Texas Blonde

by Victoria Thompson

  Candace lifted Felicity's skirt to examine her knees, and then gently bathed the scrapes with a soft cloth. "Did you feel anything pull or tear when you fell?" she asked with creditable nonchalance.

  Felicity squinched her eyes more tightly shut. "No," she said, trying not to listen to the voice inside her head that was reminding her how they only cared about the baby.

  "Thank God," she heard Blanche whisper.

  "Is she all right?" Felicity heard Joshua's voice ask, but she still did not open her eyes. She could not bear to see his frowning disapproval.

  Candace lowered Felicity's skirt over her treated knees. "She might have a few bruises, but nothing serious. You'll be fine," she added, patting Felicity's hand reassuringly.

  "Joshua, I was thinking I'd bring my stuff on over, so I'll be here when…" Blanche let her voice trail off, making Felicity wince again. Why didn't she say it outright?

  "That's fine," Josh said so fervently that Felicity's eyes popped open at last. "If you leave now, you can be back before dark."

  Felicity watched in growing horror as Joshua escorted Blanche out onto the porch. He shut the door behind them and called to someone to get Mrs. Delano's buggy ready. Then they stood on the porch for a long time, whispering to each other. Felicity could see them through the window, could see Blanche touching Joshua's arm with a tenderness that sent pain stabbing through her heart. Was that what the veiled looks were about? Was that why Joshua had not made love to her in months? Was that why he was so glad Blanche was coming to stay in their very house?

  "Honey, why are you crying?" Candace asked solicitously. "Were you lying? Did you really hurt yourself in that fall?"

  Felicity shook her head, hating the tears over which she no longer seemed to have any control. "I… I'm just tired. I think I'll lie down for a while."

  Out on the porch, Blanche patted Josh's arm comfortingly. "She's not hurt. You have to be thankful for that."

  Josh sighed wearily. "Yeah, I'm thankful this time," he said bitterly. "But what about next time? You said yourself the baby might not come for another two or three weeks. She's so tiny…" He let his voice trail off, unable to allow himself to complete the thought. How would he bear it if something happened to her?

  "We'll take good care of her, Joshua. I promise you that," Blanche said, giving his arm a squeeze. "And I don't think it's going to be another two or three weeks anymore. Why do you think I'm moving over here tonight?"

  Later, alone in her darkened room, Felicity heard Blanche returning. Although they were quite obviously taking great pains not to disturb her, she heard every move they made as Joshua carried in her luggage. Felicity even heard Blanche tell him, "Don't worry. This baby will be here before you know it, and then everything will be fine."

  Fine for whom, Felicity wondered as the jealousy festered in her heart.

  Josh opened the bedroom door carefully and listened a moment to the quiet regularity of her breathing. She was asleep. Letting out the breath he had been holding, he slipped silently into the room and began to undress in the dark. As his eyes became accustomed to the dimness, he could make out the small mound of her body beneath the covers. He shuddered slightly as he recalled the sight of that body hurtling to the floor. He had been more frightened in that moment than he had ever been in his life. Thank God she had not been hurt.

  Naked, he slid into th &bed beside her, trying not to disturb her rest. She stirred and murmured something indistinguishable in her sleep, but she did not waken. Josh lay rigid, willing his body to relax while he tried vainly to ignore the sweet woman-scent of her body so close to his.

  How long had it been since he had made love to her? So painful was the thought that his mind rebelled at even making the calculation. The only time he dared to embrace her anymore was when she awoke terrified from one of her nightmares. Guiltily, he found himself wishing she would have one now. His arms ached to hold her so he could reassure himself that she was really all right.

  After a long session of internal debate, Josh swore softly and reached for her. What would it hurt if he held her? She would not even know. As if to belie that theory, she made a soft purring noise as she snuggled against his warmth. Josh turned on his side so the huge swell of her stomach was pressed against his belly. He felt a small ripple of movement as his child shifted inside her body and then went still again.

