The Surprise of a Lifetime
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Emilie Richards
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Originally published as A Stranger's Son, a classic romance about two strangers brought together by a gift neither of them could have imagined… Talented, successful rock musician Devin Fitzgerald is thinking about a change of pace. He never expects to have his whole life upturned when he stops to help a stranded car and discovers the woman inside is in labor. Now, he wants nothing more than to be a father. But first he has to convince Robin Lansing to let him into her life… and her guarded heart. Originally published in 1997
CHAPTER ONE
No one in his right mind would choose to rekindle childhood memories during the worst blizzard in twenty years. But Devin Fitzgerald had often done the unthinkable. He had left Yale Medical School three months into his second year to join a struggling rock band with the unlikely name “Frozen Flame.” And he had left Flame at the peak of their extraordinary and undeserved success to strike out on his own. Four years into the runaway success of his solo career, he had made a decision to limit touring so that he would have more time to compose and record. Now he was considering a new career entirely.
But none of those decisions seemed as risky tonight as driving the back roads of picturesque Holmes County, Ohio, in a car without chains and a body clothed in nothing warmer than a lightweight leather jacket.
As Devin tapped his brakes to slow his Jeep Cherokee to a crawl, he hummed a few bars of the melody that had been plaguing him for days. Most of his songs started this way. An interval, a rhythm, a melodic mood that expanded in his head one measure at a time until he had enough to whistle and eventually to pick out, one-fingered, on the piano. This particular melody was more elusive than most, but he suspected the finished composition might be his best. Already it made him think of soft summer nights in America’s heartland, of fragrant moonflowers on split-rail fences and the winking of fireflies in knee-high acres of corn.
He had needed to come home.
He had needed to come home, but not at midnight in the middle of a blizzard.
Devin tapped his brakes again. The Cherokee resented his interference, and the powerful engine sighed in protest. He was barely moving now, but the snow was so thick that he still couldn’t see exactly where he was. He knew he was on the right road. It had been years since he had been to Farnham Falls, but little had changed. Before the snow had thickened, he had recognized an old gray farmhouse that had once been the last landmark before the turnoff. There were other houses just beyond it now, but not many. This was still farm country, a stronghold of the Amish and Mennonites, and rural to the bone. The road he was looking for would appear on his right before too long, and if he was lucky and the Cherokee made the turn, he would be home soon.
Home. Devin almost smiled at the thought. He had been everywhere, lived everywhere, for the past eight years of his life. He was an adaptable man, as comfortable in Sri Lanka or Sicily as Seattle. He hadn’t missed Farnham Falls particularly. There had been little here for a restless youth with a Fender guitar, a thirty-watt amplifier and delusions of grandeur. Every day of his adolescence he had dreamed of leaving. But in the past months he had dreamed only of coming back.
He was alone on the road. He hadn’t seen a headlight in thirty minutes, and there were no Amish buggies clip-clopping their way home. Everyone with sense was at home asleep, with an extra quilt thrown over them for good measure. The snow crunched under his tires and licked at his windshield wipers. He hadn’t been this alone in years; he hadn’t experienced silence in quite this way since he was fourteen and slogging his way through the January snow to his aunt’s barn to feed the resident animals. Something very much like peace was descending with the snowflakes. He knew he should be concerned for his own safety. If his car stalled he could be in trouble. He had tried his cellular phone just a little while ago, only to discover that it was crackling with static. He wasn’t worried. The snow was glorious, and for the first time in months he was feeling almost whole.
The giant oaks that marked the turn seemed smaller now, but the turn led to the same narrow, unpaved lane he remembered. He fishtailed and slid perilously close to a ditch before he steered the car out of the spin. He had another mile to go, maybe two, and he would be home. His cousin Sarah had promised that the house still looked much the same as he remembered it. Sarah, her husband and two children had lived there in the years since aunt Helen’s death, but now they were out on the West Coast, and the house belonged to Devin. Sarah hadn’t understood why he wanted it. “You could live anywhere in the world, Dev,” she’d said when he’d offered to buy the house from her. “You hated Farnham Falls. You haven’t been back since high school.”
“But I don’t hate it anymore,” he’d explained. And he didn’t. Ohio represented a time in his life when he had been filled with dreams and the delicious innocence of youth. He wanted to find that place inside himself again.
If it was still there.
