Close Range Christmas

by Nicole Helm

  Dev blew out a breath. He wished he could be swayed by her emotions or her threats, but in the end he’d do what he had to do.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It turned out Sarah didn’t have to kill Dev. Yet. He and Duke returned from the evening chores without incident—though Sarah didn’t trust the look they gave each other as they came inside.

  Sarah let everyone bustle her off to bed. She didn’t sleep, but she lay there, eyes open. When the contractions tightened her belly, she watched the time. They were sporadic, and as long as they were, there was no way she was telling anyone about them.

  Not while Dev was so determined he had to be the one to solve this horrible problem. No, she couldn’t leave him.

  He came in halfway through the night after his turn as lookout and slid into bed with her.

  “Nothing going on,” he murmured as she snuggled into him.

  “Good.”

  “Sleep.”

  She didn’t. It was too hard with the worry on her mind and the contractions popping up without warning. She couldn’t be shipped off to the hospital. It was terrible timing. Baby would just have to stay put. Besides, he wasn’t due for another day.

  She’d power through. She’d read tons of stories about women who’d had long, elaborate labors. Who’d had contractions for days and days before going to the hospital. She would be fine. Especially for her first time, she was certain her actual delivery was a ways off.

  It had to be.

  Christmas Eve dawned, pearly and snowy. Sarah gave half a thought to how bad the roads would be to get her to the hospital. But it wasn’t like a whiteout blizzard or anything. It was just a slow-falling snow that kept accumulating.

  She wasn’t going to be dumb. She’d tell everyone with more time than she needed. Maybe when her contractions were ten minutes apart. Or if her water broke. That would be her guide.

  As the day wore on, lookouts and chores interspersed with Christmas crafts and baking with the girls, she was certain she was right. She could go an hour without having a contraction. Although then they usually sped up for a while after one of those hours before tapering off again.

  But they did keep tapering. They weren’t regular exactly. And no one noticed. As long as no one noticed they couldn’t be that bad.

  She was pretty sure Dev and Duke had something up their sleeve every time they went to take care of ranch chores, but they always came back. No sign of anything. Except that look they gave each other.

  Sarah lumbered into the living room after dinner. She’d tried to go to sleep early but she was antsy and uncomfortable.

  All her sisters, except Cecilia, were wrapping the girls’ presents from Santa. Cecilia was stationed outside the sleeping children’s room as lookout.

  All the men decided to do a sweep of the property while the women prepared Santa’s arrival. Which left Sarah feeling even more antsy. “He’s going to do something stupid. I can feel it.”

  Her sisters and Grandma Pauline looked at her with no small amount of pity.

  “I assume you mean Dev,” Rachel offered, expertly taping off another corner of shiny red wrapping paper.

  “Yes, I mean Dev.” Sarah winced as a contraction started—but the doctor had said as long as she could speak through them, she was fine. Fine. “One of these times he’s not going to come back because...” She had to stop and take a breath—but that wasn’t the same as not being able to speak through them. Right? “He’s off doing something stupid trying to end this all by himself.”

  “I’m sorry, girl, but stopping a Wyatt boy from doing something stupid is like stopping the Earth from spinning,” Grandma Pauline said, curling ribbon with a pair of scissors. Then she looked up at where Sarah was standing, one hand pressing on her belly, desperately trying to arrange her face in something other than a grimace of pain.

  “Are you having contractions?” Grandma Pauline demanded.

  “Not...really.”

  “Not really?” Liza shrieked, leaping to her feet.

  “Just here and there. Very far apart.”

  “Lord almighty,” Grandma Pauline said as all the women started to get to their feet.

  “Wait. Where are you going?”

  “You have to get to the hospital.”

  “I can’t! We can’t. It’s not time. You’re not supposed to go until the contractions are closer together. Besides, Santa has to come. You have to finish.”

