delay. “The ambulance should get here soon,” he said as Hale cracked his window.
“No time!” Savannah yelled again. “Let’s go!”
“Drive ahead of us, and make sure we can get through,” Hale ordered him. The sheriff’s man was so damn dense, Savvy wanted to scream.
“I don’t know. The roads are worse and—”
&nb
sp; “If you won’t do it, get out of the way!” she yelled, just managing not to scream at him.
He stepped back, unsure. But when Hale switched on the engine, he turned and raced, sliding mostly, as fast as he dared back to his Jeep. Once in his vehicle, he hit the lights, eased the Jeep around, and started west. Hale touched his accelerator, and they began to move, following after him.
Pain ripped through Savannah, and she bit down hard so as not to groan. She was in trouble. “Wait . . . wait.... We have to stop!” Then another, deeper spasm dug into her, and she let out a low cry.
“Savannah?” Hale glanced over his shoulder, his face white with concern, then stared forward again, his jaw taut. Braking slowly, he threw the SUV in park and slip-slid out the door, opening the backseat driver’s door and looking in on her. Outside, the deputy’s car had gone around a corner, its red taillights winking out.
The contraction was harder. Took her breath away. She lay her cheek on the window and felt the weight in the small of her back and her limbs, like something shifting, a gravitational pull that made her lower half feel twice as heavy.
“We’re not going to make it to the hospital.”
Hale’s breath was near her, warming her ear. “Okay.”
And then another gush of something warm down her leg. Blood. Fluid. Delivery time.
“Help me get my pants off,” she said as she lay down.
Earl’s truck tried to stall out on the hill up to Siren Song, and Ravinia had tensed, ready to jump out. But the old pickup’s wheels caught and inched forward again, and Ravinia clenched her teeth and waited. The drive seemed to take forever. Finally, they reached the lane to the lodge, and through the darkness and snow she caught sight of the ambulance’s white and red lights. As they pulled to a stop behind the emergency vehicle, she heard the bang, bang as the EMTs slammed the rear doors shut. Two figures walked toward their respective doors.
“Back up, Earl,” she urged. “Quick. They’re taking her to the hospital.”
Earl said, “We need to tell Isadora.”
“We need to go!”
But Earl wasn’t about to be bullied. He moved his truck to one side and then climbed out, heading toward the gates of Siren Song. Ravinia scrambled out after him, as did Rand, and they all ended up hurrying through the gate into the lodge grounds, a place where men, apart from Earl, were rarely allowed. Five minutes, Ravinia told herself. Then she was going to get Earl to follow after the ambulance, or she was going to try to drive his damn truck herself.
Savannah bore down with all her strength. Pinpoints of light exploded behind her eyelids from the effort. She was drenched in sweat. She’d wrestled out of her jacket, but her shirt and bra were almost too much. Hale hovered somewhere in her nether regions, blocking the weather with his body as he stood in the open back door. Her entire body seemed intent on turning itself inside out. She couldn’t believe this was happening to her. Could. Not. Believe. It.
Still . . . she was excited. She was having a baby. A baby. And her body was doing everything it should, even though conditions weren’t ideal. Very much less than ideal, actually. It was just . . .
Another contraction started, like a grip of huge, monster hands squeezing and forcing her insides down, down, down. She was holding her breath and forced herself to breathe, to pant.
Hale said in a tight voice, “I see the head.”
“Is he okay? It’s all right?”
“Yeah.”
She barked out a laugh and stared at the ceiling of the vehicle. “I’m going to push,” she said, feeling the desire come like a hard wave. “I’m gonna push. I’m gonna push. I’m pushing! Aaaahhhhhh.”
“Okay, okay, okay.”
“Okay?” she gasped.
“Yes, okay.”
“Hale, can you do this?”
“He’s coming. Yes.”
“Okay . . . okay . . .”
A moment later. Tersely. “Push again.”
Savvy wanted to argue. What the hell did he know? But she wanted to push. It was coming on her again.
And then she was pushing and there was sharp pain and yet she couldn’t stop and he was saying, “Wait, wait, wait!” but she couldn’t, and she yelled, “No, no! I can’t!”
“It’s okay. It’s all okay. He’s here. He’s here!”
“Have you got him? You’ve got him?”
“I’ve got him. He’s . . . It’s okay. . . . It’s all just fine. . . .”
And then the wail. The beautiful spiraling wail of the newborn in the cold night, and Savvy laid her head back while tears ran down her temples toward her ears.
