“Aurelia.” Brian felt panic rise in his throat. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want to see her die, but she was dying. Right here, right now, before his eyes.
She turned her head. Her face had gone from gray to ashen. She looked at him, but he didn’t think she saw him. “What a fine boy,” she gasped. “And he’ll grow into a fine man. You’ll help him.” It wasn’t a question. It was a demand.
“Yes, Granny.”
“Praise be.” She smiled, then coughed, choking a little. Brian stood up. He had to get Leah, had to tell her to come and help, to do something. But Leah couldn’t leave Juliet, and neither could his dad. He was on his own. Death was in the room. He could feel the chill of it on the back of his neck.
He sat down again. He had given his word to stay with Aurelia. He held her hand in his, felt her life force flicker and fade away. As he watched, her breathing slowed and faltered and then, with a little sigh, she was gone.
“Granny?”
Of course she didn’t answer. Brian sat there quietly for a few minutes more, listening to the drumbeat of rain on the roof, trying not to cry. He laid Aurelia’s hands gently on the cover and smoothed her wispy hair away from her face. She had slipped away between one breath and the next. She hadn’t lived long enough to see Juliet’s baby born.
Or had she?
Brian remembered her words and the smile on her face. She thought she’d seen Juliet and the baby together and happy. He hoped her dream came true.
MAYBE LEAH’s PRAYERS were working, or maybe it was just years of discipline that guided his hand as he enlarged the incision in Juliet’s abdomen and exposed the glistening muscular wall of the uterus that still protected the unborn child. His hands had stopped shaking. The chorus of ghostly cries that echoed incessantly inside him these days had almost died away. Almost.
But could he deal with what was coming next? His stomach clenched and he hesitated, scalpel poised. The memories were there again, beating at the walls of his consciousness with furious hands. This afternoon he had given in to the old terror, even if only for a little while. He’d come back to face it, but without Leah he had lost faith again. Tonight he could not afford to, but the fear inside him was very powerful.
“Adam?” Leah had sensed the fear, too. He looked up. She was watching him closely.
“I’m okay,” he said gruffly. He had worked through the terror before. He would do it now. Then from somewhere deep inside him he heard an echo of Aurelia’s voice bidding him peace, so that he could give life to Juliet and her baby. It was only his imagination, he knew, but the cries of dying children faded a little. They would never be gone, not completely, but maybe with time they would no longer haunt him day and night.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” he said. Something in his voice must have told her he spoke the truth.
“Then let’s get this baby born.”
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Brian was standing in the doorway. His son’s face was starkly pale, his expression forlorn. Leah swiveled her head to follow the direction of Adam’s eyes.
“Is it Aurelia?” she asked.
“She’s gone,” Brian said. He focused on what Adam was doing. If possible, his face got even paler. “She died a minute or two ago.”
“Just a little while longer,” Leah whispered, dropping her head for a moment. When she lifted her eyes to his again, she was blinking hard to keep the tears from falling. “Adam, she so wanted to live to see this baby.”
“Somehow, I don’t think she’s too far away.”
Ten minutes later Juliet’s baby was born. Adam felt the warmth of the tiny body in his hands, the weight of his head in his palm as he lifted the infant from Juliet’s womb and handed him to Leah. The woman who would bear his child. The woman he loved. Their eyes met and held and he knew that soon, soon he could tell her all that was in his heart.
“What is it?” Brian whispered from the doorway. “A boy or a girl? I can’t see from here.”
“It’s a boy,” Adam said as Leah cleared the infant’s mouth and nostrils with a swab. A baby, a living, breathing miracle. Despite twenty-two years of medical training and experience he had never delivered a baby. It was something he could get hooked on doing.
“And he’s perfect,” Leah said, looking him over. “Eyes, ears, nose, mouth. Ten fingers, ten toes.” She laughed that wonderful joyous laugh that had slipped into his heart the first time he’d heard it, and now helped to heal the ragged edges of his soul. “He’s all boy.”
“He’s not crying,” Brian observed a little anxiously.
Adam snapped his finger against the sole of the baby’s foot. A kittenlike cry came from his throat. “He’s still sleepy from the anesthetic, but he’s fine. We need to get him warmed up.”
“Can I see him?” Brian asked.
“Even better, you can hold him. Bring me one of those towels,” Leah spoke over her shoulder as they cut and tied the cord, and Adam prepared to detach the placenta from the uterine wall and suture the incisions back together.
“Me?” Brian’s voice was incredulous. “Oh, no, you don’t.”
“Yes, you. Now. Front and center,” Leah commanded in a voice that reminded him this woman was an officer in the United States Army. She wiped the baby clean with a soft cloth and laid him on the towel Brian held in his outstretched hands. “Take him into the living room and hold him close, and tell him how glad you are to meet him. He’s just had a very rude introduction to the world. He needs a friend.”
Brian now seemed beyond speech and he only nodded. He held the baby as though he were made of spun glass. “What about Juliet?” he finally managed to ask. The look on his face was a mixture of wonder and discovery.
