“Okay, but don’t back up.”
“I promise I won’t.”
“You’ll stay right there?”
“Right here. Just remember to kick your legs real hard like you practiced.”
The water was no higher than David’s waist. Even so, looking apprehensive about the four feet separating him from Jack, he took a huge breath and plunged forward. Several strong kicks later, his splashing hands made contact with Jack’s. Jack pulled him up and helped him regain his footing on the cool silt bottom of the river.
“Way to go!” Jack gave the boy a high five.
“I did it!”
“I knew you could.”
“Can I do it again?”
“Anytime you’re ready.”
David waded back to his starting place. “It was fun last night having ice cream, wasn’t it, Jack?”
“Sure was.”
“I wish you were with us all the time. You could sleep in my room.”
“Don’t you think it would be crowded with both of us?”
Skimming his hands across the surface of the water, David gave it some thought. His face brightened with a sudden inspiration. “You could sleep with my mom. She’s got a great big bed.”
Jack hid his smile. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not, Jack? She probably wouldn’t care.”
“I just couldn’t do that.”
“How come?” the boy persisted.
“Because you’re a family. You, your mom, and your grandpa. I’m not a member of the family.”
“Yeah, but—”
“What’s that?” Jack held up his hand for quiet. “Sounds like a triangle.”
“Yeah, that thing.” David made a circular motion with his closed fist as though waving a magic wand. “My mom’s s’posed to use it in case of an emergency.”
“An emergency?”
Jack grabbed David’s hand and thrashed through the shallow water to shore. “Quick, put your shoes on. Get your clothes.” Jack scrambled into his jeans and picked up his boots. The triangle had stopped clanging, but Anna wouldn’t have used the emergency signal just for the hell of it.
Taking David by the hand again, Jack ran through the woods toward the house. Dusk had fallen. They encountered clouds of mosquitoes but were moving too fast for them to light. Jack tripped over a vine and nearly dragged David down with him.
“How’re you doing?” he called down when he regained his footing.
“I’m okay, Jack.”
The heavy, humid air didn’t make for easy running. By the time they reached the clearing, Jack was sucking hard to draw each breath. He paused and looked frantically toward the house. No smoke. A fire in either the house or the barn had been his first fear. The lack of rain had left everything as dry as tinder. One spark could have ignited a dangerous blaze.
He was relieved not to see one, but something urgent had happened and he still didn’t know what it was. Releasing David’s hand, he sprinted the remaining distance to the house, where he clambered up the front steps and burst through the door. “Anna? Delray? Where are you? What’s the matter?”
He glanced into the living room, but it was empty. As he came back around he ran squarely into Anna, nearly sent her sprawling, and only prevented it by catching her by the shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
She pointed him upstairs.
Jack doubled back, rounded the balustrade, and took the treads two at a time. He reached the second floor in seconds. Delray was lying in the hall, steps from the door to his bedroom.
Jack knelt down beside him. He was unconscious. Jack dug his fingers into his neck, feeling for his carotid. There was no pulse. “Shit. Don’t die. Not now.” Straddling Delray’s hips, he began administering CPR. He heard Anna and David running down the hallway toward him.
“David?”
“What’s wrong with Grandpa?” There were tears and anxiety in the boy’s voice.
“Ask your mother if she called nine-one-one.”
“She says she did, Jack.”
Anna knelt down on the other side of Delray. Jack glanced at her. “You called?” She nodded. “Good. Good,” he said.
Because if help didn’t arrive soon, Delray wasn’t going to make it.
* * *
The doctor was typically guarded. He walked a thin line between glossing over the seriousness of Delray’s condition and unnecessarily alarming those who cared about him.
“The preliminary tests show several blockages, any one of which would be serious by itself. His blood pressure is at a critical level. Our first order of business is to bring it down and get him stabilized.”
His diagnosis was translated to Anna through an interpreter. Her name was Marjorie Baker. Both of her parents had been deaf, so sign had been her first language. She was a certified level-five translator and a deaf educator. That’s how she knew Anna. She had worked with her throughout her schooling, then later became her friend.
Beyond her administrative duties in the public schools, Marjorie Baker was an advocate for the deaf in the rural communities of East Texas. Unlike hospitals in larger cities, this one didn’t yet have a Teletype system for the hearing-impaired to use. Consequently, Ms. Baker had been called immediately after Delray was admitted. She had arrived calm and concerned. Jack liked her instantly.
