Winter Soldier (Mills & Boon Vintage Superromance)

by Marisa Carroll

  Leash smoothed back Aurelia’s hair from her forehead and adjusted the prongs of the nasal oxygen catheter to a more comfortable position. “How’s that?” she asked.

  “Better. Seems like I can’t get along without this stuff night or day anymore. It’s a nuisance, and the tank hisses and keeps me awake.”

  Leah looked at the gauge on the oxygen bottle and gave the valve a turn that moved it barely a fraction of an inch. But the slight hissing that bothered Aurelia diminished, and the old woman smiled. “Thank you, dear.”

  “Now, why don’t you get some rest.”

  “I’ll have eternity to rest soon enough,” Aurelia said tartly. “And don’t try to tell me it’s the weather change causing your headache. There’s rain coming—I can feel it in my bones. But that ain’t what’s wrong with you. It’s your blood pressure acting up again, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to take it. I came straight here when I got off duty.” Leah had been attending a seminar on biological weapons at the University of Kentucky medical center. Until she’d become pregnant, she’d planned to volunteer for a special medical unit that trained reservists to deal with chemical- and biological-weapon attacks. That training, like her army career, was now on hold.

  “You need a nap morning and afternoon, and sassafras tea,” Aurelia said, reaching over to pat Leah’s hand when she bent to tuck Aurelia’s arm back beneath the quilt. Aurelia was a wise woman, something of a healer in her own right, as had been her mother and grandmother before her.

  “I know. A cup every morning.” Leah’s blood pressure had become elevated at the end of her first trimester, at first she’d been able to keep it within safe limits with diet and exercise. But over the past couple of weeks the readings had risen steadily, and Caleb had put her on a mild diuretic.

  “And the pill Doc Owens prescribed for you—it can’t hurt none. But no more soldiering.” Aurelia made a face at Leah’s khaki fatigues and boots. “It’s not fitting. You’re a mama now, not a soldier.”

  Leah sat down on the straight chair beside the bed. The sunny room was scrupulously clean. There were pots of herbs and crocuses on the windowsill. A bowl of dried mint by the bedside almost, but not quite, masked the smells of sickness and approaching death. “I’m done soldiering. My medical leave was approved this weekend. I’ll be getting the official paperwork any day now.”

  “Good. I don’t want anythin’ happening to the wee ’un you got in your belly.” So far Aurelia and her great-granddaughter, Juliet Trent, along with Caleb Owens and his wife, Margaret, were the only people who knew she was pregnant. Margaret and Caleb had known almost from the beginning, but she’d told Aurelia and Juliet only a few weeks ago. In a small town like Slate Hollow no pregnancy stayed secret very long, and Leah hadn’t wanted to take the chance that the teenager would hear the news from someone else.

  “I promise that I’m taking the best care of him I know how.” Leah reached out and patted Aurelia’s hand beneath the faded Drunkard’s Path quilt. Today was a good day for the old woman. She was alert and talkative, and the new combination of medications had her pain under control. Good days were rare now, and Leah and Juliet savored each one.

  “Him,” Aurelia snorted derisively. “Your little ‘un is a girl. Going to be the perfect match for Juliet’s pup. It’s a boy. She’s carrying that baby way too low for it to be a girl.”

  Leah giggled. “My mother says it’s the other way around—boys are high and girls are low.” A twinge of guilt stung her heart. She should be having this conversation with her mother, not Aurelia. At Christmas, when she’d last visited her parents, she hadn’t been ready to face the reality of her condition. But now it was April and her parents and brothers had a right to know about the momentous changes in her life. She was going to have to make time for a trip to Florida to break the news very soon.

  “What makes your mama such an expert?” Aurelia challenged her.

  “She has three sons.”

  “What do your brothers think of you being in the family way by some man they don’t even know?”

  Leah was used to Aurelia’s blunt way of talking. She’d answered this question before, but Aurelia had forgotten. “If they knew, they’d threaten to hunt him down and march him up here in front of the business end of my daddy’s shotgun to make an honest woman of me. You know that already.”

  Aurelia chuckled and then started to cough, gasping for breath. “Them’s real men, your brothers. You’re gonna have to tell ’em sooner or later.”

