The Brands Who Came For Christmas

by Maggie Shayne

  Chapter 15

  The sounds of thundering feet in the upstairs hallway of the Brand farmhouse, immediately following Maya’s shout, were loud enough to drown out the noise of the storm outside. In between the pounding feet, there were bangs and bumps and crashes, and voices asking what was wrong with the lights, and more rattling and clanking, and more footfalls. It only went on for a matter of perhaps two minutes, but Maya felt as if it was taking her family hours to complete the simple task of getting from their rooms to hers.

  But then they were all stumbling through the bedroom door. Selene in her floor-length black silk nightgown looked even more like a Gothic heroine due to the black wrought iron candelabra she carried, with its spiderweb design. Her silvery hair spilled over her shoulders, and she looked so damn slender Maya suddenly wanted to growl at her. Right behind her came Mel, with a baseball bat in one hand and a flashlight in the other. She wore flannel pajamas, and her short dark hair stuck up in several directions. A fighting mad hen with wet feathers. She made Maya want to laugh. Behind her, Vidalia burst in, wearing her red satin bathrobe with the black lace collar and cuffs. She carried an old tin and glass hurricane lamp, its globe in need of cleaning, but it gave off some light all the same. Her masses of raven curls were bound in one long braid that twisted down her back. The fourth one in was Kara. She had no light and came bursting into the room so fast she ran into Vidalia, who bumped into Mel, who shouldered Selene, who fell onto the bed and managed not to set the blankets on fire with the candles.

  There were several “oomphs” and “ughs,” and then Kara said, “Sorry. What’s going on?”

  “Power’s out.”

  “Big snowstorm.”

  “Maya yelled.”

  Three voices gave three answers. Then Maya gave the fourth. “I’m in labor.”

  There was one brief moment of stunned silence, and then everyone started bustling at once. Kara muttered something about boiling water, and Mel said something about dialing 911, and Selene said, “I think I have a spell for this somewhere!”

  Then Vidalia shouted, just once. “Stop!”

  And everyone went still and silent “That’s better. Now calm down, all of you. Mel, take this lantern, bundle yourself thoroughly, go on out to the barn and get the generator fired up.” She handed the hurricane lamp to Mel. “Dress warm, now; There’s no big hurry. First babies take their time. Kara, you go on downstairs and call Caleb over at Ida-May’s. Tell him it’s time. And, Selene, you go on out with Mel and start up the van. Pull it right up to the door here. We’ll let it get nice and warm.” She smiled and took Selene’s candles, setting them on the bedside stand. “You’ll find some more lamps and candles in the kitchen closet, third shelf. Matches with them, as always. Go on now. I’ll stay here and mind your sister.”

  Nodding, they shuffled out, Mel’s flashlight guiding the way.

  Maya tried to slow her breathing, tried to be calm. It wasn’t easy. She was actually trembling. Drawing a breath, she sat up and flung back the covers. “I’m soaking wet,” she said. “I think my water broke.”

  “Not to worry, hon. I’ll just get you some clean, dry things.” Vidalia went to the dresser, pulling open the top drawer, and hauling out an oversized flannel nightgown with pink flowers all over it.

  “That thing’s big enough to shelter the homeless,” Maya moaned.

  “And just think, this will be the last night you’ll need to wear it. Come on, now, up on the edge of the bed.”

  Maya moved with no small effort, and her mother helped her peel off her wet nightgown. She brought a washcloth and towels for Maya to wash herself up, and helped her into the clean, warm nightie. Then she wrapped her in the extra blanket and set her in a chair beside the bed.

  It took all of five minutes. And then the next contraction came, and it pulled tight, and Maya wrapped her arms around herself and bowed her head, and made a sound from down deep in her chest.

  Vidalia was peeling the wet blankets and sheets off the bed, but she stopped, and her head came up. “Is that the second contraction?”

  “Mmm.” Maya managed that and nothing more, but accompanied it with a fierce nod.

  “And the first was when you called out?”

