Silk and Stone

by Deborah Smith

  “You can’t take her,” Alexandra whispered weakly, as if all her strength were focused on holding Sam.

  A tug-of-war. Her aunt would fight him, with Sam caught in the middle, just as she’d always done. Strangling fury rose in Sam’s throat. “You’re not going to get him. I won’t let you drag Jake down with the two of us.”

  Jake’s chest heaved against her cheek. “I’ll come back for you, Alexandra,” he said. “Let go of her. I’ll come back in a minute and get you out too. I swear it.”

  She killed your family, Sam thought. She made a mewling sound of protest. Don’t you understand? She’ll kill you too.

  Alexander’s fingers dug into Sam’s wrist. “Lying.” The word gurgled. “You’ll never … help me. No one has ever … helped me.”

  A convulsive shudder went through the plane. Jake said loudly, “Open your hand, Samantha.” Sam was dimly aware of obeying. “Take it, Alexandra,” Jake continued. “Even if you don’t believe I’ll come back for you, you know I’ll come back for the stone.”

  Sam’s feeble, shocked attempt to close her fingers over the ruby wasn’t quick enough to stop her aunt from taking it. The instant Alexandra released her hand, Jake lifted Sam from the plane. The pain found new routes through her unfolded body, and all she could do was slump in his arms, gasping. He climbed a few feet up the precarious slope, then sank to his knees and laid her down gently.

  He ran his hands over her. She heard his guttural sob and tried to move, tried to show him she could. He took her face between his hands. The damp, cool night hid him, but his touch was infinitely caring. “I love you,” he told her. Sam tried to speak, but he placed a finger against her lips. “I love you,” he repeated. “Alexandra doesn’t have to die for me to love you again. I never stopped loving you.”

  He rose and walked back to the plane. Sam called desperately for him to stop. With her last ounce of strength she pushed herself up on one elbow and watched.

  Jake anchored the flashlight in a jagged hole, then wedged his upper body into the cockpit. Alexandra stared back at him with fading blue eyes, her face stark and pale as the light. Pine boughs framed her softly; the only defiance was the fist she had curled against her throat. “You came for the stone,” she said. Her voice was fading too.

  “No. It won’t bring my parents and my sister back. It’s served the only purpose it was ever really meant for. I don’t need it anymore.”

  “Then, why … why care whether I—”

  “I don’t want Samantha to suffer anymore for what you did. There’s been enough revenge. I’ll get you out of here—not because you deserve to live, but because it’s the right thing to do for Samantha. And for me.”

  Jake began snapping the easy branches, clearing a way toward the bigger ones that enveloped her. He felt Alexandra watching him, but neither fear nor hate had any power over him now. “I am still … extraordinary,” she said, her voice ragged. “You’ll see why.”

  Jake bent a limb back. It was matted with blood. What he saw behind it made him gag.

  The tip of the main limb had skewered Alexandra through the stomach. The mountain had pinned her to earth.

  His gaze rose slowly to hers. Her thin smile taunted him and the rest of the world. “I … was raised to … endure …”

  The wind kicked up. The roof of the cockpit began to buckle. Jake watched, helpless and repulsed, as the limb sank deeper into her. Uncle William. Mother, Father, Ellie. Whispering his own humanity to him. He had walked the path for them. There was no dishonor. He grasped the limb and pulled it free.

  Sam screamed his name.

  Alexandra threw her head back and writhed. “Go to her. I’m dying. I give her to you.”

  “Not yours to give,” he said between gritted teeth as he struggled with the jammed latch of her seat belt. She cursed him, thrust her fist into his hands, and pressed the ruby into his palm, slick with her blood. Alexandra released it into his keeping. Her eyes bored into his with their last glimmer. “What good is anything precious,” she whispered, “unless you’re willing to die for it?”

  Jake shoved himself backward as the plane tilted and began to slide. A jagged edge of metal caressed his cheek like a talon.

  Suddenly he was sprawling beside Samantha, finally free.

  The night consumed the falling body of a ravenmocker.

  Chapter

  Thirty-Four

  “Just where do you think you’re going, Bob ‘Clark Kent’ Freeman?” Charlotte blocked the hospital corridor like a small defensive tackle.

  The reporter didn’t look too menacing, but her nerves were frayed. It had been the longest night of her life, followed by a sleepless morning that was now moving into a sunny, sleepless afternoon.

  “Just a couple of questions,” the man implored, looking past her to Ben, who lay on a gurney the nurses had allowed him to commandeer. Ben said darkly, “Don’t eye me for help. I’m in charge of guarding the door to the room. I have no jurisdiction over the hallway.”

  Charlotte nodded. “Why should I talk to you again, Freeman? I don’t even know how you’re going to use what I said last night.”

  “I’ll use it just the way you told it to me. Fair enough?”

  “Maybe.”

  “How’s your sister?”

  “You can get that information from the hospital.”

  “Yeah, but it’s about as useful as a laundry list. Broken leg, broken arm, cuts, bruises. I’d like to know how she felt when her husband rescued her.”

