by Aimée Thurlo
“Can you run a fast check for me to see if he owns or is leasing any other property in this area?”
“I’ll go back to my office, log into the main computer’s data base, and let you know. I’ll have an officer check his house, too, though I doubt he’d be stupid enough to keep her there.”
As soon as Mora left, Jake went to the door. “There’s another way of getting that information. Let’s start by asking the wranglers. This pueblo has few secrets.”
Working as a team, they spoke to the ranch hands. Finally Rick came through with the information they needed.
“He’s got a cabin up in the Santa Fe forest,” Rick told Jake. “My wife’s family leased it to him in trade for a car.” Rick gave him a hand-drawn map indicating the location of the cabin. “If you get caught in the storm that’s coming, though, you’ll have trouble getting in and out of there. Those roads, if you can call them that, are tough to navigate if there’s more than a light dusting of snow on the ground.”
Jake grabbed his jacket and Annie’s, and had started toward the door when Nick called him back. “You’ll need to wear my down coat. I’ll take your leather jacket.”
“You’re right,” Jake said quickly. “Remember to stay high profile. Let Lowman think we’re doing exactly what he wants.”
“Let me go with you,” Martin said to Jake. “I can use my right hand now a little and my eyes are perfect.”
“No. I expect Lowman will start watching the ranch house and following what’s happening here. It’s important that things look as normal as possible. While I’m gone, call Mora and apprise him of the situation. See if he can send me some backup. Then search as best as you can for the photo Lowman wants. Who knows, you might get lucky.”
Rick pulled a cell phone from out of his jacket. “Here. I got this when my wife started driving to Santa Fe every day to work. Take it with you now. It may come in handy.”
Martin managed to bring him extra blankets. “Just in case,” he said. “And there’s a rifle in the gun rack inside my truck.” Martin handed him the keys with his good hand. “Take it. My truck’s old, but big and reliable, and it has snow tires. I can’t drive it one-handed, anyway. Nick will have to use your truck if the masquerade is going to work.”
Jake set out moments later. The weather was turning decidedly foul, with the temperature falling by the minute as the gray cloud layer continued to descend over the valley. After traveling for forty minutes, the predicted snowstorm hit with a vengeance. It would be a white Christmas. Hopefully Annie was inside, safe from the cold.
He entered the Santa Fe National Forest with snowflakes rushing at the windshield in their hypnotic spiral. By the time he made it to the old forest road, the snow was coming down hard, and he could barely make out the path. He tried calling home to check to see if Mora would be sending him backup, but the phones had gone down. He was on his own.
Cursing the storm, Jake continued along the narrow forest track for what seemed an eternity. Daylight soon turned to night, then, just as he was ready to turn back and assume he’d taken the wrong turn, he noticed an isolated cabin ahead. It looked deserted except for a tiny plume of smoke coming from the chimney. Jake parked the truck behind a mass of scrub oak, then approached on foot. Moving silently, he drew closer and peered through the bars that protected the windows.
In the dim glow within he saw Annie, alone, lying on her side on the floor beside the fireplace. The fire had almost gone out.
Fear slammed into him. “Annie!” He shouted her name.
She stirred. “Jake?” Her voice was weak.
“I’m going to get you out of there. Hang tight.”
“I’m in labor,” she managed. “I need to get to the clinic. I was so afraid you wouldn’t find me,” she added softly.
Her words wrenched his heart. “I’m here now, and I’ll be inside in a moment.”
The padlock was sturdy and refused his best efforts to pry it open. Trying to break down the door proved futile, as well, no matter how hard he kicked.
He looked around for tools, then remembered Martin kept a tool box behind the seat in the truck. Running back quickly, he found and took a large screwdriver and hammer, along with Annie’s coat. He ran back to the cabin and hit the lock with everything he had. It snapped open and he burst in the door just as Annie screamed in pain.
She was deathly pale and drenched in sweat, though the cabin was barely above freezing. He knelt beside her and brushed her hair back. “Hang on, sweetheart. One way or another, I’ll get you to the clinic.”