  “After,” Maya told her. And she knew damn well it hadn’t been very long. She pried her eyes open, saw her mother look at the wind-up clock on the bedside stand. She didn’t look away until Maya sighed her relief and sat a little straighter. Her mother finished stripping the bed, carried the bundle of covers to the bathroom and came back with fresh linens. How she managed to be so fast and efficient in almost total darkness was beyond Maya. She thought her mother could probably do just about anything. Thank God she was here!

  “There now,” Vidalia said. “I’ll throw fresh blankets on there, and it will be all ready and waiting for you when we come home from the hospital.”

  Maya licked her lips. “Dammit, I was supposed to get married today,” she moaned.

  “Watch your mouth, dear.”

  “I don’t want my babies illegitimate.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, child, it’s the twenty-first century. What kind of a modern woman are you if you still think a baby needs its father’s name to be considered legitimate? I mean, really, who made that rule? When did the mother’s name become so unimportant?”

  “Mom, this isn’t exactly the time for feminism or politics.”

  A throat cleared, and Maya looked to the doorway, seeing Kara and Selene standing there, looking frightened.

  “Um…Mom, can we talk to you a minute? Out here?”

  Kara asked..

  Vidalia lifted her brows. Maya held up a hand. “No. Whatever’s wrong, you spit it out right here, right now. I’ve got a right to know.”

  Kara looked at Maya. Then she looked at Vidalia. Vidalia heaved a mighty sigh, and gave a nod. “Go on, what is it?”

  “Mom, there’s a blizzard going on out there. No power, no phones, at least two feet of snow piled up, and some of the drifts out there are higher than my head. Wind’s blowing something fierce. I can’t even see from the house to the barn.”

  Frowning, Vidalia went to the window, parted the curtain. “Where’s Melusine?”

  “She went out anyway. Bundled up and said she thought she could make it to the barn, get the generator started,” Selene said softly. “We told her not to go, but you know Mel.”

  “Lord have mercy,” Vidalia whispered.

  Maya bit her lip, but the cry was wrung from her anyway. Tears sprang to her eyes this time, the pain was so intense. Her sisters huddled around her, and Vidalia looked at the clock. “Four minutes,” she said. Shaking her head slowly, she looked at the ceiling. “Lord, if you’re still owin’ me any favors, now would be a fine time to pay up on ‘em. “Then, she stood straighter, lifted her chin. “All right, all right, we have what we have, we may as well deal with it. Kara, get that mattress cover from the hall closet, and get it onto this bed. Bring extra blankets, too. Selene, did you gather up the lamps and candles?”

  “They’re right here. I brought the whole box.” As she spoke, she turned back into the hallway, bent to pick up a large cardboard box and brought it into the bedroom.

  Vidalia went to the round pedestal table by the window and, taking the tablecloth by its edges, gathered it at the top, lifting a dozen framed photos, trinkets and knick-knacks all at once. She set them in an out-of-the way corner. “I want you to put every one of those lights right here, in this bedroom window, and fire them up. Tie back the curtains, well out of the way. We’ll need the light to work by, and if they’re bright enough, they might help Mel keep her bearings.”

  “What if they don’t, Mom?” Selene was already unloading candles and kerosene and oil lamps from the box onto the table.

  “Don’t you worry, Selene. Vidalia Brand is not going to let any blizzard take one of her girls. Now you just do what I told you, quick as you can. There’s work to be done. I need rubbing alcohol, scissors, that ball of str
ing from Maya’s sewing basket….”

  Caleb thanked God for Ida-May’s suggestion about clinging to the guardrails at least a hundred times before he made it to the traffic light. The snow was blinding, the wind constantly driving his body off track. He could have veered off course and not even known it. It was impossible to tell the road from the ditches. There was nothing but snow. White, ice-cold snow, crotch-deep and stubborn as hell. With every step he took, his legs and borrowed boots were pushing massive amounts of the stuff. It was unbelievable.

