A Christmas Blessing Read Online Free Page B

tractor, instead of his brother, Erik would be here right now, he thought. He’d known Erik couldn’t manage the thing on the rough terrain, but he’d sent him out there, anyway. He’d told him to grow up and do the job or get out of ranching if he couldn’t hack it. Guilt cut through him at the memory of that last bitter dispute.
    He glanced at Jessie. The mention of Erik threw a barrier up between them as impenetrable as a brick wall. For once, Luke was glad when the next contraction came. And the next. And the one after that. So fast now, that there was no time to think, no time to do anything except help Jessie’s baby into the world.
    “Push, darlin’,” Luke coaxed.
    Jessie screamed. Luke cursed.
    “Push, dammit!”
    “You don’t like how I’m doing it, you take over,” she snapped right back at him.
    Luke laughed. “That’s my Jessie. Sass me all you like, if it helps, but push! Come on, darlin’. I’m afraid this part here is entirely up to you. If I could do it for you, I would.”
    “Luke?”
    There was a plaintive, fearful note in her voice that brought his gaze up to meet hers. “What?”
    “What if something goes wrong?”
    “Nothing is going to go wrong,” he promised. “Everything’s moved along right on schedule so far, hasn’t it?”
    “Luke, I’m having this baby in a ranch house. Doesn’t that suggest that the schedule has been busted to hell?”
    “Your schedule maybe. Obviously the baby has a mind of its own. No wonder, given the way you take charge of your life. You’re strong and brave and your baby’s going to be just exactly like you,” he said reassuringly.
    “I think I’ve changed my mind,” she said with a note of determination in her voice. “I’m not ready for this. I’m not ready to be a mother. I can’t cope with a baby on my own.”
    Luke laughed. “Too late now. Looks to me like that horse is out of the barn.”
    Moments later, a sense of awe spread through him at the first glimpse of the baby’s head, covered with dark, wet hair.
    “My God, Jessie, I can see the baby. Just a little more work, darlin’, and you’ll have a fine, healthy baby in your arms. That’s it. Harder. Push harder.”
    “I can’t,” she wailed.
    “You can,” Luke insisted. “Here we go, darlin’.” He slid his hands under the baby’s tiny shoulders. “One more.” Jessie bore down like a trooper and the baby slipped into his hands.
    “Luke,” Jessie whispered at once. “Is the baby okay? I don’t hear anything.”
    The baby let out a healthy yowl. Luke beamed at both of them. “I think that’s your answer,” he said.
    He surveyed the squalling baby he was holding. “Let’s see now. Ten tiny fingers. Ten itsy-bitsy toes. And the prettiest, sassiest blue eyes you ever did see. Just like her mama’s.”
    “Her?” Jessie repeated. She struggled to prop herself up to get a look. “It’s a girl?”
    “A beautiful little angel,” he affirmed as he cleaned the baby up, wrapped her in a huge blanket and laid her in Jessie’s arms.
    Even though her eyes were shadowed by exhaustion, even though her voice was raspy from screaming, the sight of her daughter brought the kind of smile to Jessie’s face that Luke had doubted he would ever see again.
    She looked up at him, her eyes filled with gratitude and warmth, and his heart flipped over. A world of forbidden possibilities taunted him.
    “She is beautiful, isn’t she?” Jessie said, her gaze locked on the tiny bundle in her arms.
    “Just about the most gorgeous baby I’ve ever seen,” he agreed, thinking how desperately he wished he could claim her as his own. His and Jessie’s. He forced the thought aside. “Do you have a name picked out?”
    “I thought I did,” she said. “But I’ve changed my mind.”
    “Oh? Why is that?”
    “Because she rushed things and decided to come at Christmas,” she explained. “I’m going to call her Angela. That way I’ll always remember that she was my Christmas