Read the book: «Ooh Baby, Baby»

Chapter One

Blackness gripped her like a fist. Outside, the wind howled, and rain pummeled the thin windowpanes. Thunder rumbled. Lightning cracked.

Inside, the silence of her heart was deafening. Terrifying. And so very, very lonely.

Peggy Saxon shifted on the worn sofa to massage the small of her back. It didn’t help. The nagging throb simply wouldn’t go away. She heaved her pregnant bulk sideways, seeking a semicomfortable position. The threadbare sofa arm poked her ribs.

Muttering, Peggy used a strategically tucked throw pillow to pad the exposed wood, then grabbed the tiny battery-powered radio from a nearby table. She needed something to drown out the roaring storm, the inner silence of desolation. She needed music. Voices. Even crackling white noise would be a distraction from desperate sadness, from secret fear.

On the radio, a tight male voice announced new road closures due to mud slides. Phone lines were hit and miss, but the power company, having been flooded out by a massive surge of murky goo, still had no estimate as to when electricity would be restored. A state of emergency had been declared.

It was five o’clock in the morning. There was no light. No heat. The lovely mountain hamlet of Grand Springs, Colorado, was under siege. And Peggy Saxon was alone.

* * *

“Dispatch to unit six. Travis…are you there?”

Travis Stockwell ducked into the cab, knocked his hat off on the door frame and swore as his prized Stetson landed in the mud. He scooped it up, muttered and wiped the brim with a paisley handkerchief.

The raspy female voice boomed with familiar agitation. “Unit six, respond. Respond, dadgummit, or I’ll be tossing out those fancy boots of yours and renting your room to the highest bidder.”

“Aw, for crying out loud.” Travis tossed the wet Stetson on the cab’s front passenger seat, poked the soiled handkerchief back into his pocket, which was already crammed with a soggy pack of pumpkin seeds, and snatched up the microphone. “All right, already. This is unit six, soaking wet, so hungry I could chew cardboard, and so danged tired I don’t give a fat flying fig what you do with that flea-bitten flophouse.”

A long-suffering sigh crackled over the line. “Where’n Sam Hill are you?”

Travis squinted through the splattered windshield toward a weary group of guardsmen hoisting the gear he’d just unloaded. “Near as I can figure, about a half mile from the cutoff road to Mountain Meadows campground. I just dropped off the evacuation troop.”

“What’s your ETA?”

“I dunno. Thirty minutes, maybe sooner if the traffic lights are back on line.”

“They’re not. The whole town is blacked out. Oh, and don’t take Orchard Road back into town.”

“Mud slide?”

“Big one. Looks like it might have taken a couple cars.”

Travis swore, slapped the steering wheel. “Maybe I should head that way to see if I can help.”

The microphone crackled. “Jimmy’s already en route with a group of volunteers and a trunk full of shovels. I need you back in town. Every emergency vehicle in the area is tied up. City hall is scrambling for rescue transport.”

“On my way,” Travis said, and flipped the ignition with his free hand. “Unit six out.”

“Travis, keep this radio on. Cell service is going in and out, so this is the only way I can always reach you”

“Yeah, okay.”

“You be careful, hear?”

“I will, sis.” With that, he dropped the mike, shifted into gear and drove into the blinding rain.

* * *

Light blasted away blackness. The dingy duplex shuddered through thunder, screeched as if in pain.

Peggy gasped, suddenly awake, clutched her distended belly and struggled to her feet. An eerie energy crawled up her arms, lifting the fine hairs. Another flash, another roar. She covered her ears, bit her lip, may have cried out, but the sound was swallowed by a deafening crack and the reverberating crash of splintered lumber. Her scalp tingled, felt singed.

Peggy couldn’t hear the scream but felt it explode from her parched throat. She wrapped her arms over her head, curled forward to protect the precious life in her womb. The house was collapsing around her. She knew it. She felt it. She heard the agonized shriek of fractured wood, of ripped nails. The floor rumbled beneath her feet.

Then the rumbling softened into silence.

She heard a thin sob, then realized it had come from her. Opening her eyes, she blinked into the darkness, seeing nothing but familiar shadows of doorways and lumpy furniture. Now, all she heard was the rain. The pounding, incessant rain.

Shaking violently, Peggy felt around the sofa cushions until her fingers brushed smooth metal, the flashlight that had been beside her throughout the long, black night. Her hand quivered around it, her thumb spasmed against the protruding switch. A beam of brilliant reassurance bounced from a wall.

She swept the light around the room, across the ceiling and over the floor, stopping briefly on the wall clock, which read eight o’clock. Everything was as it should be. No giant cracks, no collapsing timbers. The pocket radio had fallen under the coffee table, but the sparsely furnished room was otherwise tidy.

Peggy swept the light toward the front door, then veered left to aim the beam through the window and check the front porch—or rather, what was left of it.