  He had to let go of the guardrail and cross the street now. The rail was on the left-hand side, and the street he wanted was on the right. He turned, aimed the flashlight Ida-May had given him, hoping to pinpoint a spot on the other side so he could have something to aim for. But the light couldn’t cut through the wall of slanting snow. He started forward anyway, but a gust caught him and sent him stumbling sideways. He fell over, snow in his face, even inside the fur-trimmed hood of the late innkeeper’s parka. Shaking himself, Caleb rose to his hands and knees, got slowly to his feet. He was off track, turned around already. He’d lost his sense of which way he’d been facing, which way he wanted to go.

  Tipping his head back, he turned in a slow circle, aiming the flashlight upward, until finally he saw it reflected back at him from the traffic light above. And when he found it, he realized he could just manage to make out the shapes of the cables that held it suspended above the street. He’d been on the left, so the shortest stretch of cable was where he’d been. The longest stretch was a map pointing the way to the other side of the road.

  Bowing against the wind, he walked, stopping every three or four steps to look up at the traffic light and its cables to keep his bearings. And eventually he reached the spot where the cable ended. Again he shone the light. What now? Nothing to go by, no guardrails. He battled his way forward, facing directly into the biting wind now, took a few steps, then a few more. And at last his light gleamed on what turned out to be the reflective numbers on the door of a house. He was looking for the first house on the left. Joe Petrolla’s place. He didn’t know if this was the first house, or if it were on the right or the left. It was as close as he could guess, though.

  His entire body shaking, he managed to get up the sidewalk to the front door, and then he banged as hard as the oversized mittens would allow.

  It was only moments before the door opened and a man in a plaid housecoat pulled him inside, then slammed the door closed behind him. “Great jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, who in their right mind would be out on a night like this? You all right, fella?”

  Shivering, Caleb yanked off the mittens, so he could loosen the strings that held the hood—no easy task, since they were caked with snow and ice. But after a few seconds his cold fingers managed to accomplish it, and he pushed the hood down. “I’m Caleb—”

  “I know who you are!” the man said. “Honey, it’s that politician fella from the newspapers. The one who’s gonna marry Maya Brand!”

  Caleb hadn’t noticed the woman huddled near a pot-bellied wood stove on the other side of the room. He did now. “Well, I’ll be,” she said.

  “Listen, I don’t have a lot of time to explain, but I’m looking for Joe Petrolla. Are you him?”

  The man frowned and shook his head. “No. Name’s Cooper. Tom Cooper. This is my wife, Sarah.”

  “How far am I from this Petrolla’s house?”

  The man scratched his head, looked at his wife.

  “Only Petrolla I ever knew moved to Texas five years back,” the wife said.

  Caleb closed his eyes, lowered his head.

  “Must have been some important, to bring you clear out here on a night like this,’’ Tom Cooper said.

  “It is important. The roads are blocked, power’s out, as you probably already know, and the phones are dead. Maya is out there at the farmhouse, and I don’t have any way of even knowing if she’s all right.” He bit his lip. “Just yesterday a nurse predicted she’d have the babies within a day or two at most.”

  “Someone ought to go on out there and check on her,” Tom Cooper said slowly.

  His wife, who’d crossed the room, smacked him on the arm. “Well what did you think this young man was doing, Thomas, taking a moonlight stroll?’’ She rolled her eyes and looked at Caleb. “What did you want from this Petrolla, anyway?”

  “Ol Hank, at the boarding house, told me the guy had a snowmobile. I thought I’d stand a better chance of making it out to the farm if I could borrow it.”

  She sighed heavily. “Well, we don’t have a snowmobile.”

  “You’d never make it on a snowmobile in this storm anyway,” her husband said.

  Then the wife’s head came up. “Could you make it with the bulldozer, Tom?”

  Tom blinked twice and turned a horrified stare at his wife. “What the—do you think I’d just hand over—that thing cost more than this house, woman!”

  “Tom’s in the construction business,” she said, as if that explained his reaction. “His equipment is as precious to him as if it was attached.” She turned a narrow glare on Tom. “But there is a pregnant woman and twin babies at stake here, so of course he’ll realize there’s only one right thing to do.”