  Josh closed his eyes, trying to block out Blanche's warnings. She was worried, and so was Candace. The baby was big, perhaps too big, and Felicity was so small. She would have a difficult time.

  What had he done to her?

  A man never considered the consequences when he took his pleasure, never considered what perils his seed might cause the woman he loved. And Josh did love her, more than he loved the land, more than he loved his child, even more than he loved his own life. The realization should have surprised him, but it did not. Perhaps he had known it all along, from the very beginning. At the time he had justified his feelings by calling them desire. He did desire her, more than he could ever explain or understand, but there was much more to it than that.

  He smiled in the darkness, remembering his vow never to fall in love with her, as if he could have avoided such a thing by mere strength of will. And how much easier this would be if he had been able to. He shuddered again, drawing her closer and burying his face in the silken cloud of her hair. "Please, God…" he whispered into the night.

  Felicity awoke suddenly, blinking in the darkness, trying to determine what had awakened her. Usually, it was her bladder demanding to be emptied, but tonight, she realized with growing humiliation, she had not been quick enough. Her nightdress clung wetly to her legs, and the bedclothes were soaked.

  She lay there long moments wondering how she could hide such an embarrassing situation from her husband, who was still sleeping soundly beside her. No plan came readily to mind, since sooner or later he would awaken and discover the wet bedding. Reluctantly, she reached over and shook him gently.

  "Mr. Logan," she said, resolutely refusing to call him by his given name. She had not done so since the last time he had made love to her, and she certainly was not going to start now, under the present conditions. "Mr. Logan, wake up."

  "Wha… What is it?" he asked, rearing up in alarm.

  Glad for the darkness that hid her mortification, Felicity tried to explain. "The bed is all wet, and you have to get up so I can change it… Ohhhh!" The pain struck with the force of a sledgehammer, curling her into a tight ball of agony.

  "Lissy, what is it? What's wrong?" His voice sounded panicked, but she was only vaguely aware of his distress.

  "I… I don't know…" she panted as the pain eased, ebbing as if it had never been. "I got this pain…"

  Frantically, Josh tried to remember what she had been saying the moment before the pain had come. The bed was wet. Yes, that was it. Swiftly, he ran his hand beneath the covers, finding the dampness under her body. It was the baby. The baby was coming.

  "Blanche!" he called, knowing she was the closest. "Blanche, come quick!"

  Blanche was the last person Felicity wanted to have informed of her incontinence, but before she could protest, another pain stabbed through her, leaving her speechless.

  Josh threw off the covers and jumped out of bed to search the bedside table for a match with which to light the lamp. He could hear noises from across the house, so he knew Blanche was on her way. He found the matches just as the bedroom door burst open.

  "What's wrong?" Blanche's voice asked into the darkness.

  "The baby's coming," Josh reported, striking a match and fumbling for the lamp.

  Felicity caught a glimpse of Blanche hurriedly tying the sash of a red silk robe before she closed her eyes against the glare of the lamp and the ferocity of the pain.

  "The bed is wet and she's having pains," Joshua's voice said.

  "Is it bad, honey?" Blanche inquired next to her ear.

  Felicity could only nod. Then, mercifully, the pain subsided on
ce again, leaving her limp and exhausted. She turned frightened eyes to Blanche and was relieved to find her smiling.

  "Now, what a lucky thing I decided to come today. See, I told you the baby would be coming soon, but this is even sooner than I expected," she reported cheerfully.

  "The… the baby?" Felicity asked, not daring to believe the time had arrived. "But it's too early…"

  "Babies know the right time to be born," Blanche said authoritatively. "Your water's already broken, and you're in labor. It's too late to worry about the timing anyway."

  Felicity considered her statement, putting all the clues together. How stupid she had been not to guess immediately. Now they would add that to her list of shortcomings, right underneath clumsiness. She wanted to weep.

  "Joshua, you'd better go get Candace," Blanche suggested, turning toward him and getting a good look at him for the first time since he had lighted the lamp. "But first you'd better put on your pants," she added with a comic leer at his still-naked body.

