by Nan Ryan
And each evening, when the burning summer sun had finally set across the ocean, Carmelita would help Sabella down the stairs and out to the south patio. Cappy would join them there after a day of helping dig the deep acequias.
Cappy had explained the project to the women when Burt first came up with the plan which he hoped would save the rancho. Now as the actual work was in progress on the system, Cappy reported how hard Burt was working. Said some nights Burt didn’t even return to headquarters, but slept in one of the line shacks far out on the range.
The information, casually offered, was for Sabella’s benefit. Cappy was sensitive enough to know that Sabella wondered where Burt was nights. Women were might quick to jump to conclusions. Especially pregnant women. He didn’t want Sabella thinking that Burt was out tomcatting around when he wasn’t.
Cappy wasn’t fooled for a moment by Sabella’s seeming disinterest. No more than he was fooled by Burt’s indifference when he offered the latest bulletin on Sabella’s health. While neither ever made a single inquiry or offered a comment about the other, Cappy saw to it that all their unasked questions were answered.
August finally ended, but not the terrible heat.
Forty-Seven
SEPTEMBER SIZZLED.
On a steamy Wednesday night in mid-September, Burt dined at the Mission Inn with the village’s only banker. Tired, hot, and bored, Burt squirmed uncomfortably, eager to finish this necessary business meeting and go home.
At first he had planned to spend the night in Capistrano. But Sabella was too strongly in his thoughts. He had been thinking about her all day. Couldn’t seem to get her off his mind. He wondered if it meant something. A faint twinge of alarm stirred in his chest.
He made his excuses and cut the meeting short. Still dressed in his evening clothes, Burt mounted Sam and set out for Lindo Vista. The stallion seemed to sense his master’s urgency. The big paint went immediately into a comfortable, ground-eating lope and didn’t slow the pace until he reached the stables at home.
Burt lunged down off the stallion’s back, hit the paint on the rump. “Go on inside, Sam. One of the boys will rub you down.”
Sam blew out a breath and obeyed.
Burt could hardly keep from running to the house. He walked very fast up to the darkened hacienda, unable to shake a mounting case of the jitters. He felt edgy. Worried. He had to know that Sabella was all right. Or, rather, the child she was carrying.
His child. His son.
Burt went directly to the northern wing of the mansion. He climbed the back stairs, taking them two at a time. He knocked softly on the bedroom door. No answer. His apprehension grew. He gently turned the knob, cautiously poked his head inside. The turned-down bed was empty. He was really worried now.
It was after eleven o’ clock at night! Where the hell was she?
Maybe she was still downstairs. He had come directly up the back stairs, so he wouldn’t have seen her. Burt turned to leave when he heard someone humming.
Faintly. Softly.
Burt opened his mouth to call out. Closed it without making a sound. Noiselessly he crossed the plushly carpeted bedroom to the half-open door of the bath-and-dressing room. Curiously, he peered inside.
And his breath caught in his throat.
Her golden hair pinned atop her head, head tilted slightly downward, Sabella sat naked in the glow of the lamplight, smoothing oil over her huge, rounded belly.
“Sabella,” Burt softly murmured her name.
Startled, she looked up. Taken totally by surprise, she anxiously reached for a towel, staring at him wide-eyed. Speechless, shaking her head, she hurriedly covered herself.
Burt came slowly to her, fell to one knee before her.
“Will you let me … may I touch you?” he asked and it was almost a plea.
He didn’t wait for an answer. Sabella swallowed nervously as Burt pulled the covering towel away and tossed it aside. Her face flaming with embarrassment, she took the tanned hands he held out and gently placed them on her oil-shiny belly.
The broad smile that came to his handsome face was the first real smile she’d seen in months. The smile was contagious. Sabella smiled, too. And she cheerfully gave her okay when he asked if he could help.
“May I—” his beautiful silver eyes lifted, met hers “—spread the oil for you? I’ll be real careful, I won’t hurt you.”