  Cooper set his jaw and shook his head.

  “Mr. Cooper, you said you knew who I was,” Caleb told the man. “So that must mean you know what I’m worth.”

  The man’s brows drew together in a brief frown, then rose as his mind processed this new data.

  “Tom, please…if you help me tonight, I’ll buy you a brand-new dozer tomorrow. Any kind, any size, any price, you name it.”

  Tom Cooper rubbed his chin. “Don’t need a dozer,” he said slowly. “Got one.” Then, tilting his head to one side, he said, “Could use a backhoe, though.”

  “Deal. You have my word, and your wife is our witness. The minute the roads are cleared, you go out and you order the biggest, shiniest backhoe in existence, and I’ll foot the bill.” Caleb thrust out a hand. “Deal?”

  Tom pursed his lips, then reached out and shook on it.

  Turning, he said, “Hon, I’m gonna need my wool union suit and my Carhartt overalls.”

  “Hey, wait a minute. I didn’t say anything about you going with me,” Caleb said. “It’s not safe out there.”

  Tom lifted his brows. “You ever run a dozer, mister?”

  Caleb shook his head.

  “Didn’t think so. I’ll be ready in ten minutes.” He glanced at the window, shook his head. “Nope, you’d have never made it out there on a snowmobile. Never.”

  “I wanted to do this in the hospital! I wanted a freaking epidural!” Maya’s voice carried all through the house. But as the contraction eased and she relaxed back on the pillows, her focus changed again. “How long has it been?”

  “Only an hour,” Vidalia said.

  “Mom, you gotta go after Mel. Dammit, if I could, I’d go myself.”

  “Mel’s the toughest of any of us,” Vidalia said. She couldn’t hide her fear from Maya, though, or from anyone else. It showed on her face. She was terrified for Melusine.

  “Let me go. Mom, she’s right. We have to get to Mel,” Kara said.

  “I can do it,” Selene put in. “You have to let one of us try, Mom.”

  Vidalia looked again at the window. “Just give her a few more minutes. I don’t want to risk either of you getting lost out there.” She wiped the sweat from Maya’s brow with a soft cloth.

  Kara had brought up the small portable kerosene burning heater from the basement, and it was almost too warm in the small bedroom now. Or maybe it only seemed that way to Maya.

  She clasped her mother’s hand. “You have to let one of them go, Mom. Mel might be in trouble.”

  “Maya—”

  “Listen…oh, hell….” The pain was coming again, she clenched her jaw and her fists, and spoke through the pain. “Tie a rope…to the porch rail. Tie…the other end…around her waist.”

  Vidalia nodded h
ard. “Do your breathing, Maya. Come on, breathe through it.”

  She panted out the breaths as she’d been taught, while her mother joined her. When it passed, Vidalia stroked her hair. “Good girl, you’re doing fine, honey.” Then she turned. “Your sister’s right. Kara, I want you to get the rope from the hall closet. Tie one end around your waist and the other to the porch rail. Go out as far as you can reach and see if there’s any sign of Mel. Bundle yourself, girl. Cover every bit of skin, take the flashlight and don’t linger. You get out there, and if you don’t see her, you get right back in.”

  “Why not me?” Selene demanded.

  “Because you’re younger and you’re smaller. The wind would whip you around like a dandelion seed. I want you to stay on this end, every bit as bundled as Kara. You keep watch that the rope doesn’t come loose. And don’t you even think of leaving that porch, you understand me?”

  Selene scowled, but nodded. She moved to the head of the bed and leaned over to kiss Maya’s cheek. “Be okay, hon. I won’t be long.”

  “Hey, I’ve got your childbirth herbs in my pillowcase, your protection incense burning and your power stone being crushed to dust in my fist, sis. What could go wrong?”

  Kara came to the other side. “Will you two be okay without us?” she asked.

  “Mom’s done this a few times, don’t forget,” Maya said breathlessly. “Go on, bring Mel back.”