The dilapidated decking had been crushed by an enormous pine that had once shaded the south side of the duplex and was now wedged against her front door. Judging by the angle at which the tree had fallen, she suspected that the other half of the duplex had borne the brunt of the damage. Fortunately, the unit was vacant, which meant her nearest neighbor was a quarter mile away.

Swallowing a sour surge of panic, Peggy told herself the damage probably wasn’t as bad as it looked. Besides, the storm would be over soon. It had to be. The town couldn’t take much more.

Peggy couldn’t take much more.

She wiped her forehead, mildly surprised as a coating of icy fear came away on her fingertips. No shame in that. It was okay to be scared. As long as you didn’t show it, didn’t provide a weakness to target. Fear was a private matter, a respected adversary to be acknowledged, then controlled and ultimately defeated.

Peggy understood the process intimately. She’d fought fear all her life. She’d always won. Always.

Until now.

The grinding pain ripped her belly like a buzz saw, doubling her over. She had no breath to cry out, but her mind screamed for her. Fear surged victorious. She was in labor. She was terrified.

And she was alone.

* * *

Travis jammed the brakes, cursing. The cab fishtailed to a stop. In front of him, an impatient line of vehicles bunched behind an overturned big rig blocking both lanes of traffic. He sighed, tugged his hat down to his eyebrows and reached for the microphone.

“Unit six to dispatch.” When there was no immediate response, he gave the mike button an impatient tap. “Aw, hell, Sue Anne, quit sucking soda and get on the danged radio. I don’t have all day.”

Actually, it appeared that he did have all day. That eighteen-wheeler wasn’t going anywhere on its own, and Travis suspected it would be hours before the emergency team could spring loose the heavy-duty equipment needed to clear the roadway. At least the rain had eased to a dull drizzle, and it was just now becoming light—even though dawn broke hours ago.

The microphone emitted a juicy hiss. “Dang you, Travis, you are such a brat.”

“Caught you, didn’t I? You know, sis, there’s a twelve-step program for people who can’t control their cola. You ought to look into it.” He held the transmission button down so he didn’t have to listen to a sputtered reply, and squinted through the smeared windshield. “The interstate transition is blocked by a semi. I might be able to backtrack toward Virginia Road, but it’ll add a forty-five to my ETA.”

When he finally remembered to release the mike switch, Sue Anne was in midsentence. “About five miles from your location.”

He frowned. “Say again?”

“We have an emergency relay from 911 dispatch. Pickup is at 5662 Rourke Way.”

Travis was familiar with the street, a rutted two-lane cutting a rural swath around the outskirts of town. He jotted the address on a scratch pad affixed to the dash. “I’ll be there in ten.”

He hung a U-turn, stomped the accelerator and sped away.

* * *

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Short, shallow breaths. Pant like a dog. That’s what the book said, wasn’t it? Or maybe it said to take a deep breath and hold it. Peggy couldn’t remember. It had been more than three hours since her first pain, and suddenly, dear Lord, she couldn’t remember.

If only she’d taken the Lamaze classes her doctor had suggested. But she hadn’t, because the classes were geared for couples and she’d been too embarrassed to go alone. So she’d bought a handbook on childbirth, read it cover to cover and thought she was prepared.

Only now she couldn’t remember what the book said, what she was supposed to do.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Peggy willed herself to be calm and to focus on what she’d learned. Short breaths. Yes, she was sure now. Short breaths during labor, deep breaths during crowning, when it was time to push.

To push.

Oh, God.

The contraction eased, allowing panic to bubble like bad beer. It was too soon, Peggy thought frantically. Too soon. She wasn’t due for three weeks. She wasn’t ready to give birth, not ready at all.

Her heart raced, pumping icy perspiration out of every pore. She licked her lips. They were rough, cracked. Dry as dirt.

The doctor was waiting at the hospital. When she’d phoned a few hours ago, he’d told her that everything would be all right. And she wanted to believe him. She did believe him.

The image of kind blue eyes and a rumpled, grandfatherly smile warmed her heart. Dr. Dowling had been good to her. He understood how difficult things had been since Clyde left, and had gone out of his way to spend extra time during her appointments, time to calm, to soothe her. Peggy longed for that comfort now, for the gentle touch of proficient hands, the resonant, parental voice that made her feel safe and secure.

He was waiting for her. At the hospital. Now.

Where the hell was that cab?

A glance at the front window confirmed that morning had indeed come. Cold, wet. Gray. The fallen tree loomed enormous, its massive trunk blocking all but a bleak sliver of gloomy sky.

The thought occurred to her that there was no way for her to get out through the front door, no way for anyone else to get in. But Peggy couldn’t worry about that now, because a viselike tightness was working its way from the base of her spine to around her belly.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

The pain swelled, twisted, sliced like a dull blade. Tears sprang to her eyes. She curled forward, wanting to scream, but her lungs were in spasm.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

Peggy gritted her teeth, dug her fingers into the sofa cushions and imagined a hundred innovative ways for the ex-husband who’d abandoned her to die ugly.

