Above Rubies (Rockland Ranch)

by Jaclyn Hawkes

  The last thing she remembered was walking down the street in the dark, knowing she'd made a huge mistake assuming she could survive. The thought made her start worrying again. She hadn’t seen her guitar or backpack and she wasn’t sure, but for some reason she thought the guitar was gone. Just the idea made her sad. How would she ever support herself and her baby without it? It was the only thing she knew how to do.

  She would have to find a way. She knew she would never give up and let them abort this baby. She sub-consciously lifted her chin as she put her hand protectively on her belly.

  “What’s wrong?” When he asked her the question in his deep voice, she jumped. She hadn’t even realized he was awake. “Are you sick again?” She shook her head, amazed that she wasn’t. It was the first time in weeks that she could say that.

  “Why the frown?” She wondered how long he had been watching her without her knowing it.

  She decided to be honest. “I was just trying to figure out how I got here, who you are and why you’re here. And how I’m going to pay for all this, and where I’m going to go when they release me.”

  He smiled as he leaned forward in his seat. “I brought you here. Well, two of my friends and I. We basically stole you from a gang. I’m Rossen Rockland, rodeo cowboy slash petroleum engineer. I manage the oil wells on my parent’s ranch about sixty miles north of here. I’m here because you need someone with you. We haven’t gotten to the payment question yet, although the doctor donated his services and the hospital is considering it. And what was the fourth question? Oh yeah, when they release you, I’m sure you’ll come home to my parents' ranch, unless there’s somewhere else you would rather go.”

  He made it all sound so simple. She shook her head slowly and asked, “I’m sorry. I don’t remember a gang. What happened?” She wasn’t sure she truly wanted to know.

  With a lazy smile, he said, “If you don’t remember, I’m not going to tell you. It’s better left forgotten.”

  She accepted his wisdom, but asked, “Where did you come along? The last thing I remember was walking late at night.” She dropped her eyes.

  “We were gassing up at a station there in Vegas when you obviously needed some help. So we helped. I wish we’d been about ten seconds earlier.” At this last, his voice sounded sad.

  Confused, she asked, “There? What do you mean, there in Vegas? Are we not still in Vegas?” There were more holes than she thought.

  He gave her a brilliant smile. “Not even close. You’re in Evanston, Wyoming. It’s a long story, but in order to get that arm fixed, we had to come home to a doctor who knew us. Sorry, we couldn’t really ask you if that was okay.”

  She looked unseeing out the window. “It doesn’t really matter either way.” Her voice was wistful. “And my guitar?”

  He shook his head sadly. “It was pretty toasted. We left the pieces in the street.” Somehow she’d known that and she tried to swallow the tears that threatened. She brushed at them embarrassed.

  “What about my backpack and my clothes?” There wasn’t much in them that mattered, but without them she possessed exactly nothing. She’d discovered she wasn’t even wearing underwear and her last four bucks had been in the back pocket of her cut offs.

  He got up to open the small closet. It was empty and he said, “To be honest, I don’t know what happened to them. It’s been kind of crazy at both hospitals. They’re somewhere. We’ll ask the nurse when she comes in. The denim jacket they actually cut off because of your arm. How’s it feeling?”

  It hurt, but she’d been trying not to think about it. It was all but useless in the cast. It was another reminder that she was without money to live on. And if she couldn’t play with it, she’d have no way to make any. Even if she had her guitar, she seriously doubted she could play well and she wondered if she would even be able to sculpt with it. Creating with clay was her one true passion in life and if she couldn’t do it, she'd miss it immensely.

  She hoped he couldn’t see her despair as she answered. “It’s fine.”

  After watching her for a long moment, he said, “You’re a terrible liar. You actually shattered the joint. There are three pins under that cast. It’s not the least bit fine. I’ve sat here helping you throw up, so we’re buddies by now. You can at least be honest with me.” He smiled as he finished.

  She shook her head and smiled shyly back. “Trust me. You don’t want honest.”