Wrapping the coat around her like a blanket, Jake pulled the cell phone out of his pocket. “I’ll see if I can get Elsie, and let her know we’re on our way.”
He dialed the number and, mercifully, got through. Elsie answered, though her voice was faint. “Elsie, talk to me. I’m bringing in Annie, but it’ll take at least a half hour on these roads. Is there time?”
“How often are the contractions coming?”
Jake looked down at Annie, who had stopped shivering, and was sitting upright. But she looked so frightened. “How often have the contractions been coming? Do you have any idea?”
“Every two minutes, or so, I think. I haven’t timed them.”
Jake told Elsie, then got another question for Annie. “Elsie wants to know if your water has broken?”
“There hasn’t been any big gush... All I had was a little trickle early this morning.” Annie managed to get the words out between breaths.
“Listen carefully, Jake. The phone keeps going out so I’ll make it fast,” Elsie said after hearing Annie’s reply. “We’re going to have to come to you. The baby’s due anytime. Give me your exact location.”
“Oh, God!” Annie screamed as an unbearable pain pushed through her. “It’s happening now. I can’t...”
“Elsie, you better start talking—fast,” Jake said, crouching by Annie. He quickly gave her the location of the cabin, then the line was silent.
“Elsie, are you still there?” Jake’s voice rose slightly. The phone went dead. Jake tried the number again twice and got through the second time.
There was a long moment of silence, then Elsie’s transmission came through again, faintly.
“I lost you, Jake. It’s that way all over the pueblo. No one can get hold of anyone else so let me talk fast before the call breaks up completely. Annie’s probably been in labor since her water broke. It doesn’t have to be a big gush, but she didn’t realize that. I’ll get the EMTs if I have to walk over and notify them personally. They should be able to reach the cabin within a half hour.”
“What do I do now?”
“Stay calm, and try to keep Annie calm. Remind her to breathe through the contractions, she knows how. Things will get really intense as she completes the dilation stage, then she’ll start to push the baby out. That’s when you’ll have to—” The line went dead.
“Elsie? Elsie? Are you there?” Hitting the redial button, he looked down at Annie, who was going through another contraction, trying not to cry out in pain.
“Hang on, Annie, help is on the way. I’ll run out to the truck and get some blankets to make you comfortable.” Jake stood and hesitated, reluctant to be separated from the woman he loved for even a minute.
“Go now, while you can,” she breathed. “But please come back right away. I need you, Jake.”
“I’ll always be here for you, Annie,” Jake said, reaching down to touch her cheek. “And for your baby.”
He ran out of the cabin, and returned with the blankets a few seconds later. He quickly prepared a warm spot for her on the floor, then tossed the remains of a chair into the smoldering fire, along with a newspaper he’d found in the truck. He had to bring the temperature up in the cabin, or they’d all freeze.
“We’ll do this together, Annie. I’ll be your coach.” He took her hand.
Annie screamed, squeezing his hand tightly. The contraction seemed to last forever, but was immediately followed by another.
Jake sat behind her, supporting Annie as she struggled to breathe through the pain.
“I need to push, Jake. It’s time.”
Jake placed his coat behind her, then moved around in front of her. Annie groaned as if she were being torn asunder, then, a few seconds later, Jake saw the baby’s head. “The baby’s almost here.” Suddenly he saw that the cord had wrapped around the baby’s neck. “Stop! Don’t push, Annie. I have to move the cord.”
Annie cried out, crazed with fear and pain.
With a gentleness he didn’t even know he was capable of, he shifted the cord away from the baby’s neck. “All right. Now, Annie, push!”
A few minutes later Jake held the tiny child in his hands. “Annie, we’ve got a girl. A beautiful, breathing, dark-eyed baby girl,” he whispered, covering the infant immediately with a blanket, careful not to damage the umbilical cord.