* * *

Travis was horrified. He pulled onto the dirt shoulder behind a clunky old sedan and fervently hoped he was at the wrong address. Even in the gray, rain-dark pall he could see that anyone left inside that crushed structure needed an ambulance, not a cab.

He exited the checkered taxi and headed toward the duplex, veering around a massive root ball jutting from soaked earth. Closer examination revealed that except for the porch, now a splintered nest of rubble under the toppled tree, the dwelling itself seemed to be relatively unscathed.

Shading his eyes, Travis squinted between blowing pine boughs and saw a snapped porch beam had crushed one of the unit’s two doors. The other door was undamaged, but completely blocked by the tree trunk, which he judged to be about four feet in diameter.

He cupped his mouth and shouted, “Conway Cab. Anyone in there?” A movement behind one of the windows caught his eye. He shifted toward the unit on the left, thought he saw a shadow inside the room. Before he could focus, the shadow seemed to collapse, melt in upon itself and was gone.

Shifting, Travis grabbed a sturdy limb and hoisted himself up onto the fallen trunk, hoping for a better look, but gray light threw his own reflection back at him, obscuring his view inside. A windblown whip of pine needles stung his face. He swatted at it, lost his grip and dropped back to the mucky ground.

The sky darkened again. Clouds swirled, boiled black. The wind whistled a warning and began to howl.

Travis swore and pulled up his jacket collar until wet denim chafed his earlobes. He longed for warmth, the arid desert heat, the soft crush of dry sawdust beneath his boots. Cheering crowds. Bellowing livestock. Rawhide rasping his palms. The pungent smell of animalistic power, of sweating victory and bloody defeat.

Ah, he missed it. Just a few more weeks and he’d be back on the circuit, back where he belonged. Travis could hardly wait.

Ducking into the wind, he gripped the brim of his hat and circled back around the giant root ball toward the rear of the old duplex. A five-foot wooden fence creaked against the wind.

“Great,” he muttered, automatically wrapping a protective arm around his taped ribs. At the moment, climbing a fence didn’t much appeal to him, but there didn’t seem to be a whole bunch of options. A quick glance around confirmed nothing but a few vacant lots backing up to a conifer forest. No help there.

Issuing a pained sigh, he hoisted himself up and over, wincing as he dropped into the yard. He straightened slowly, waiting for the pain to ease. Doc had warned him that ribs fractured that badly were slow to heal. Slow? Hell, that wasn’t the half of it. A snail could’ve crawled to Texas by the time Travis had mended enough to take a decent breath. He was better now. Not great, but better.

Travis straightened and stretched out the kinks. After a quick glance around the barren square of fenced grass, he strode to the back door of the first duplex, peered through the mullioned window and tapped on the glass.

There was no response, but Travis focused through the galley-style kitchen into the living room of the duplex. There were no lights inside, only slight illumination from a sliver of daylight breaking through the partially blocked front window. He saw the outline of a sofa, the triangular shadow of a lampshade and a table of some kind. His gaze narrowed, focusing on the floor beside the table. Something was heaped there, a crumpled silhouette that could have been a wadded blanket or a bundle of laundry.

But the bundle was moving. The crumpled silhouette was a person. A person in trouble.

Travis frantically rattled the knob. It was locked, so he took a step back and kicked the door in. In less than a heartbeat, he knelt beside a woman who was curled on her side, making strange hissing sounds through her teeth.

He laid a tentative hand on her shoulder. “Ma’am?”

She opened her eyes, huge pools of emerald terror in a colorless face.

Travis’s breath backed up his throat. “It’s all right,” he muttered with considerably more confidence than he felt. “You’re going to be fine, ma’am, just fine.”

Her eyes widened, then squinched shut. To his shock, she formed her lips into an O and began to pant. He blinked, wondering why she would be overly warm when the room was colder than a barn in winter. For some odd reason, he noticed the bulge of her abdomen long before the reason for it struck him. When it did, he danged near went into shock.

“Oh, no,” he murmured, utterly transfixed by the realization. “No, no, ma’am, you can’t do this…not now. Please, lady—”

Her cheeks flexed with each quick puff.

“Oh, Lordy—”

Puff, puff, puff.

“Ma’am, please stop. This just really isn’t a good time—”

A shudder jittered through her body, then she suddenly went limp as a squashed snake and her breath slid out with a long, slow hiss.

Travis sat back on his boot heels, wiped his forehead. “Yes’m, that’s better. Much obliged.”

She looked up, her eyes bright with moisture. “What are you doing here?”

