Winter Soldier (Mills & Boon Vintage Superromance)

by Marisa Carroll

  “That wasn’t a suggestion,” he called. “It was an order. Now do as I say.”

  “What are we going to do about getting them off the mountain if we do make it to the other side?” Brian asked as he climbed into his seat and lowered his window.

  “If we make it over there,” Adam replied, “we can probably make it back.”

  Adam waited a moment for Leah to get positioned, then started forward at a slow and steady speed. He could feel the force of water against his door, feel when the tires left the road and moved onto the planking. It was even deeper than he’d expected, and by the time all four wheels were on the bridge, the headlights were nearly underwater.

  “Jeez,” Brian hissed. “Water’s coming up through the floor. C’mon, Dad. Make tracks.”

  Adam pressed on the accelerator, felt the engine shudder and miss, then catch again as they surged forward. He felt the front wheels bite into the wet, stony earth on the far side, and then they were thrown sideways as the saturated earth gave way beneath his wheels. He gunned the engine. The back of the Cherokee skidded sideways.

  “Out,” he yelled at Brian. “Get out! Climb up on the hood and jump clear.” Brian scrambled out of the window, his feet on the seat, his hands braced on the roof. “Jump!” Adam yelled.

  “Not unless you do!” Brian yelled back. He clung to the side of the Cherokee, half in and half out of the vehicle.

  “Jump, dammit!” Adam yelled again. The steering wheel bucked beneath his hands as the back wheels finally found firm purchase on the bridge planking. They lurched forward another yard or two and then got stuck. The back of the Cherokee was filling up fast. “Go!” he yelled. Brian’s feet disappeared out of the window, as he climbed onto the hood and jumped.

  Adam never saw him land. He shut off the engine and made a grab for the cell phone, but it floated out of his reach as he worked his way out of the driver’s-side window. The water was high, lapping against the door handle. He pulled himself onto the roof, then clambered onto the hood. The Cherokee rocked beneath him, and he jumped clear just as it slid down into the creek bed. For an eerie moment the headlights continued to shine from beneath the surface, then they shorted out.

  Brian was on his hands and knees in the grass beside the road. Adam reached down and gave him a hand up. “You okay, son?”

  “Yeah,” Brian said, sounding breathless but unhurt. He came to his feet and slicked his hair back out of his face. He looked toward the creek, where only the roof of the Cherokee remained above water. “Now we’re both without a set of wheels.”

  “And we’re trapped on this mountain until Margaret Owens figures out we’re not coming back and sends some help.”

  “You said we’d cross that bridge when we came to it.” Brian gave a little bark of laughter. “God, what an awful joke.”

  “Adam.” Leah was running toward him, her flashlight beam bobbing.

  “Slow down, Leah,” he said, catching her to him, holding her tight against his chest. She went into his embrace willingly, but he could feel her holding back. She had withdrawn her trust. He had seen it in her eyes at the hospital earlier. He could feel it now in her touch. He had to make it right between them somehow, even if it meant baring the most private places of his soul.

  “Are you both all right?” She ran her hands over his chest, bracketed his face with her hands.

  “We’re fine.”

  “We’ve got to do something. Juliet’s already in the second stage of labor. We’ve got to get her off this mountain or we’ll lose the baby—and possibly Juliet, too.”

  “Leah, there’s no help coming. No one knows we’re even up here except Margaret Owens, and she may be too busy with the flood in town to think of us anytime soon.”

  Leah looked at the black rush of water. “The river’s over its banks in town, too?”

  “Yes. They’ve called in the National Guard.”

  “We’re stuck here. Adam, you’re—”

  “No.” He wanted to stop her, but his hands wouldn’t move to cover her mouth. He hadn’t picked up a scalpel in months. He’d never performed a cesarean section. Hell, he couldn’t remember right now if he’d even seen one performed. He couldn’t do this, not for Leah, not for Juliet. Not even to save his own soul.

  “You’re going to have to deliver Juliet’s baby. I have a field-surgery kit in my emergency case. It’s not fancy, but it should have everything you’ll need. I don’t see that we have another choice.”

