by B. J. McMinn
She appeared to be tired, even though he knew she had been sleeping well these last few months. Jade had a sweet nature, contradicting her red hair, which was more common to a fiery temper. Over the months, Jason had come to appreciate the fact her fire lay in a different region of her anatomy. One he fully intended to explore after her baby was born.
Jade spent the day preparing for Emma’s birthday. The baby’s gift, a rag doll, she made from scraps of material. She carefully wrapped it in paper and tied it closed with a pink ribbon. She held the door open when Jason came from the barn, stomping through the fresh fallen snow, carrying a small rocking chair. Placing it on the table, he cleaned and polished it until it looked new.
She looked at him in surprise. Running her hand over the smooth spindles she gave it a nudge to watch it rock.
“It was mine when I was a child,” Jason explained. “Margaret had it stored when she followed me west. You might call it a family heirloom. Our father made each of us one. Janey is now using Margaret’s chair.”
Jade smiled, placed her small hand on his arm in a gesture of approval. She was glad Emma would have this small treasure left from her father’s childhood. Jason must have received his talent for woodworking from his father.
She tried not to think of what treasures her past might hold. A past wreathed in mystery and darkness. A place she managed to put behind her in the safety of Jason’s arms. Over the months, she had built a future with Jason and Emma. She didn’t want her past to jeopardize their future. Yet, she longed for the pall that hung over their lives to disappear.
After the party, the men went back to the bunkhouse. Jade no longer made a pretense of going to her bedroom. Once she dressed in her nightgown, she came directly to Jason’s room and slid in beside him.
Jason snuggled her closer, worried that her time was near. Something woke him. The night lay in a hushed, quiet stillness. The silence of fresh fallen snow when the earth rested from all its labor. Yet, something was not quite right. Lying in bed, his arms tightly wrapped around Jade he waited, listened. He felt her stomach grow taut. After a moment, her muscles relaxed. Not long afterwards, the tautness was back with greater force. Jade stiffened in response to the pain.
Her labor had begun. Careful not to wake her, knowing she’d need all her strength for the hours ahead, he dressed and peered out the ice-covered window.
Two feet of additional snow lay on the ground, left by the storm that had blown in overnight. Clouds still lingered with the promise of more. It would be up to him to help Jade give birth.
Fear shot through him.
Jade rolled to her back. Her hand patted his side of the bed, searching.
“I’m here.” He rushed to her side and took her hand.
Eyes filled with pain stared at him. She squeezed his hand as another pain gripped her.
“It’s alright. I’ll be with you every step of the way. I’m going to take Emma to Cookie, and I’ll be right back. Don’t worry.”
Easy words to say, he thought. He was worried sick. What made him think he could do this? He should have left her and Emma with Margaret where a doctor was on hand. Picking up a sleeping Emma, he bundled her up and took her to the cook shack. After explaining the situation, he rushed back to the house.
Hot water, towels, sheets. Jason marked each item off the list he had drawn up when he knew there was a possibility he would have to deliver Jade’s baby, alone. He’d purchased a bottle of laudanum when they had gone to town. The herbs, catnip and fennel, known to help bring down fevers, he bought at the apothecary. He prayed he would not have to use them.
Jade held Jason’s hand when the pains intensified to the point she thought they would rip her apart. He encouraged her to flow with the pain, not to fight it, which seemed to ease the agony. The day passed in a blur of pain and Jason’s voice.
She had not considered the intimacies required for delivering a baby when she agreed to let Jason bring her child into the world. The first time he pulled the covers back to look between her legs, she was mortified. Her embarrassment got easier to endure as the morning progressed along with the pain. What was a little embarrassment compared to the anguish gripping her body.
Late in the afternoon, the full force of her labor was upon her. Pain after pain rolled over her and through her. Jason squatted at the foot of the bed, whipping out instructions with the same demanding voice that Margaret would have.
Push. Wait. Push. No, no, push again. Wait.
Couldn’t the man make up his mind, Jade agonized? She was in misery and pushing helped.