  “She wasn’t surprised. He’s still the best tracker in the state. She knew if anyone could find the crash site, it’d be him.”

  “I’d say he has a remarkable talent.”

  “I’d say he knows how to read maps. And he never gives up.”

  “Come on, give me some heart to go with the facts.”

  “Tell me what ‘facts’ you mean.”

  “Your aunt was dead when he got there. Your sister had managed to crawl out of the wreckage before it broke up.”

  “Well, that’s the truth. Jake wrapped Sammie in a blanket and built a fire. The rescue teams found them a few hours later.”

  “Is Jake with her now?”

  “Of course. He hasn’t left her for a minute.”

  Joe walked out of the hospital room. “They’re ready.”

  “Bye, Bob. Just tell the truth. That’s all we need.” Charlotte pivoted and strode away, then halted abruptly. She looked back at the reporter. “Wait a minute. All right. Come and see something for yourself. Tell people about it. You want ‘heart,’ I’ll show you heart.”

  She and Joe wheeled Ben into the hospital room. Jake was seated beside Sammie’s bed, on the side next to the arm that wasn’t in a cast. He looked like hell. So did she. But he was holding her hand, and their eyes were locked in a poignantly intimate gaze. Clara sat in a chair in one corner. Hoke Doop stood by the window.

  A minister stood at the foot of the bed. Charlotte waved for the reporter to take a place just inside the door. His eyes wide with curiosity, he did.

  And then, with everyone who mattered sharing the blessing, Jake and Sammie got married all over again.

  Memories and angels. The room was full.

  A small brown mule was tied to the porch rail. A small, brown mule decked out in full harness attached to a two-wheeled cart.

  It was an unexpected homecoming present, to say the least. Sam peered out of the car from her throne of pillows, then gingerly swiveled her head toward Jake. “Bo’s changed while I’ve been in the hospital.”

  Jake smiled—one of the satisfied, easy smiles that were becoming part of their life again. Bo crawled out from a cool spot under the porch to disprove the rumor he’d grown hooves. He was waiting by the car’s passenger door as Jake opened it. Sam stroked his grizzled head. “I am really home,” she whispered.

  Jake bent over her. She stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers. “Really home.”

  He carried her to the porch and set her gently
on the steps. “Why do we have a discount-size mule and kiddie wagon?” she asked.

  He walked over to the fat, sleepy creature and scratched it behind one ear. “She’s old. She and Bo ought to get along together pretty well. Do you remember the stories I told you about Grady?”

  “The pony you and Ellie had? How could I forget? He sounded like the stuff of legends.”

  “He was. This is his daughter. He had a passion for donkeys. One wandered away from a farm at Cawatie and paid a visit to the Cove. She had a smile on her face by the time we hauled her home.”

  “So their love child has always lived with her mother’s people at Cawatie?”

  “Hmmm. Until now. I bought her.” He looked at Sam tenderly. “I want our children to have what Ellie and I had.” He hesitated, then added solemnly, “Except for the bite marks and stomped toes.”

  Sam studied him through a sheen of tears. “This is an old mule. We’d better start making babies soon.” She looked away, struggling with shadowy regrets. “I can’t even make love to you right now. Everything’s either sprained, sore, or covered in a cast.” She nodded at the arm and leg on her right side.

  “We’ve got time. A lot of time.” He came over and kissed her. “But it’s not just your body. You’re not letting go of that night on the mountain.”

  “It’s hard to believe she’s gone.”

  “I know.” He went into the house and returned a few seconds later with an armload of sofa cushions. Without a word he arranged them in the cart then tucked Sam’s pillows on top. She looked up at him in puzzled wonder as he lifted her onto the soft bed. “I’m taking you on a trip,” he explained. “There’s something we need to do.”

  They were headed to Sign Rock. Jake led the way with one hand on the mule’s bridle. When the trail became too narrow and steep for the cart he hitched the mule to a tree then carried Sam the rest of the way up. His mission was still a mystery to her as he stepped onto the wide, windswept stone ledge with its ancient carvings. He put her down carefully and sat beside her for a while. Content with the silence and the serene vista in front of them, Sam held his hand.

  “I told her the truth when I said I didn’t want the stone,” he said finally. “I found you. That’s all I care about.”

  Sam closed her eyes and said a silent prayer of gratitude. When she looked at Jake again, he was studying her, a troubled and loving expression on his face. “It belongs here,” he told her. “We don’t need it.”

  “You want to just leave it for anyone to claim?”

  “It ends up where it’s supposed to be. It always has.” He took the ruby from a pocket of his trousers and held it out. “Letting go is easy, if we do it together.”

  Sam touched the stone with a fingertip. A pledge to the future and a good-bye to the past. Jake rose and crossed the broad ledge. A narrow crevice cut through the rim of the ancient rock platform. He opened his hand. The ruby disappeared into the mountain’s secret places.

  He met Sam’s adoring gaze. There was peace in him, and she shared it.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  A multiple-award winner for her novels and contemporary romances. DEBORAH SMITH lives in the mountains of Georgia where she is working on her next novel.