Jodi O'Donnell - When Baby Was Born

So what had happened with Marlene? Or maybe the question was, what happened to her, since Loren had loved her to such distraction Cade couldn’t imagine they’d split up voluntarily.

It was damned hard to get his head around all the changed perceptions that up until ten minutes ago had been well settled in his mind.

Then another possibility occurred to him? Was this a…a test of some sort? Cade couldn’t get behind that, not by a long shot! Loren would never do that to him, no matter how hurt and angry he’d been.

Cade had gone seven years, though, without one single, solitary word from the older brother he’d worshiped since he was old enough to walk.

Which brought him around to the real questions he wanted to ask Loren, the ones buffeting him like the pounding wind: Why aren’t you with Sara? How could you bear not to be with her so close to her hour of need?

Damn it, Loren had even been careless about her name! He’d written it as “Sarah,” over and over again, throughout the letter. But on the note to Cade, it was “Sara.” How could a man not know how to spell his wife’s name?

Somehow, Cade felt glad. Sarah—she was the one Loren had gone on about for pages, his words steeped in love and devotion.

But Sara—she’d been sent to him out of the storm, knowing nothing but the one certainty: once she found him, all would be well.

And she’d said it herself: he’d delivered her baby, and she would never forget it. The act forever linked together their lives.

Cade swore soundly. He had to get rid of that thinking pronto. Sara, with or without the H, was Loren’s.

Only she didn’t remember Loren. She only knew him, Cade.

Loren’s scent surrounded her.

The questions flew at him like the millions of snow-flakes, confounding him. Then one in particular loomed in his mind: what had Loren told her about him, the kid brother he’d given up on seven years ago—and why?

He practically smashed his forehead into the side of the stable, Cade was so wrapped up in his thoughts. He definitely needed to get a handle on himself. Men had gotten lost and frozen to death mere yards from shelter in such weather.

Feeling his way, he located the stable door, pulled it open with difficulty, and slipped inside.

All three horses stirred, but only Destiny lifted his massive head and gave a snort of greeting into the dimness. Lord, he was one smart horse! Cade had only had him a few months and already the chestnut welcomed his particular presence.

“Damn if you’re not about the only one around here who does,” Cade said without rancor, making his way to the stall.

The gelding had been an indulgence, no doubt about it, costing upward of twice as much as Cade had planned to spend on a new cow pony. There’d been many a fine piece of horseflesh he’d looked at that could have done the job he needed just fine. Yet as soon as he’d seen the quarter horse in that pasture, head held high and the sun glinting off his chestnut coat the color and shine of a new penny, Cade had had to have him.

Up to then, he’d pretty much abandoned the dream of training horses for a living. But with one look, Destiny had sparked the hope to life again. He didn’t know how or when he might build such a business, given he was running a three-man spread with just him and Virgil, but for Destiny, he’d find a way.

Of course, if he wanted to free up some of his time, all Cade had to do was hire a second hand; it wasn’t as if the ranch’s income couldn’t bear another wage earner. The truth, however, was that he’d never hired anyone else because he’d always held a picture in his mind of how his older brother would look when he came back and discovered Cade had never given up on the ranch—or him.

And when he’d gotten Loren’s letter, it had taken somewhere in the vicinity of sixty seconds for him to play out the rest of that scene to where Loren asked if he could come back to the ranch to live—for good this time.

Now, though, the prospect of living here with Sara seemed more of a nightmare than a dream come true.

His ears were thawing out, and they itched like blue blazes. Rubbing one, Cade rested his forearm on the stall railing, hand dangling. The gelding snuffled his palm hopefully.

“Sorry, pardner,” he murmured. “No treats tonight.”

He gave the chestnut a scratch on the bridge of his nose instead, and the caress seemed to satisfy. Cade couldn’t help regretting all his shortcomings weren’t so easily compensated for.

Seven years. Seven years of living here with no family but Virgil, trying to run the ranch using his spotty know-how where in the past he’d always had Loren to know what to do. Loren had been the one who’d been born to ranch, the one who because of age and skill Granddad had groomed for the job from the first. And Cade had always been the younger brother meant to take the reins in a different arena.

Except their fate hadn’t played out that way. And both he and Loren knew the reason why.

Cade swung around, his gaze making a circle of the stable’s interior. It had happened here, actually. He could still hear his brother’s words ringing in the dusty air.

“You bastard! I can’t believe my own brother would do such a thing! You bastard.”

“But I didn’t do anything! Loren, you’ve got to believe me,” Cade pleaded. “What you saw, it’s not what you think!”

“The hell it’s not! Then why’m I standin’ here looking at you with guilt written all over your face?”

“I don’t know!” He shook his head, wondering himself at the guilt that pecked and gnawed at his insides like buzzards on roadkill.

