The Forest Ranger's Child

by Leigh Bale

  She gave a brief nod, her eyes opening. In their velvet brown depths, he saw deep, wrenching fear.

  “Can you hold on to me?” he asked.

  Another nod that didn’t inspire much confidence in him. She seemed too weak. Too fragile and exhausted. But he doubted he could save her if she couldn’t help hold on.

  “Wrap your arms and legs around me like a python and don’t let go no matter what. I’ll pull us to safety.”

  She did as told, lying against his back as she knotted her small hands in a fist across his chest. With her behind him, he took hold of the rope and pulled, hand-over-hand. The current swept them away and the woman cried out but she didn’t let go.

  “I’ve got us. Just hang on.” His words were meant to encourage her and to give himself the nerve to keep going.

  The rope burned through his hands, but he found a harder grip. Thank goodness for his gloves. His palms would have been shredded to the bone without the protective layer.

  He and the woman jerked hard, tossed in the water like a tiny twig. He pulled and pulled until his arms trembled with fatigue. The frigid water sapped his strength. If he let go, they’d lose headway and he’d have to start over. They still could drown. His stamina wouldn’t last forever. He must make every movement count.

  He didn’t look up, focusing on the length of rope directly in front of him. It was a gargantuan effort not to let his gloved hands slip again. His fingers felt like clumps of ice and wouldn’t obey his commands. Hand-over-hand. Again and again. How long was this rope?

  Finally! Finally he felt solid ground beneath his feet. He kept walking, carrying the woman on his back as he trudged up the muddy bank, his booted feet sinking deep. He staggered to shore.

  Rivulets of water drained from his drab olive-green shirt and pants. As he walked, his work boots felt like heavy bricks of cement strapped to his feet. Looking down, he noticed he’d lost his ranger shield, a small hole in his shirt showing the only proof that he’d worn the badge that day. Blood soaked his side where the tree branch had lacerated his shirt and skin. He scanned the injury with his eyes. Just a flesh wound. He’d survived worse injuries riding wild broncs on the national rodeo circuit, but he’d never been this scared even when he’d faced an angry bull.

  He dropped his hands to the shore and the woman slid away. She lay on the ground beside him, her blue jeans splotched with dirt. One foot was bare, her tennis shoe and sock obviously sucked away by the flood. Her wet shirt clung to her rounded tummy. Definitely pregnant but not real big yet.

  He knelt beside her, touching her face with his shaking hands, searching for life. “You okay, ma’am?”

  A single, brief nod.

  “How about your baby?”

  In response, she slid a pale hand over her abdomen. He had no idea if her baby was alive. He’d heard of traumatic events like this throwing a woman into early labor. She didn’t look far enough along for the baby to survive if it were born now.

  A sense of urgency swept him. “Can you stand?”

  This time, she didn’t move or open her eyes.

  Standing, he tried to pick her up and almost dropped her in spite of her slim weight. The effort to get her to shore had sapped the strength in his arms.

  Changing his tactics, he untied the ropes from around them, then took hold of her shoulders and half carried, half dragged her to his truck. Once he got her inside and buckled in, he wrapped a woolen blanket over her, tucking it around her shoulders and feet. The chattering of her teeth told him she was still alive and suffering from the beginnings of hypothermia. The shivering would help warm her body, but he had no idea what the impact might be on her baby.

  With slow, awkward movements, he removed the roped clips from the fender and tossed them aside in the brush. He climbed inside and started the engine before turning on the heater full-bore. He had to get her warm. He breathed deeply, wanting to rest but not daring to do so yet.

  With jerky movements, he shifted the truck into gear and turned it around in the sagebrush. As he headed back to town, he sped all the way. The truck bounced over the rutted road like a flat basketball hitting pavement.

  Glancing at the woman, he noticed her chest moved with each shallow breath she took. She murmured several words, not making any sense. Her spiked eyelashes lay closed against smooth, ashen skin. Her long hair lay in sodden, dark strands around her shoulders. Even in this condition, he could tell she was beautiful. With her thin arms and legs, he couldn’t help wondering how she’d clung to that rock. How long had she been out there? He hoped she hadn’t suffered any trauma to her abdomen. How had she survived the ordeal?