“After his blood pressure is under control and he’s stabilized, then what?” she asked, translating the question Anna had signed.
To his credit, the doctor spoke directly to Anna. “Then bypass surgery is called for. Alternatives to surgery, like angioplasty or putting in a stent, are no longer options, I’m afraid. The blockages are too severe.”
“Can you do it here?” Marjorie asked.
“The operation?” When Anna nodded yes, he replied, “No, ma’am. I’m a cardiologist, not a cardiac surgeon. I can refer you to several excellent surgeons in either Houston or Dallas. Whoever you select, we’ll bring him up to speed on Mr. Corbett’s condition and see that he gets all his films, et cetera. It’s done all the time. We make the transfer as easy on you as possible.”
“Don’t worry about any inconvenience to me,” Marjorie said, speaking as Anna signed. “I want what’s best for my father-in-law.”
“Of course,” the doctor said.
“Is Grandpa gonna get well, Jack?”
“That’s what we’re working on.”
Ashamed of his tears, David turned toward him and pressed his face against Jack’s thigh. “Can you give them any idea of what his chances are?” Jack asked the doctor.
“It’s too soon to tell. Honestly,” the doctor added when he read the skepticism in Anna’s eyes. “Right now, his condition is critical. I won’t lie to you and say otherwise. He’s in cardiac intensive care. We’ll monitor him carefully throughout the night. By morning I should be able to give you a more definite prognosis.”
“What about flying him by helicopter to Houston or Dallas tonight?” Marjorie asked the question, but received an enthusiastic nod from Anna for thinking of it.
“In his present condition, that would be risky,” the doctor replied. “If it were my father I wouldn’t chance it. I’d wait until he had more working in his favor before I moved him.” He gave Anna a sympathetic smile and laid one hand on her shoulder. “I realize everything I’m telling you is not what you want to hear. For right now it’s the best I can do.”
Before returning to his duties, he told Anna that a nurse would let her know when she could see Delray. The promised visit came a half hour later. Anna rushed from the waiting room, following the nurse who had summoned her. Marjorie went with her. Jack stayed behind with David.
“Why can’t I go see Grandpa?” he whined.
“Because an intensive care unit is for people who are very sick. It’s no place for a little boy.”
“How come?”
“You might make noise and disturb the patients.”
“I wouldn’t make noise.”
“Want me to read you a story?” Jack hopefully held up a book.
“That’s a dumb book. It hasn’t even got any pictures.”
The boy wouldn’t be distracted. Jack was relieved when Anna rejoined them about ten minutes later. She looked pale and shaken, but smiled for David’s benefit and told him that his grandpa was taking a good nap.
“I want to see Grandpa.” The boy’s lower lip began to quiver.
“He has tubes in his nose and arms, David,” Marjorie Baker told him.
“Like the doctor shows on TV?”
“Yes, but it’s different in real life. You wouldn’t like seeing your grandpa like that, and he wouldn’t want you to see him that way. Besides, if you woke him up, it wouldn’t be good for him.”
Jack addressed Anna. “Do you want me to take him home?”
“No!” David wailed. “I want to stay here with Grandpa.”
He began to cry and Anna pulled him onto her lap. She pressed his head against her chest and stroked his forehead, pushing back his hair, which was still damp with river water, Jack noticed. She kissed his brow and hugged him tightly, rocking him back and forth. In a moment his sobs subsided but he still clung to his mother.
“I guess he’s staying,” Marjorie said, smiling up at Jack. “In all the excitement we haven’t been officially introduced. I know your name is Jack.”
“Sawyer,” he told her, shaking hands. “Thanks for coming. I’m sure Anna is glad you’re here.”
“She was glad you were there this evening when it happened.”
“Yeah, well, I’m glad I could help out.”
Marjorie gave him a measured look before she sat down beside Anna and commenced a signed conversation. An hour later, Anna was granted another five-minute visit to the CCU. Delray’s condition was unchanged.
The hospital staff urged her to go home for the remainder of the night, but she wouldn’t even consider it. It was almost a half-hour drive from the hospital to the ranch. They might get there only to be called back. Delray could take a sudden turn for the better—or the worse. Either way, she wanted to be nearby.
Marjorie offered to stay also, but Anna insisted that she leave. “Only if you promise to page me if the situation changes.” Anna made the requested promise.
