Kitabı oku: «The Baby Quilt»

Chapter One

Justin Sloan’s mood was as black as the storm clouds churning in the Western Illinois sky. His car had a dead battery. In a fit of rebellion, which he was rapidly coming to regret, he’d left his cell phone recharging in his fifty-second-floor condo in Chicago. And since he hadn’t had the foresight to throw rain gear into his trunk along with his fishing pole and a spare T-shirt, he was about to get soaked to the skin. Those clouds were too leaden to hold back their moisture for long.

The wind shifted and danced, fanning the tall grasses and wildflowers as he continued his trek along the narrow country road. According to his map, the town of Hancock was ten miles from the little bridge he’d just crossed, a good thirty miles closer than the freeway exit he’d taken to reach the fishing spot a client had told him about. Spending a Saturday making long looping casts into a secluded stream had sounded like a fine idea when he’d been staring at the ceiling above his bed at 6:00 a.m. Five hours later, he almost wished he’d fought his insomnia with a run along the shore of Lake Michigan instead.

Almost.

The same edginess that had prompted his escape from the city still stirred in his gut. He’d had to get out. Get away. The need had felt too urgent to question. He wasn’t even questioning it now. It had been there ever since he’d left last night’s celebration dinner—a dinner given in his honor—and still hadn’t quite eased.

The road ahead took a gradual rise over the gently rolling land and made a dogleg turn to the right. His glance narrowed on a house to the left.

The modest old farmhouse sat back from the road, a relic from the turn of last century and painfully austere. It stood ghostly white against the charcoal-gray sky, its stark appearance unrelieved by any hint of decoration except a single window box overflowing with blooms of bright-red. The porch was a utilitarian square, the railings utterly plain. But the land surrounding it burst with every imaginable shade of green. Nearest the road, row upon row of brilliant emerald plants glowed jewellike against dark, loamy earth. Farther back, miles of corn merged on a large square of land planted with what looked to be a vegetable garden. A windmill, its blades spinning madly, guarded a tidy utility shed and a chicken coop.

Relieved to know he wouldn’t have to walk ten miles in the rain to get to a phone, he set his sights on a woman disappearing into a greenhouse and jogged across the road and up the property’s long graveled driveway. Thirty feet from the building, he slowed his pace. The young woman had appeared again. With her calf-length blue dress tangling around her legs, she headed for a long rack of plants.

Slender as a willow branch and just as supple, she bent to hurriedly tuck a flat of plants under each arm and headed for the greenhouse once more. Wisps of flaxen hair had escaped the braid that dangled nearly to her waist. The wind whipped those gleaming strands into a halo around her head, but it was the way the gusts of air plastered the shapeless garment to her body that had most of his attention as he moved toward her.

The thought that she was probably half his age immediately jerked his attention from her intriguing curves. Mentally disrobing the farmer’s seventeen-year-old daughter wasn’t likely to make the farmer eager to lend him a hand. Considering the bolt of lightning streaking against the wall of black in the distance, he wasn’t interested in jeopardizing his welcome.

“Is your dad around anywhere?” he called, an instant before a crack of thunder shook the windows in the house behind him.

It was hard to tell which caused her footsteps to falter when her head jerked up—finding a large, male stranger in her yard, or the jarring boom that sent a covey of wrens screaming from the sweeping arms of the walnut tree shading the house. She’d been so focused on her task that she hadn’t even noticed his approach.

That task obviously took precedence. Ignoring him, she dropped her hand from where it had flattened at her throat and, with her hair streaming across her face, disappeared into the greenhouse.

“Great,” he muttered, looking around for signs of someone who might be a little more cooperative.

There wasn’t anyone outside that he could see. There weren’t any lights on in the house to indicate anyone was inside, either. Wondering if someone might be in the greenhouse, he looked through the plastic-covered windows that had already fluttered loose in places. The milky material rustled in the wind, echoing the snap of the blinding white sheets billowing on the clothesline. There were no shadows to indicate a human inside. The only other form of life seemed to be the chickens who were abandoning their wire enclosure for the white clapboard coop.