“Conway Cab Company, ma’am.” He licked his lips. “You did call for a cab, didn’t you? Oh, well, sure, sure you did, but maybe, ah—” he swallowed hard “—maybe under the circumstances, an ambulance would be a better choice.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Golly, what a swell idea.”

He flinched, feeling stupid. Every ambulance in town was tied up on emergency duty, which was why he’d been called out in the first place. “I guess you’ve already tried that.”

“I guess I have, cowboy.”

Flustered and completely out of his element, Travis blurted, “Can’t you put this off for a while? I mean, this is a really, really bad time to have a baby….” His voice trailed away as her eyes thinned into mean little slits. Obviously she was well aware of that fact and didn’t appreciate the reminder. He cleared his throat. “Okay, sure, no problem. We’ll, ah, just mosey on over to the hospital and ah—ma’am?”

As another contraction tightened, she bit her lip, made a peculiar vibrating sound deep in her throat, then started to pant again. She bent like a safety pin. Beads of sweat slicked her face. Her skin was white as death.

Travis was beside himself. Flustered and completely out of his element, he didn’t have a clue what to do. Instinctively reaching out, he patted her shoulder, then let out a yelp as she snatched up his hand and damned near crushed every bone in it. Since there was no way short of amputation to pry himself out of her spasmed grasp, he gritted his teeth and waited for her pain—and his—to pass.

Several long seconds later, she released him and fell back exhausted. Her hand dropped limply onto the floor, and she issued a soft, guttural moan that touched Travis to the core.

He flexed his fingers, grateful that they still moved, then wiped a gentle thumb over her delicate brow that was the copper-gold color of a summer sunset. “Can I get you a glass of water? Maybe a wet cloth to, you know, cool you down some?”

A flash of pink moistened her lips, then was gone. “Thank you, but I’d really like to leave now. My doctor is waiting.”

“Oh, sure.” He glanced around the room, suddenly panicked. “We can’t get out. The front door is blocked.”

This was clearly not news to her. She sighed and wiggled a weak finger toward the kitchen. “That way.”

Travis considered that. “Even with me giving you a boost, it’ll be a mite tricky getting over that fence, what with your condition and all.”

She stared at him as if the word stupid had appeared in neon welts across his forehead. “As exciting as that sounds, I’d prefer to use the gate.”

“The gate,” he repeated, feeling more idiotic by the moment. He hadn’t seen a gate, but then again, he hadn’t spent much time looking for one. “Right. The gate.”

When she struggled upward, he helped her to her feet, then held on, fearing she might collapse. If it weren’t for his sore ribs, he would have carried her—“My valise,” she whispered.

“Excuse me?” He followed her gaze to a tapestry bag on a table beside the kitchen door. “Oh.”

He braced an arm around her. She took a shaky step forward, then suddenly went rigid as another contraction hit her.

Travis swallowed hard, tightening his grip to hold her upright. “You’re doing fine,” he murmured as she puffed and shuddered. With his free hand, he stroked her upper arm, offering the same quiet encouragement he’d have used to gentle a skittish mare. “Just a few more seconds…that’s right…breathe real short-like…that’s good, ma’am, that’s real good.”

A rush of air escaped her slack lips. She sagged against him, gasping. She was just a slip of a thing, really, barely big enough to rest her head against his shoulder. Faded freckles were scattered across the bridge of her nose, and the scent of sweet flowers wafted from hair that tangled around her shoulders like a curly mass of poppy red fire.

A protective surge swelled up in his gut, an odd sensation that made him want to whip out a saber and fight the world to keep her safe. At the moment, that meant getting her to the hospital.

Travis tugged down his Stetson, grabbed the valise and ushered the exhausted woman to the cab.

* * *

“Aa-a-ah!”

The cry from the back seat sent chills down Travis’s spine. He looked in the rearview mirror, and could have wept. The poor woman was contorted in pain, white as death except for a bright trickle of blood where she’d bitten her lip. “Hold on, ma’am. We’ll be there soon.”

Her features relaxed slightly. She licked her lips and gave a weak nod.

Focusing on the road, Travis swerved around a large rock dislodged by the rain, then slowed to forge a muddy puddle. Black sludge splattered the cab’s hood and fenders. Travis’s brother-in-law, who owned the cab company, was a spit-and-polish stickler, but at the moment Travis didn’t much care. He concentrated every ounce of his attention on his mission, which at the moment was traversing a winding gravel pathway that was pitted, potholed and edged with a quivering mass of muddy muck.

Navigating Virginia Road had always been a challenge; now it was a nightmare, But with paved interstate access still blocked by the overturned big rig, this was the only available route into town.

Squinting into the dreary late morning light, Travis saw the hairpin curve up ahead and touched the brake with his boot.

A blood-curdling shriek came from the back seat.

Travis jerked his eyes from the road to the mirror and back again, but it was too late. The mud slide loomed like a mountain. And they were heading right for it.