“Sorry. But the waiting suuuucks. You guys want me to come decorate your places, just let me know.”
“I might just take you up on that, considering how busy I am these days baking pies for the resort.” Although Val’s glowing expression said she was clearly thrilled. “Might even have to scrounge up an assistant sometime soon. Since child labor is frowned upon, go figure. But the reason we’re here is...” She held up two overstuffed plastic bags. “More baby clothes, ta-da! Because there will be those days when between the urps and the poops, there aren’t enough onesies in the world...hey. You okay?”
“Back,” Deanna got out, pointing, and Val nodded.
“Yeah, Risa was like that. I swear if I could’ve reached inside to shift her, I would’ve. But...” The blonde’s pale brows dipped. “You sure that’s all it is?”
“Unfortunately, yes. The pain is constant and dull, not—”
“Like a blowtorch to the crotch?”
Deanna burbled a little laugh, then realized that would be her crotch, in the not too distant future. Fun. “Is it really that bad?”
“It ain’t no hayride, honey. Although at least there’s a kid at the end of it. Unlike, say, acute appendicitis. And thank God for epidurals. So I’m guessing you pulled babysitting detail today?”
“I did. Because Josh is schlepping a horse across the border.”
“Which you realize sounds vaguely illegal,” Val said. “But how’s it going with the kid?”
“Other than feeling like I’m keeping company with a six-hundred-year-old gnome? Fine.”
“Get used to it, kids definitely say whatever they’re thinking. And they think a lot, jeebus. Josie comes up with this stuff that regularly makes me wonder, Who are you?” Then she swung the bags toward the table. “So sit, sit, lemme show you what I brought—”
From the great room came shrieking. And bellowing. And giggles. And more bellowing.
“You sure it’s okay to leave the kids on their own?” Deanna said, lowering herself to one of the chairs about as gracefully as an elephant with piles.
Plopping into the seat closest to Deanna, Val upended the bags on the table between them and a million wee baby things came tumbling out. “You kidding? I sometimes think Josie’s a better mama at eight than I’ve ever been. Kid doesn’t let ’em get away with anything. And Austin thinks she walks on water. Anyway...” She spread out the loot, patting one particularly faded, splotched sleeper. “This stuff is not pretty. Which is why I didn’t bring it to the shower. But like I said, there will be many, many times when clean and available definitely trumps ugly.”
Her heart crunching at her new friend’s kindness, Deanna fingered a little pair of frilly socks patterned like ballet slippers. “I’d get up and give you a hug but you probably have some place to be before next week.”
Chuckling, Val did the honors instead, bending over to wrap her arms around Deanna for a moment before settling again in her seat. Smoky ventured back into the kitchen, craning his head to listen down the hall before scooting away again. “But...” Deanna pressed one of the sleepers—a grayish pink with white polka dots—to her chest. “What if you need these again?” Val blushed, and Deanna gasped. “Oh, my God. You’re pregnant.”
“I’m late,” the blonde whispered. “As in, way too early to announce. Which is why I backpedaled at the shower, because I was afraid to believe it myself. And nobody else knows except Levi.”
Oh. Wow. Warmth spreading through her, Deanna reached for Val’s hand. “I take it you’re thrilled?”
A smile slowly crept across the blonde’s mouth. “If it sticks? You have no idea.”
“Then I am, too. And I won’t breathe a word, I promise.”
“Thanks. And don’t even worry about the stuff,” Val said, waving her hand over the messy stacks on the table. “You can always give it back when Katie outgrows it, if it’s even still usable at that point. Besides, it might not even be a girl...” Her eyes glistened. “There is no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Levi loves Josie and Risa every bit as much as their father did. But when I told him I might be pregnant, the look on his face...”