“One more push, Jade. Come on, sweetheart, you can do it,” he encouraged.
The baby slid into Jason’s waiting hands. Red, wrinkled, and screaming. Her legs kicked in protest while her hands thrashed about. Her tiny fingers wrapped around his thumb and Jason was lost. At that moment, Jason knew this small life he helped bring into the world would always have a special place in his heart. She would be his, the same as Emma was his.
After washing the baby, he wrapped her from head to toe in a pink flannel blanket Margaret had edged with white lace and placed her in her mother’s arms. Jade opened the blanket to count fingers and toes, as all new mothers do. A radiant smile replaced the pain of labor.
Jade removed the blanket from her child’s head and gazed down at the baby-fine, blond, hair, curled in wet ringlets. The baby’s eyes opened to reveal a light pale green. Jade’s breath caught in her throat.
“Nicholas. She looks like Nicholas.”
Memories flooded her mind. She burst into tears. The past that she’d closed off because of the horror she’d suffered, opened with stark clarity. Memories cracked open the barrier she had built around her mind, insulating herself from the pain knowledge inflicted.
Jason sat in stunned disbelief. His world shifted beneath him. Not because Jade had spoken, but because she spoke another man’s name. Her baby’s father’s name. Questions raced through his mind. Was he alive? Had he and Jade been separated somehow? Had the man been looking for her all the time Jason had kept her here at his ranch, as his wife, lusting after her?
No! He couldn’t lose her. Not now. Not after he admitted how much he loved her. He realized now why he had taken her to town only one time. He had been afraid someone would recognize her. They would have taken her away, and that he couldn’t have endured.
His love had grown over the months until she was the source from which he drew life. When had seduction emerged into love? When she softly touched his arm when pleased with him, or the gentle way she dealt with Emma, or her strength of character that enabled her to withstand her nightmares? He didn’t know when he fell in love, he only knew she made him whole, complete.
What was he going to do now that she remembered? Remembered her life before him. What could he do? His gaze lingered on his sobbing wife. Hell, he felt like crying himself.
Taking Jade into his arms, he rocked her as she cried inconsolably, rubbing her back as she wept against his chest. He wouldn’t let her see the despair in his eyes.
Finally, Jade’s sobs quieted into hiccups. Laying her back on the bed, he slipped the baby from her arms. Tremors racked her slight body. He left her to deal with her grief. He needed to tend to the baby.
He spent the rest of the evening taking care of Emma and the new baby. Jade hadn’t stopped crying since her memory returned. Even now, her sobs echoed throughout the house. He’d never seen this much grief in one small person.
Placing Emma in her pen and the baby in the cradle, he opened the door to the bedroom. At a loss as to what to do, he sat on the edge of the bed, and took her into his arms. She came willingly.
“Shhh,” he crooned over and over.
Rocking her, as he would Emma when she was hurt, he stroked the back of her bright red hair and let her sob into his neck. When she quieted, he laid her back on the bed. She was fast asleep, exhausted from her ordeal. It had been a long hard labor. Now, with her tormented nightmares coming to the forefr
ont, she needed plenty of rest. He rose and went to check on the girls.
Dozing in a chair by the fire, Jason heard the baby’s soft mewling. Knowing Jade wouldn’t be out of bed for a few days he picked the baby up to take to Jade. He had moved her to her old bedroom where it was warmer.
She slept so soundly he was reluctant to wake her. He placed the baby next to Jade’s breast, thinking the sound of her baby might stir her awake. The mewling sound grew louder then become an earsplitting wail. Jason had never taken liberties with Jade, yet, he couldn’t let the baby go hungry when Jade was too tired to feed her.
He tugged Jade’s nightgown off her shoulder to expose a milk-enlarged breast. Blue veins ran from the nipple outward. Placing the nipple next to the baby’s mouth, she latched on and began to suckle. Twice during the night, he repeated the procedure while Jade slept undisturbed.