Jake tried Elsie’s number again and, this time, managed to get through, though the transmission was filled with static. Cradling the phone between his ear and shoulder, he gave Elsie the news.
“Jake, the EMTs are on the way. Don’t worry about the umbilical cord. They’ll take care of that. Just make sure the baby has a blanket over her, and give her to Annie,” Elsie said. “Don’t worry about anything now—just let nature take its course.”
Jake handed the baby to Annie as the sun began streaming through the window. “Merry Christmas, my loves,” he whispered.
A he looked at Annie and the baby, he knew that his heart and soul were theirs. Nothing would ever be more precious to him than Annie and the child he’d help bring into this world. Lowman was still free, but no matter what it took, he would find him and make sure nothing ever threatened Annie and her daughter again.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jake held Annie’s hand as the EMTs loaded her and the infant onto a stretcher. They’d already cut the cord and wrapped mother and baby in fresh blankets.
“The diary—your mother’s diary,” Annie said breathlessly, pointing toward the table.
“It doesn’t matter now. What’s important is that you two are okay.”
“Please,” Annie insisted. “Don’t leave it behind. Finding it may be the only good thing that came from my being kept here. Your mother’s courage kept me from giving up hope.”
Jake walked over and picked up the diary, then joined the EMTs by the ambulance.
“I won’t spend Christmas Day in the hospital,” Annie told Jake as he sat beside her and the baby in the emergency vehicle. One of the EMTs, a friend of Jake’s, had agreed to drive back in Martin’s truck so Jake could be with them.
“Elsie will meet us at the house,” Annie assured him. “This was arranged months ago.”
“Then let’s take the baby home,” Jake said, touching the baby’s face lightly. “Have you thought of a name for her?”
“I can’t call her Jake. How about Jacqueline Noelle?”
“Perfect.”
By the time the emergency vehicle delivered its precious cargo to the ranch, Elsie was waiting. Signing the release, she took charge.
At Jake’s insistence, Annie and the baby were taken to his room. In the master bedroom, both mother and child settled down comfortably after Elsie and Doc had checked them out and pronounced them healthy.
At long last, Elsie stepped out into the hall and called Jake. “The ladies want you,” she said with a smile, then retreated to give them privacy.
Jake sat on the edge of the bed, watching Annie nurse Jacquie. There was so much he wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come.
“I’ll never forget today. You were just wonderful,” she whispered. “We both needed you, and you were there for us. You risked your life to come and find us.”
Jake knew he had to open his heart to her now. The time was so right. “Annie, I would have risked anything and everything for you. I love you and the baby. You’ve changed my whole life. I want us to get married and I want to adopt Jacqueline. I want to be her father in all the ways that matter, and raise her here at the ranch. This is our home now and I want us to be real family, Annie.”
Holding the baby to her with one hand, she reached out for him. “That’s what I want, too, Jake. I’ve never been happier or more in love.”
Jake leaned over and took Annie’s mouth in a searing kiss. “You and Jacquie are the center of my world. But I’ve got to go now so I can make sure you’ll both remain safe.”
“Lowman?” she whispered.
“He’s still at large, but I intend to change that. Don’t worry. He’ll never threaten you again.”
A knock at the door interrupted them. Nick entered the room. “Congratulations,” he said, looking down at the baby who was now sleeping. “I hate to take you away now, Jake, but the call telling me where to make the drop should be coming in as soon as the phone lines are back up and we need to work out some details.”
“Give me a moment here, and then I’ll meet you downstairs,” he said.
After Nick walked out, Jake reached into his jacket pocket and handed Annie the diary. “Keep this here with you for now. Later, we’ll decide what to do about it. I need to tell Nick we have it and talk things out with him.”
“What will you do? Will you read it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve come to terms with the man my father was, but that process has taken me a long time. My father always seemed larger than life to me, but once I began seeing him as just a man, one capable of mistakes, I realized that I’d judged him too harshly. My father never knew how to love. And, until you came into my life, I was no different. But the diary is sure to contain some highly charged emotional passages and I’m not sure reading it will benefit any of us now. I’ll need time to sort it out in my head, and Nick will, too.