A flash of pale blue streaked from the greenhouse.

In no mood to wait until she decided to acknowledge him, he moved with her.

“Look, I’m sorry to bother you, but my car won’t start. It’s not far from here,” he explained when she’d kept going without giving him so much as a glance. “Is your dad around?” he called. “All I need is a jump.”

She hurriedly lifted two more flats of tiny green plants from the rack near the vegetable garden. “My father doesn’t live here.”

She finally looked up. Justin didn’t know which caught him more off guard, the velvet soft quality of her voice, her faint accent, or the angelic quality of her delicate features. Her eyes were the clear blue of a summer sky and her skin looked so soft it fairly begged to be touched.

His glance dropped to the lush fullness of her mouth. Soft and ripe, that sensuality was as unexpected as the innocence.

So was the jolt of heat low in his gut.

Her lips had parted with an indrawn breath when their eyes met the first time. When they met again, her glance faltered and she grabbed another flat.

“What about your husband?” he asked, forcing his focus to her hands. She appeared older than he’d first thought. Her left hand was hidden, but she could easily be married. “Can he help me?”

She was trying to balance a third tray between the two she held when he saw her hesitate. Harried, distracted, she darted a furtive glance from his dark hair to the logo on his polo shirt and murmured, “No. He can’t.”

An instant later, seeing she couldn’t carry more than two trays without smashing what she was trying to save, she hoisted a flat to each hip and took off again.

“Then, how about a telephone?”

Grabbing the plants she hadn’t been able to carry and another flat for good measure, he hurried to catch up with her.

“There is no telephone here,” she said, still moving. “The nearest one is at the Clancy farm. It’s up the road by the bend. I’d imagine Mr. Clancy is bringing in his cows. For a telephone, you’ll have to go to Hancock.”

“Isn’t there any place closer? A gas station?”

“Only in Hancock.”

“How about another neighbor?” He could jog to the little town if he had to. He ran four times a week as it was. But a ten-mile run in the rain wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind when he’d decided to play hooky. “I’d really like to avoid getting drenched,” he admitted, tossing her a rueful smile. “That sky looks like it could open up any minute.

“I drove out from Chicago to do a little fishing,” he explained, wanting her to know he wasn’t some lunatic out stalking farmers’ wives. “I’m taking the day off, you know?” he asked, wondering what the rush was with getting the plants inside. He’d have thought rain would be good for them. “I noticed the weather changing and decided to head back, but my car battery’s dead.”

She didn’t reply. Nor did she slow by so much as a step as they reached the plant-filled building. Not sure if he should follow her in—or if she was even listening—he stopped by the doorway while she shoved her load onto the nearest table and spun back toward the door.

Spotting the flats he’d carried, she pulled them from his hands, slid them next to the others and hurried back out.

He arrowed a frown at her back, practically biting his tongue to keep that scowl from his voice when he fell into step beside her. “Look, I can seen you’re busy here, but all I need is a jump. If there’s a vehicle—”

“What is this ‘jump?”’

“Jump-start,” he explained, never guessing that a farm girl would be as mechanically challenged as most of the women he knew. “You know. Hook up a car with a good battery to a car with a dead one to get the dead one going again?”

Puzzlement merged with the lines of concern deepening in her brow. But all she said was, “There is no car here.”

“Then how about a tractor?” he called to the back of her retreating head.

There was no tractor, either. She told him that as the first fat drops of rain soaked into his shirt and ticked against the tin roof of the utility shed. Another bolt of lightning ripped across the black horizon. In the three seconds before the thunder rolled in to crack overhead, the rain turned to pea-size hail and the woman had tucked herself over the plants she picked up to keep them from being shredded by the little pellets of ice.

“This Clancy place,” he said, hauling another load himself. “How far is it?”

“A mile by the road.” Looking torn between encouraging and declining his unexpected help, she headed into a gust of wind. “It’s shorter if you cut through the soy field.”

“Which one’s that?

“Hey,” he muttered when she shot him a puzzled glance. “I recognize the corn over there, but I’m from the city. Is soy tall or short?”

