Come Spring

by Jill Marie Landis

  Kase’s shoulders slumped visibly. With the addition of his bruises, his wet clothing, and the bloodstains streaking his shirt, his dark countenance only heightened the dismal feeling that had entered the room with him. “He’s in Cheyenne.”

  Annika watched the frightened couple. Kase held Rose’s hand. Rose looked confused and alarmed. No matter how foreboding Kase might appear, he had obviously lost his nerve completely where childbirth was concerned. Someone had to do something and she was the only someone left. The blind leading the terrified. Annika took a deep breath and said with as much authority in her tone as she could muster, “Kase, go wash up, you’ll scare that child to death when it sees you. There’s fresh water in the pitcher on the wash-stand.”

  Like a condemned man, Kase slowly rose to his feet. At the same time, another pain gripped Rose and she cried out. Kase sank to the bed beside her and grabbed her shoulders. “Damn it, Rose, this is it. This is the last time. I won’t lose you!”

  A floorboard creaked behind her and Annika turned toward the open doorway, expecting to see Richard hovering on the threshold. The bottom fell out of her stomach when her gaze collided with Buck Scott’s. His face was in no better shape than her brother’s. Suddenly it was all too clear from the blood streaked down the front of his soaking wet jacket and the rip in his shirt that the two men had already met in town. Met and fought.

  And from the look of it, they had nearly killed each other.

  Buck filled the doorway with Buttons in his arms, looking much the same as Annika had last seen him except for the shadows beneath his eyes, the beard, and a new thinness to his face. Against the collar of his buckskin jacket, his hair was longer than she remembered. He’d lost the rawhide tie that usually held it in place and the rain had rejuvenated the curl until he sported a halo of ringlets much like that of the child in his arms. She’d never seen a more beautiful sight.

  “Ankah! Buck! Look it, Buck!” Buttons squeezed her arms tightly about his neck and pressed her cheek to his.

  Annika couldn’t keep from staring at Buck—at his hair, his eyes, his battered lips. She wanted to hug him as tightly as Baby Buttons and never wanted to let him go again. Only the drama unfolding behind her kept her from going to his arms.

  Buck felt much the same after the initial shock of seeing Annika subsided, but the sight of her in her fine purple gown, the intricate hairstyle so different from anything he was used to on her, her familiar regal bearing adorned by the strand of pearls and the pearl and diamond earrings glittering against her honeyed skin—all of it instantly convinced him he had been very wrong in coming to see her.

  One quick glance around the well-appointed room, the memory of the furnishings he’d seen on his way from the kitchen, the man Richard, who claimed her as his—this was all part of the world she belonged to. This was what Annika Storm deserved, the life she was entitled to. Thinking he might woo her away from such riches was the second greatest mistake of his life. Falling in love with her had been the first.

  And he knew it all in a glance.

  Then, the small, dark-haired woman nearly lost amid the bedclothes of the high four-poster behind Annika drew his complete attention. He could tell from the frequency of her pains that the child fighting to be born had to come soon or it would be lost. Wordlessly, he handed Buttons to Annika and walked to the end of the bed. The heat in the room was stifling. He wiped his brow.

  Rose glanced at him and away as she cried out again and clung to Kase.

  “Shh. Shh. It’s all right, Rose. It’ll pass.” Kase swabbed her face with a wet cloth as he murmured low and tried to calm her.

  “Let her yell.” Buck cleared his throat. “Is the head showing yet?”

  Annika moved up behind him. “Not yet,” she whispered.

  Kase swung around and glared at Buck. Annika hovered beside him holding a squirming Baby Buttons.

  “Get him out of here.” Kase uttered the words in a low growl and turned away from the sight of the buffalo man standing so close to his sister.

  Annika watched Buck watch Rose and suddenly knew an overwhelming relief. If anyone could save Rose and the baby, it was Buck Scott. “Let him help, Kase.”

  Kase came to his feet in an instant. He threw the wet rag in the bowl on the bedside table and with clenched fists said, “Get him out before I kill him.”

  “Kase!” When Rose cried out in pain, Kase turned away from Buck.