“She won’t be awake for about an hour,” Leah explained to Brian, as she handed Adam a suture needle. “When she does wake up, we’ll let her see the little sweetheart right away.”
“I’ll take good care of him till then. You know, just before she died, Aurelia said she saw Juliet standing in the doorway of her bedroom holding the baby.”
“She wanted very much to live to see the baby born, Brian,” Adam said, remembering the voice he had heard in his mind and in his heart.
“You’ll probably think this sounds crazy, but you know something? I think she did.” Brian smiled down at the little one in his arms and left the kitchen.
IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT before the rain let up. Leah stepped out onto the porch, straining to see how much higher the creek had risen. It was cold and she wrapped her arms around herself, The baby moved inside her, stretching and somersaulting in a series of tiny thumps and bumps echoed in the beating of her heart.
The door opened and closed quietly behind her, and she felt Adam’s arms come around her. She let herself relax against the solid warmth of his chest and covered his hands with hers.
“Are they all asleep?”
“The baby’s sleeping. Juliet and Brian are having a discussion about whether or not having initials that spell ‘cat’ will be detrimental to young Cade’s development.”
Leah smiled. “Cade Adam Trent. I like it, no matter what the initials spell. Besides, someday she’ll marry and hopefully the man will adopt Cade and give him his name.”
“I’m sure that’s what’ll happen.” She felt Adam kiss her hair lightly.
“She really ought to be resting, though. Maybe I should go back inside.”
“Let them talk. It keeps her mind off Aurelia’s passing.”
Leah agreed. “You’re right. It’ll be hours before anyone can get up here. It’s too dangerous tonight.” For some reason of atmospherics or just plain luck, Leah had been able to get through to Caleb at the hospital on her cell phone a little over an hour ago. He had promised to send help as soon as possible, but Leash didn’t hold out a lot of hope that rescue would arrive anytime soon. They were in no immediate danger, after all, and surely there were others trapped by the rising waters who needed help, as well.
“We’ll find a way down the mountain come daylight.”
“We:..we’ll have to make arrangements for Aurelia’s funeral. I’m going to miss her.” Leah felt a sob tighten her throat and swallowed against the urge to cry.
“It’s all right to cry for your friend. Don’t hold back.”
She turned in his arms. Something had changed in him. She had seen it happen, from one moment to the next back there in the kitchen, as Juliet’s and the baby’s lives hung in the balance. “Why do you say that, Adam? You’ve been fighting your emotions from the first moment I met you.”
He was silent for a few seconds, as though choosing his words with great care. “I came back to tell you...everything this afternoon at the hospital, but you wouldn’t let me.”
“I couldn’t stand to see the emptiness in your eyes. I love you, Adam. I want to help you deal with whatever memories lie so heavily on your heart, but you push me away. Time and again you push me away.”
“Today I ran away not because of the past—it was there like it always was—but because this time, I couldn’t hold it back.” His voice was harsh with sadness and regret. “I wanted to tell you, Leah. I wanted you to know what’s haunted me all these years.”
She wrapped his hand in both of hers and lifted it to her mouth. “This time I was the coward. I wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry. But tell me now, please, for my sake. For our child’s sake.”
“You’re too young to remember the orphan planes.”
“The airlifts at the end of the war when they brought Vietnamese and Amerasian children to the States to be adopted? I’ve heard about them. I’ve seen pictures.” Her breathing quickened, and she braced herself against a new onslaught of tears. She knew what Adam was going to say, and her heart ached for him.
“I thought we were doing some good there, at the end of a war, where everything else had gone wrong. Getting all those babies and little kids out of ’Nam and back here to the States to new lives with families who would love them. I was glad to help. They were such cute kids. I saw it all, Leah, the day the Baby Lift plane crashed, all the broken little bodies, the death and destruction. I had carried them onto that plane, strapped them into the seats, two by two by two. And an hour later I carried them out of the wreckage and into the morgue.
“There was one little girl...” He was holding Leah so tightly she could barely breathe, but she didn’t make a sound or move a muscle. His voice broke and he couldn’t go on. There was nothing she could say that would dilute the horror that had held him in thrall for so many years. She just held him in her arms and waited. His words came haltingly, brokenly. “She was so beautiful, Leah, and so terribly damaged, and she died in my arms. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t help any of them. There were so many innocent victims at the end, and all in vain.”
“No, Adam, it wasn’t all in vain. Do you think you would ever have become a doctor if it weren’t for the horror you lived through in those days? I don’t.”
“I’m not much of a doctor now.”
“You’re a wonderful doctor. You were magnificent tonight. You saved Juliet’s life. You gave her son life. Just as you have done over and over again in your career. Just as you will countless more times in the future.”
“I can’t do this alone, Leah. I don’t know if the flashbacks are gone for good or only banished for the time being, because of your love and Aurelia’s stubborn faith. I don’t even want to try to find out without you by my side.”
“There won’t be any more flashbacks or nightmares, because I promise never to leave your side. I promise never to let you get lost in the past again, as long as there’s breath in my body.”
“I believe you.” He lowered his head and took her mouth with his. She could taste the saltiness of tears on his lips and knew he had begun to heal.