  “You’d be surprised. I’m tougher than I look.” He continued to joke while he asked a hard question. “While we’re being honest, is there anyone we need to contact to let them know you’re safe?”

  She inhaled a big breath and shook her head. “Not a soul.” She tried to be flippant, but the reality was devastating. She was alone and she knew it. It scared her.

  He knew it, too. He had to. Much as she tried to shrug off his questions, the fact that she was alone had to be obvious.

  He rose to stand by her hospital bed and slowly and carefully took her good hand and looked into her face. “God knew where you were, Kit, and the troubles you have. He sent Slade and me and Isabel to rescue you. He’s got it all under control. He’s got a secret weapon, you know. It’s Naomi.” He grinned and squeezed her bony shoulder. She looked up into his deep blue eyes and was confused and comforted at the same time. He was talking crazy, but in the last day or so she’d come to trust him completely.

  He continued, “Speaking of Naomi, isn’t it about time you ate again?”

  As if on cue, the nurse walked in the door, set her dinner tray on the rolling table top and began checking her temperature and blood pressure again. Kit started to eat, slowly and carefully with her one hand. It took her nearly a full half hour, and Rossen had to help her open cartons or spread things occasionally, but she kept it all down and felt better afterward.

  It wouldn’t have mattered if she'd realized sooner that keeping food in her stomach all the time helped the nausea. With the minimal amount of food she had been receiving back home, she could never have succeeded. She couldn’t remember a time that she hadn’t been hungry.

  He just sat and watched her eat, and dozed in his chair. He’d said he was here because she needed someone with her. She wasn’t sure that was so. She would have survived, but she was indeed grateful that she wasn’t alone like this. He'd been wonderful and just being watched over so carefully was an incredible boost to her self esteem. No one but her art teacher, Mrs. Webber, had ever treated her like she was important.

  He spoke of God so matter-of-factly, like he knew Him well or something. Mrs. Webber had been like that. Kit had never really known what to think about God. She wanted to believe there was this Higher Being out there who was in control, but if there was, why did He let some of the terrible things that happened go on? She was still trying to figure out what she believed. Sometimes she didn’t even have the energy to wonder. She was too busy trying to survive.

  She finished eating and was soon back to sleep, strangely, more at peace than she would have thought possible, just from knowing he sat quietly beside her bed.

  Wednesday morning she felt markedly better. Eating regularly and well was helping the nausea immensely and not using the morphine pump left her feeling much more with it, in spite of the painful arm. She found with consistent Tylenol she could get by and it was nice to feel good.

  Naomi came in the morning and when Rossen left the room she put a shopping bag on Kit’s bed and said, “I’m going to assume they took all your clothes and lost them like they do mine when I’m in the hospital. I’ve learned to have Rob take everything home as soon as they insist I take it off. You’d think they could work on your heel without removing your underwear, but they can’t.” Naomi’s eyes twinkled. “Just in case they did, I brought you some things. I’m not sure they’ll fit, but we can get some more later at any rate.”

  She unloaded underclothing, a sweat shirt, and a warm up suit that had zippers up both the legs and arms. “I thought it might be easier to get the sleeve
over your cast with them.” She'd also brought socks and snow boots and a winter coat. “These were Joey’s. She’s my daughter. They're probably way big, but they’ll keep you warm ’til we get you home.”

  The nurse taped a plastic bag over Kit’s cast and helped her into the shower. Then Naomi helped her to dress. They had to split the cuff of the sweat shirt to get it over her cast but when she was finally dressed she felt like a new person. The pretty, new clothing was a treat she wasn’t used to and the underwear felt wonderful. She'd felt so undressed without any the last three days.

  When Rossen came back in, Naomi was carefully pulling her hair into a pony tail and he knelt at her feet to help her on with the socks and boots. Kit wasn’t at all sure how to deal with all the attention. She’d never had help like this in her life and it actually made her uncomfortable. She didn’t feel like she deserved it, but she had come to understand that Rossen and Naomi were absolutely sincere in their kindness. She was unbelievably grateful to them.