  “I know. I will, soon. You’re talking too much,” Leah said, lifting Aurelia’s head to give her a sip of springwater from the glass on the bedside table.

  “Bet your daddy would be marching right alongside ’em,” Aurelia said, but her voice was weaker, her speech slower. The pain medication was beginning to work. Leah checked her watch. Good. The dosage was holding. She didn’t want to increase the medication any more than necessary to keep Aurelia comfortable. The time would come soon enough when she would need much more.

  “He’d be standing right there beside the preacher,” Leah agreed.

  “If he knowed who the daddy was, that is,” Aurelia prodded.

  “If he knew.”

  “You ain’t told no one?”

  “There’s no need. He’s not going to be part of my baby’s life. Just like Cash Dentrell isn’t going to be a real father to Juliet’s baby.”

  “That’s ‘cause he’s nothin’ but white trash,” Aurelia said. “Damned Dentrells is all no good. I’m glad my Lizzie never lived to see what a poor mama her Justine was to Juliet.” Aurelia had taken Juliet to live with her when Juliet’s mother, Justine, and her boyfriend had taken off for parts unknown four years ago.

  “Juliet’s a good girl. She’ll make a good mother.”

  “I thank the dear Lord every day that she’s got you to help her and the little ’un make their way in life. I just hope I’m here to see him born. Promise me you’ll help make that happen.” Aurelia’s skeletal hand came out from under the quilt and grasped Leah’s fingers. “Promise me.”

  “I promise.” Leah smiled down’at the old woman. “If the Lord’s willing to have you stay with us till Juliet’s baby’s born, I’ll do my best to make you as comfortable as I can.”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  “It’s a deal then.”

  “What’s a deal?” Juliet came into the room carrying a wooden tray with a steaming teapot and two cups sitting beside a small glass vase of daffodils. She was a tall, pretty girl with the red-gold hair and blue eyes of her Scottish ancestors.

  “I’m gonna stay alive until your young ’un is born, and Leah’s gonna help me.”

  Juliet’s eyes darkened with apprehension. “Oh, Granny, I wish you wouldn’t talk about dying that way. You’re going to be here for years yet.” She set the tray on the table under the window and bent awkwardly to give her tiny great-grandmother a hug. She was in her ninth month, and her large belly made movement difficult for her.

  “Don’t go crying, girly. Dying comes to us all. My time’s comin’ but I ain’t ready to go just yet. I’ll be around a spell.”

  “You said you’d be here for the baby. You promised.”

  “I always keep my promises.” Aurelia closed her eyes, exhausted.

  “Juliet, is that sassafras tea I smell?” Leah asked.

  Juliet smiled at her. “Yes, it is. I saw you rubbing the back of your neck a while ago. It’s your blood pressure again, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll have Caleb check it as soon as I get back to the clinic.”

  Juliet settled into a bentwood rocker on the other side of the bed. She rested her cup on the bulk of her stomach and bit into a cookie, watching her great-grandmother with an anxious eye. “She’s asleep,” she whispered. “That’s good. She needs the rest.”

  Juliet wanted to be a nurse. She’d told Leah that when they’d first met five years ago, on Leah’s first day in practice with
Caleb. Juliet had come to the clinic with a black eye and a broken wrist from a “fall down the stairs.” Her mother said she’d been roughhousing with her new stepfather, which was how she’d described her most recent live-in boyfriend. Two months later Juliet had another “accident,” this one resulting in a cracked jaw and a concussion. Caleb had called the sheriff and the child-protection agency right then and there. Juliet’s mother and boyfriend had left town one step ahead of the law.

  Leah pulled a straight-back chair close to Juliet’s and sat. The teenager poured her a cup of tea. “Here, this’ll help your headache.”

  “Thanks.” Leah took a sip. It had been a long day. She’d been up since five, attended the final seminar on biological weapons and then made the drive from Lexington straight to Aurelia’s century-old cabin near the top of Pine Mountain. And always in the back of her mind were thoughts of the future, of her parents and brothers—and of Adam—and the secret she was keeping from them all.