  Annika stepped up to her brother and frantically whispered, “He can do it, Kase.”

  “I don’t want that man’s hands on my wife.”

  “Please, Kase. He knows what to do.” She glanced at Buck for affirmation and was relieved when Buck nodded.

  Buck added, “That’s right, Storm. My mother was a midwife. I’ve seen more babies delivered than I can count.”

  Kase didn’t even turn around to face him. Rose was crying now, writhing in almost constant pain, arching almost off the mattress.

  “I delivered Buttons,” Buck added.

  “Let him help, Kase, please. At least talk to him,” Annika pleaded.

  Buck folded his arms across his chest. “From the looks of it, there’s not much time left, Storm.”

  Kase watched Rose, who was fighting to hold back her pain, fighting the contractions. He glanced up at his sister’s hopeful face, then at Buck Scott. The big, crudely dressed man looked as out of place in the elegant bedroom with its walls covered in cabbage rose paper as the proverbial bull in a china shop. But Scott was right. There was not much time left.

  “What can you do?” Kase whispered.

  “I can handle this without falling apart, for one thing. Your wife is terrified and you’re scared to death yourself. Do everyone a favor and get out of here. Go downstairs and get drunk.” Dismissing Kase, Buck shrugged out of his coat, threw it over a chaise in the corner, and rolled up the sleeves of his torn flannel shirt. “Annika, take Buttons downstairs. I have some herbs in my saddlebags. See if there’s some skullcap and brew it into tea. Bring up a pot of it as fast as you can, along with some wine if there’s any around.”

  Annika hesitated, willing but uncertain. “I don’t know what it looks like.”

  Buck bent over and washed his hands in the basin on the washstand.

  Kase stood by the doorway watching the scene unfold. Finally he offered grudgingly, “I can find it.”

  Arrested by the sight of Buck standing there, still barely able to believe he had finally come for her, Annika didn’t move when Kase left the room.

  Buck straightened. He stared at her briefly, then said, “Get going, but before you do, open a window. What were you trying to do? Boil the baby when it got here?”

  “I didn’t want it to catch cold,” she snapped at him.

  He almost smiled, then turned away. “Open a window and then get the tea.” He walked over to Rose and laid his hand on her forehead. In a low, even tone he asked her, “Can you hear the rain, Mrs. Storm?”

  “Sí, I hear.”

  “Do you like rain?”

  “Is bad sometimes, but I like.”

  “Me too,” Buck said. He looked into her eyes, studied the color of her skin, measured her temperature with the touch of his hand on her brow. “Don’t fight the pain. Lean into it. Push.” He put his hand on her abdomen and felt the child moving inside. “We’ll have that baby out of there in no time if you cooperate, Mrs. Storm.”

  Through her pain, Rose looked up into his blue eyes and listened to the confident voice of Buck Scott. “My name is Rosa.”

  When Annika returned with the tea a few minutes later, she set the tray down and poured a shallow cup. Buck was still standing beside Rose, elevating her head and softly encouraging her to push when the pain came. Rose seemed calmer, more confident with each passing second. Annika held the tea, silently watching Buck deal with his patient.

  He turned to her and said quietly, “See if you can see the crown of the baby’s head yet.”

  Annika set down the cup, did as he
asked, and shook her head. “Nothing.”

  “Something is wrong.” Rose’s voice grew weak.

  “Not at all, Rosa. You’re almost through.” Gently, he laid Rose back against the pillows. He encouraged her to sip some tea, then a little more. That done, he uncorked the wine.

  “Will the tea relieve her pain?” Annika asked, hoping he would say yes.

  Buck shook his head. “No, but it will calm her nerves.”

  “When do you give her the wine?”

  “The wine’s for me.” He pulled out the cork with his teeth and took a deep swig of the burgundy and handed the bottle to Annika. Closing her eyes, she mimicked him and drank down a hearty draught and felt the warm liquid work its way to her toes.

  “Sometimes fear is the worst problem,” Buck was saying. “Your brother was scared enough to pass his fear on to Rosa. Her holding back only made things worse.”