“Before I go, I’ll light a fire in the fireplace inside the nursery,” he said, gesturing toward the adjoining room. “Did you know that room served as Nick’s and my nursery years ago? Now it’ll belong to my daughter—and all her brothers and sisters.”
She smiled. “Ready to make new babies so soon?”
He grinned back. “As soon as you are.” He checked out the kindling someone had brought up, and opened the glass fireplace doors.
“Be careful,” she called, remembering a conversation she’d once had with Paul. “Some time ago, your father offered me the use of the master bedroom and the nursery when the baby arrived. He was planning to take one of the other empty rooms. But I remember him telling me never to try to light a fire in that fireplace until someone inspected and cleaned it out. Apparently, it hadn’t been used for years, and he was afraid it wouldn’t be safe.”
Jake checked out the masonry and opened the damper to look up the chimney. “It seems sound enough.” As he opened the door to the ash clean-out below the grate, he noticed a large envelope inside. “Wait a minute. There’s something in here instead of ashes.”
Wiping the ashes and soot from the envelope, he brought it out closer to the light and extracted the contents. There was a photograph showing Lowman picking up an envelope, then another showing the envelope was filled with money. There was also a sample note typed and written on Lowman’s typewriter and, according to the letter his father had attached to it, a local private investigator had declared it to be a match for the type of print found on the blackmail notes. Last but not least, was a counterfeit bearer bond sealed in plastic and a nearly blank sample copy with a minuscule scratch in the corner circled in red ink. A note identified that the copy had been taken using Lowman’s copier at the bank and proved that the bearer bonds had been copied on that machine.
“It’s all here, the evidence Dad spoke about.” Jake silently read the rest of his father’s accompanying letter, then came to sit beside her. “Dad gathered all this evidence, then gave Lowman a chance to make good. He also told Lowman that I was on my way and the information would be mine then. Lowman must have decided to kill him before I arrived, and take his chances with me.”
“That matches wh
at Lowman told me. He never expected to let either one of us live.”
He nodded. “I figured that. I was just praying I could find you in time. Now we have more than enough to get Lowman sent to prison for a very long time. As soon as Mora gets in touch with us, I’ll turn this over to him.”
“Your father was a smart man but he took an enormous gamble putting the evidence in that fireplace clean-out.”
Jake smiled. “I know why he did that. This room held special memories for him, and with your baby on its way, he saw it as a place where the past could finally yield to the future. A new cycle of events would begin here and mark a new era for the Black Ravens. He wanted us together, you know. I think, somehow, he knew that we’d both end up here one day. All in all, the nursery was a very appropriate place to hide the packet.”
Assured that there were no more hidden surprises, Jake started a fire. Then, after giving Annie and the baby a kiss, he went downstairs to meet with his brother.
HOURS HAD PASSED, and it was already midmorning, yet they’d still heard nothing from Lowman. Nick was pacing by the phone when Jake entered the study with his third cup of coffee. “The phone’s finally working again,” Nick said. “I just tested it and got a dial tone. I called Mora and he said that the roads are closed. There’s no way Lowman can go to check to see if Annie’s still at the cabin or not.”
“Good. That’ll give us a big advantage.” Jake’s voice was filled with deadly intent. As he took a sip of coffee, the phone rang.
Jake picked it up, immediately going ahead with his plan to protest Annie’s abduction, and insist that she be released. Lowman would expect this, and he didn’t want the banker to even suspect that Annie and the baby had been rescued.
After a minute, pretending to calm down, Jake listened as Lowman tried unsuccessfully to disguise his voice while giving him instructions. When Jake finally placed the receiver down, he could barely contain the disgust he felt.
“He wants me to drop the evidence in the trash can beside the school near the west end of the plaza. He’s given me thirty minutes to get there, to make allowances for the crowds.”