  “Your contractions might be close together by the time we brave the roads to get to town,” Liza said, helping Grandma Pauline to her feet. “Don’t be stubborn, Sarah.”

  “It is not time yet,” Sarah repeated, ready to fight them off. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not on Christmas Eve. Not with Dev out...doing whatever he was about to do that she was just certain was going to get him hurt.

  “Sarah.” Grandma Pauline’s voice was gentle, which had tears welling in Sarah’s eyes. “I know you’re scared. That’s all right. But we need to go.”

  Sarah wanted to argue more, but Grandma being gentle with her made her feel...small. Silly. Like maybe all this fixation on Dev doing something stupid was just an attempt to take her mind off the fact that she was in labor. When she didn’t know how on earth she was going to push a baby out of her.

  Before Sarah could say anything, acquiesce or argue more—because she really didn’t know which to do—the door to the kitchen slammed open and footsteps thundered toward them.

  “Fire.” Tucker stumbled in, panting. “Stables are on fire. Called 911, but—”

  Sarah looked around at the women in the room. She could see her sisters were reluctant to go because of her. But the stables weren’t just housing the horses for the Reaves ranch right now. They had all the Knight horses too.

  She couldn’t stand the thought of anything but everyone working to get them safe. “Go. Please. Take care of this first. I promise you, there’s time on my end.”

  Felicity and Nina exchanged a look, Sarah supposed because they’d both given birth. Felicity gave a little nod. But they didn’t rush out of the room. “We have to think this could be a trap.”

  “The horses are in the stables,” Sarah said desperately. “And the hoses will be frozen. It’ll take forever for the fire department to get out here. If you let the men take care of it, they’ll do something extra stupid.”

  “That’s true,” Nina agreed, but she looked at Sarah’s stomach with some trepidation.

  “Nina, stay here and watch the girls with Cecilia,” Liza ordered, already heading for the door. “Grandma Pauline, you’re on Sarah duty. You’ll have Cee and Nina if things get hairy on the labor front.”

  “I don’t need—”

  But Liza, Rachel and Felicity were already gone, following Tucker out into the kitchen, which would lead them back outside. There wasn’t time to talk it over. Time was of the essence.

  Grandma Pauline looked at Nina. “Grab a gun and go guard the girls’ rooms with Cecilia. Sarah and I will get the rifles and sit tight on this level.”

  Rifles. Sarah pressed a hand to her tightening stomach. “He isn’t after us. He’s after the boys.”

  Grandma Pauline sighed. “That doesn’t mean he won’t come after us to get to them.”

  * * *

  DEV DIDN’T THINK anyone was under the assumption the fire was just a fire. Jamison had instructed everyone to stay with a partner—one to be part of the bucket brigade, and one to stay close to watch out for any attacks.

  Because no one could argue with the fact they had to get the horses out of the stables before the fire consumed them.

  There was no way to get hoses working in the subzero temperatures, so they’d had to start a bucket brigade, passing buckets of water from the one spigot that wasn’t frozen. They’d never be able to put out the fire in its entirety. They just needed a space to get the horses out.
r />   He could hear their worried whinnies, but it looked like the fire had started from the outside. If that was the case, he could still save them.

  Jamison was stationed closest to the blaze, determining where to throw the buckets of water.

  “I’ve got to go in,” Dev said over the sounds of the howling wind and the crackling blaze. Snow was falling but not at a rapid enough pace to extinguish the man-made fire. The smell of gasoline was almost overwhelming.

  It had been set. To get them out here, but the women in the house were armed. Capable of fending off an attack. Every group of people was taking precautions. Though Dev didn’t think Anth was going for the house. No, he wanted him out here. Outside where there was less protection, less cohesiveness.

  They’d been drawn out to be targets. Dev was sure of that. Once he saved his horses, he’d be whatever target Anth wanted. It was time to end this.

  “It’s still too dangerous,” Jamison said.