“Everything is short at one time,” she replied ever so reasonably. “I’ll show you the route, but you’ll want to stay until this passes. You’ll need shelter.”

She was right. The sky grew darker by the minute and the air had taken on a faint glow of pink. The clouds overhead looked as if they’d been flipped upside down, their boiling bellies suddenly a little too close, a little too ominous. Between the shades of slate, misty tails of pearl gray undulated and teased, dangling downward, pulling up.

They were nearly to the greenhouse when everything went dead still. The hail stopped. Not a single leaf on the trees moved. The air itself turned too heavy to breathe, the pressure of it feeling as if it were crushing him in an invisible vise. The woman felt it, too. He could tell by the fear that washed her expression an instant before the wind hit like backwash from a jet and the trays they carried were ripped from their hands.

Everything was leaning. Trees. Cornstalks. Them. A sheet from the clothesline sailed past. The blades of the windmill clattered wildly, fighting for a direction to go. Another sound rumbled beneath the tinny cacophony. Not thunder. The deep-throated hum sounded more like a million swarming bees.

The house sat a hundred yards behind them. It looked more like a mile as he grabbed for the woman’s wrist to stop her from running for the greenhouse.

“It’s not safe there! Get in your house!”

The wind snatched his words, muffling them in the growing roar. He could barely hear the “No!” she screamed back at him. But he saw the word form, and the sheer terror in her eyes as she tried to struggle free of his grip.

Panic had robbed her of reason. He was sure of it. She had to know there was no way the unfinished building would offer any protection. It was nothing but two-by-fours and tearing plastic that, in another minute, could well be nothing but matchsticks.

He swore. In the distance, a funnel of ghostly gray twisted against the black wall. At its base, a swirling cloud of dust began to form. “That thing could be on us any minute,” he growled, finally comprehending why she’d been in such a rush. “I don’t know what your problem is, lady, but I have no intention of playing Dorothy and Toto. Come on!”

He couldn’t hear what she said. He was more concerned with the way she gripped his wrist to pull his hand from hers while he practically dragged her toward the house. Thinking he’d do better carrying her, he swung around to get a better grip when his shift in momentum allowed her the leverage she needed.

She broke free with a sharp twist of her hand. An instant later, a Volkswagen-size chunk of tree ripped past, the tips of its branches barely missing his face as it flew through the space she’d occupied seconds ago. He thought for sure that the heavy branches had grazed her, but frantic as she was, nothing slowed her down. Through the cloud of straw and dust now billowing around them, he saw her bolt through the greenhouse door.

Swearing violently, he raced after her.

The plastic covering the window holes rippled and snapped as wind shredded the flimsy covering. Through the doorway, he saw her duck beneath the long, plant-filled table just inside. He was thinking she had to be crazy not to see that the place was disintegrating around her when she jerked upright and ran back toward him with a hooded white carrier.

He’d barely noted the thick mauve liner and a pair of tiny legs when he realized there was actually an infant inside it.

Dear God, he thought, realization slamming into him. She had a baby out here.

“The cellar!” she hollered, fear stark in her eyes. “By the back door!”

He didn’t ask if she minded him carrying the kid. He just grabbed the carrier from her and pushed her out ahead of him, bent on getting them moving as fast as he could. The wind tore at them like the claws of an invisible dragon, grabbing her hair, her dress, stinging his eyes with the dust that turned day into night. A wheelbarrow blew across the yard ahead of them, flipping end over end. Eyes shielded by their forearms, they raced across the grass while behind them the funnel bore down on the land with the speed and sound of a freight train.

She reached the angled, in-ground door to the cellar two steps before he did. Using both hands, she pulled back hard on the handle. The thing wouldn’t budge.

Without a word, he shoved the carrier into her arms and jerked on the door himself. The pressure of the wind crushed down on it, making the long panel feel as if it were weighted with bricks. He could feel the muscles in his arms and back bunch as he battled, but he edged the solid wood up enough to wedge his foot between it and the frame before giving a powerful pull.