  “I wasn’t much help, either,” Annika whispered. She met his stare. “We all thank you, Buck.”

  “Don’t thank me yet.” He turned away without a word and encouraged Rose through another pain. As Annika looked on, he slowly, calmly handled her, breathed with her, smiled, and assured Rose that everything was progressing normally. He pressed her to take another sip of the calming brew.

  “Look again,” he said aside to Annika after another fierce contraction had passed.

  Annika lifted the sheet. Unable to hide her excitement, she cried out, “I see it! I see the baby’s head.”

  “A lot of it?”

  “Just a peek.”

  “Push again,” Buck encouraged Rose.

  She pushed.

  “Scream if you want to,” he encouraged.

  She shook her head and bit her lip.

  “Do it,” he commanded. “You’ll feel better.”

  Rose screamed and Kase burst into the room.

  “Get out,” Buck said calmly over his shoulder. “We’re almost through.” Kase looked at Annika; she nodded and smiled. He backed out of the room and closed the door.

  “I see more now!” Annika cried out. “The head and one shoulder. Oh, Buck,” she said, smiling up at him through tears, “it has dark hair just like Kase.”

  Buck moved to the end of the bed. He knew that if the cord which was the child’s lifeline was wrapped too tightly around its neck the baby would die before it was fully birthed. One look told him that this would be the case with Rose Storm’s infant if he didn’t act and act fast. He tried to slip his finger between the tight cord and the child’s neck but couldn’t. “Push, Rose,” he said, trying to keep the panic from his voice.

  The command in his tone brooked no argument. Rose pushed as Annika took Buck’s place and helped her lean into the pain. Buck slipped his hands beneath the infant’s sleek wet body and patiently waited for it to slide from the birth canal. Rose cried out as the baby tore its way into the world.

  Annika held her breath as the child slid into Buck’s hands, stunned by the miracle she had witnessed, forgetting for the moment all that had passed between them. Buck was magnificent. She knew that if she lived to be a hundred she would never forget the sight of the huge outdoorsman holding the tiny, pulsing scrap of life that he had ushered into the world.

  “It’s a boy,” Buck told them, looking first at Annika, then Rose. With the baby cradled in his big hands, he quickly unwrapped the cord from around its neck. Buck then picked up the little boy by his heels. He gave the buttocks a slap and then another before Kase and Rose’s son lustily announced his arrival. “Put a towel on her stomach,” he directed Annika, and after she had, he laid the child on Rose. The afterbirth came on a last wave of pain.

  Exhausted, Rose fell back against the pillows and stroked the baby’s shining black hair. “Mio bambino ... mio bambino.” Through her tears of joy, she repeated the words like a litany as Buck tied off the cord and severed it with the sharp scissors she had made certain were clean and ready. He then wrapped the baby in another towel and told Rose, “You can hold him for a minute more before I clean him up.” Just as he lay the baby in Rose’s arms, the door opened and Kase walked in.

  “Is everything all right?” Unashamed of the tears that flowed unchecked down his cheeks or of his red-rimmed eyes, Kase looked to Buck for reassurance.

  Buck toweled his hands and arms up to the elbows. “She’s fine and so’s your son, but I’d feel better if I could stitch her up a bit.”

  Kase glanced at Rose, who nodded without hesitation before he sank to the side of the bed, certain his legs would not hold him any longer. Annika moved to his side and put her hand on her brother’s shoulders. “Isn’t he beautiful? He looks just like both of you.”

  The baby’s cries had subsided to whimpers as Rose cradled him in her arms. Almost afraid to touch the squirming bundle in his wife’s arms, Kase simply stared down at the baby for a moment before he looked up at Buck. “Is he all right? Can you tell?”

  Buck paused, wondering how Kase Storm could look at such a robust, healthy infant and even ask the question. He glanced at Annika, who was also waiting expectantly for his answer. “He’s fit as a fiddle, far as I can tell. By the time he’s grown his punch will probably pack the same wallop his daddy’s does.”

  Buck carried away the afterbirth in a china washbowl. He had quickly draped a towel over it when he saw Annika blanch at the sight. All he needed now was to have her passed out on the floor.