  Dev shook his head. “Too much longer and we lose the horses. Just water down my coat. It’ll only take me a few minutes to get them out.”

  “It’ll take longer than that. You know it will. Those horses will freeze. You’re going to have to pull them out. It’ll take time.”

  “Give me three minutes. Just three.”

  Jamison paused. He took the bucket handed to him. “Your leg?”

  “It’ll hold up,” Dev insisted. He had to save at least some of the horses. They were as innocent in all this as his family was.

  Jamison looked down at the bucket he was holding. “All right. This should douse you. You take more than those three minutes...” He trailed off.

  “I promise. Dump it on me.”

  Dev braced himself for the cold, but there was no fully bracing for the icy cold seeping through his coat. Immediately his teeth began to chatter.

  “Three minutes,” Jamison repeated.

  “Three minutes,” Dev agreed. He crouched low, kept his wet sleeve over his mouth, and then moved. The flames had definitely come from the outside, so while the inside was full of smoke, there were only a few places the flames had broken through.

  It would only take a few more places of breakage to have the whole place engulfed what with all the straw and hay as tinder. Dev didn’t spend any time deliberating. He moved through from one side to the other, opening stall doors.

  Like Jamison had predicted, the horses only bucked and neighed in fear of the smoke and flames. It would take more than the three minutes—so Dev set out to do the most he could in what time he had.

  He managed to get three out by covering their eyes with rags and leading them with a heavy hand. But after the third, Jamison grabbed him before he could go back in.

  “I’ve got four more to go,” he rasped. “I’ll go in on the other side. It’ll be quick.”

  “Take Du—”

  But Dev broke Jamison’s grasp and ran. He couldn’t wait for backup or a lookout. He had dwindling time to get his horses safe. He ran to the back of the stables, which was closer to the remainder of the horses. Fire engulfed the frame of the door, but with his wet sleeve covering his arm, he slid the bar out of the way and shoved the door far enough open that he could get the horses out. Then Dev ran inside, keeping low, keeping his mouth covered.

  His eyes stung, his throat burned, but he worked to get the four horses out. The last one was the hardest, Sarah’s stubborn mare of course being the most difficult.

  Dev was about to admit defeat so he didn’t die of smoke inhalation, but the horse finally moved forward and then ran off into the dark night.

  Dev stumbled to his knees outside the stable, gulping in the fresh air. His throat felt raw, like it had been burned itself. His leg ached in all the normal places but with a piercing pain he hadn’t felt in a while. But the horses were safe, even if they were now running all over creation.

  Dev looked up to the the man who stood there waiting for him. It wasn’t Duke or one of his brothers. Or at least, one of his full brothers.

  “Merry Christmas, brother.”

  Dev shivered inside his wet coat as he sat back on the snow. He breathed heavily—cold and hot at the same time. Pain in his leg, in his eyes, in his throat. But this was what he’d wanted. A one-on-one. Face-to-face with the man who’d clearly made him a target even if he’d used his brothers too as smoke and mirror distractions. “I’ve been waiting for you, Anth.”

  Dev couldn’t make out much of his features in only the light from the blaze of the fire. The orange glow made him look like some kind of demon from a children’s fairy tale.

  “Have you now? Seems like you’ve been conspiring with the brothers who’ve done so much wrong. Betrayed you and yours over and over again. It doesn’t seem like my notes got through to you at all.” He held up something in the flickering light, but Dev didn’t know what it was.

  But something exploded in the distance, a light flashing past the rise. The Knight house maybe, or their stables. Dev couldn’t be sure. But he saw as his brothers and sisters-in-law began to run for it.

  “That should keep them busy,” Anth said cheerfully.

  But what Dev hoped to God Anth didn’t see was that while a majority of the figures had run off toward the other explosion, it wasn’t all of them. Unless they were obscured by the dark, only seven ran for the explosion. That meant at least two were either still on the other side of the barn or running for the house.