  Later, when Dr. Sundquist made his rounds he released her to go home with strict instructions to continue her eating regimen. Then he told Rossen to bring her back into his office in several days to have her stitches out and splint removed. Kit was at a loss as to what to do and where to go.

  As soon as the doctor left the room, Naomi stood at her bedside and asked, “Would it be okay if we took you home to our house for a little while so we can help you get back on your feet?” Rossen smiled and nodded his head at her in encouragement.

  Kit didn’t understand why they were helping someone they didn’t even know, but she was absolutely thankful. She had no idea how she would have survived without their help, at least for a while, and said gratefully, “I would love to. Thank you.”

  The nurses insisted she let Rossen wheel her down to the car in a wheelchair. Kit felt silly, but if she were honest, she was still too light headed and dizzy to walk. He gently helped her into Naomi’s SUV and placed pillows to cushion her arm. As they drove through miles of rolling, treeless, sage-covered hills dusted with snow, she somehow felt like she was just starting out. For the first time she could remember she felt safe and secure and valued and she let the motion of the vehicle lull her to sleep.

  Some time later when she woke up, they'd left the sage hills behind and were on a snowy road that wound through a pristine valley surrounded by pine-clad mountains. She'd never seen anything like it except in pictures. Even as she admired the beauty, she worried about what she would wear to stay warm.

  Eventually they drove over a small rise and into a farmstead that was like a small city. Houses and barns and outbuildings clustered around and between corrals and pastures, and all of it was encircled by a fenced road. Horses and cows, looking like wooly beasts of the Arctic, watched placidly from areas cleared of deep snow. Rossen pushed a remote and pulled into the garage of the central and largest home.

  When he helped her from the SUV to the house, she was shocked to be greeted by no less than four brothers and a father who so closely resembled Rossen that it was uncanny. When three young women appeared and another darker haired man, Kit was hopelessly lost as far as names, but she certainly felt welcomed into this large and boisterous family. They settled her into a chair in a big room near a huge rock fireplace, and she watched in quiet amazement as they all joked and teased and laughed while putting lunch on a massive table.

  Chapter 3

  Slowly, over the next couple of days, Kit began to feel more and more comfortable with the Rockland family. She came to understand that the tall, dark Slade Marsh and his blonde fiancée, Isabel, had been the ones who rescued her with Rossen. Slade, who was sort of unofficially adopted, and Rossen were obviously the closest of friends, and Slade and Isabel were engaged to be married shortly. Until then, Isabel was living with the Rockland’s. Slade lived somewhere up the road. These three had just been leaving a rodeo in Las Vegas when they’d picked her up.

  Rossen was the oldest sibling, but his next younger brother, Ruger, was married to the petite, dark Marti who was the local veterinarian. They lived in one of the other houses nearby as well. Joey, the tall and beautiful “little” sister, and the three younger brothers, Sean, Treyne and Cooper were all college students, home for the Christmas holidays.

  Naomi was the only Rockland who wasn’t blonde except Marti. Naomi was still quiet and reserved, but Kit found the rest of them spent their days laughing and teasing uproariously. She’d had no idea while Rossen sat patiently beside her hospital bed that he was the ringleader of the family’s clowning around. She found herself laughing several times a day, something she couldn’t ever remember doing. They all went out night and morning, bundled like snowmen, to feed the stock, but a lot of the rest of the time was spent just flat out playing.

  The hidden treasure of the Rockland family for Kit turned out to be Joey. Although she was two years older, and a sophomore in college, she seemed to understand just what Kit needed and helped her fit in. Joey was great to help know how to handle all of the new things she was introduced to. She was tall—over five foot ten, and beautiful in a natural, almost wild way. Kit could see her as a sexy beach beauty or a strong frontier woman. Either way, she could have pulled it off with grace.

  She helped Kit find clothes and shoes, and although most of Joey’s stuff was a couple of inches too long, for the most part they were surprisingly alike in size.