“Of course, you may,” she said softly, her throat constricting with emotion.
Sabella sat there smiling shyly, naked and vulnerable, while Burt shrugged out of his black dinner jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt, and again went down on his knees before her. She handed him the bottle of oil.
Burt poured a drop into his cupped palm, set the bottle on the floor, and began carefully spreading the oil over her swollen stomach. The touch and the sight of his dark lean hand tenderly rubbing oil over her naked white belly filled Sabella with one of the sweetest joys she’d ever known.
“Does this make you feel cooler?” he asked.
Sabella laughed softly. “No, not really.” She then explained. “A pregnant woman spreads oil over her stomach and thighs because it is supposed to keep the stretching skin from breaking.”
“Oh. Uh-huh. I’m afraid I’m terribly ignorant about such things,” Burt admitted. “But I’m willing to learn.” He grinned boyishly and he looked younger and handsomer than he had in ages. His dexterous fingers gently caressing her slick belly, he asked, “Are you feeling well? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she assured him, warmed by the unexpected tenderness in his eyes, “even if I am two weeks overdue.”
That irresistible Burnett smile flashing, he said, “You sure do look fine.” A suggestion of awe and affection in his eyes, his silver gaze moved slowly, lovingly over her enlarged breasts, her rounded belly, her gleaming thighs. “You look … beautiful.”
Her heart racing, Sabella longed to reach out and touch him. To put her arms around his neck and press his handsome face to her naked breasts.
She said, “Thank you. If I am, it’s because your son is inside me.”
Burt gave no reply, but Sabella saw a muscle twitch in his lean jaw and the flicker of his eyes. He continued to spread the oil over her, not stopping at her stomach, but working on her hips and thighs as well. She sighed and smiled and began to think that everything between them was going to be okay.
But too soon Burt was washing his hands, hooking his discarded jacket over his shoulder, and leaving her. At the door, he paused, and turned back.
“Sabella,” he spoke her name softly.
“Yes?” she said, and held her breath.
Several long seconds passed.
“Nothing,” he said finally, shook his dark head, and left.
Sabella’s spirits sank. With a sick sensation, she realized that nothing had changed. That nothing would ever change if she didn’t do something.
It was up to her.
She was the one who had done everything wrong.
So she was the one who must make everything right.
Exhausted from a long, hard workday followed by the evening’s business meeting in the village, Burt stripped down to his skin and fell into bed in a downstairs guest room. Satisfied that Sabella was okay, he fell asleep almost instantly.
Sometime later, he was roused from a deep slumber by a strange glow lighting the darkened room. The eerie light shone right through his closed eyelids, awakening him with a start.
Burt sat up and looked anxiously around. He was up and out of bed in a flash. He raced to the doors standing open to the courtyard. He blinked in confusion and alarm.
On the summer-dead lawn, not twenty yards from where he stood, a fire was burning. Bright orange flames shot high into the night sky. A woman stood between him and the blaze.
Instinctively, Burt started out the door, caught himself, and searched frantically for his discarded trousers. He hunched anxiously into the pants and went out, still buttonin
g them. Baffled, he hurried forward, his heart slamming hard against his ribs.
Twenty feet from the woman and the fire, Burt stopped and stared.
Perfectly framed by the fire, Sabella was smiling at him. She said nothing, but she extended her hand toward the blaze, directing his attention to its source. It was not until then that Burt saw what was on fire.
The Worry Chair.
When his gaze left the burning chair, returned to her, Sabella held up a worn leather journal for him to see. Burt knew in an instant it was the damning Rivera journal he had heard so much about.
He watched, entranced, as Sabella turned and tossed the journal into the flames. She turned back to face him, dusted her hands together, and walked purposely toward him.
Stopping directly before him, she said, “You can’t send me away from you, Burt Burnett. I refuse to go. I’m staying right here no matter what happens. This is our land, yours and mine. And I’ll tell you something else, I love you. I love you whether you like it or not. So there!”