Jack didn’t know what was expected of him. Should he go or stay? Did she want him with her or did she wish he would get lost? Feeling awkward and conspicuous, he sat down on a sofa that formed a right angle with the one Anna and David occupied. He chose a bass fishing magazine from the unappealing and outdated selection of reading material on an end table.
At midnight the overhead fluorescent lights were turned out and substituted with dim table lamps, making the room more conducive to sleep. Only one other family, an older couple, was in the waiting room. The man was stretched out in a recliner. An occasional snore wafted from his open mouth. The woman, presumably his wife, had cried herself to sleep on a sofa. Jack wondered what medical crisis was keeping them here tonight.
David eventually fell asleep in Anna’s lap. She carried him to another sofa and covered him with a blanket a waiting-room volunteer had provided. Jack noticed Anna chafing her upper arms and touched her elbow to get her attention. “Cold?” She indicated the air-conditioning vent overhead. He asked the Pink Lady for another blanket and when she brought it to him, he unfolded it and placed it around Anna’s shoulders.
“Thank you,” she signed.
“You’re welcome. Would you like something to drink? Coffee? A Coke? Juice?”
She shook her head, leaned back against the cushions, and, looking exhausted, closed her eyes.
Jack worked his butt into a more comfortable position. It didn’t take long for him to determine that bass fishing just wasn’t very interesting to him. The second magazine didn’t hold his interest any better.
Fact was, he couldn’t read for looking at Anna. With her head resting on the back cushion, her throat was arched and exposed, reminding him of the black-and-white photo she’d taken of herself at the fence.
Pretty ingenious of her, setting up what must have been a tricky camera angle. Pretty talented to have thought of the pose and the clever usage of stark light and deep shadow. Pretty pretty.
Was she pretty? Not like a fashion model or a movie star. Unlike classic prettiness, hers wasn’t… predictable. Her features were more interesting, constantly changing with her mood. Hers was the kind of face that you could gaze at forever, or at least until you figured out why in hell you just couldn’t take your eyes off it.
He wondered what she had thought of the incident in the barn. As she crossed the yard that night, skedaddling it back to the house like the hounds of hell were on her heels, what had she been thinking?
Maybe nothing. Maybe she’d been wondering why it didn’t rain, or what she was going to cook for breakfast the following day, or if she should buy that new pair of shoes she’d seen in town. Maybe she hadn’t given it any thought at all. Maybe it hadn’t been an incident to her the way it had been to him. It had rocked his world, but maybe it hadn’t created a single tremor in hers.
For his part, he’d been on the verge of pulling her close and kissing her mouth. She had run as though afraid that was what he was about to do. But had she been skittish because she wanted him to kiss her, or because she couldn’t stand the thought?
He had flattered himself into believing the former. But he could be wrong. She might have been running because he had bad breath. Or BO. Or because she didn’t like his looks or find him attractive.
No one would call him handsome. His face didn’t look like it had been molded from clay by a master’s deft hand, but rather like an amateur had taken a chain saw to a block of wood and hacked it into shape. No, he wasn’t going to win any prizes for outstanding good looks.
But he’d never had to buy or beg female companionship. He would know by now, wouldn’t he, if his looks were a major turn-off? He’d had women tell him they found his rugged features sexy. Maybe that was it—he was too sexy.
Anna had hightailed it from the barn out of fear. Women had an instinct that went into overdrive when their femininity was threatened. Maybe she’d been afraid that he would act on an animalistic impulse, drag her down into the hay, and ravish her.
Hell, he didn’t know what she thought.
All he knew was that he’d had trouble falling asleep that night. When he finally did, he woke up a few hours later drenched in sweat despite the noisy air conditioner blowing frigid air across his naked body, and sporting an erection that could have won prizes.
* * *
Anna jerked awake. It took a couple of seconds for her to get her bearings. Then she remembered where she was and why, and the grim reality of it compressed her chest.
The last few weeks of Dean’s life, she had spent hours in a hospital waiting room. Her vigilance hadn’t affected the outcome then, and it wouldn’t now, but she couldn’t desert Delray any more than she could have deserted Dean.
She turned her head toward the sofa on which David slept and reassured herself that he was still there and all right. She yawned and stretched and rolled her head across her shoulders to work the stiffness out of her neck. She checked her wristwatch; the next scheduled visitation period was still hours away.