CHAPTER 19
Hale came upon the deputy’s vehicle stalled out in a pile of snow about a mile and a half ahead of them. He slowed his already slowly moving SUV down to a crawl, seeing the man had tried to turn the Jeep around when he’d realized Hale and Savannah weren’t directly behind him. But now Hale wasn’t going to stop if he didn’t have to, unsure he would get moving again. He rolled his window down, ready to yell that message to the deputy, but as soon as the window was down, he heard in the stillness of the night a grinding engine coming toward them from the west.
“Snowplow,” the deputy yelled.
Relieved, Hale gave the man a thumbs-up of understanding. All he had to do was reach the plow and the roads behind it should be clear of drifts. Glancing in the rearview, he saw Savannah sitting with a seat belt strapped across her, swaddled beneath her coat and his; she was wearing her own, and his was the blanket covering her legs. Her eyes were closed, and his son, held to her chest, was invisible from this angle. Was it the safest means of travel? Not by a long shot. Did he see any way around it? No.
He drove with extreme caution, however. Steady and slow. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
My God, he thought. My God . . . my God.
Kristina crossed his thoughts, as she had off and on all night. The baby was her son, too.
The baby . . .
His last conversation with Kristina over the baby’s name hadn’t gone well. “What do you think about Declan?” Hale had suggested, half in jest, half seriously. He wasn’t really sure what Kristina’s feelings were about his grandfather and thought she might object.
Her reply had offered more questions than answers. “Names are just a way to hide your real identity, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“What the hell does that mean?” he’d demanded, but she’d simply shrugged and said, “Declan it is.”
They’d never had another conversation on the subject.
“Declan it is,” he said aloud now, his attention zeroed in on the road ahead of him.
The snowplow came chugging uphill, shooting snow in either direction from its front blade. An ambulance was caught behind it, its lights flashing. Hale tried to flag it down, but the ambulance driver rolled down his window and yelled at him, “Accident just over the summit. Several cars. Trying to get there. There’s a pregnant woman on the—”
“She’s with me. I’m the one who called.”
He stopped himself and asked, “She okay?”
“Yes. I’m taking her to the hospital,” Hale yelled back.
The man lifted a hand as they drove past them. Too many other emergencies still out there to help those who could help themselves. Hale eased onto the packed snow the plow had left in its wake, even though now he was essentially driving on the wrong side of the road. But his window was cracked, and he could hear if there was an approaching engine. If he needed to shift over to the deep snow of the westbound lane, so be it. He would have time.
Listening carefully, all he heard were the sounds of his own vehicle and the rapid beating of his heart inside his ears. He stayed close to the centerline, which was buried beneath the snowpack, ready to drive into the deeper snow at the sound of an approaching engine.
“How’re we doing?” Savannah asked.
“I’m taking you and Declan straight to the hospital.”
“Declan?”
“
Yeah.”
“Kristina’s hospital?” She said it quietly, but he knew it was a request.
Ocean Park might be a little farther than Seaside Hospital from where they were, but not by much. “Yeah,” he agreed, and they drove in silence for several more miles. His thoughts random, he said into the quiet, “We need a car seat.”
She made a hiccuping sound that could have been a laugh. “We need a lot of things.”
“You okay?” he asked, suddenly worried she meant something specific.
“I’m fine.” A pause. “We’re both okay.”
Their eyes met briefly in the rearview mirror. “You warm enough?” he asked.
“More than enough.”
“It won’t be long.”
Savvy nodded and closed her eyes again. Hale returned his concentration solely to the road ahead, pushing aside all the clamoring thoughts of his son’s birth, his critically injured wife, and the fact that he was a new father driving along a road made helllishly treacherous by snow and ice.
As soon as she entered Ocean Park Hospital, Ravinia wrinkled her nose at the smell of some tangy disinfectant with a sweeter scent beneath it that she couldn’t quite identify but thought could be something gross. She’d never been inside a hospital before, and she didn’t like it much. And tonight it was full of people who’d been cold and stranded and injured. The staff seemed a bit overwhelmed. The emergency room was filled not only with people waiting to be attended to, but also with others, like herself, who were just waiting. A wet puddle of melting snow near the doors grew larger every time someone tromped in from outside.
She sucked at her lower lip, half wishing Earl and Rand would just evaporate and leave her to her own devices, half wishing she could lean on one or the other or both of them for support. She paced around the room like a caged lion, irritated that Earl and Rand had seated themselves and seemed to be ready for the long haul. She asked about Catherine and was assured by the staff that someone would be out to give her a report very soon. She was starting to believe they were all a bunch of liars, and she’d come to the conclusion that nurses were trained to be impatient, rude, and dismissive.