She turned and walked away while Burt, dumbfounded, stared after her, shaking his dark head in wonder. He began to smile. Then to laugh. Burt went after her, caught her arm, turned her to face him.
“I do like it,” he said, smiling down at her.
“Well, it’s a good thing.”
“You,” he said, “are a marvel.”
“You just now finding that out?” She put her arms around his neck. “Burt, I’m so sorry for everything. Please say you’ll forgive me.”
Burt’s arms went around her. Gently, he drew her close, and as her huge stomach pressed against him, he was overwhelmed by the thought that their child was safely cradled between their embracing bodies.
“Only if you will forgive me, sweetheart.”
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” she said, “so that’s easy.”
“Will it be as easy to love me for the next fifty or sixty years?”
“Lord, I don’t know,” she teased. “Ask me again in about fifty years.”
Burt laughed, then lowered his lips to hers and kissed her. Sabella squealed in surprise when he picked her up.
“You can’t carry me,” she protested, “I’m too heavy!”
“You feel light as a feather to me,” he said and carried her inside.
Watching from inside his darkened bedroom in the hacienda’s southern wing, Cappy Ricks exhaled with relief. Having been the one to haul the burgundy leather chair out into the courtyard for Sabella and set it afire, he didn’t feel all that guilty about watching to see what happened afterward.
Smiling now, Cappy went back to bed feeling almost as happy as the reunited pair.
But not quite.
In their suite upstairs Burt and Sabella lay side by side in their big bed, Sabella on her back, Burt turned on his side to face her. Sabella’s starving lips traveled over his face, her hands searched out the beloved hollows of his leanly muscled body.
Words of love and apology and undying devotion were whispered between the sweetest of kisses.
Sabella went peacefully to sleep in her husband’s loving arms.
Two hours later, she was awakened by an agonizing pain in her back. She gritted her teeth and waited for it to pass. It didn’t. It got worse.
She turned to look at Burt. He was sleeping soundly. She hated to wake him; he had been working so hard, he needed his rest. She wouldn’t bother him.
Sabella eased slowly out of Burt’s arms. Grimacing with pain, she struggled toward the edge of the bed. She was up on her elbows when Burt awakened from a nightmare. Heart pounding, his head snapped around.
“Oh, God, no!” he said, seeing the look of pain on Sabella’s pale, drawn face.
“Burt … help me … ” she moaned.
“I will, sweetheart, I will.”
Stepping into his trousers, Burt dashed into the hall. Shouting loudly enough to wake the dead, he summoned the servants. Terrified, he hurried back to Sabella, cradled her head against his shoulder, and assured her that everything was going to be all right.
Carmelita, in a dressing robe and plaited hair, was the first one there. She nodded worriedly when Burt told her he thought Sabella was going into labor. Blanton and Cappy showed up seconds later, out of breath.
“Get Doc Ledet!” Burt shouted.
Within an hour Doctor Ledet arrived. Sabella’s intense pain had grown worse, but she bit her lip and tried not to cry out. Surely it wouldn’t last long.
But it did.
At dawn Burt still paced worriedly outside the closed door while Sabella writhed in agony, unable to hold back the moans as one fierce pain after another left her weak and perspiring and frightened.
As the September sun rose higher, the day grew hotter. Carmelita had to change Sabella’s sweat-soaked nightgown time and again.
Doctor Ledet talked in low, comforting tones to Sabella, acting as though everything was perfectly normal. In truth, he was terrified he was going to lose both her and the baby. At midmorning, when he stepped out for a breath of fresh air, he had to admit to the questioning Burt that both his wife and child were in danger.
His face a mask of pain, Burst said, “You must save Sabella, even if it means losing the baby. You hear me, Doc? I can’t lose her, I can’t!”
Leaving the doctor gaping after him, Burt anxiously barged into the room and went to his suffering wife. Her eyes tightly closed against another jolt of wrenching pain, she opened them when Burt softly spoke her name.
“Burt,” she murmured barely above a whisper, “I’m scared.”