  BRIAN WONDERED if this wasn’t all some kind of bad dream. Maybe he was still back on the bus. Maybe those really greasy french fries he’d eaten at the truck stop outside Cincinnati had given him nightmares. He was only dreaming they were stuck on this mountain in a monsoon. His dad’s Cherokee and his cell phone weren’t really at the bottom of the creek, and he’d only imagined he’d half drowned getting out of the thing before it went under.

  He looked down at his still-wet jeans and the old wool socks Leah had unearthed somewhere, itchy and smelling of mothballs, but warm. This was real, dammit. He was sitting here holding Juliet’s hand while another contraction tore through her body. This was the third one since they’d gotten here. Brian glanced at the clock. Five minutes since the last one, the same as the one before. Only this one seemed to be lasting longer and hurting more.

  Juliet was making little panting sounds. Whooshing noises, like a little kid pretending to be a choo-choo train. Breathing through the pain, Leah had told him. It helped, she said. It would also help if he held her hand and encouraged her, but he hadn’t been able to do much of that. She was squeezing his hand so hard he had to bite his tongue to keep from yelping, and if he did open his mouth to talk to her, he started breathing like she was, which made him light-headed.

  “That was a bad one,” Juliet panted. “I feel like I’m breaking in two.”

  “It’s okay,” Brian said helplessly. “It’s okay. Just hold my hand.” He wasn’t ready for this. He’d only thought about being a doctor. He hadn’t really decided on it yet, and even if he did, it should be years before he had to do anything like this.

  “What about Granny? No one’s with Granny.”

  “Brian is going to stay with your granny, Juliet,” Leah said, coming into the living room from the kitchen where she’d been helping his dad get ready for the operation.

  “Will you? I don’t want her to be alone for a minute.”

  Brian wanted even less to be sitting at the dying woman’s bedside than he wanted to be doing what he was doing now, but he didn’t have a choice. And when you didn’t have a choice, you did what you had to do. His dad had gone to war when he was the same age as Brian and seen things that still haunted his dreams. So he could find the wherewithal to sit by a dying old woman’s bedside for an hour. “I’ll stay with her,” he promised. “I’ll stay with her every minute until you wake up from the surgery, and then she can see you and the baby.”

  Juliet nodded. “You’re a real friend, Brian. It makes this a little easier knowing you’ll be with her.” His heart swelled. She trusted him. It felt good.

  “I won’t let you down, I promise.”

  “I’ve got a shot for you, Juliet. It’ll help you relax and keep you from getting sick to your stomach, okay?” Leah went on in that same calm voice. If she was worried about what was going to happen, she didn’t show it.

  “Will it help the pain?”

  “Not this one, but soon, honey. I promise. The pain will be gone and you’ll have a wonderful healthy baby to hold in your arms.”

  “I hope so,” Juliet said, wincing as Leah gave her the injection. “It seems like this has been going on forever.” She reached up and caught Leah’s hand. “Everything’s going to be all right, isn’t it? It’s not going to hurt the baby being born here. Like...this?”

  Not once had she mentioned being frightened for herself. All she’d talked about was the baby. Brian was awed by her courage.

  “The baby’s going to be fine, and so are you. Now lie back an
d rest, and I’ll see to Aurelia before we start, okay?”

  “Okay.” Juliet lay back against the pillows piled up behind her. Exhaustion and pain had drawn lines on her face, making her look much older than her years.

  Brian squeezed her hand and she squeezed back, giving him just a hint of a smile. “I’ll see you later, Brian. Tell Granny I love her. I love her with all my heart.” The words were already a little slurred. He watched the lines between her eyes begin to smooth out, and as she closed her eyes, the rise and fall of her chest grew more even.

  “I think she’s asleep,” he whispered, detaching his hand from Juliet’s and rising to follow Leah into Aurelia’s bedroom.

  Leah motioned him to Aurelia’s bedside. He stood there, feeling awkward and scared, as she took Aurelia’s hand between both her own. “Aurelia, it’s Leah,” she said.

  “Your man’s here, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, Aurelia, Brian and Adam are both here.”

  “You’ll take good care of my Juliet?”