Now Deanna’s smile felt frozen in place. Not that she wasn’t delighted for Josh’s brother and sister-in-law, but damned if she didn’t feel cheated, that the look on Phillippe’s face had been more a cross between panicked and furious. Still, before the self-pity demons got their clutches in her, it struck Deanna she was only the second person to know about this baby. True, she’d guessed, but Val could’ve kept her secret if she’d wanted to. And wasn’t it crazy, how good that made her feel? How...included.
Val and the girls stuck around for maybe a half hour or so, at which point Josie—and Val—insisted on taking Austin home with them. Even though the silence left in their wake was so profound Deanna could practically feel it. But the solitude, the stillness, also enveloped her every bit as cozily as her old shawl, which she wrapped up in before walking out onto the hacienda’s garland-draped veranda. Not to mention the sparkling clear light, the crisp mountain air, on this icy afternoon.
The memories. Of other early winter days, when her mother was still alive and the house reeked of Christmas, when she and Josh would saddle up their horses and ride out probably farther than their parents ever realized, not even caring when their butts went numb from the cold. She certainly hadn’t felt hamstrung then, had she? If anything, she remembered a kind of contentment she hadn’t felt since.
The thought brought her up short. As did the rustle of wings from the top of a nearby piñon—a hawk, its harsh keen knifing the quiet, prompting Thor to jerk awake from his spot on the veranda’s sun-drenched lip to bark at the bird.
She’d missed this. All of it. Dogs and hawks and the sky, dotted with great big fluffy clouds. The peace.
Her breath catching in her throat, Deanna shut her eyes, letting the admission wash over her. Embracing it, even if she didn’t have the foggiest notion what to do with it. Much as she still had no idea why she’d as good as admitted to Josh two days ago what she’d felt when they were kids. Seriously, why even bring up something neither one of them could have done anything about then? That still had absolutely nothing to do with now.
Never mind that she’d barely slept the past few nights, since he and Austin moved in. Although who could sleep with an octopus inside her? So much for the baby settling down once the head was engaged. Except the thing was, Octobaby’s hyperactivity also gave Deanna way too much time to think about stuff. Okay, Josh. More to the point, how manly and funny and caring and crazy he was. The same as she remembered, only the grown-up version, which was proving a whole lot harder to ignore than she’d thought. Hoped.
How her poor sleep-deprived hormones had clearly made it their mission to torment her with images of Josh sleeping right down the hall. Or, far worse, wondering what his reaction would be if she asked him to give her a back rub. Yeah, those hormones were being stinkers of the highest order. Although would somebody please explain to her why in the hell she’d feel this hot to trot when she couldn’t even walk from her bedroom to the john without getting winded?
Jeezy Pete, her thoughts were whistling through her brain like the wind through the trees.
Thor nudged Deanna’s hand, his ice-cold nose making her jump. Chuckling, she bent over to give him some loving, a move which made her back twinge. She ignored it. Tried to, anyway. Really, she should waddle back inside, put away all the clothes Val had brought. Except then she’d think about Josh putting together the crib, or horsing around with his son, or thanking her for making dinner...
Sighing at her own silliness, Deanna and the dog trudged out to the barn—well, she trudged, he did more of a fox-trot—where her old horse was stabled, thinking maybe she’d let her out to enjoy the air. Or she could at least open a stall, right?
The cold only made the barn smell sweete
r—Josh was meticulous about keeping the stalls as clean as possible—of hay and horse, overlaid with the slight tang of piñon smoke that permeated the air this time of year. Starlight immediately came over when Deanna got closer to the stall, the space bigger than her bedroom in her “fun”-sized DC apartment. Her father had always taken damn good care of his horses, too, another poignant memory that only spiked her grief. For things she’d had and lost, for things that had never been hers. Not really. Not entirely.
For things she’d like to be hers, even if she had no earthly idea how to get them.
“Hey, girl,” she crooned to the mare, who laid her muzzle in the crook of Deanna’s shoulder, her horsey scent intensifying the yearning. All she wanted, she realized, was home. But where was that? What was that—
“Oh!” she breathed out on a short gasp when the twinging suddenly morphed into something...different. Releasing the horse, she stepped away to grasp the top of the stall door and bend forward, trying to ease the pressure in her back...