  Anth laughed as the stables began to moan and creak under the weight of the flames. “You think you know what I want, Dev. But you don’t have a clue.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The contractions were no longer slowing down. Grandma Pauline held her hand while Sarah lay down on the couch and tried not to panic. She couldn’t panic about labor when there was a fire and a madman out there.

  “Breathe,” Grandma Pauline ordered.

  Sarah tried to listen, tried to focus on the Christmas lights twinkling around them, instead of her own body. But her thoughts kept whirling around. All the ways this was the worst timing ever, and how was she going to make it?

  “I was stupid and selfish,” she muttered. If she’d told Dev or anyone about her contractions she might be on her way to the hospital, with Dev at her side, rather than worried about him out there fighting fires and trying to save their horses.

  “You are young and maybe a little foolish, but neither stupid nor selfish,” Grandma said matter-of-factly. “My mother had me in this very house. We both lived to tell the tale. If there wasn’t a fire and someone out there likely threatening us, you’d be on your way to the hospital. As it is, we’ve got a fire truck and an ambulance on the way.”

  “If they can get here.” The 911 dispatchers had been apologetic, but had emphasized how long the response time might be due to weather and available emergency vehicles.

  Still, help was coming. Even if she ended up having the baby here, help was on its way. For all of them.

  She knew without a shadow of a doubt Anth was out there. Why would there be a fire if he wasn’t? And if he was out there, he wouldn’t be alone. He’d have backup. Wouldn’t he? Enough to outnumber all of them?

  Especially while they were busy trying to save her horses. Dev’s horses.

  “Breathe, Sarah,” Grandma Pauline said sternly.

  “He’s out there. He has to be out there and they’re all...”

  “Smart individuals who’ll do what they can to keep their loved ones safe. We have extra help on the way. You need to focus on you. Your contractions are getting closer and closer together. Let’s focus on this little Christmas baby.”

  Sarah tried to nod. Regardless of what terror might befall them, she was in labor. Actual going-to-have-a-baby-in-a-house labor. No amount of danger, not even an act of God, was going to change or stop that.

  “Did your mom have a doctor with her?” Sarah a
sked, trying to focus on baby-having and baby-having alone. Her son. She had to bring him into the world. Somehow.

  “No, ma’am. It was February. A raging storm. Whiteout blizzard, or so she always told. She had my grandmothers with her and that was it. And look at me. Eighty years later, still kicking.”

  Sarah wanted to smile but another contraction washed over her. She tried to picture it. Eighty years ago. Having a baby with only a mother’s guidance in the middle of a blizzard, knowing if something went wrong, that was it. For both of them.

  She had help coming. An ambulance for her, fire department for the horses. But where was the police officer who was supposed to have been watching the road? She opened her mouth to say something about him, but there was a commotion in the kitchen and Brady and Liza burst into the living room.

  “He blew something up over toward the Knight property,” Brady said, coming to kneel next to Grandma Pauline. “Most ran over there, but Liza told me about Sarah. I thought I should be here.”

  “You got any of your EMT stuff?” Grandma demanded.

  “I’ll go get it in a second. First, I want to check her out. What are the contractions like?”

  “Painful. You’re not going to deliver my baby, Brady. That’s weird.”

  He didn’t even acknowledge she’d spoken. “How far apart are they?”

  “Five minutes,” Grandma Pauline said. “On the regular. Imagine it’ll get closer and quick.”

  “Has your water broken?”

  Sarah shook her head. “That’s good, right? It’s still going to take a long time if my water hasn’t broken. Right? You don’t have to deliver my baby. It’ll be fine. Have you even delivered a baby before?”

  Brady offered what she supposed was meant to be a reassuring smile. “It’s definitely not a bad sign. As is the fact you’re lucid. I’ll go get my kit. It won’t help with labor per se, but we can get a blood pressure reading and start sterilizing.” Brady got to his feet.

  “Wait, you didn’t answer my question.”