blamed himself enough for both of them.
“Dad’s also dead certain that he’s the only one who knows what’s best,” he added. “Sometimes, though, he misses the mark by a mile.”
Her gaze honed in on him. “You’re talking about Erik, aren’t you? You’re thinking about how your father talked him into staying in ranching. If Harlan had let him go, maybe he’d still be alive.”
And if Luke had been on that tractor, instead of his brother, Erik would be here right now, he thought. He’d known Erik couldn’t manage the thing on the rough terrain, but he’d sent him out there, anyway. He’d told him to grow up and do the job or get out of ranching if he couldn’t hack it. Guilt cut through him at the memory of that last bitter dispute.
He glanced at Jessie. The mention of Erik threw a barrier up between them as impenetrable as a brick wall. For once, Luke was glad when the next contraction came. And the next. And the one after that. So fast now, that there was no time to think, no time to do anything except help Jessie’s baby into the world.
“Push, darlin’,” Luke coaxed.
Jessie screamed. Luke cursed.
“Push, dammit!”
“You don’t like how I’m doing it, you take over,” she snapped right back at him.
Luke laughed. “That’s my Jessie. Sass me all you like, if it helps, but push! Come on, darlin’. I’m afraid this part here is entirely up to you. If I could do it for you, I would.”
“Luke?”
There was a plaintive, fearful note in her voice that brought his gaze up to meet hers. “What?”
“What if something goes wrong?”
“Nothing is going to go wrong,” he promised. “Everything’s moved along right on schedule so far, hasn’t it?”
“Luke, I’m having this baby in a ranch house. Doesn’t that suggest that the schedule has been busted to hell?”
“Your schedule maybe. Obviously the baby has a mind of its own. No wonder, given the way you take charge of your life. You’re strong and brave and your baby’s going to be just exactly like you,” he said reassuringly.
“I think I’ve changed my mind,” she said with a note of determination in her voice. “I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready to be a mother. I can’t cope with a baby on my own.”
Luke laughed. “Too late now. Looks to me like that horse is out of the barn.”
Moments later, a sense of awe spread through him at the first glimpse of the baby’s head, covered with dark, wet hair.
“My God, Jessie, I can see the baby. Just a little more work, darlin’, and you’ll have a fine, healthy baby in your arms. That’s it. Harder. Push harder.”
“I can’t,” she wailed.
“You can,” Luke insisted. “Here we go, darlin’.” He slid his hands under the baby’s tiny shoulders. “One more.” Jessie bore down like a trooper and the baby slipped into his hands.
“Luke,” Jessie whispered at once. “Is the baby okay? I don’t hear anything.”
The baby let out a healthy yowl. Luke beamed at both of them. “I think that’s your answer,” he said.
He surveyed the squalling baby he was holding. “Let’s see now. Ten tiny fingers. Ten itsy-bitsy toes. And the prettiest, sassiest blue eyes you ever did see. Just like her mama’s.”
“Her?” Jessie repeated. She struggled to prop herself up to get a look. “It’s a girl?”
“A beautiful little angel,” he affirmed as he cleaned the baby up, wrapped her in a huge blanket and laid her in Jessie’s arms.
Even though her eyes were shadowed by exhaustion, even though her voice was raspy from screaming, the sight of her daughter brought the kind of smile to Jessie’s face that Luke had doubted he would ever see again.
She looked up at him, her eyes filled with gratitude and warmth, and his heart flipped over. A world of forbidden possibilities taunted him.
“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” Jessie said, her gaze locked on the tiny bundle in her arms.
“Just about the most gorgeous baby I’ve ever seen,” he agreed, thinking how desperately he wished he could claim her as his own. His and Jessie’s. He forced the thought aside. “Do you have a name picked out?”
“I thought I did,” she said. “But I’ve changed my mind.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Because she rushed things and decided to come at Christmas,” she explained. “I’m going to call her Angela. That way I’ll always remember that she was my Christmas miracle.” She turned a misty-eyed gaze on Luke. “Thank you, Lucas.”
If he lived a hundred years, Luke knew he would trade everything for this one moment out of time.
Later the guilt and recriminations would come back with a vengeance. Jessie would remember who he was and what he had done to ruin her life. The blame, no matter how hard she denied it, would be there between them.
But right now, for this one brief, shining moment, they were united, a part of something incredibly special that he could hold in his heart all the rest of his lonely days. They had shared a miracle.
Jessie felt as if she’d run a couple of marathons back-to-back, but not even that bone-weary exhaustion could take away the incredible sense of joy that spread through her at the sight of her daughter sleeping so peacefully in her arms. Her seemingly healthy baby girl. Her little angel with the lousy sense of timing.
For perhaps the dozenth time since dawn had stolen into the room, bathing it in a soft light, she examined fingers and toes with a sense of amazement that anyone so small could be so perfect. Her gaze honed in on that tiny bow of a mouth, already forming the instinctive, faint smacking sounds of hunger even as she slept. Any minute now she would wake up and demand to be fed.
“Luke, she’s hungry,” Jessie announced with a mixture of awe and pride that quickly turned to worry. Not once during all the hours of labor or since had she given a single thought to what happened next. “What’ll we do?”
Given their past history, it was amazing how quickly she’d come to rely on Luke, how easily she’d pushed aside all of her anger and grief just to make it through this crisis. And, despite his less than alert state on her arrival, despite all the reasons he had for never wanting to see her again, he hadn’t let her down yet.
Of course, judging from the way he was sprawled in the easy chair in a corner of the bedroom with his eyes closed, the last bit of adrenaline that had gotten him through the delivery had finally worn off.
Faint, gray light filtered through the frosted window and cast him in shadows. She studied him surreptitiously and saw the toll the past months—or some mighty hard drinking—had taken on him.
The lines that time and weather had carved in his tanned, rugged face seemed deeper than ever. His jaw was shadowed by a day or more’s growth of beard. His dark brown hair, which he’d always worn defiantly long, swept the edge of his collar. He looked far more like a dangerous rebel than the successful Texas rancher he was.
If he looked physically unkempt, his clothes were worse. His plaid flannel shirt was clean but rumpled, as if he’d grabbed it from a basket on his way to the door. It was unevenly buttoned and untucked, leaving a mat of dark chest hair intriguingly visible. The jeans he’d hauled on were dusty and snug and unbuttoned at the waist.
Jessie grinned as her gaze dropped to his feet. He had on one