  Kara nodded, and she and Selene hurried out of the room.

  Another pain hit, and Maya’s head came off the pillow at the intensity of it “Is it supposed to hurt this much?” she growled.

  “Breathe, baby. That’s it. You trust me, when we ask you about this later, you’re gonna tell us it was nothing at all. This part leaves your mind like it never happened.”

  Panting through clenched teeth, Maya said, “That’s bull.”

  “If it were bull, darlin’, you’d be an only child.” Vidalia smiled gently at her. “In fact, I think everyone would be. Well, everyone except for twins and triplets and such special little angels as those.”

  The pain ebbed. Maya stopped panting, blew a sigh, dropped her head to the pillows once more. “Can you see out the window, Mom?”

  “It’s damn near black as pitch,” Vidalia said, but she went to the window all the same and stood looking out “Well now, wait a minute…what in the world?”

  “What is it?” Maya twisted her head to try to see, but couldn’t.

  “Why…there’s a light, way off to the north. Looks to be coming this way, too. Who on earth…?”

  “Is it Mel? Maybe she got turned around and wandered—”

  “No, it’s too far away to be Mel. Besides, that little flashlight wouldn’t shine so far, not in this weather.”

  Maya closed her eyes. Maybe it was Caleb. God, she wanted him so much right now. And it made no damn sense whatsoever, but there it was. He’d been her first thought when she’d felt the initial pangs. And he’d been on her mind constantly ever since. She’d been lying here foolishly fantasizing that he would show up, like some knight in shining armor. That he would fight his way through a storm that even emergency workers couldn’t penetrate just to be with her. She kept envisioning him bursting through the bedroom door.

  She was hopeless. If he had a clue how she really felt about him, he would probably take his offer of marriage and run screaming back to Tulsa just as fast as his feet could take him. She’d always been so practical. When had she turned into this emotional, needy, lovesick basket case?

  But she knew the answer to that. She’d been that way since she first laid eyes on Caleb Montgomery. And she didn’t think there was any cure in sight.

  And yes, she needed him tonight, and no, he wasn’t there. But she knew now that she couldn’t judge him by that. If he knew what was happening, he would be there. If there was a way to get there. His not being there didn’t mean he would turn out to be a man like her father was, or that he would let her down or walk out on her children. It didn’t mean that at all.

  “Whoever it is, they’re coming this way,” Vidalia said.

  “I hope it’s a team of paramedics with radios and a whole suitcase full of drugs,” she said, as yet another contraction tightened its fist around her.

  “You are such a liar,” her mother told her. “You hope it’s Caleb.” She licked her lips, shook her head slowly. “And frankly, daughter, so do I.”

  The bulldozer moved at the speed of molasses, and with every snowdrift it crushed beneath its tracks, Caleb felt more certain that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

  His stomach was tied up in knots, and the cold wasn’t the only thing causing his shivering.

  What if something happened to the babies?

  What if something happened to Maya?

  A shaft of red-hot pain sliced right through his frozen body to lay open his heart. Damn, he was a mess, wasn’t he?

  “Shouldn’t we see the house by now?” He leaned close to Tom Cooper, and shouted the question. Between the noise of the dozer and that of the storm, he wasn’t sure the man could hear him even then. Besides, they were both wrapped in hoods and scarfs and a solid half-inch layer of snow at this point

  Cooper turned slightly and yelled back, “Maybe. If there were any lights on.”

  Hell, if there were no lights on, then what the hell did that indicate? Nothing good, he bet. A brief image of Maya lying frozen in her bed, still and white, her skin like glass, crystals forming on her eyelashes, floated into his mind. Like Sleeping Beauty, he saw her. He squeezed his eyes tight and gave his head a hard shake to rid himself of that image.

  She was okay. She had to be okay, and the babies, too.

  Cooper held up one mitted paw, sort of pointing.

  Caleb squinted into the cutting snow to try to see what he did and finally made out a dim speck of light in the distance. “Go toward it!” he yelled.