  They sat quietly for a few moments. Juliet watched her grandmother sleep, then turned to face Leah. “I got a letter from Cash today,” she said abruptly, her voice pitched low enough to avoid waking Aurelia.

  Two months earlier Cash had joined the army and left Juliet to face her pregnancy alone. Leah thought Juliet was better off without him, but she didn’t tell the girl that. She wasn’t in the best position right now to be counseling the teenager on affairs of the heart.

  “What did he have to say?” Leah whispered back, trying to ignore her aching head to concentrate on Juliet’s words.

  Juliet put her half-eaten cookie and her teacup back on the tray and rested her hands on her distended belly. “He says he doesn’t know how he can send me any support money for the baby, because the military doesn’t pay much. He said I should’ve been more careful and I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant.”

  “It takes two people to make a baby, Juliet, and the law says Cash has to take responsibility for fathering your baby and pay support.”

  “I don’t have the money for a lawyer to fight him on it.”

  “We’ll get this worked out. Don’t worry about it today.”

  “I’ll try not to. You always seem to know all the answers. That’s the difference between your having a baby and not being married and me. You knew what you were doing. I just wanted Cash to like me, so I let him talk me into having sex. How could I have made such a stupid, stupid mistake?”

  “Juliet, don’t upset yourself over what’s past and unchangeable. You made a mistake, yes, but it’s the same one many women before you have made.” Leah felt like a hypocrite. She had acted just as impulsively and heedlessly, and ended up in the same condition.

  “Cash said he’d heard that some couple from Lexington wanted to adopt the baby. I guess maybe that lawyer they sent around to talk to me talked to other people, too, and figured out who my baby’s daddy was. He said he thought it would be a good idea. We could both get on with our lives without a baby to worry about. He’s probably right—it would be better for the baby. If I had an education and a good job like you, it would be different. Then I could raise him by myself.” Juliet began to cry, silently. Big tears ran down her cheeks.

  “Juliet, I’m so sony.” Leah felt like more of a hypocrite than ever. Juliet had accepted her explanation that she’d met a man she cared for, but their lives were too separate to allow them to be together, so Leah was going to raise their baby alone. Juliet had assumed that Leah had planned her pregnancy, and coward that she was, Leah had let her go on thinking that way.

  “It’s okay. I knew he was never coming back here to be a father to our baby. I don’t want him to, the rat, but I don’t want to give up the baby. Do you think I can keep him and still go to school? If I don’t get the scholarship, I’ll get a job. I can do it, Leah, can’t I?”

  Leah’s pounding headache worsened suddenly, almost blinding her with its intensity. She hesitated a moment too long before she answered. Juliet’s eyes filled with tears again. She brushed them angrily away with the back of her hand. “You think I should give my baby up, too, don’t you?”

  Leah fought to clear her thoughts. “No, Juliet, but I think you can’t make that important a decision so quickly. Let’s wait and see if you get the scholarship and then we can find good day care and a safe, clean place for you to live near the university. Let’s concentrate on taking care of you, so your baby is born safe and healthy. We’ll talk as much as you want, as often as you want, and whatever decision you make I’ll stand by you, okay?”

  Juliet nodded. “Okay. It’s just that most days I want to keep him, but once in a while I think it would be better for the baby to be with two parents who will love him and give him everything he needs and wants.”

  “That’s perfectly normal.”

  “You don’t think that means I wouldn’t be a good mother?”

  “No. I think that means you realize what an awesome undertaking raising a child alone will be.”

  “Well, if I do keep the baby, and oh, most days I want to so badly...well, we can learn about being mothers together, can’t we?”

  “Yes,” Leah assured her. “We’ll learn together.”

  “The tea didn’t help your headache, did it?” Juliet asked softly.

  Leah realized she was rubbing the back of her neck again. Her head was throbbing. Dark spots danced before her eyes. “No, it didn’t,” she admitted. Her heart was hammering against her chest. Anxiety skittered along her nerve endings. She really needed to lie down, unwind. It was bad for the baby, her feeling this way.

  “You don’t look too good,” Juliet said bluntly.

  “I’ll be fine, but I do think I’ll call it a day.” Leah stood up and the room swung in slow circles around her.