She felt a weird, painless prick...followed by roughly five thousand gallons of water rushing down her legs.
Well, crap.
“Stay calm,” she muttered to herself, fumbling for her phone. Never mind she was shaking so much she could barely see it. “It’s all good, nothing to worry about...” She took a breath. Then another. Then looked at the phone again.
Focus, focus, it’s okay...
Except for one tiny problem:
There was no signal.
* * *
Josh had been back on the road maybe twenty minutes when his sister-in-law’s call came through on his truck’s Bluetooth device.
“Hey, Val,” he said, keeping an eagle eye on the rusted-out clunker a couple hundred yards up the road. A light snow had begun to fall. No biggie, though. “What’s up—”
“I’ve been trying to get you for the past fifteen minutes,” she said, and his heart went ba-da-boom against his ribs.
“Sorry, signal’s pretty sketchy up here—”
“So Deanna hasn’t called you? Well, if she couldn’t get through—”
“Val! What’s going on?”
“Probably nothing, really. But when the kids and I were out at the Vista a little bit ago she was complaining about her back hurting.”
Josh relaxed. Some. “Yeah, she’s been doing that a lot. Since before Thanksgiving.”
“That’s what she said. Still. I’ve got a feeling.”
“But you didn’t think she was in labor.”
“Then? No. I wouldn’t’ve left if I thought she was. Except then I got home, and...” He heard a soft, slightly nervous laugh. “Sorry, I’m probably sounding crazy.”
“Not hardly,” Josh said, knowing from experience that when a woman said she had a “feeling,” a smart man paid attention. “I take it you tried calling her?”
“Of course. Only she’s not answering, either.”
Damn. Josh glowered at the dude ahead of him, moseying along the road like he owned it. And of course this was the stretch where it was nearly impossible to pass. Especially with a stupid horse trailer hitched to his truck. “What about my mom? EMS?”
“Billie was about an hour away from the Vista when I called, she’s on her way. And we’re out of luck with the ambulance, they’re out on another call.” Unfortunately one of the major disadvantages to living in the boonies was that small-town volunteer emergency crews weren’t always readily available. “And I’d go back over, but I’ve got the kids. Including yours—”
“No, no—it’s okay. When did you last see her?”
“Maybe forty-five minutes? Oh, and it’s started to snow.”
Josh sucked in a steadying breath, releasing it on a rush of gratitude when the slowpoke finally turned off the road and he could step on the gas. Only a few miles left before the highway.
“I’m about a half hour out. At the most,” he said, hoping to hell no state trooper was lurking in the bushes. Because right now the speed limit was only a suggestion. Unless the snow decided not to play nice...
“Keep trying to get her, and I will, too. But I’m sure she’s fine,” he said, more to reassure himself than Val. But the instant he disconnected the call he started praying harder than he ever had in his life.
And God laughed and ripped open the sky, instantly coating the countryside in white.
* * *
The first contraction hit while Deanna was still staring at her phone in disbelief, the pain almost enough to distract her from the absurdity of standing in soaking-wet leggings, in a freezing barn, with no other human being for miles. One of those things she’d probably find funny, ten, twenty years down the road.
At the moment, however...
At least, she thought when the pain let up enough to think, she’d be able reach someone on the landline.
Back at the house.
Way, way, back at the house.
That is, if she didn’t die of hypothermia first, she mused as she inched out of the barn and that first wave of ice-cold air smacked the bejeebers out of her. At precisely the moment another contraction viced her lower belly like a sonuvabitch, pretty much bringing anything even vaguely resembling forward motion to a dead halt. And...wait.
Snow?