The next morning, he checked on the baby and Emma. Both were sleeping soundly. He made breakfast for Jade knowing she would be hungry. Pushing the door open with his hip, he strode across the room to the bed. With the toe of his boot, he hooked the chair rung, and dragged it closer to the bed. He placed the breakfast tray on it then attempted to wake Jade.
When she failed to respond, fear clutched his heart. He raised a shaky hand to feel her hot forehead. He broke into a gut-wrenching sweat. Jade was burning up. Childbed fever had set in. Jason could feel the wetness on his cheeks as his world crumbled around him.
Help! He must get help, he thought frantically. Looking outside, he could see the snow that had fallen for the past two days hadn’t melted.
Stupid, the storm is why you didn’t go to get the doctor when Jade’s labor first started.
He slipped into his jacket and ran out the backdoor. He grabbed the rope attached to the house to help him get to the barn and the cook shack. He would need Cookie’s help.
“What’s wrong?”
“The fever. It’s started,” Jason choked. “I need your help.” Jason retreated to the house as fast as he could with Cookie close behind, but not before he’d seen Pete and Willie exchange worried glances. It hadn’t been that long ago that tragedy had struck down his first wife. The results of the last time hovered in Jason’s mind.
Hours turned into days, days turned into a week. Jason fought each minute for Jade’s life. If will alone would make her live, Jason knew she would make it.
In the last year, he had read every article about fevers he could find. Books, magazines, a old medical journal with several articles about fevers. He absorbed every bit of information he could obtain and now used each remedy to help heal Jade.
Jason wiped her brow with wet clothes. When her fever soared, he placed her on an oilcloth, brought snow from outside to pack around her. He rubbed her limp arms with alcohol then proceeded to do the same with her legs. He spoon-fed her broth, as much as he could get down her. Tea made from herbs, he forced down her throat every few hours.
Fear would swell up to crush him. He’d tamp down his panic and start the process all over again. Each night he sat in a chair beside her bed, elbows on his knees, face in his hands, and prayed.
Cookie did the best he could. Cooking, cleaning, and watching the girls. By the second day, the baby’s cries escalated into loud screams she was so hungry. Jason tried to lay her beside her mother as he had the first day but she could not get the milk-swollen breast in her rosebud mouth. Beside himself with worry for Jade and the baby, he began to massage her breast until the milk flowed freely. With most of the hard swelling down, the baby managed on her own.
~~~
“Any change?” Cookie asked, as he laid a rough-worn hand on Jason’s shoulder. He’d always thought of Jason as a son more than an employer. The boy hadn’t slept or ate properly for days. Cookie was afraid he was going to make himself too sick to care for Jade.
He hadn’t shaved, hell, Cookie thought, he hadn’t even changed clothes since Jade had become sick. He had run his hands through his hair with worry so many times it stood on end. If there was such a thing as a ‘basket case’, Jason was one. Cookie could tell by the expression on Jason’s face that he’d just about given up hope. It was the same expression he’d worn the year before, only this time, he looked ten times worse.
“No. No change.” Jason replied in a broken voice. “I need to see if I can get to town and bring Doc back.”
“With eight more inches of new snow I doubt ya’d get far. It’s best ya just stay put an’ see this thing through,” Cookie said solemnly.
Cookie left him there to face another long night. Jason had gotten into the habit of sitting in the chair with Jade’s baby curled in his lap. Maybe he thought with the baby near Jade would fight the fever harder. Nothing else seemed to help. Or, perhaps he couldn’t bear to be separated from someone who was part of Jade. Cookie was no longer sure.
This time, Cookie knew, Jason wouldn’t recover as he did the last time. He had seen the way the young’n looked at Jade, knew she had become his life. Jason may not realize it, but he loved that little bit of a girl something fierce.
Cookie brought Jason’s supper and sat it on the table next to his chair. Dadgummit, the boy hadn’t eaten enough to keep a bird alive. He opened his mouth to berate him when Jason spoke.
“I still don’t know her real name,” Jason said in a flat, deadpan voice. “But she’ll always be Jade to me.”