  “Leah?” There was alarm in Juliet’s voice. She reached up and took the half-full teacup Leah was holding from her hand before she dropped it. Leah barely noticed.

  She made it to the small kitchen at the back of the cabin, then dropped into a chair and laid her head on the scrubbed pine table. The room was still spinning and waves of nausea washed over her. Instinctively she put her hand on the gentle swell of her belly. Juliet saw the protective gesture, recognized it for what it was and acted.

  “I’m calling Doc Owens,” she said, heading for the telephone hanging on the kitchen wall.

  “No, Juliet, I just need a minute to rest. It’s a dizzy spell, that’s all.” Leah tried to stand up. The room rushed away from her down a narrowing tunnel. She laid her head back down on the table. Slowly the dizziness faded. She sat up and managed a smile. “There, it’s passed. I just stood up too quickly, that’s all.”

  Juliet laid her hand on Leah’s shoulder. “It’s too late. I already called Doc Owens. He’s on his way to pick you up.”

  “GOOD MORNING.”

  Leah opened her eyes and blinked against the bright band of sunlight that fell across the bed. She lifted her head, took a look around the unfamiliar room and then down at the oversize T-shirt and shorts she was wearing—red and gray with a big block O for Ohio State, Margaret Owens’s alma mater. She remembered putting them on and lying down to rest—about midnight. “Don’t tell me I’ve been here all night.”

  “You have,” Caleb Owens said. He walked farther into the room, smiling his cat-who-ate-the-canary smile. He was a small man with a big presence, built solid and low to the earth. Caleb was nearing sixty. His hair was gray now and mostly gone on top. He wore what remained long, tied in a ponytail with an old leather thong. He favored plaid flannel shirts and blue jeans; Ben Franklin glasses perched on the tip of his nose. You might be fooled into thinking you were dealing with a small-town doctor who was twenty years behind the times—until you looked into his eyes. There you saw the wisdom and expertise of thirty-five years of medical know-how and you were reassured. Caleb was her employer; he was also her friend and mentor. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t upset with him.

  “You tricked me. You said that sedative would only put me out for a c
ouple of hours.”

  “A couple, eight, what’s the difference?”

  “A lot.” Leah turned her attention inward, taking inventory. Nothing hurt. Her headache was gone. Her heartbeat had returned to normal. The baby moved, a series of light flutters that brought a smile to her face. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said, and sat up. Everything still felt fine, except for the pressure on her bladder. She wasn’t dizzy or short of breath. Her blood pressure must be back within the normal range.

  “Good, that means the diuretic’s working. I’ll check your vital signs when you get back, and then Margaret has breakfast ready for us.” He motioned toward the bathroom with the hand that held his stethoscope. “There are towels in the cabinet and a toothbrush on the sink, and your fatigues are in there, too. Margaret washed and dried them for you. Your dog tags are in your purse, in case you’ve noticed they’re missing.”

  “I did notice. And Margaret didn’t have to go to all that trouble.”

  “I know that.” Caleb smiled. Margaret was five years older than he was and had retired from teaching third grade at Slate Hollow Elementary at the end of the last school year. She wasn’t taking to retirement any better than Leah’s father was. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen. Take your time.”

  “Thanks.”

  Fifteen minutes later she was washed and dressed with clean teeth and combed hair. She walked into the sunny kitchen at the back of the house and greeted Margaret, who was making pancakes at the stove. Margaret was small and plump with short, curly black hair that never showed a strand of gray, thanks to Bette, down at the Cut and Curl beauty shop.

  The older woman waved her into a chair by the window. “Go sit in the sun while I fill your plate. There’s a pair of cardinals at the feeder.”

  “I see them,” Leah said, and did as she was told. Forty feet behind the feeder the yard ended in a steep upward slope that contained a rock garden. In the summer it was covered in wildflowers and now held beds of tulips and narcissus, and purple and white crocuses. Gardening was one of Caleb’s passions. He sat down beside Leah and took her blood pressure while Margaret stood by with two big bowls of oatmeal. Leah’s stomach growled. Caleb unwrapped the blood-pressure cuff from around her arm and took the stethoscope tabs out of his ears.