“Don’t be,” he said, taking her hand and kneeling beside the bed. “I’m right here. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
He meant it.
Burt stayed at Sabella’s bedside through the terrible ordeal, kissing her damp temples, holding her cold hands, and bathing her pale, perspiring face.
And silently, wordlessly begging her not to leave him.
The agony continued throughout the long hot day as the weak, barely conscious Sabella was unable to expel the child from her pain-weakened body.
His tortured face shiny with sweat, Burt cursed himself for what he had done to her. He prayed for her life, more precious than his own. He murmured over and over again how much he loved her, worshipped her.
Giant thunderheads formed in the east as the long hot day dragged on. The sun disappeared and soon the fresh scent of rain filled the cooling air. Lightning streaked across the sky and thunder boomed, rattling the leaded windows.
When the welcome rain at last began, Sabella finally delivered her child. Tiny, red-faced, perfectly formed, the infant’s squalling—loud enough to be heard above the falling rain—assured the worried parents its lungs were strong and healthy.
“The baby will be fine,” the doctor told them both. He smiled at Sabella, patted her arm, and said, “And so will you. You’ve shown your mettle, child. You’ve a very brave young woman.”
A smiling Carmelita brought the tiny, cleaned-up infant to its mother. She carefully placed the crying baby in Sabella’s arms.
While Burt and Sabella smiled and stared at their healthy newborn, Carmelita plucked at the doctor’s sleeve, motioning him to follow her out of the room.
Cappy looked up anxiously, and then his shoulders slumped with relief when Carmelita nodded reassuringly and smiled.
Left alone with their tiny newborn, the awed parents kissed the squirming baby and each other.
“Sweetheart, I love you. I love you more at this moment than ever before.” Burt said to Sabella. “Thank you for giving me such a beautiful child.”
She smiled. “You had something to do with it, as I recall.”
He smiled too. “I could never live without you. Either of you.”
Tears of happiness streaming down her pale cheeks, Sabella said, “You’ll never have to, darling. We could never leave you.”
Burt kissed her lips. Then kissed the baby’s downy head and said, “I’m the luckiest, happies
t person on earth.”
Sabella’s tired lids slipped low over her dark, shining eyes. She said, “No, you’re not. I am.”
“You?” Burt said softly, a caress in his voice, brushing a limp strand of blond hair back off her cheek. “Why is that, sweetheart?”
Sabella smiled, sighed, and whispered tiredly, “Because you’re mine. Both of you.”
Epilogue
From the social page of the Los Angeles Times of Sunday, May 23, 1902:
… the groom, a scion of an old California land-grant family was personally decorated by President Theodore Roosevelt for his brave deeds that day on San Juan Hill. The bride …
“I’M NOT GOING! No sir. And you can tell our young hero that. I’m not going to be a part of it!” Burton J. Burnett slammed the newspaper down on the table.
Sabella Burnett merely smiled at her scowling husband and said calmly, “You’re going, dear.”
His voice rising, he said, “I am not going!” And this time it was his fist that slammed down on the table.
The racket startled the aged Cappy Ricks, awakening from his catnap. Cappy’s snow-white head came up off his chest and he looked anxiously around.
“Huh? What is it? What’s the trouble, Lita?”
Carmelita patted her eighty-eight-year-old husband’s stooped shoulder and murmured soothingly, “Everything’s fine, Cappy. We were just discussing the wedding.”
“Again?” mumbled the old man, shooting a watery-eyed glance at Burt’s scowling face. “I thought that was all settled.”
“It is,” Sabella said softly, and poured Cappy a fresh cup of coffee.
Burt glared at her. “I will not be bullied in my own home,” he said, withdrawing a cigar from his shirt pocket. “Everybody had best remember that.”
“Everybody?” his wife asked, a perfectly arched eyebrow lifting accusingly.
“Everybody!” Burt assured her, lighted his cigar, and again took up the newspaper and began to read, muttering under his breath.