  “We’re all going to go down the mountain, Aurelia. All of us together.”

  The old woman shook her head a little. “Not me. Time’s short. I’m mighty weary of fighting the Lord’s will to take me home to Him.”

  Leah didn’t answer for a moment, and when she did her voice sounded shaky and a little hoarse, as if she was trying not to cry. “Do you need another pill, Granny?”

  “I do hurt bad.”

  Leah walked over to a tall wooden dresser and took a small pill from a bottle. She sat down on the side of the bed and slipped the pill under Aurelia’s tongue. “There, now you’ll be able to rest. Brian’s going to sit with you while Adam and I figure out the best way to get us down off the mountain, okay?”

  Another barely perceptible nod. “We’re in your hands and His,” she murmured.

  Leah stood up and said very softly to Brian, “Are you going to be all right with this?”

  “She’s dying, isn’t she?” he whispered. He couldn’t take his eyes off Aurelia. Her breathing was quick and labored. One hand was on her chest, moving feebly, as though to help her catch her breath. What would he do if she needed something and he didn’t know how to help? His pulse pounded in his ears so hard he could hardly hear himself think. He wanted to turn tail and run.

  Leah took his hand. “Brian, look at me.”

  “I don’t think I can do this. I’ve never seen anyone die....”

  “There’s nothing you need to do, Brian, except be here for her. No one should die alone.”

  Brian made himself look at Leah. There were tears in her eyes, but her grip on his hand was firm and strong. He was a man. He had to act like one. “I’ll stay,” he said.

  Leah leaned forward and kissed his cheek. Her damp hair brushed his skin. She smelled of rain and wind and faintly of lemons. “I have to go now and get Juliet ready.”

  “She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?”

  “We’ll do everything we can to make sure she and the baby both come through fine.” She led him over to the bed. “Here’s Brian, Aurelia. I’ll be back in just a little while. You rest now, you hear?”

  “I hear. Goodbye, Leah.”

  Leah kissed her on the cheek. “Goodbye, dear friend.” Brian couldn’t look at Leash. He was afraid he might cry, too. “May the angels guide you to your rest,” Leah said very, very softly, and left the room.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  LEAH OPENED THE OVEN DOOR and used a sterilized pair of tongs to remove the half-dozen towels inside. She placed the towels on a sheet-covered section of the kitchen counter and covered them with another sterilized cloth. The towels and sheets had been in the oven long enough to kill most microbes clinging to them. She’d used similarly treated sheets to cover Juliet and the table where she lay. Her surgical field would never pass muster in a hospital setting, but here it was the best she could do.

  She was scared. They were taking a terrible risk operating on Juliet under such primitive conditions, but they had no other choice. At least the electricity had remained steady, despite the phone lines being down and the continuing growl of a thunderstorm off in the distance. She’d rounded up all the flashlights in the house just in case and prayed she wouldn’t have to use them.

  Leah went back to Juliet. She was lying on her back on the kitchen table, her head slightly elevated on yet another folded towel. An IV bag was suspended from a clip-on pole above her head. The line ran into the back of her left hand. On her right arm Leah had attached a blood-pressure cuff. “Juliet? Can you hear me?” No response. She was unconscious, far enough under for Adam to begin the procedure. The anesthetic drugs Leah carried in her emergency kit were not the ones she would have chosen to use in the operating room, but they were adequate for the job and relatively safe for the baby, as well as Juliet.

  If the surgery went quickly with no complications.

  But a cesarean section when the mother was already in labor was never just routine. They would have to work fast and make no mistakes. Leah checked the teenager’s pulse once more, then pumped up the blood-pressure cuff. She finished the reading and took the stethoscope tabs out of her ears. Juliet’s pulse was steady. Her breathing was regular, her blood pressure stable and her color good, but still Leah wished she had instrumentation to back up her observations. As she looked up, she saw Adam watching her from across the room.

  “I feel like Doc Adams in a ‘Gunsmoke’ rerun operating on the pool table at Kitty’s saloon. She’s under, but I’m flying blind here,” she said, moving to the sink to scrub her hands.

  “We both are at this point,” Adam answered quietly as he inspected the small array of surgical instruments she carried in her field kit.

