midst of a family gathering, when she had longed to put a smile on his rugged, handsome face.
That compelling sense of an unspoken connection had been ripped to shreds on the day Luke had come to tell her that her husband was in the hospital and unlikely to make it. In a short burst riddled with agonized guilt, he’d added that he was responsible for the overturning of the tractor that had injured Erik. He’d made no apologies, offered no excuses. He’d simply stated the facts, seen to it that she got to the hospital, made sure the rest of the family was there to support her, then walked away. He’d avoided her from that moment on. Avoided everyone in the family ever since, from what Harlan and Mary had told her. He seemed to be intent on punishing himself, they complained sadly.
If Luke hadn’t been steering clear of White Pines, Jessie wasn’t at all sure she would have been able to accept the invitation to come for the holidays. Seeing Luke’s torment, knowing it mirrored her own terrible mix of grief and guilt was simply too painful. She hated him for costing her the one person to whom she’d really mattered.
Searching for serenity, she had fled the ranch a month after Erik’s death, settled in a new place on the opposite side of the state, gotten a boring job that paid the bills and prepared to await the birth of her child. Erik’s baby. Her only link to the husband she had adored, but hadn’t always understood.
She stopped the dark thoughts before they could spoil her festive holiday mood. There was no point at all in looking back. She had her future—she rested a hand on her stomach—and she had her baby, though goodness knows she hadn’t planned on being a single parent. Sometimes the prospect terrified her.
She found a station playing Christmas carols, turned up the volume and sang along, as she began the last hundred and fifty miles or so of the once familiar journey back to White Pines. Her back was aching like the dickens and she’d forgotten how difficult driving could be when her protruding belly forced her to put the seat back just far enough to make reaching the gas and brake pedals a strain.
“No problem,” she told herself sternly. A hundred miles or more in this part of the world was nothing. She had snow tires on, a terrific heater, blankets in the trunk for an emergency and a batch of homemade fruitcakes in the back that would keep her from starving if she happened to get stranded.
The persistent ache in her back turned into a more emphatic pain that had her gasping.
“What the dickens?” she muttered as she hit the brake, slowed and paused to take a few deep breaths. Fortunately there was little traffic to worry about on the unexpectedly bitter cold night. She stayed on the side of the road for a full five minutes to make sure there wouldn’t be another spasm on the heels of the first.
Satisfied that it had been nothing more than a pinched nerve or a strained muscle, she put the car back in gear and drove on.
It was fifteen minutes before the next pain hit, but it was a doozy. It brought tears to her eyes. Again, pulling to the side of the road, she scowled down at her belly.
“This is not the time,” she informed the impertinent baby. “You will not be born in a car in the middle of nowhere with no doctor in sight, do you understand me? That’s the deal, so get used to it and settle down. You’re not due for weeks yet. Four weeks to be exact, so let’s have no more of these pains, okay?”
Apparently the lecture worked. Jessie didn’t feel so much as a twinge for another twenty miles. She was about to congratulate herself on skirting disaster, when a contraction gripped her so fiercely she thought she’d lose control of the car.
“Oh, sweet heaven,” she muttered in a tone that was part prayer, part curse. There was little doubt in her mind now that she was going into labor. Denying it seemed pointless, to say nothing of dangerous. She had to take a minute here and think of a plan.
On the side of the road again, she turned on the car’s overhead light, took out her map and searched for some sign of a hospital. If there was one within fifty miles, she couldn’t spot it. She hadn’t passed a house for miles, either, and she was still far from Harlan and Mary’s, probably a hundred miles at least. She could make that in a couple of hours or less, if the roads were clear, but they weren’t. She was driving at a safe crawl. It could take her hours to get to White Pines at that pace.
There was someplace she could go that would be closer, someplace only five miles or so ahead, unless she’d lost her bearings. It was the last place on earth she’d ever intended to wind up, the very last place she would want her baby to be born: Luke’s ranch.
Consuela would be there, she consoled herself as she resigned herself to dropping by unannounced to deliver a baby. Luke probably didn’t want to see her any more than she wanted to see him. And what man wanted any part of a woman’s labor, unless she happened to be his wife? Luke probably wouldn’t be able to turn her over to Consuela fast enough. With all those vacant rooms, they probably wouldn’t even bump into each other in the halls.
Jessie couldn’t see that she had any choice. The snow had turned to blizzard conditions. The world around her was turning into a snow-covered wonderland, as dangerous as it was beautiful. The tires were beginning to skid and spin on the road. The contractions were maybe ten minutes apart. She’d be lucky to make it these few miles to Luke’s. Forget going any farther.
The decision made with gut-deep reluctance, she accomplished the drive by sheer force of will. When she finally spotted the carved gate announcing the ranch, she skidded to a halt and wept with relief. She still had a mile of frozen, rutted lane to the house, but that would be a breeze compared to the five she’d just traveled.
A hard contraction, the worst yet, gripped her and had her screaming out loud. She clung to the steering wheel, panting as she’d seen on TV, until it passed. Sweat streamed down her face.
“Come on, sweet thing,” she pleaded with the baby. “Only a few more minutes. Don’t you dare show up until I get to the house.”
She couldn’t help wondering when that would be. There was no beckoning light in the distance, no looming shape of the house. Surely, though, it couldn’t be much farther.
She drove on, making progress by inches, it seemed. At last she spotted the house, dark as coal against the blinding whiteness around it. Not a light on anywhere. No bright holiday decorations blinking tiny splashes of color onto the snow.
“Luke Adams, you had better be home,” she muttered as she hauled herself out from behind the wheel at last.
Standing on shaky legs, she began the endless trek through the deepening snow, cursing and clutching her stomach as she bent over with yet another ragged pain. The wind-whipped snow stung her cheeks and mingled with tears. The already deepening drifts made walking treacherous and slow.
“A little farther,” she encouraged herself. Three steps. Four. One foot onto the wide sweep of a porch. Then the other. She had made it! She paused and sucked in a deep breath, then looked around her.
The desolate air about the place had only intensified as she’d drawn closer. There was no wreath of evergreens on the front door, no welcoming light shining on the porch or from any of the rooms that she could detect. For the first time, she allowed a panicky thought. What if she had made it this far, only to find herself still alone? What if Luke had packed his bags and flown away for the holidays?
“Please, God, let someone be here,” she prayed as she hit the doorbell again and again, listening to the chime echo through the house. She pounded on the glass, shouted, then punched the doorbell again.
She heard a distant crash, a loud oath, then another crash. Apparently Luke was home, she thought dryly, as she began another insistent round of doorbell ringing.
“For cripe’s sakes, hold your horses, dammit!”
A light switch was thrown and the porch was illuminated in a warm yellow glow. Finally, just as another contraction ripped through Jessie, the door was flung open.
She was briefly aware of the thunderstruck expression on Luke’s face and his disheveled state, only marginally aware of the overpowering