Come Spring (46 page)

Brushing back the wisps of hair that had escaped her upswept hairstyle, Annika wiped her brow with the back of her hand. Before she could argue anymore, she heard the sound of heavy footsteps racing up the stairs and ran for the door. At first she fought with the handle, then flung the door open.

“Kase! Thank God!” Her brother brushed past, but not fast enough to hide the livid purple bruises and cuts on his face. He hurried to Rose’s bedside, threw his hat on the floor, and knelt beside the bed. His hair had come unbound and there was a wildness about him Annika had never recognized before. Seeing him in this state made her realize that her brother was a man to be reckoned with, definitely not one to be crossed.

Annika hovered behind him and then caught her breath when she got a good look at his face. It had been battered far worse than she realized. She watched Rose reach out and tenderly touch the gash across his cheek and then the purple crescents beneath each eye.

“What happened?” Rose whispered. Tears spilled over her lower lashes.

Kase merely shrugged and cupped his hand against her cheek. “You should see the other guy.”

Annika could wait for an explanation about his face. What she demanded to know was, “Where’s the doctor, Kase?” She paced to the door and watched the empty staircase expectantly, furious to think that while she had been agonizing over his arrival, her brother had been brawling in town. She stalked back across the room, her temper overriding her fear. “Well? Where is he?”

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?”