  Within fifteen minutes, he pulled into the parking lot of the small clinic in town. He pressed on the horn long and hard to draw attention, then stumbled around the truck to open the door and get the woman out. His strength had recovered a bit and he picked her up, staggering to the sidewalk where Clara Richens met him with a wheelchair.

  “What happened?” the nurse asked.

  He set the unconscious woman in the chair. Her head rolled back, her hands resting lifelessly in her lap. She looked dead and a blaze of panic overwhelmed Nate. She just couldn’t die. Not on his watch.

  “She was caught in a flash flood in Emerald Valley.” Together, he helped Clara wheel the woman inside.

  “Do you know who she is?” Clara eyed his soggy clothes and bloodstained shirt.

  “No. I just found her and pulled her from the flood.” He stood back on wobbly legs.

  Clara looked at the woman’s face, her eyes filled with sympathy. And then her expression changed to stunned recognition. “Oh, my goodness. It’s Lily!”

  “What? You know her?” Nate asked.

  Without another word, Clara motioned to an orderly to come and help.

  As they whisked the woman away, Nate called after them. “She’s pregnant and worried about her baby.”

  Clara nodded. “I can see that. I’ll warn the doctor.”

  They disappeared behind the swinging double doors and Nate just stood there, adrenaline and fear pumping through his body. Clara must know the woman.

  Lily. A pretty flower, just like the woman he’d rescued.

  “Nate, you look awful. What happened?”

  Nathan turned to find Shelby Larson standing beside him. In this small town, almost everyone knew everyone else by name. Shelby was married to Matt, Nate’s ranger assistant. A pleasantly plump woman, she wore a white nurse’s smock on top of her street clothes.

  “Hi, Shelby. It’s been quite a day.” He chuckled and raked a hand through his damp hair before explaining the events that had led him to the clinic.

  She touched his arm. “Come with me so I can take a look at that wound on your side. Maybe we’ve got some dry clothes around here somewhere.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve got an extra change of clothes in my fire pack. I’ll get them and be right back.”

  “But your wound…”

  “It’s just a scratch. I’ll let you look at it in just a moment.”

  He left, going to retrieve the spruce-green Nomex pants and yellow fire-resistant shirt from his fire pack before returning and changing in the privacy of an examination room. He had two extra pairs of dry socks and pulled one pair on before shoving his feet back into his damp cowboy boots. If he didn’t wear the boots until they dried, they’d be ruined.

  Shelby cleaned the deep scratches on his side and bandaged them. No big deal. They’d heal up fine.

  Back outside in the reception room, Nate slumped on the sofa and borrowed Shelby’s cell phone to call his office at the ranger’s station. His cell phone had been ruined by water and his people should know what had happened and where he was.

  “You don’t know who the woman is?” Margaret, his office manager, asked.

  “Nope, but Clara Richens recognized her. Her car’s still out there, buried in the riverbed. She probably got caught in the flood when she tried to cross the stream. Can you make some phone calls to each
of the ranchers in Emerald Valley? Warn them to use the Bailey bridges or stay put. I don’t want anyone else trying to cross a flooding stream until it stops raining up in the mountains.”

  “Will do.”

  “And Margaret? Ask Matt if he’d mind driving out and checking the status of the flood. Tell him not to cross it or do anything that might get him hurt, but see if the flood has passed yet.”

  “You got it. You take care and check in with us later, okay?”

  Nate hung up the cell phone, his body feeling wilted, his mind full of activity. What if the woman lost her baby? What if she died after all? Somehow he felt responsible for her. His heart went out to her and her child. He should call her husband, but had no idea who that might be. Her ID was probably still in her car.

  He stood and approached the front counter. “Any news yet?”

  Shelby shook her head. “I’m sorry. The doctor’s still with her.”

  An hour later, Nate had laid his head back against the sofa in the waiting room to rest. Dr. Kenner came down the hall, a stethoscope dangling around his thick neck. Nate breathed a sigh of relief and stood. Finally some news.