  It probably was an unnecessary instruction.

  The dozer belched and bucked, inch by inch, nearer the light. And the light didn’t move. More and more it seemed to be coming from ground level, and the fear in Caleb’s belly churned harder. Then the spotlights mounted on the dozer were pointing directly at the smaller light so it vanished altogether. But the edge of the house came into view, and he could see lights at last in one of the upper windows.

  “Thank God,” he whispered. “Thank God.” At least it looked as if someone was alive in there.

  The dozer rocked closer, and its lights picked out a lone form, struggling against the wind…with what looked like a rope tied around it. Turning to face the dozer, the form waved its arms frantically, held its hands flat out, made a pushing motion.

  “Stop, Tom,” Caleb shouted. “Shut her down, but keep the lights on.”

  Cooper did so. Caleb climbed off the machine, amazed at how difficult it was to bend or unbend anything. Every joint in his body seemed to have frozen over. His legs sank hip deep in snow as soon as he hit, but he waded forward, fumbling in his big pocket for the flashlight, grabbing it as clumsily as a bear cub in boxing gloves, and finally flicking it on.

  The figure with the rope around it was bundled beyond recognition, until he got all the way up in her face. Then her eyes, peering over the top of a scarf gave her away as a Brand woman, and her height told him which one.

  “Kara? What are you doing out here?” he said, loudly, over the wind.

  “Caleb?” she asked. “Oh, thank God!” She hugged him, totally ineffective in all the layers of clothing.

  “What’s wrong?” he shouted again, clasping her shoulders, and backing her up just a few inches.

  “It’s Mel! She went out to the barn—for the generator—but she never came back.”

  His heart did a little spasm in his chest. “How long?” he shouted.

  “Almost two hours!”

  He didn’t like it. Damn, Mel out in this for two hours? Why the hell hadn’t someone gone out after her sooner?

  “Go back to the house,” he yelled.
“I’ll find her.”

  Kara shook her head. “Not without my sister!”

  He started to get mad, then remembered the faint light he’d seen before. It hadn’t been Kara’s. It had been further out than that. He patted Kara’s shoulders. “Wait here!” Then he dragged himself back out to the dozer, where Tom Cooper waited. “Turn off the lights and come with me.

  Cooper cut the lights, clambered down, and the two of them hunched their backs against the storm and made their way through the snow once more. When they reached Kara, Caleb said, “I think I saw her. I’m going out. You two stay right here. If I’m not back in ten minutes, Cooper, you take this girl back to the house, whether she wants to go or not. It’s at the other end of her rope.”

  Cooper nodded. Kara argued, but Caleb didn’t take time to listen. He started out through the drifts, praying to God he would see that little beam of light again.

  And then he did. Ten feet from the barn, with an inch of snow already covering it. He raced closer, dropped to his knees, and pawed the snow away rapidly, digging out the light, and the gloved hand that clung to it. Mel’s hand. Then her arm, shoulder and the rest of her. Lifting her upper body, he shook her. “Melusine! Mel, come on! Talk to me!”

  There was a very slight movement of her lips. Maybe a moan, but if so, it was lost in the wind. At least he knew she was alive. He gathered her up into his arms, turned and started back the way he’d come. He homed in on the glow spilling from the upstairs window and trudged with everything he had.

  He reached Kara and Tom Cooper with what felt like the last ounce of strength in his body, so cold he couldn’t even feel his hands or feet anymore.

  Cooper took Mel from his arms, turned toward the house. Caleb took a step toward it, as well, and Kara put a hand on his chest to stop him. “We still need the generator,” she said.

  Cooper turned back. “Don’t walk it, Caleb! Take the dozer. No one out there to run over by accident now!”

  With a sigh of relief, he nodded. “Get back to the house, Kara. I’ll be in with the genny in a few minutes.”

  She looked him in the eye and said, “Hurry, Caleb. We need you in there.” Then she turned and trudged away.

  In only seconds she was swallowed up by the storm. Drawing himself up, Caleb started toward the dozer.