Okay, not exactly a blizzard, but still. Judging from the bigger, badder clouds rapidly moving in from the north, blizzarding was definitely a possibility. Soon. As in, probably sooner than she was going to make it to the house. Honestly, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry—or maybe both, what the hell—but since one was inappropriate and the other self-defeating, she nixed emotion altogether.
And, since she couldn’t move, anyway, checked her phone. One bar. She’d take it. Only now, feeling like a jailbird who only got a single call, she was momentarily stymied as to who she should call first. A quandary she pondered as she took advantage of the break between contractions to continue her agonizingly slow trek toward the house, Thor now snapping at snowflakes as though he’d never seen them before—
“Jeebus!” she yelled when the phone rang, making her jump out of her goose-bumpy skin.
“Thank God,” Josh said when she answered. “You okay?”
“Not even remotely.”
“Wrong answer.”
“Tough.” Deanna looked up at the sky, which was now spitting snow in earnest. “Where are you?”
“Close.”
“Woman in labor, here. Need specifics.”
“Ten minutes, maybe—”
“It’s snowing,” she said, inanely, holding out her hand to catch a few flakes, like she used to do as a child.
“I know. You’ll probably want to crank up the heat. How far apart are the contractions?”
“You don’t wanna know.”
She heard him sigh. “What’re we talking? Every ten minutes? Five?”
“Um...two? Ish?”
The next word out of his mouth was colorful, to say the least. “I thought it wasn’t supposed to happen that fast.”
“Yeah, well, this kid clearly doesn’t know from ‘supposed to.’ But the good news is...” Finally, finally, she made it to the veranda, which under other circumstances she might’ve knelt down to kiss. Although under other circumstances, she wouldn’t have wanted to. She stopped, her eyes squeezing shut as she grabbed the nearest post to hang on.
“The good news is...?”
“I’m not...in the barn...anymore...”
Silence. Then: “Hang on, honey... I’m almost there...”
But she didn’t answer him, because that blowtorch thing? Yep.
Too bad the heat wouldn’t dry out her pants.
Chapter Nine
Over his hammering heart, Josh desperately tried not to think about how he might have to deliv
er this baby. So of course that was the only thing he could think about. Sure, he knew all about foaling horses, but for the most part his participation had been limited to watching. Or arriving on the scene after the blessed event had already happened. Horses were efficient like that. And since Jordan hadn’t bothered to let him know Austin was coming until he’d already arrived, he hadn’t even witnessed his own son’s birth.
And not seeing his mother’s pickup in front of the house wasn’t exactly making him calmer. Although rising to the occasion was clearly his lot in life, so...
The trailer rattled like thunder when he slammed into the dirt drive. Thor bounced up to his door, barking his head off. Geez, human, what took you so long? Lady person foaling, here, get the lead out! Josh tumbled out of the truck, the dog beating him to the door.
“Dee?” he bellowed, his voice echoing off the great room’s rafters. “Where are you, honey?”
“Bathroom!”
Hers, he assumed, his boots skidding on the tile when he hit her doorway. Breathing hard, he stopped at the entrance to her bath, where she stood in the tub, of all places.
“I’m here,” he said...and Dee took one look at him and completely lost it.
“Hey, hey...” Climbing into the tub with her, what the hell, Josh wrapped her close and kicked his own panic to the curb. “It’s okay, honey, it’s okay...”
“Those are t-tears of re-relief, doofus,” she said, hiccupping a little laugh as she scrubbed her face, then tried to push away. “Eww, I’m all wet—”
“So I noticed,” he said, which got a shaky little smile before she grabbed his arms like she was about to fall off a cliff. The moan started low and soft, only to rapidly escalate into something like out of a horror movie.
“Look at me, honey,” Josh said, ignoring his own quaking stomach when her eyes squinched shut. “Dee! Look at me!”
“Can’t,” she panted out. “Hurts.”
“I know, baby. Okay, I can guess,” he said when she shot him a death glare. “But the breathing will help. Trust me.”
The Rancher's Expectant Christmas Page 13