  “Juliet has faith in you, Adam.” Leah dried her hands on one of the sterile towels she’d just taken from the oven.

  “But do you?”

  “I...”

  “You can say it, Leah. I see it in your eyes. You’re wondering if you can even trust me to go through with this.”

  “That’s not true.” But her words lacked conviction and she knew he heard it. Adam was an extremely gifted surgeon. Her instincts told her Juliet would be in the best of hands, despite his unfamiliarity with this particular surgical procedure. If he can contain his emotions... But the sad, terrible truth was she didn’t trust him. Would his fears overtake him once again, send him fleeing from the memories that tortured him, leaving her to face Juliet’s dilemma alone? She wanted to trust him, but she was afraid. Afraid for Juliet and the baby. Afraid for herself.

  Her doubts must have shown on her face. “I won’t let you down, Leah. Not this time.”

  She wanted to tell him she believed him, but the words wouldn’t come.

  He turned to the sink and rolled up his sleeves, picked up the packet of surgical soap that came in the field kit and started to scrub. Leah opened the sterile packs that held gown, mask and gloves and put them on while he washed. The only sound in the room for the next few minutes was of running water.

  Adam turned away from the sink. He took a towel and dried his hands and arms. “The anesthetic should slow Juliet’s labor enough for me to make the initial incision and open the uterus. With any luck we’ll have this little guy born safely into the world in the next twenty minutes.”

  “It won’t be luck, Adam,” she said, hoping he would meet her eyes, but he wouldn’t. “It’ll be your skill that brings him safely into the world.” She prayed her words were true as she held out the disposable paper gown from the pack. He slipped his arms into the sleeves, then donned the sterile gloves.

  “I’m ready when you are.”

  She ran through a checklist in her mind as she scanned the instrument tray she’d readied from her emergency supplies. Everything was there. She had done all she could to prepare. She watched Juliet’s breathing for a moment or two more, took a deep breath and moved to Adam’s side. “Ready.”

  “Say a prayer for all of us, Leah,” Adam said, and began his incision. />
  BRIAN STUDIED THE PATTERN of the quilt on Aurelia’s bed. It was a complicated arrangement of little blue and gray blocks and triangles. He wondered what it was called? His mother liked quilts; she collected them. They weren’t old and worn like this one, which had obviously been made many years ago maybe by Aurelia herself, but colorful arrangements of fabric and thread done on commission by artists from all over the country, purchased as investments and kept locked away from light and dust—and life.

  He looked up. Aurelia was staring at him. “How long you been sittin’ there, boy? I’ve lost track of time.” She closed her eyes. Brian was glad she wasn’t looking at him anymore. There had been something in her eyes, some sort of light maybe, or... He didn’t know what to call it, but it wasn’t anything he’d ever seen before.

  “For a little while. Can I get you something?” There was a glass of water with a straw in it on the table beside the bed. He could manage that.

  “Nothing,” Aurelia said, and Brian was ashamed to be relieved that he wouldn’t have to lift her head and hold the glass to her lips. He was afraid he would hurt her or make her choke. She was so small and fragile-looking.

  The clock on the dresser ticked loudly in the quiet room. He strained to hear what was being said in the kitchen, but he couldn’t make out words. Only voices, his dad’s low, rumbling tones and Leah’s replies, calm and steady.

  Aurelia reached out with her hand, and he wrapped his fingers around it, very gingerly, fearing he might crush the birdlike bones.

  “You’ve been a good friend to my Juliet.”

  “I like her,” Brian said simply. He wished she wouldn’t talk. It seemed as if every word was a struggle, every breath a monumental task.

  “I was dreamin’,” she said, looking past him toward the doorway, or maybe farther, seeing something he couldn’t see.

  “What was your dream about?”

  “Juliet had the little one in her arms. What a fine boy.” She smiled, talking to someone he couldn’t see. She reached out her hand. “Bring him here. I’m so glad you’re goin’ to keep him with you. So much hair, so thick and dark. And a fine name—Cade Adam Trent.” Her hand dropped and she clutched her chest, gasping for breath, as though the words had been too much for her failing strength.