  “Hi, Nate.” The doctor smiled, his bald head and ruddy cheeks flushed with color.

  “How is she?”

  “She’ll be fine. She’s resting now. A very lucky young woman. What you did was heroic.”

  Nate ignored that remark. He didn’t feel heroic. He just felt worried. “And her baby?”

  “The baby seems fine. Strong heartbeat, vigorous movement. Lily’s almost six months along, but she didn’t receive any trauma to her abdomen, just her head. She took eight stitches in her scalp, but that’ll heal soon enough.”

  “Lily is her name?” The delicate flower of the resurrection.

  “Yeah, Lily Hansen. Hank Hansen’s girl. I was there when her momma died after being bucked off one of those wild mustangs she loved to ride. She trained horses for the rodeo. Quite rare for a woman.”

  She sounded like Nate’s kind of gal.

  “I didn’t know Hank had any kids.”

  “Just Lily.”

  A twinge of sympathy pinched Nate’s heart. Hank owned Emerald Ranch and was one of the grazing permittees on the national forest. Hank kept to himself for the most part, but he and Nate had become friends. Both men had ridden the national rodeo circuit at one time. Even so, Hank was one of the most irascible men Nate had ever met. If he’d lost his wife in a horse-related accident, Nate could understand why. The man also seemed to be having some financial troubles of late. “Last I heard, Hank was ailing. Heart attack or something.”

  The doctor didn’t respond and Nate figured the man knew the details but was maintaining patient confidentiality.

  “It’s probably good that his daughter has come home to take care of him,” Nate said.

  “Yeah, she grew up here in Jasper, but she left right after high school. After her mom died, she and her dad didn’t get along too well. I’ve just called Hank to let him know she’s here. He’s driving into town as soon as he can.”

  Nate frowned, hoping the rancher didn’t try to pass the stream while it was still flooding. Hank should use the high Bailey bridge the Army Corp of Engineers had constructed across the river a couple of weeks ago.

  They chatted for several more minutes, mostly with Nate asking questions the doctor did his best not to answer.

  “She’s waking up. You can go in and see her for a few minutes if you like.”

  “Me?” Nate hesitated.

  Dr. Kenner clapped a hand on Nate’s back and smiled broadly. “You’re the man who saved her. Shelby will take you back.”

  Shelby stepped around the front counter to guide Nate down the hallway. A happy smile beamed on her face. “What a great day. Lily took up with a n’er-do-well from Reno and broke her daddy’s heart. He’ll be so happy to see her again. This story is sure to make the evening news. You’re a hero, Nate. You saved her life.”

  As Nate’s heels thudded against the tiled floor, he didn’t feel like a hero. He felt like a worried husband and father, which wasn’t right. This wasn’t his wife and child. He knew nothing about Lily Hansen or her life, yet he couldn’t stop worrying about her. Her pitiful cries for help still tore at his heart. They each could have died today and he realized how precious life was.

  For some odd reason, Nate hesitated at the door to Lily’s room, looking in at her still form lying on the narrow hospital bed. Wrapped in sterile blankets, she looked so helpless. So cold and vulnerable.

  He’d saved this woman and her unborn child. He couldn’t help remembering what his mom had taught him about being his brother’s keeper. Some cultures believed if you saved someone’s life, you were then responsible for them until the day you died. A heavy thought indeed. Being responsible for Lily Hansen and her baby the rest of his life made his insides jittery.

  Protecting Lily Hansen was her husband’s job.

  As he stepped into the room, Nate felt as though he were walking off the precipice of a cliff, prepared to hit the jagged rocks below. And somehow he knew his life had just irrevocably changed. He’d never be the same again.

  Chapter Two

  Lily slowly opened her eyes, moving her head on a lumpy pillow. Thin blankets covered her and someone had dressed her in a hospital gown. From the dim spray of sunlight streaming through the window, she could tell it was late afternoon.

  Her head hurt and she lifted a hand, finding a small bandage covering the right side of her forehead. She flinched as the memory of the flood rushed into her mind. And her rescue.

  Scanning the small hospital room, she swiveled toward the door…and froze. He stood there. The man who had saved her life.