Cade held out a hand in appeal. “Honest, Loren, I was just bein’ friendly. I mean, Marlene is your fiance´e! When she followed me out here to the stable, I thought she was just wantin’ us to get to know each other better, you know?”

Loren’s head had just about come clean off his shoulders at that. “And your idea of gettin’ to know her better was kissin’ her with your hands all over her like stink on a skunk?”

“It didn’t happen like that! I was tryin’ to push her

away. Good Lord, Loren, you’re my brother! I wouldn’t do you that way. Marlene’s the one that—”

That’s when Cade had seen the look in his brother’s eyes, begging him not to go there. Loren had been stone gone in love with Marlene Lane, in over his head and not even sane about it.

So Cade had shut up, because there was nothing on earth that could have made him do his brother that way.

Yet it meant Loren had gone away believing his only brother had betrayed him. He’d been wrong, though. Cade hadn’t betrayed Loren with the woman he loved. He hadn’t had the least interest in Marlene, had never felt for her anything more than brotherly affection.

That had been Marlene, however. Not Sara.

This time, his brother would have a justifiable bone to pick with him. And Cade couldn’t help feeling that this time, unlike the last, he’d of his own will brought such wrath upon himself.

He’d heard the warning about not tempting fate, but what were the consequences when fate tempted him?

Cade dropped his forehead to rest on the wood rail. A day ago, all he would have asked those fates for was one minute. One minute on either side of Loren’s appearance that day seven years ago—before Marlene had stepped forward and wrapped herself around Cade, or after he’d freed himself from her clutches.

And now? he wondered. What would he ask for now—with Sara?

Straightening, Cade made himself take a fortifying breath. He had to remember, nothing had happened—yet. And nothing would, he silently vowed. He knew better now, knew that he’d been a fool to hope he could have—even for one minute—the kind of love with a woman he’d pretty much resigned himself to not being in the cards for him this go-round on earth.

So. He would care for Sara, as Loren would want, until he came for her himself. Cade had to trust that the reasons his brother couldn’t be here were sound, and that Loren had known Cade would look after Sara and the baby’s every need.

The thought brought him up short. He was doing anything but looking after them out here.

Cade ran from the stable, lunging through the knee-deep snow, arms flailing in front of him. He was blind as a bat out here, couldn’t even see the lights from the ranch house. He might wander right past it and never find it.

He had to! He had to get back—back to Sara. He had promised to stay with her as long as she needed him, and he always kept his word.

When Cade came up against a car, he wasn’t exactly happy. It was just one more obstacle between himself and Sara. Muttering a curse, he started to feel his way around it when it occurred to him he might find more clues as to his brother’s whereabouts.

Or maybe he’d find more clues as to Sara’s identity, Cade thought. Maybe…maybe the woman who just gave birth in his bedroom wasn’t his sister-in-law. Because really, what was he going on so far but a four-inch-square piece of paper in his brother’s handwriting? She could have found it on the side of the road or left behind at the grocery checkout—neither of which she remembered, of course. And why didn’t she? What sort of blow had she suffered to make her lose her memory? Or was her amnesia all an act?

Barely considering that he was near to hoping he’d been duped by the woman in his house than the alternative, Cade brushed away snow until he found a door handle. He tried it. The car was unlocked.

Its interior was like a tomb, buried as the car was in snow. He couldn’t tell the make or model right off, but could see it was a sedan of some kind. Loren was strictly a pickup man.

The dome light was about as illuminating as striking a match. Cade peered about for clues. On the passenger seat lay a road atlas with a route from Albuquerque to Oklahoma City highlighted in yellow. Except no—Sara said she’d come from the east.

What was in Oklahoma City that she’d have been returning from—alone?

He opened the compartment between the bucket seats. Some change, a paper clip, that was about it. There wasn’t much else in the car—no clothes, an old receipt, not even a CD or cassette tape which might have given him an idea what kind of person owned the vehicle.

Then he opened the glove box. There, he found an operator’s manual—and the registration.

With fingers deadened by the cold, Cade tried to remove it from its plastic sleeve and failed. He held it up to the light and caught only glare off the plastic. Damn it! He turned it, and the names became readable.

Loren and Sarah McGivern.

Cade sat for some time slumped in the driver’s seat of the car. His feet were frozen, his hands were frozen. He was numb clear through to his bones, and still he continued to sit staring at the paper in his hands.

He couldn’t stay there forever, though. He needed to get back and take care of his brother’s wife and son.

The dream was all flashes of impressions and vague images.

She was back in labor, although there was no pain. Just the fear. Instead of wanting the baby to come, she resisted. It was too early, much too early. She couldn’t lose him!

It made her cry, great keening wails that seemed to come up from the depths of her being. The sound of her cries stopped dead in the air, though; no echo came back to her, answered her.

Alone. That’s how alone I am. The realization was like an arrow through her heart, making her cry harder. She didn’t think she could endure it. She had to, though. She had to—for this child she wanted and yet didn’t want.