He kept his foot off both the accelerator and the brake and concentrated on the middle of the road. The house would be warm. His manager had found someone to clean and ready it for him, stock the refrigerator with food and the shed with firewood. There was no telephone, no television. He had seen to that himself. He was looking forward to a month of quiet nights and quiet days. A month when he could think without interruption. Once he got to the house, the blizzard would make everything that much sweeter. No one would visit. No one would even know he was there.
Unless he stopped just ahead to help the occupants of the car that was half in, half out of the ditch.
Devin tapped his brakes, and the Cherokee began to slide again. He cursed the other idiot who—like him—hadn’t known enough to stay off the roads tonight. He couldn’t see the car clearly, since it was shrouded by snow, but it appeared to be small, a compact model that probably looked better when it wasn’t nose down, belly exposed. He steered to the right until the Cherokee was under control, then tapped his brakes again. He was twenty yards beyond the other car when he finally came to a halt.
For a fraction of a second he considered not going outside to check on the car’s occupants. He didn’t want to leave the warmth of the Cherokee or announce his presence in town. He told himself a rapid series of lies even as he began to button his jacket. The car was smothered in snow, so it had been there for some time. Whoever had been driving it had already gone for help. There was nothing to indicate an accident so serious that anyone might be injured. But he had already slammed the car door behind him by the time the last excuse had begun to form. He might be world-weary, cynical even, but in the very depths of his soul he was a Farnham Falls boy, raised to care about the people around him and to offer help when needed. Eight years of rock bands and groupies, of incomprehensible adulation and life lived under a microscope, hadn’t erased the values his aunt Helen had instilled in him.
Someone needed help. He had help to give.
Devin had left his headlights on, but they did little to illuminate the accident scene, since the Cherokee was so far ahead and aimed in the wrong direction. Two feet into the storm, the wind nearly knocked him off his feet. He shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned into the wind, but it stabbed at his cheeks and neck and sifted through the worn denim of his jeans. He wasn’t wearing socks, and he regretted that now. His loafers sank into each drift, and snow packed his shoes. By the time he was ten yards from the car his feet were on fire, which was only slightly better than the inevitable numbness that would quickly follow.
“Is anybody in there?” He shouted the words, but the wind twirled them back at him. He caught snowflakes on his tongue the moment he opened his mouth and swallowed them in a burst of sensation. He repeated his shout as he closed in on the ditch, but he didn’t expect a reply. He wasn’t going to find out if anyone was still in the car until he was peering in a window.
What if a passenger was injured? He wondered if he remembered any first aid. He supposed that his months in medical school had been wiped away by now. In the past years he hadn’t been called on to do anything more than perform, compose and give interviews. There had always been someone at his side to take on anything resembling an emergency. He told people what to do and they did it, no matter how foolish or complicated his orders. But no one was nearby to take orders now.
Lord, he was glad there wasn’t. He was so glad to be on his own that even the thought of freezing to death in the middle of nowhere had appeal. It seemed almost justified. Devin Fitzgerald, formerly of Frozen Flame. He had been frozen inside for so long that he liked the symbolism.
“Is anybody in there?” He was close enough to the car now to see into the windows—if the windows hadn’t been cloaked with snow. Another blast of air shoved him forward. The wind was howling, a demented, witchy shriek that would have made his skin crawl if it hadn’t been nearly frozen. He leaped over a mound that a snowplow had piled there in the last storm and started inching his way down an incline toward the ditch.
The car was in worse trouble than he’d thought. The back wheels were completely off the ground, and the front of the car was more accordion than hood. The driver had probably spun the steering wheel as the car slid off the road, because the weight had shifted toward the driver’s side as the car had come to rest. There was no hope of getting in or out that way. He would have to try the passenger’s side.
As he had expected, the ditch bottom was ice under snow, inches of it that might or might not hold his weight. Devin gritted his teeth and tested the ice with one foot. He thought it shifted, but there was nothing to be done about it even if it wasn’t frozen solid. He had to get to the bottom of the ditch to open the door.
He skidded across the ice and reached up for the door handle just as the ice cracked beneath him. He hung on, but the handle couldn’t stop him from sinking nearly a foot. Ice water took the place of snow in his shoes, and he grunted with shock.
“Is anybody in there?” He had sounded more concerned the first time, but this time he was just glad his voice was working. He listened, but the wind was his only answer.
He scrubbed at the window with his hand, but there was still a layer of ice beneath the loose snow. He scratched at it with his fingernails and pressed his face against the window. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the nearly complete darkness of the car interior.
There was somebody there.
“Hey!” He banged on the window with the heel of his hand, then tried to open the door. But the handle wouldn’t give. “Hey!”
