LITMIR.BIZ

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side, an old rickety swing rocked gently in the freezing wind.

      Jared stepped up onto the porch, following the glare of the single light that had brought him here, then touched a knuckle to the wooden door behind the screen. Even if this wasn’t his cabin, maybe someone in there could direct him to it. Or at least invite him in out of the cold.

      She was so cold. Alisha shivered on the small bed, her body weary as she stretched a hand toward the stack of blankets she’d dropped on the chair in the corner. Just as she reached out longingly to the soft warmth of a handmade quilt, an intense pain coursed up her spine, causing her to suck in her breath and cry out. She couldn’t reach the quilt. She needed it, needed the warmth she knew it could bring.

      Alisha got up, bent over double, shivering and sweating at the same time now, but determined to get to her favorite quilt. The contractions were only three minutes apart. She could feel her lower body pushing and changing, could feel her baby dropping. Her mind was playing tricks on her now. She thought she heard a tapping at her door.

      At first fear gripped her, every bit as intense and dangerous as the pain knifing through her stomach and legs. But then the fear was quickly replaced by hope. Someone had come to help her!

      “Who is it?” she said, but the words were a weak whisper.

      Did it matter who was at her door? Or was she just imagining that tapping noise? Was this her punishment then, to go mad while giving childbirth? To never know the sweet baby she’d dreamed about? To die alone here on this mountain, away from the city she’d once loved, away from her family and friends, without ever holding her little child in her arms?

      “I won’t let that happen,” she said as she once again tried to reach for the flowered quilt. “I won’t—”

      The pain became too much for her weary, frightened body. Alisha grasped air, just missing the stack of blankets and quilts in the padded rocker by the bed. Grasped and gasped, just as the knock at her door became louder. Then she felt her body falling, falling toward the hard, cold wood of the planked floor, felt the waves of pain ripping her apart as she tried to touch the fringed fibers of her mother’s quilt. The effort was too much. Her fingers brushed against the comfort she needed as her body turned treacherous and tried to break in two. Alisha accepted and gave in to the pain as she screamed out, a soft sorrow covering her as she fell into darkness.

      Jared heard a scream coming from inside the cabin. Shocked into action, he hammered hard on the door. “Hello, is everything all right in there? Hello?”

      He leaned in, listening. Then he heard another sound that brought a racing warning to his heart. A moan.

      Someone was hurt.

      Without thinking, he dropped his soaked duffel bag onto the porch and rammed his body full force against the sturdy door. He heard the splintering of wood as he fell through the door, his shoulder bruised and throbbing, then rolled over on the floor, his body briefly touching on a braided circular rug centered before the dying embers of the fireplace. He felt a gush of welcoming warmth before he jumped up and shouted out again.

      “Hello? Where are you?”

      “In…here.”

      The reply was feminine and weak. Wondering if someone had broken in and left a victim, Jared rushed around the big, long room, noting in his confusion that the place was tidy and clean, with no signs of a struggle.

      But that scream of pain still gripped at his system, so he forgot the formal tour as he raced toward the room down the hallway, just past a small bathroom.

      The room with the single lamplight.

      Jared stopped in the doorway, his eyes adjusting to the muted light as he took in the bedroom. A small iron-framed bed, with the sheets and covers tossed back. A pile of blankets and quilts on a chair. A long, battered dresser lined with trinkets and books. A cross on the pine-paneled wall.

      “You’re safe now,” he said into the still room. “You can come out.”

      “Down…here.”

      Jared moved around the bed toward the chair in the corner, his gaze taking in the dark shadows.

      And then he saw her.

      A woman with long red hair, lying in a heap on the floor, her hand reaching up toward the rocking chair.

      Bending down, Jared pulled her head around. “Are you all right?”

      She tried to open her eyes, tried to speak, but in the next instant she gritted her teeth in pain and clutched a hand toward her stomach.

      Her rounded, very pregnant stomach.

      “What—”

      “Help me, please,” she whispered through pale lips, her eyes wide with fear and pain. “Help me, mister. I’m…having a baby.”

      Chapter Two

      J ared immediately lifted the woman up, then gently sat her down on the bed. Even heavy with pregnancy, she didn’t seem to weigh very much. She looked petite and fragile. Her hair had come partially loose from her braid and it fell in gentle reddish-gold waves and ringlets around her heart-shaped, freckled-nosed face and down her shoulders.

      “Are you sure you’re in labor?” he asked as he grabbed the covers and pulled them up over her body. Before she could answer, he saw the wet, stained sheets, his gaze moving from the bed to her face again.

      “I’m very much in labor,” she said, fear making the words a mere whisper. “And so glad you came along.” Then she gave him a weak smile. “You’re soaked to the bone. Go by the…fire.”

      “Don’t worry about me,” Jared replied as he ran a hand through his drenched hair to get it off his face.

      “Cold out there,” she whispered, a visible shiver going through her body. “A cold Easter.”

      “What can I do?” Jared asked, looking around for a phone while he dripped puddles of water on the plank floor. “Have you called anyone?”

      “No phone,” she said as she gripped the covers, her eyes going wide.

      She had green eyes, Jared saw. And right now they were filled with fear and concern.

      “You don’t have a telephone?” He hadn’t meant the words to sound so harsh, but who in this day and age didn’t have a telephone, even on a remote mountain?

      “I never needed one before,” she replied with a bit of defensive fire. “The baby’s coming early. We have to go to plan B.”

      Jared let out a sigh then took off his wet jacket, dropping it on a thick rug at the foot of the bed. “What was plan A?”

      “Dr. Sloane and a midwife—Miss Mozelle—to assist.”

      “And where is Dr. Sloane? Where is the midwife?”

      Grimacing, she grabbed the bed railing, her next words coming out in a gasp of pain. “Up the mountain. Can’t make it.”

      “I have a cell phone,” he said, grabbing at the inside of the jacket he’d just dropped on the floor.

      “No good. The reception here is terrible, even on a good clear day.”

      Jared had to try anyway. Frantically he tried dialing 911 on the fancy silver gadget—several times. He got only a weak signal message, then the phone blinked out of commission completely. With this storm, even if there was a tower close by, it probably wouldn’t be very receptive anyway. Tucking the useless phone back into the hidden pocket, he said, “Okay, then what’s plan B?”

      “You and I get to do it. And I’m making up the rest as I…go.”

      She collapsed into another contraction while Jared watched helplessly, grimacing at the intensity of her pain. What now? He didn’t think he was ready for plan B.

      Jared decided he’d ask

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