  The Storms inspected their son while Buck waited patiently. Finally, he interrupted. “Annika, why don’t you and your brother go downstairs for a few minutes and leave Rose in peace? When we’re through here, I’ll call you.”

  Annika couldn’t hide her pride when Buck issued the smooth command. His bedside manner was as practiced as any doctor she’d ever seen, city or country. She volunteered to act as nurse, but Buck shook his head. “You look exhausted. Just close the window and then get me some silk thread, a needle, and more hot water. I can manage.” To reassure Kase he said, “It will just take a few minutes.”

  “I can’t understand why your brother allowed that man in this house.”

  “Richard, I’m really too drained to answer now.” Seated at the kitchen table, Annika pressed her hands to her burning eyelids and tried to focus. Buck had yet to come down from Rose’s room, although Kase had been granted entrance. She had too much to think about now that the crisis with Rose had passed to want to deal with Richard Thexton.

  But he wouldn’t let her rest. “Obviously, your brother isn’t thinking clearly—”

  “His name is Kase.”

  “Well, I still contend he’s not thinking clearly, Annika, or he wouldn’t abide that man’s presence.”

  “Buck just saved their child. I imagine Kase will give him anything he wants.”

  Richard stopped pacing across the kitchen floor and glared at her. “Including you?”

  “That was uncalled for.”

  “Was it? I think you’re glad to see him, as crude and uncouth as he is. That’s why you are barely able to sit there on the edge of your chair, why you jump at every sound—you can’t wait for him to come down. I think you’ve been waiting for him to come back ever since you were rescued. Am I right?”

  Tension mounted upon tension forced her to snap. She slapped her hands down on the surface of the table and pushed off her chair. Annika paced across the room until she stood before Richard Thexton, refusing to back down. “You’re right,” she said in a menacing tone. “In fact, you’re right about everything you’ve said today. I am waiting to see Buck Scott again. And if he’ll have me, I intend to go wherever he wants me to.”

  He looked as shocked as if she had slapped him.

  She wished she had. “I guess it’s just my wild Indian blood, Richard. The blood you were so very graciously offering to overlook a few hours ago.”

  He reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders. This untamed fury was a side of the usually unruffled man that Annika had never seen or even suspected he possessed.

 
“You little bitch.” He spoke from between clenched teeth. “You think you’re so high and mighty. If you hadn’t been tucked away in school or under your parents’ wings all your life, you’d have had your eyes opened and know where you stand.”

  “Say what you have to say and get it over with, Richard.”

  “Your brother slunk out of town after he attacked a client in his law office. Your mother was forced to marry that half-breed Caleb Storm because she’d already been some Indian’s Dutch whore. Where do you actually think that precious ‘brother’ of yours sprang from?”

  She tried to twist away. “Let me go.”

  He gave her a vicious shake instead. “Have you ever asked them, Annika?”

  “I said let me go!”

  “Have you asked?”

  She tried to blot out the sight of him leering down at her by closing her eyes. Yes, she wanted to scream. Yes, she’d asked them, but the answer was always the same. Kase was her half brother. Her mother had been married before Caleb, but the past was too sad for her to talk about. The subject had always been so swiftly and effortlessly changed that afterward she hardly remembered she had asked. As she grew older, she grew afraid to hurt her mother, and even more afraid to find out that Kase was not her half brother at all, but perhaps was some foundling that Analisa and Caleb had raised. So she stopped asking. Kase was simply Kase. Her idol. Her big brother. It didn’t matter who had fathered him—but now this man she had almost married was accusing her mother of whoring, even suggesting Analisa was not good enough to marry anyone but Caleb Storm, a half-breed.

  “I guess blood will tell,” he said in a tone just above a whisper. “My mother tried to tell me that. Thank God this wild streak in you came out before we married.”

  His fingers pressed into her forearms, bruising her. The sound of the rain beat a heavy staccato on the roof of the veranda, ran in streams off the lip of the porch overhang, and splashed into puddles that surrounded the house.

  Annika tried to wriggle free, twisting against his punishing fingers. “For the last time, let me go!”