He couldn’t tell if the shadowy figure inside the car was a man or a woman, but he saw movement. A head turned at the sound of his voice.
“Let me in!” he shouted. “You’ve got to get out of there. You’re going to freeze!” He wondered how badly the person had been injured. He saw a head loll back against the seat. “Can you unlock the door?”
There was no signal that indicated the person inside could do anything at all.
Cursing like a roadie with a hangover, Devin let go of the door handle. He could try to find something to break the glass, but that might injure the driver. He tried the back door instead, but it was locked, as well. He scraped that window clean and peered inside again. There was nothing to indicate that the opposite door might be unlocked, but it was worth a try.
He gauged the safety of scrambling across the trunk and decided it was safe enough. The car seemed wedged in place, and his weight wasn’t going to disturb it. He hefted himself up and slid across the back window to land on his feet on the driver’s side. The back door here was high enough that, despite the car’s angle, he could probably slide in if it was unlocked. He reached up and pulled on the handle. Nothing happened.
Frustrated and growing numb, he squatted beside the driver’s window and began to scratch the ice away. “Can you turn and unlock the door behind you?” he shouted. He could just make out the straight slope of a nose, short dark hair and the glint of eyes, open eyes that were staring in his direction.
When the driver didn’t move, he shouted again. “I’m going to have to break the glass to get to you, if you can’t open it yourself.”
“Go away.”
For a moment he thought the sound he heard was the wind. But the wind didn’t speak in syllables. He was so cold that it took him another moment to put the sounds together. Then he knew what he’d heard. The driver was a woman, and she was conscious enough to speak, even if she wasn’t making sense.
“Unlock the damned door!” He slapped his palm against her window. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m trying to save your life! You’re going to freeze to death!”
She turned her head away from him.
She had to be injured to act so irrationally. As he watched helplessly, she fell forward toward the steering wheel and her body jerked. It was so dark that he could see only shadows and movement. He shouted to her again, hoping he could convince her to help. “Listen! It’s zero degrees out here, and the temperature’s falling. You could freeze before I can get help. Please. Help me help you!”
He thought he was going to have to break the window. He was contemplating which window would be safest when she spoke again. “Go. Please…”
He felt around in the snow for help. He needed a rock, and even then he imagined the glass would take a couple of mighty blows to break. He had already decided on the window behind the driver when he heard her sobbing.
He felt like a criminal. He didn’t even know what to say to reassure her, but he tried his best. “Honey, it’s okay. It really is. I’m a Farnham Falls boy, born and raised. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything. I’m going to get you out of there in a few minutes and get you to a hospital.”
She was sobbing harder. He stood to broaden his search for a rock or stick when he heard the sound of a window screeching in protest as it was lowered.
With a prayer of thanksgiving on his lips he squatted again and reached inside her window to unlock the door behind her. Then, before she could say a word, he opened the door.
“The car might shift when I get in,” he warned her. “But don’t worry. It’s not going to turn over. It’s wedged too tight. I’m going to get in and unlock the other side. Then I’m going around to get you out the passenger side. But you’re going to have to trust me and do what I say, or we’re both going to freeze before I get you back to my car.”
She was still crying, but he glimpsed something like a nod.
A minute passed before he made it back around to the other side and got the passenger door open. “Okay, now. I’m going to get in and pull you out this way. How badly are you hurt?” He wished that he had asked her that before. The possibility existed that he could make matters worse by moving her, despite the cold.
“I hit…my head.” She grunted the answer as if she was in pain.
“Okay. Anything else hurting?”
“Please… Just get me out.”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Just relax and let me do the worrying.”
She groaned and bent forward again. He knew better than to panic, but the temptation was there. He lifted a foot to the open doorway and hauled himself up and into the passenger seat. Then he reached for her.
There was a lot more of her than he had bargained for. He released her immediately and leaned away. He managed to dispense with profanity, despite the call for it. “You’re pregnant!”
She groaned again and rested her head against the steering wheel, which rested taut against her swollen abdomen.
A terrible thought occurred to him. “Are you in labor?”
She groaned again, and that was the only answer he needed. He touched her cheek in comfort, but she jerked her face away from his hand. “Just…get me out!”
“Right away. Just don’t drop that kid in the snow.”
She didn’t dispense with profanity, although her vocabulary was sadly limited. Despite himself, Devin grinned. His own shock was quickly giving way to a sense of omnipotence. He was going to get her out of here, and he was going to save her and the baby. For months he had wondered if there was anything more to Devin Fitzgerald than flash and hype. Now he was about to find out.