When the kiss ended, they stood quietly for a moment, wrapped in each other’s arms. The pounding of Leah’s heart intensified, filled the air around her and resolved itself into the thump, thump, thump of rotor blades as a helicopter dropped out of the night sky.
“What the devil?” Adam asked, the surprised expression on his face thrown into stark relief by the glare of a searchlight playing across the yard from above.
“It’s a helicopter,” Leah said needlessly as the wind the blades created threatened to tear her hair from its braid. “I never expected...”
The helicopter settled onto the lawn. It bore the markings of the Kentucky Air National Guard. The door to the cabin opened and Brian stuck his head out. “What’s going on? I thought I heard...” His mouth dropped open. “I did hear a helicopter.”
“I think we’re being rescued,” Adam said, not releasing Leah from the circle of his arms.
An airman in combat fatigues jumped out of the open side of the chopper and ran across the yard. “Ma’am? Captain Gentry?”
“I’m Leah Gentry.”
The airman halted at the bottom of the porch steps with a smart salute. “We’ve come to help you down off this mountain.”
“Thank God. We have a postop new mother and infant who need medical attention.”
“Yes, ma’am. We have orders to transport you directly to Lexington General. We can take three at a time.”
“Adam?” she turned in his arms.
“You go with Juliet and the baby. Brian and I will stay here with Aurelia until they can get back for us.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“It won’t be for long,” he said, brushing her lips with a kiss. “We’ll be together again before morning—and then it’ll be for the rest of our lives.”
EPILOGUE
LEAH STOOD BEFORE THE CRADLE Adam had placed beneath their bedroom window the day before her due date. It was too hot to sleep. The air conditioner had broken down and the repairman hadn’t come to fix it yet. The window was open and the scent of lilies and roses, heavy with dew, drifted into the room. Even though the sun was barely over the horizon, the air was already warming up. It was going to be another scorcher of an August day.
She reached out a hand and set the cradle gently rocking. It was old, very old, and it belonged to Juliet. But at four months, Cade had already outgrown it, and so Juliet had lent it to Leah and Adam for their baby. Aurelia’s grandfather had fashioned it out of hickory almost a century ago, Juliet had told her, and five generations of Cades had been lulled to sleep by its gentle rocking. It would soon rock the first generation of Sauders.
It had been a busy summer for Leah and Adam. They were going to make their home in Slate Hollow. In another month or so, they would be moving from her little house to a big old Victorian across the river—one of those handyman’s specials Adam figured would keep him busy with projects for the next ten years. It had five bedrooms and a big yard just perfect for kids, a kitchen with an acre of counter space and a view of the river from almost every room. Leah had fallen head over heels in love with it the first time she saw it, despite the inadequate wiring and plumbing. Adam had already enlisted her dad and brothers to help work on it. Brian figured he had a steady summer job for as long as he needed it, and her mother had already painted two watercolors for the parlor walls.
Pain tightened across the small of Leah’s back and moved around to the front, bringing her rudely out of her reverie. The baby kicked in protest, and Leah knew the little one was anxious to be born. “I’m anxious, too,” she whispered. “I hope it’s soon.” She breathed through the contraction and turned to find Adam watching her from the bed.
“You’re up early,” he said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I always wake up when you leave my side,” he said with a smile. He smiled often and easily these days. “You’re not up early just to watch the sunrise, are you?” he asked, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and crossing to her. All he was wearing was a pair of briefs and for a moment Leah almost forgot she was in labor. He looked tanned and fit and at peace with himself, and very sexy
.
He was operating again, flying from Lexington to St. Barnabas two days a week until the end of the year, when he would join Caleb’s clinic in Slate Hollow. When they heard Adam was joining the practice, two cardiologists from Nashville had signed on, and Peter Assad was considering leaving Lex General more seriously than before. His decision was a godsend to Caleb’s efforts to get the hospital-funding levy passed. It looked like a shoo-in for November.
In addition, Adam had already been asked to lecture at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, and he consulted regularly with hospitals around the country. Obviously, turning down the head of neurosurgery at St. B’s in order to practice in a small town in the Kentucky hills had done nothing to diminish Adam’s reputation with his peers. There were still some bad times for him, when Leah saw sadness darken his face and cloud his eyes, but they happened less and less frequently. She hoped with time they would cease altogether.
B. J. Walton had visited twice, once for their wedding in early May to act as best man, and again in July to attempt to talk Adam into joining him on another medical mercy mission, this time to Siberia in the spring. Adam had told his old marine buddy he’d think about it but wouldn’t commit to going. B.J. had gone away disappointed but vowing to return after the baby was born and renew his request.
Adam may not know it yet, but Leah did. He would go. His sense of commitment to his fellow man was too strong to allow him to deny it. She knew because she felt the same way. That was why they’d agreed she wouldn’t resign her commission when her medical leave ended. She was no longer a single mother with sole responsibility for the health and happiness of their child. She had a husband who loved and supported her, and when the call came once more to honor her oath and serve her country, she would go with his blessing.
Winter Soldier (Mills & Boon Vintage Superromance) Page 23