She glanced over at Jack Sawyer. He was asleep, his chest rising and falling evenly. His legs were splayed, one knee slightly bent, the other straight. His hands were loosely clasped between his thighs.
She looked at his hands, remembering how it had felt to touch them. She had taught David the sign language alphabet by actually moving his fingers into place. She had used the same method with Jack Sawyer. But his hand hadn’t felt like her son’s.
Jack’s fingers were long and strong. The tips were callused. The backs of them were sprinkled with sun-bleached hair. His nails were clipped, but some of the cuticles were ragged.
David had a child’s soft hand. Jack’s belonged to a man who often smelled of sunshine, sweat, and hay, whose pulse had been visibly beating in the base of his throat when they stood close, whose breath she had felt against her face, whose gaze had made her feel very warm on the inside.
His eyes came open suddenly and caught her looking at him.
He drew in his legs and sat up quickly. “Everything okay?”
“Yes.”
“No word from the doctor?”
“No.”
He glanced over at David. She followed his gaze and then, when their eyes reconnected, they smiled at each other. David was sleeping on his back, one arm flung over his head, the other extending beyond the edge of the sofa.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to sleep like that?” Jack said. “I guess he was worn out from swimming.”
Swimming? Her expression conveyed the question.
“Damn! I let the cat out of the bag.”
She followed his lips, but the words she saw on them only puzzled her more.
He realized it and tried to clarify it for her. “That means giving away a secret. I’ve been teaching David to swim. We’ve been getting in a little practice every day. Act surprised when he shows you.”
She nodded that she now understood.
“We were in the river when you rang the bell.”
Jack had been shirtless and shoeless when he’d run into the house. David had been in his underwear, carrying his clothes. She hadn’t thought of it until now. Jack must have gotten himself and David dressed while the paramedics were carrying Delray down the stairs and loading him into the ambulance. She had been scrambling around, making certain she had insurance cards and such. It had been a frantic time, but it would have been much worse if Jack hadn’t been there seeing to David.
Taking a small spiral notepad from her purse, she wrote him a note to that effect, thanking him for his help.
“I did what anybody would have done,” he said after reading her note.
Stubbornly she shook her head. She wrote, “You not only helped me, you saved Delray’s life.”
He rolled his shoulder in an awkward shrug. “Well, I’m glad I could help out.” He sat forward and propped his forearms on his thighs. He seemed to be contemplating near space, but he looked up and asked her, “How’d it happen?”
She filled her notebook with several pages of writing, and by the time she finished Jack had the whole story. Delray had been watching the local five o’clock newscast. After the story about the kidnapping and double murder in Louisiana, he had excused himself and gone upstairs. A few minutes later, feeling uneasy, Anna had gone to check on him and had found him on the floor.
“Thank God you sensed that something was wrong.”
She wrote, “I could tell that he was very upset over that news story.”
“Because Carl Herbold is a suspect in that crime,” Jack said, filling in the rest of the sentence before she could write again.
It surprised her that Jack knew the source of Delray’s distress, and her curiosity must have been evident.
“I know there’s a connection there.” He went on to explain. “Delray and I ran into Ezzy Hardge at the Dairy Queen the other day. He mentioned something about Arkansas, and the boy being too smart to come this way. He said Delray shouldn’t worry about it. Since that prison break is the big story out of Arkansas, I put two and two together. But Delray and I had other things to talk about, so I didn’t press him for information. Then yesterday I overheard that Lomax character talking about it. From what I gathered, he was saying that folks blame Delray for Carl Herbold’s sins.”
Anna wrote, “Carl is the stepson I told you about.”
“I see.”
He seemed to receive this as news, but Anna got the feeling that it wasn’t news to him at all. Her communication with other people relied largely on gauging their faces and interpreting their body language. She depended on the facial expressions of others because she couldn’t hear the inflections in their speech.
Jack was lying. Not by what he said, but by what he left unsaid. If he already knew the relationship between the escaped convict and Delray, why would he pretend not to? And if he was a drifter, calling no place home, how did he know about it? Carl and Cecil were sent to prison over twenty years ago. Dean had been just a boy. Not even he had known his stepbrothers, except by name. Yet a stranger out of nowhere knew about the stepsons whom Delray no longer claimed.
Jack Sawyer had arrived the day following Carl’s escape. Coincidence?
It was certainly something to think about.