  Josh swore, quickly turning his back and snatching up the jeans he had discarded earlier.

  Aghast, Felicity watched him pulling on the jeans and then lifted her gaze to Blanche once again. The older woman winked and grinned. "New fathers sometimes go a little crazy," she explained wickedly. Before Felicity could respond to such an outrageous remark, the pain came again, claiming all her strength and all her attention.

  Time passed. She knew because she could measure its passing by how many times her body convulsed with agony. Then, just when she thought she could bear it no longer, the pains ceased as abruptly as they had begun.

  Sometime during her ordeal, Candace had come in and banished Joshua to the parlor. Then Candace and Blanche had changed Felicity's nightdress and stripped the bed and made all the necessary preparations for the birthing. Now they all waited. Minutes ticked by, but Felicity's body remained still.

  "It stopped," Felicity said in wonder, not certain if she should be alarmed or relieved.

  Candace ran a practiced hand over Felicity's distended belly. "It'll start again real soon. Better get some rest while you can," she advised, pulling a blanket over her.

  Unable to refuse, Felicity fell into an exhausted slumber. There she met the man in black, who began to chase her and call her name. This time he had a knife, an enormous knife, and she couldn't run because the baby was too heavy. She fell, and when she looked up, he was looming over her, holding the blade over his head with both hands. She tried to scream but he plunged it into her, ripping her body apart. Her scream of terror woke her to new agonies. The knife had only been a dream, but the pain was all too real, tearing at her body until she thought she might really split in two. Blanche and Candace held her while she writhed, and although she begged them to help her, they only stood and stared, their faces grim.

  Out in the parlor, Josh awoke with a start. He was cold and stiff and his neck ached from the awkward way he was resting his head against the side of the wingbacked chair. For a moment he could not recall why he was sleeping in the chair, and then he heard it, that horrible, blood-chilling cry of anguish. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and every muscle tensed in response. He wanted to do something, to fight something, to somehow save her from this awful torment. His hands closed into fists as frustration overwhelmed him. The cry came again, slicing into his soul until he could have cried out himself.

  Candace had told him to leave, to go off someplace where he couldn't hear what was happening. Every instinct for self-preservation demanded that he follow her advice, that he get on his horse and ride away until the screams faded into silence. But another, stronger instinct kept him here. He had to protect Felicity, to keep her safe. Although he was powerless to protect her in this instance, he could not resist the need to be with her, or at least as nearby as he was allowed. He could no more have left her than he could have left his own body.

  Her scream came again, and he covered his face with both hands. Listening was torture, pure and simple, but he would not leave. He had shared the pleasure. Now he would share the pain.

  Dawn broke and Felicity's torment ceased again, allowing her to rest once more, only to awaken to new tortures. The cycle repeated itself over and over. Day became night and then became day again. Felicity's world narrowed until it included only moments with pain and moments without. Nothing else mattered. During the moments without, she slipped into some sort of netherworld that could not really be called sleep but which, mercifully, was not consciousness either. People came and went in the room, but she no longer knew or cared who they were er what they did. She even forgot why she was here. All that mattered was when the next pain would come and whether she could live through it.

  Josh paced restlessly across the parlor as he waited for the screams to start again. In the past thirty-six hours, he had all but worn a path across the large room as he sought some outlet for his frustration. He did not know which was worse, her screams or the silence. He knew the cycle by now and knew not to trust the quiet. Soon her torment would begin anew, and the sound of it would tear his soul into ragged shreds. More than once he had gone to the bedroom door, ready to fling it open and do battle with the invisible demons that tortured her. Each time he had caught himself at the last moment and forced himself to think rationally about his own helplessness. But still he knew that urge to help, and it kept him pacing anxiously, even after two sleepless nights.

  The bedroom door opened and Blanche appeared. Hope soared in him for a moment. Could the silence mean…? "The baby?" he asked.