He put his arms around her again. “Wedge your feet against the side door,” he instructed, “and push while I pull. We’re going to get you on this seat first, then I’m going to help you out of the car. I’m going to try to carry you up the embankment to mine.”
“You…can’t!”
“Oh yes I can.” He began to slide her toward him. With gratitude he realized she was taking his suggestion. When she was suspended between the two bucket seats, he slid off his seat and down into the ditch, pulling her steadily as he went. When she was settled on the passenger seat he rested a moment before he spoke.
“Okay, swing your legs around to the floor. I’ll put one hand under your knees and one around your back.”
“You’re going to drop…me.” The last word was followed by another groan. He suspected it signaled the onset of another contraction.
“We’ll wait until that one’s finished,” he said, as calmly as he could. “Let me know when it’s done. But they’re coming pretty fast. We’ve got to get you to a hospital immediately. And I’m not going to drop you. Not on your life!”
Time seemed suspended as he waited. He wished he could see her face, but the light in the car wasn’t working—damaged, he guessed, in the accident. Even if there was a moon tonight, it was blocked by storm clouds. The darkness was as thick as the snow. He had only the impression of a small-boned woman, delicate features and shining dark hair.
“Ready?” he asked, when the struggle seemed to be subsiding.
She nodded.
He slid his arms beneath and around her. His feet were wet and quickly growing numb, but compared to what she was about to endure, he supposed frostbite was nothing. He took a tentative step backward and swung her into the air. With relief he realized that he probably was going to be able to carry her. She wasn’t as light as a feather, but even with the extra weight she was toting, she was a small woman. If he could get up the embankment without slipping and over the mound of snow to the road, they would make it.
“What’s your name?”
“Just…get me out of here!”
“Well, Get-me-out-of-here, hang on tight.” He started forward. All he could see of her now was shining hair. Her cheek was against his chest, but he thought she was sobbing. “We’re going to get you to the hospital. Was that where you were heading?”
“Yes. No. My doctor…”
He tested his path, one careful step at a time. The embankment was slippery, but not the problem he had feared it would be. “You were trying to get to the hospital but couldn’t make it?”
“The storm knocked out…my phone. My doctor lives… I was trying…”
“To get to him,” he finished. “Bad luck all the way around. Is he close by? I sure as hell hope he’s close by.” He gripped her harder as she groaned again. He was very much afraid that she was having another contraction.
“Down this road…”
“Where’s your husband? Shouldn’t he be with you?”
“Bastard!”
So it was like that. Devin wasn’t surprised. Men were famous for abandoning women who got pregnant unexpectedly. Something akin to rage filled him. He would like to find the man who had done this to her, then left her alone to have their baby in the middle of a blizzard. “Look, don’t you worry.” He gripped her tighter and took another step. “I’ll stay with you if you want. I’ll see you through this. I’m going to make sure you’re fine.”
She was sobbing loudly now. If he gripped her any tighter he would bruise her badly. He didn’t know how to comfort her. They both needed comfort, so he began to sing. Softly. To the top of her head. He made it up the embankment before he realized what song he’d chosen. Not one of his greatest hits. Not one of Frozen Flame’s. It was the lullaby his mother had sung to him every night until her death early in his childhood.
The song that he had been hearing in his head for the past weeks.
He spoke without thinking. “I’ll be damned….”
“You are damned…Devin…Fitzgerald.”
He was poised with one leg over the snow mound when she spoke. He was frozen for a moment. Not from the brutal gusts of wind that could turn a man to ice. But from her words and a terrible revelation.
He swallowed an answer and a question. He stepped over the mound and nearly stumbled, but somehow he managed to keep them both upright. Then he started across the road and down to his car. He was silent, and the only parts of him that seemed to be working were his legs. The rest of him was suspended and waiting.
He made it to the car, balancing her against it as he opened the passenger door. Then he settled her inside.
And in the beam of the overhead light he finally saw her face.
He couldn’t remember her name, but she had remembered his. “Get me down this road, then get…out of my life!” she said between gritted teeth.
He squatted beside the open door, squatted in the snow and the wind and the near darkness. But the car light shone clearly on her face. “Is this my baby?” he whispered.
“Not…in a…million years!”
But Devin knew the truth, even as she began to cry again. The child this woman was carrying belonged to him, as surely as the woman had belonged to him for one magical spring night the previous year.
He remembered that April night as clearly as if it were yesterday. He wondered if she was remembering it, too.