  Correction: their lives. Hers and her baby girl’s.

  She pressed a hand to her abdomen and breathed with relief when the baby wiggled against her palm. Thank the Lord her child was okay.

  The man had his hands slung low in his pants pockets. A long-sleeved, yellow shirt covered his powerfully built arms and shoulders. His dark, damp hair had been slicked back, freshly combed. Green pants clung to his long, muscled legs. He looked ready to fight a forest fire.

  Who was he?

  “Hi, there.” He spoke softly, his deep voice sending a shiver over her body.

  “You…you saved our lives.” In spite of her ordeal, she remembered every bit of what had happened with perfect clarity. The terror and pain in her head. The bursting hope when this man had tied a lifeline around her and dragged her to shore. The way he’d pulled her to his truck when she was too weak to move. And then tucked a coarse blanket around her before driving like a madman into town. After that, she couldn’t remember anything. At first, she thought it had been a nightmare, that she’d just imagined it all. Now she knew it was real.

  He removed his hands from his pockets and stepped toward her. Her gaze lowered to his belt buckle. She immediately recognized it. Decorated with silver belt plate and gold overlay, it showed a cowboy astride a bucking horse. A national rodeo circuit all-around cowboy belt buckle. Tommy had always wanted one but wasn’t good enough to earn it.

  Her rescuer was a rodeo man, just like Tommy. In an instant, she wanted nothing more to do with Nate.

  She tensed, her throat convulsing as she swallowed. She’d prayed for help and the Lord had performed a miracle for her. And now that miracle stood in front of her. A tall, strong man with a lean, athletic body.

  In one glance, Lily sized him up. His determined, graceful movements, a firm mouth, stubborn chin and piercing brown eyes. She’d seen his kind before. Always in control. Forceful and unyielding.

  The kind of man she wanted to avoid at all costs.

  “How are you feeling?” He stood beside her bed, too close for comfort.

  She stared up at him, trying to form the words to thank him. But her tongue felt like a leaden weight inside her mouth. Her gaze locked with his and her face burned with embarrassment. And then a wave of recognition hit her. As if she knew
this man from somewhere but she couldn’t quite place him. A feeling of trust and safety washed over her. Like she’d been reunited with her best friend after a long absence.

  Calm as a summer’s morning.

  What an odd notion! She shook her head, thinking she must have hit her head very hard indeed to be thinking such things. She would never trust another man as long as she lived. The price was too high.

  She blinked and looked away. “I’m fine. Thanks to you. I owe you a lot.”

  Okay, she didn’t want to lay her gratitude on too thick, but she did feel thankful, didn’t she?

  Yes! In spite of everything, she wanted to make things right again. Mom had told her she could do anything with the Lord’s help. And that’s what she planned to do.

  “You don’t owe me anything. I did what anyone would have done.” His voice sounded low and husky.

  Again her gaze lifted to his. Again, a sweet feeling of contentment rested over her. A sentiment she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. She decided to ignore it. “But it wasn’t just anyone. It was you. And I’m appreciative. More than I can say.”

  “It was my pleasure. I’m just glad you’re both okay.” His gaze flickered briefly to her stomach and he smiled.

  The expression crinkled his brown eyes at the corners and deepened a dimple in his right cheek. So familiar. So comfortable. Yet she knew she’d never met this man before today. So why did she feel like she knew him?

  He knew about her baby. And she was too far along to pretend. Anyone could see that she was expecting. But she didn’t want to discuss her disgrace with him. No doubt the news would be all over town by supper. The nurse and orderly had been in her room when the doctor visited her. The technician who had taken her blood. They all knew. In this small community, word spread fast. The prodigal daughter had returned. Pregnant with no husband.

  A tremor of shame swept her and she inhaled an unsteady breath.

  He jerked a thumb toward the door. “The doctor’s contacted your father.”

  She almost groaned out loud. She’d wanted her reunion with Dad to be in private, out at the ranch. Not here in the hospital where so many people might overhear their conversation. Hopefully Dad wouldn’t cause a scene. She had no idea if the doctor had told him about the baby, or if that would be her job. Either way, Dad would have to be told that she wasn’t married.