She’d come this far, she couldn’t back out now. Nervously she headed toward the end of the corridor, staying close to the pale-mauve walls for support. Stopping outside the slightly opened door to room 529, she listened, barely able to hear a thing beyond the blood pounding in her ears.
Absolute quiet. No television, radio or even the sounds of a magazine or book pages being turned. With one last glance down the corridor, she quietly pushed the door open. By the soft light from the hallway spilling into the room, she spotted the bed. Curled on her side sleeping peacefully, was a tiny girl with hair as dark as Rebecca’s own and a pert nose remarkably reminiscent of Rebecca’s mother.
Her breath stopped, and she fought an unexpected rush of tears. This was her child, her daughter. Carefully she stepped more fully into the room and approached the bed. Melanie Winslow looked so small and fragile, Rebecca’s heart broke as if it was nothing more than delicate crystal smashed cruelly against the pavement. She deeply resented that she’d had to give this beautiful child away, but her father hadn’t given her a choice.
Dwelling on the past solved nothing. She had to look to the future, grateful to have the one month Sam had granted her.
The girl stirred. Rebecca held her breath as realization flooded her. God, what had she done? If Melanie awakened and found her here, how would she explain her presence later? She’d promised Sam she wouldn’t do this—and look at her, sneaking around the hospital in the middle of the night.
Melanie snuggled further beneath the blankets, and Rebecca expelled the breath she’d been holding. As carefully and as quietly as possible she backed out of the room and pulled the door near closed.
By the time she reached her room, her limbs trembled uncontrollably. Personal risks were something she rarely employed. Gambling was not on her list of habits, but she’d certainly done more than her fair share in the past forty-eight hours. She knew getting to know Melanie was risky—she could lose, and the cost was astronomical. She’d suffered heartache once. Did she really think she could bear to suffer it again?
Chapter Three
The textbooks lied. There was no other explanation for the horrible throbbing pain in her hips. Rebecca winced when Sam swerved to avoid another pothole in the road. She didn’t think the bruises would ever fade, considering the coat hanger they’d used to extract bone marrow the previous day.
The radio played softly, a country-western station no less, and she wondered if they played other types of music out here in the middle of nowhere. She doubted Sam even owned anything remotely close to classical music, unless one considered Hank Williams classical, she thought crankily.
Occasional farmhouses and huge red or white barns dotted the sprawling countryside as they headed north toward the Canadian border. A few corrals with a horse or two grazing idly, and even small paddocks with cattle, now and then broke up the vast landscape, but mainly her view consisted of field upon field of wheat and other types of soon-to-be grains she didn’t recognize.
As they passed a field of sunflowers, Rebecca marveled at the huge, bright-yellow flowers, all facing in the same easterly direction, like smart little soldiers waiting in ranks for the order to march forward into battle. She thought of asking Winslow how they did that, but he’d been silent and sullen since they’d left the hospital so she kept her questions to herself.
“How much farther is it to Shelbourne?” she asked twenty minutes later, more out of boredom than anything else. She shifted in her seat and stifled a groan when her sweats rubbed uncomfortably against her bruised hipbone.
“Another forty minutes or so.” Sam kept his eyes trained on the flat roadway. Other than the rich tenor on the radio singing about putting the past behind him, the cab was silent again.
“Did you make reservations for me?” she asked, feeling more uncomfortable by the minute. Not only was Sam’s less-than-friendly attitude beginning to wear on her nerves, she wanted nothing more than to lie down.
“Reservations?”
She sighed. “Yeah. You know, like in a hotel? A place where I can rest my head at night? Or did you plan on stuffing me in a hay-filled stall with all the other barnyard animals?”
He tossed an exasperated glance her way. “The closest motel is fifty miles away from the farm. You’ll be staying at the house with us.”
She sat up and winced. “What?”
“Sorry, Ms. Martinson, but Shelbourne isn’t exactly a mecca filled with fine restaurants and five-star hotels.”
Rebecca turned to the window, worrying her lower lip. She’d imagined spending her time in a nice little hotel room, going with Sam to visit Melanie and waiting for word that the transplant was indeed the success the preliminary reports were showing. Once the doctors released Melanie to home care, she’d envisioned spending a few days a week at the house playing the role of visitor—not taking up residence with Witty Winslow.
Thirty minutes later they turned from the highway onto a secondary road. They passed the tall cylinders of a grain elevator and finally a silver tower with the word Shelbourne painted in black, block-style letters.
She shielded her eyes from the bright North Dakota sunshine and struggled to sit straighter to get a look at the town where her daughter lived. Sam slowed the truck to the twenty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit posted for the city limits.
City? she wondered silently. City wasn’t exactly the word she would use to describe the three-block section of Shelbourne. There was a hardware store, a post office, a grocery with big red letters that said just that and a drugstore, all in one block. The next block boasted a beauty shop she was certain Ron, her stylist, would flay her alive if she dared to visit. On the other side of the street stood a floral shop, an auto parts store and a barbershop, complete with an old-fashioned red-and-white pole. There were a couple of taverns, a place called the Shelbourne Diner and at the end of the street a mechanic’s shop that doubled as a gas station. Before she could blink, they’d crossed over a set of railroad tracks and then more wide-open nothingness. Just more fields of summer crops.
“That’s it?” she asked, and turned to look behind her. There hadn’t been a police station, city hall, not even a library or a church. “Where’s the police station?”
“We don’t have one,” he answered, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
“You guys dish out justice Western style, or what?”
He chuckled and the sound swept over her, stirring her senses. “No. We have a county sheriff in a nearby town. There’s a courthouse, too, a couple of lawyers, a medical clinic. Pretty much everything we need is here in Shelbourne or Johnstone. For anything else I travel to Minot once a month.”
“I see.” Really she didn’t. Where were the convenience stores? Or a movie theater, or video store? God, where did Melanie go if she got a craving for a hot-fudge sundae? Canada?
She turned her gaze back to Sam. “You said it was a small town, but cripes, I didn’t realize you meant it.”
“Feeling a little out of your element, Ms. Martinson?” There was no animosity in his voice, just mild amusement which made her smile.
“Actually…yes,” she admitted, curious to know what Melanie did for recreation in a town the size of Shelbourne.
Sam didn’t reply, but turned the truck onto a gravel road. Instinctively she clutched the dashboard in an effort to keep the jarring to a minimum. As if he sensed her discomfort, he thankfully slowed the truck and she relaxed. She hoped he had a comfortable bed for her. Her hips were killing her, and she was exhausted. The doctor had warned her to take it easy for a week. Considering what she’d just seen of the town, she didn’t think that was going to be a problem, because Sam had been right. Shelbourne was not exactly a mecca.
WHEN SAM HAD SAID he was a simple