  Joey also subtly encouraged her to get some counseling to deal with what had been happening in her foster home and even though Kit knew she couldn’t pay to go to a counselor, she followed Joey’s recommendation to at least do some research about healing on-line. At first, Kit had been skeptical, but it didn’t take long to find it was amazingly helpful.

  Joey also helped Kit to be able to figure out how to fit into the family situation that was so new to her. She’d never been around a real happy, functioning family at all—especially one with so many handsome, teasing young men. Whenever Kit was unsure of how to take something someone said or did, or when she didn't know how to act, Joey was there to smooth the way for her. Sometimes Joey just coolly put her brothers into place with a wicked smile. Kit marveled at how this tall beauty could handle all these men with such comfort.

  Still definitely recuperating, when Kit wasn’t watching them tease each other, she slept a lot. She'd been wearing a series of sweat pants and shirts donated by various members of the family and an old cardigan Naomi had cut the sleeve on to fit over her cast, and was still fighting the nausea by eating nonstop. Naomi would help her tape off her cast to shower and help her dress, and when Rossen wasn’t working, he would come and help her pull her hair back into a pony tail.

  On Sunday, a week from the day they’d picked her up, they asked her if she wanted to go to church with them. The bruising around her eyes was still slightly colorful and she still had the nose splint, so she self-consciously opted out, but she was grateful they asked. She was surprised when every single person in the family piled in and left. Even the farm hands could be seen leaving their homes in their Sunday best. She'd never been around church-going people. It was striking that they were all so devout, but it was certainly a good thing. She'd learned they were kind, clean living, hardworking and honest people and she definitely wanted to know more about their brand of belief.

  On the eighth day, Rossen loaded her up and took her back to the doctor in Evanston. Dr. Sundquist was pleased that her black eyes were so far healed and the whites were no longer bloodshot. He took the stitches out of her head, and when he removed the splint from her nose, she felt human again.

  He was checking her chart and said, “You’ve gained nine pounds in seven days! That’s excellent!” He turned to her smiling and gave her a high five.

  Kit smiled back shyly. “It’s because Rossen and Naomi feed me nonstop. I’ll probably weigh two hundred pounds by next month.”

  He looked at her over his glasses. “A month might be pushing it, but for as tall as you are, and in your condition, 170 o
r 180 might be a realistic goal. Just try to eat as nutritiously as you can and keep up some moderate exercise. Swimming once the cast is off would be great.” He scribbled on a prescription pad and ripped it off. "These are vitamins. If you can’t keep them down, take them before bed."

  After pausing for a moment, he glanced at Rossen and then looked back at Kit with a kindly face and gently asked, “How are you doing emotionally? Are you able to really talk to Naomi, or should I refer you to a counselor?”

  Kit hesitantly looked over at Rossen, but answered, “I think I’m doing okay. Joey recommended I do some counseling research on-line and I think it’s helping.”

  Dr. Sundquist met her eyes for a moment and then nodded and said, “Some things take time. Hang in there. You’re in good hands now. Try to put the past behind you.”

  He started to wash his hands. “All right, young lady, keep doing what you’re doing, and I’ll see you in three weeks. We’ll change that cast, and re-evaluate. You can try squeezing a Nerf ball or playing with a set of magnets with that hand when you feel like it.” He turned to Rossen. “Tropical fruit will continue to help the last of that bruising. Keep feeding her. She needs it.”

  As he walked out the door, he reached into a drawer and shuffled some papers. He pulled out a business card and handed it to Kit. “If you haven’t already got one, she’s very good. Make an appointment like yesterday.” He shook their hands and left the room.

  Kit stared at the business card in her hand. It was for an OB-GYN. She wasn’t exactly sure what that was, but she assumed Dr. Sundquist wanted her to have prenatal care. She didn’t have any way to pay for it and she didn’t know how to tell Rossen she was pregnant, but she knew she needed to. She dreaded seeing the disappointment in his eyes and hated the fact that he would now think of her differently.