Reaching out he took Jade’s hand and gently rubbed his thumb in circles on the back. “This is the way I always brought her back from her nightmares. Perhaps, it will work again.” Jason leaned over his unconscious wife. “Fight, sweetheart. Fight for the baby, for Emma. Come back to me, Jade. Don’t leave me alone,” Jason pleaded. Tears streaked down the big man’s face.
Cookie left the room. He couldn’t stand to see so much heartbreak in a man. Jason wouldn’t want Cookie, or anyone else, to see him cry. He’d let him do his grieving alone.
CHAPTER 24
Jade slowly opened her eyes to see bright sunlight shining through the window in her old bedroom. Jason sat in a chair next to her bed. Had he been sick? He looked dreadful. Unshaven, wrinkled clothes. She sniffed. He smelled worse than she had the day he found her.
There was a small bundle lying on his shoulder, as if he had just burped her. Love swelled in her chest. Her baby looked so much like Nicholas it brought back all the horrible memories her mind had successfully suppressed.
Her daughter’s birth had ripped away the veil of her memory and revealed the pain, fear, and despair she felt at having lost everyone she’d ever loved. Her subconscious refused to remember. She had tried to push the evil incident into the back of her mind and never wanted to retrieve it. Only now, it wasn’t so easy to thrust memories back into the recesses of her mind and forget. Aborted memories had been easier to deal with than to face the horror all alone.
As she lay there, images of that day became clear. They were no longer clothed in darkness or in fear. With Jason, she felt safe, protected. In some ways even loved. She knew she loved him the night they spent at John and Margaret’s. He had been so gentle when he placed his hand on her stomach and asked if she would mind if he delivered her baby. Apparently, he had, because the little darling was beginning to squirm on his shoulder. Jade tried to smile but her lips felt swollen and sore.
“Jason,” she squeaked.
“Jason.” Her voice was stronger this time, which caused Jason to stir.
Eyes still closed, he rubbed the baby’s back. He sat forward and nestle the baby into the crook of his arm.
“Jason.” Jade tried again.
When he lifted his sky blue eyes to look at her she could see moisture glistening in their depths. For a moment he appeared unable to focus, or unable to comprehend what he saw. He came to stand beside the bed carrying his small bundle. He fell to his knees beside the bed, laid the baby next to her, and enveloped them both with his arms. She could feel his whole body shake and convulse as he held them.
“Sweetheart, are you reall
y awake?” Jason sounded unsure.
He drew back. The moisture that had pooled in his eyes, a moment ago, trickled down his cheeks.
“Yes, I’m awake. Have you been sick? You look awful and smell worse.” Jade managed to get past her parched throat and dry lips. Her words only made the moisture in his eyes fall faster.
Jason soothed her hair back from her face and kissed her forehead. Her eyes were open; her beautiful green eyes.
“No. I’ve not been sick. You have. You scared ten years off my life.”
He wiped his eyes against the baby’s blanket in an attempt to hide his tears as a loving-nuzzle to the baby’s head.
“Look what you have here. She’s beautiful,” he said.
Jade’s gaze lowered to the baby lying beside her.
“You get acquainted, and I’ll get you a drink.”
Jason poured a glass of water from the pitcher setting beside the bed. He couldn’t take his eyes off Jade. After the enormity of what she had been through, she still looked beautiful. Her lips, although dry and cracked, were still full and luscious. The sunlight shining through the window danced in her bright red hair. He had spent hours brushing her hair, while she laid fever ridden, until it glistened. Loving the way it flowed between his fingers. Anything to touch her, to know she still lived.
Tending to Jade’s bodily needs while she’d been sick was essential, clinical. Brushing her hair was something he enjoyed. Something personal. Something just for Jade. Each morning after washing her to bring the fever down, he’d brush her long tresses. At night, he’d lovingly braid each strand before he took up his vigil by her bedside. Touching her flaming curls often during the day was his way of expressing the deep love he felt. A love he didn’t dare express, until he knew Jade was truly his and didn’t belong to some other man.
