Even from the edge of total fatigue, Sara caught his uneasiness. “Who’s this…Virgil you mentioned?” she asked.
Relief eased across his brow at the change of subject. “Virg is my ranch hand. Been around here forever, since when my granddaddy ran the operation.”
Again, he offered no further comment. The connection between them waned.
Mustering her energy, Sara persisted. “Your grandfather—and your parents. Are they still around, too?”
“’Fraid not. Granddaddy passed on some years ago. Daddy and Mother, we lost them when I wasn’t more’n ten.”
Strangely, she found herself buoyed by his admission—as if it somehow confirmed that instinct she’d had to find him. He was alone, too.
Still, she apologized, “I didn’t mean to bring up sad memories.”
Cade only shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
“So you must have been in charge of the ranch when you were quite young.” She had noted the rugged yet youthful lines of his face. “You don’t look much past thirty.”
He blinked in surprise. “I hit thirty-one my next birthday.”
“And you’ve no other family?” Her mouth worked around the next question, trying to suppress it and failing. “Or a special…friend?”
“Nope,” Cade replied, returning to his characteristic terseness. “Just a brother. In New Mexico.”
The words sparked recognition in the back of her mind. “New Mexico?”
“That would be the state just west of Texas.”
She couldn’t keep from treating him to a cross look. “I know what New Mexico is. I haven’t lost all sense of the world.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, but how’m I supposed to know that?” Cade said mildly.
“I remembered I hadn’t passed through a town named Sagebrush,” she reminded him.
Her comment apparently struck a chord with him, too. “That means you weren’t coming from west. What was the last big city you went through?”
It was the last subject Sara wanted to pursue right now. To do so brought all the emotions she needed to keep control of from taking over. Yet she’d hazarded into this territory of her own accord in her attempt to engage him.
She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. Where had she come from? The awareness grew, hovering on the edges of her perception and making her anxious, but this time she tried to go toward it. “I think it was…somewhere in Oklahoma.”
“Oklahoma?” Cade frowned. “That’s in the opposite direction. Was there something about New Mexico that seemed familiar?”
What was it that had caused a ripple in the vast, undisturbed surface of her memory? Massaging her forehead, she tried to think back, push the edges of what memory she had, but the effort seemed more than she could stand right now. “I don’t know.”
“Were you heading to New Mexico?”
She shook her head, which only made it throb even more. “I don’t know! I don’t know.”
Why couldn’t she remember?
Pain bit into her, shaking her in its jaws.
“Oh!” Sara’s chin snapped forward and she pressed her palms to her belly.
The contraction was a doozy, rolling through her in shock wave after shock wave. All sense seemed to leave her when they hit, chased by that stark, utter terror that was gaining ground on her by the second.
She shamelessly clung to Cade’s hand, and he hung with her until the contraction passed, leaving her gasping and exhausted.
With infinite gentleness, he stroked the washcloth across her forehead. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t’ve pushed you for information, especially when I told you I wouldn’t.”
But it had drawn him out of his remote, brusque manner, bringing the tenderness back to his warm brown eyes. Sara didn’t want to see it leave again, didn’t think she could stand it if it did. But she realized it came with a price to herself.
Because when the next contraction came, just as strong, a few minutes after that, then the next and the next after that, she knew it meant she was going into hard labor. Her baby was on its way. Yet still something held it back, something in her held back, for there was little progress.
She was reaching the edge of her endurance. The edge of her reason.
“Oh, Cade.” Sara clutched his hands with both of hers as yet another contraction came and went, and still no baby. “I don’t know…if I can do this.”
“Sure you can, darlin’,” he countered with quiet firmness as he sat beside her on the bed. “Sure you can.”
No, I can’t. She could barely hold her head up, much less hold at bay the doubts and fears boiling up in her. Why didn’t the baby come? What was wrong with it? What was wrong with her? This was her own flesh and blood, for God’s sake! If she hadn’t the strength within her to bring her own child into the world, then what did she have the strength to withstand?
“No,” Sara said, shaking her head. “No, you don’t understand.”
“You’re right, I can’t understand,” Cade agreed placatingly. “No one can who hasn’t birthed a child.”
“That’s just it! Who knows if I have before?”
Even she could hear the hysteria that rose in her voice. She couldn’t breathe. The pain, the confusion, the lack of any mooring in this storm in her head—each was taking its toll.
“C’mon, darlin’.” Cade’s voice was steady, his gaze unwavering, keeping the connection. But even that was barely getting through to her. Panic prowled nearby, stalking her in her weakened state. “Remember our pact? Just focus on what’s directly in front of you. Focus on that baby of yours, ready to come into the world.”
“I know…I am…but oh, Cade, I don’t even know where he came from, where I came from!” she cried, giving in to her fears at last. It was simply too much to contain.
Yet it only cleared the way for her next fear, which clambered up from the depths of her being, fighting her for expression. “I don’t even know who we belong to…and why he’s not here!”
Another contraction socked her, pitching her forward, her spine rounding and body shaking with effort. The pain seemed unbearable, the contraction intense, as if every muscle in her body was converging to push out this child.
But it wouldn’t come! It wouldn’t come, and she didn’t know why.
Sara fell back, drained. It seemed impossible she’d find the strength and energy to endure the following wave.
“Sara.” The name came to her as if across a canyon, wide and deep. “Stay with me now. Stay with me.”
She found Cade’s words unexpectedly humorous. He was the one she was trying to keep engaged in the moment, wasn’t he? she thought as laughter bubbled up from her chest. What emerged was a sob, then another. Sara turned her head away as she worked to contain them.
“I’m sorry, Cade,” she whispered.
“Sorry for what?”
“For…drawing you into this.” She squeezed her eyes shut, but still the tears streamed from their corners. She couldn’t hold them back, another failure. “You don’t know me…and whoever sent me to you…why they sent me to you…it wasn’t right. I don’t belong…here.”
He