The wind shifted, catching the door, ripping it from its hinges, spinning it upward, slamming it into his shoulder.

Pain, barbed and jarring, shot down his arm. Gritting his teeth, he snatched the carrier again and practically shoved the woman down the steep and narrow stairs. He was halfway down himself when she reached up and pulled the baby from the hard plastic shell. The moment he saw that she had the tiny blond bundle of pink in her arms, he dropped the carrier and pushed her to the corner of the deep, shelf-lined space. With his back to the suction created by the raging vortex, he watched her clutch the baby to her chest and wrapped his arms around them both.

Thunder boomed. The wind shrieked. He had no idea how safe they were, but he figured that even with the door gone, they were better off tucked back in the confined space beneath the house than they would be anywhere else. At least, they were as long as the wind didn’t make missiles of the hundred or so jars of fruits and vegetables gleaming on the shelves surrounding them.

“We need to get away from this glass.”

“By the potato crates. On the other side of the stairs. There’s none over there.”

He glanced behind him. Wooden boxes were stacked a dozen feet away. Neatly folded burlap bags filled a galvanized tub, apparently waiting to be filled with onions like the lone bag leaning next to it. Even with the boxes of empty canning jars lining the shelves next to where they huddled, it seemed better to stay where they were. If the shelves fell, they’d land right on those boxes and bags.

“Do you think we should move?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“I don’t see any place safer. We’ll have to ride it out here.”

He didn’t have to see her to know she was terrified. She had the baby’s tiny head tucked beneath her chin, her hand covering its downy blond hair. With his arms curved around her shoulders, her slender body angled against his left side, he could feel her trembling from neck to thigh.

A blinding flash of lightning turned the space pure white. Thunder cracked. He felt her whole body go taut as a spring an instant before she buried her head against his chest.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, hoping to heaven it would be. He cupped the back of her head the way she did her child’s, protecting it, tightening his hold. “Just hang on. These things don’t last that long, do they?”

“I don’t know, Mr.…I don’t know, “ she repeated, apparently realizing she didn’t know his name. “One’s never come this close before.”

She shifted a little, her thigh slipping along his. Given the intimacy of their positions, he found her formality a tad incongruous. “It’s Sloan. Justin,” he added, thinking she might appreciate a first name, too.

“Justin Sloan. Thank you.”

He wasn’t sure what she was thanking him for. It didn’t seem important anyway. The breath he drew brought her scent with it, something clean and fresh and far too innocent to seem so erotic.

He cleared his throat, training his focus on the wide planks above them while dust swirled and the apocalypse raged overhead. Wondering if those boards would stay put seemed wiser than wondering if that scent was in the silken hair braided and draped over his arm or if it was clinging to her skin.

He glanced back down. “And you’re…?”

“Emily Miller. My daughter is Anna,” she added, then jumped again at the crash of ripping timber.

A huge tree limb arrowed through the open doorway above them. The projectile crashed into the crates of potatoes and onions, splintering itself and the shelves and sending vegetables rolling over the packed dirt floor. Another crash reverberated above them, this one echoing with the sound of shattering glass.

With his back to the melee, his head ducked and his neck exposed, Justin held his breath. He was pretty sure the woman in his arms held hers, too. Only the baby moved. He could feel it wriggling in protest to her mother’s tight hold, but he doubted there was any power on earth, including the fury being unleashed overhead, that could make the woman ease her grasp.

“Justin Sloan?” The sound of his name was faint, muffled by their positions and the cacophony overhead. “May I ask you something?”

He thought for sure she wanted reassurance. It sounded like the end of the world up there. At the very least, it was the end of her house. But if she wanted to know if he thought they’d be all right, her guess would be as good as his.

“Sure,” he said, thinking he’d do the decent thing and lie if it would make her feel better.

“Who are Dorothy and Toto?”

“What?”

“Who are Dorothy and Toto?” she repeated. “And what did you mean when you said you had no intention of playing them?”

He had to sound as puzzled as she did. “You know. From The Wizard of Oz. The movie?” he prompted, thinking she must be trying to distract herself. “The tornado hits Kansas and the girl and her dog get sucked up?”