  But Blanche shook her head. "Not yet." She pulled the door closed behind her and came toward him. The expression on her face sent cold chills racing down his spine.

  "Felicity?" he asked reluctantly.

  "She's resting now," Blanche assured him, seeing his anxiety. "But that won't last long. In a few minutes, the pains will start again."

  He nodded, turning away and running a hand over his face in despair. "How much more of this can she take?"

  "Not much," Blanche said, verifying his worst fears. "Josh, the baby is close to being born. We can see its head. We've been able to see it for hours, but it just won't come. We think it's because she is so small and the baby is so big."

  Josh nodded again, not daring to face her lest she see the tears gathering in his eyes.

  "If this keeps up," Blanche continued, "she'll die. They'll both die."

  Rage exploded in his chest, fury over the injustice of it and over his own impotence. He whirled on Blanche. "Can't you do something?" he demanded, striding toward her. "Can't you help her?"

  Blanche winced as his hands closed over her arms in a bone-crushing grip. "There's one thing," she told him, "but we need your help."

  That shocked him so much that his hands went slack and she was able to break free of his grasp. "My help?" he repeated incredulously.

  Blanche nodded, rubbing her upper arms where he had bruised them. "I saw it once, when I was a kid," she said, not bothering to add that the event had occurred in the brothel where she'd been raised. "This woman had been in labor for days, but the baby just wouldn't come. The midwife finally just pushed the baby out herself."

  "Pushed it out? How?" Josh asked, horrified at the very thought.

  Blanche swallowed, knowing how awful the thing she was going to suggest would sound to him. "The midwife straddled the woman, and every time she had a contraction, the midwife pushed on the baby until it finally came out."

  Josh covered his face with both hands, unable even to consider such a thing. But Blanche could not let him escape. "It will hurt her, Josh," she said urgently, grabbing him the way he had grabbed her moments ago. "There's no use pretending that it won't, but if we don't do it, she's going to die. We can't pretend about that anymore either."

  Josh shuddered at the horror of it. "All right," he said, his voice flat with acceptance of the unacceptable. "Do what you have to do."

  Blanche swallowed again. "Josh, you have to help us. You… you
have to do the pushing."

  "No!"

  "Yes, Josh, you have to," Blanche insisted, shaking him slightly as if to dislodge him from his decision. "I have to guide the baby out because I have the smallest hands, and Candace just doesn't have the strength. She's exhausted, and her hand…" She stopped when she realized Josh understood that he had no alternative. Candace's cut hand had healed poorly so that she had little use of it now. No one else could do the job.

  Josh gazed down at Blanche's drawn face, absently noting the dark smudges under her eyes from two sleepless nights. If she looked so awful, how much must Felicity be suffering? But how much more would she suffer if he…

  Felicity's scream pierced the silence and his heart. He couldn't let this go on. He couldn't just stand by and let her die, not when he had it in his power at last to help her. He closed his eyes over the agony of his decision. "I'll do it," he said at last.

  Blanche sighed with one second of relief before pulling him into the bedroom. "Take your boots off and wash your hands. Then I'll show you what to do."

  Josh froze in the doorway as he saw Felicity for the first time in two nights. She was lying on the bed, her beautiful hair matted and tangled, her nightdress clinging damply to her sweat-soaked skin. Her whole body was arched as she strained against the contraction. Suddenly she went limp, her breath ragged and uneven as she waited for the next onslaught. How could he…

  "Josh, your boots," Blanche urged, guiding him to a chair and forcing him down on it. "Hurry."

  Deep in the dark tunnel of her pain, Felicity heard his voice. She was dreaming; she knew she was. She had called for him a hundred times, but he had never come before. With great effort, she lifted her weighted eyelids to find him standing over her. He had come! He was really here! He would help her; she knew he would. "Joshua!" she cried, surprised when her voice came out as little more than a hoarse whisper. He did not reply, and he had such an odd expression on his face that Felicity wondered whether he had even heard her.