“Did they survive?”

He would have thought she was joking, except her concern when she looked up at him was too real, the fear in her eyes too tangible.

“Yeah. They did.”

“That’s good. I don’t know of this Oz,” she admitted, the fullness of her bottom lip drawing his glance as she spoke. Her mouth looked soft, inviting. Provocative. With her clear blue eyes locked on his, it also looked enormously tempting. “I’ve heard of Kansas, though. I’ve read that it’s very flat.”

The woman wasn’t making a lick of sense to him, but she was definitely taunting his nervous system. The fact that she was reminding him of just how long he’d gone without the comfort of a woman’s body wasn’t something he cared to consider at the moment. Given their proximity, it seemed best to concentrate on something—anything—else.

Ruthlessly reining in his libido, he focused on the sound of her voice, her accent. She didn’t have much of one, just enough to broaden the sound of her vowels. It was more the pattern of her speech that told him she wasn’t a native—which could easily explain why she hadn’t heard of the movie nearly every kid in America had seen by the time he was six years old.

“I take it you’re not from here.”

“No,” she admitted, putting his very logical mind at ease. “I’m from Ohio.”

Emily had no idea why her response made the big stranger frown. With the swiftness of the lightning arcing above them, the dark slashes of his eyebrows bolted over his pewter-gray eyes. His lean, chiseled features sharpened. The dark expression intensified the sense of command surrounding him, an aura she imagined to be possessed by men like kings and warriors in the library books she devoured. Or like the powerful men who stole women’s hearts on Mrs. Clancy’s soap operas. But she really didn’t care that she confused him. All she cared about was that Anna was safe—and that his deep voice held the power to distract her from thoughts of what would have happened had he not come along.

Shaking deep inside, she glanced from the little red polo player embroidered above the pocket of his navy-blue shirt to her baby, soothing Anna’s fussing by rubbing her back. If not for this Justin Sloan, she never would have been able to get inside the cellar with the wind blowing so hard. While she’d struggled with the door, the wind would surely have blown her little girl away, sucked Anna up as he said the wind had done with Dorothy and her dog. It might have blown her away, too, or caused her to be injured so she couldn’t help her child.

The thoughts drew a shudder to the surface. They were too close to the nightmares she battled every day. Only this time her fears had nearly become reality.

But nothing had happened, she reminded herself. They were safe. For now. Safe and protected by this man who had come out of nowhere and was using his own, very solid body to shield them both.

He must have felt her trembling. His big broad hand slipped along her shoulder, drawing her closer. She sought that contact willingly, too overwhelmed by what she felt at that moment to do anything else. She knew there would be damage to face. She knew that very soon she would have to start rebuilding with whatever nature had left her. But for now, for these precious seconds, she wasn’t having to cope all alone.

The need to absorb that feeling was so acute that it bordered on physical pain. She didn’t know if it was right or wrong to want something so badly. She just knew that she was desperate for what she felt just then. He made her feel secure—and security was something she hadn’t felt in a very long time. The desire to stay in the safe haven of his arms was the strongest yearning she’d experienced since long before her husband had died.

The thought of leaving that shelter was unbearable. But she wasn’t given a choice. She was keenly aware of how solid his body felt, how strong. She was also aware of the tension tightening his muscles and a tingling warmth where her breast and hip crushed his side.

In the pale light, she looked up to find his glance fixed on her mouth.

Her heart gave an odd little lurch an instant before he jerked his attention to the baby nuzzling the fabric covering her breast. The tension she’d felt in his body seemed to settle in hers when he looked up and met her eyes.

Suddenly looking as if he could use more space, he eased back far enough to break contact without leaving her vulnerable and nodded toward Anna.

“Is she okay?”

The question had Emily easing her hold as she tucked her head to see her daughter’s sweet little face. In the pale-gray light, she saw Anna give a great, toothless yawn and scrunch her nose to show her displeasure with the position. She much preferred her head on her mom’s shoulder to having it tucked under her chin.