Delilah's Weakness (13 page)

Her mouth was soft and fragrant, vibrant with promise and warm with banked fires, everything a woman’s mouth should be. His mouth moved to hers and over hers, and into hers, a slow and tender melding that did nothing to disturb the fragility of her response. But instead of soothing his ache, it only made it worse, and when at last he pulled away, he had to swallow that ache before he could whisper, "See what I mean? That didn’t hurt, did it?"

But even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true. He didn’t know what it was doing to her, but it hurt him like hell. Making love to a beautiful woman was supposed to give—had always given him—joy. Pleasure. At the very least, a bit of harmless fun. It wasn’t supposed to make him burn from his Adam’s apple to his groin like one big exposed nerve. He wanted to kiss her again and go on kissing her—every part of her—but something was keeping him from doing it. He didn’t understand.

His fingers were nestled in the soft hair at her neck; the palm of his hand cradled her nape. When he moved his hand from her it felt like an amputation.

After a long tense moment, during which she seemed to be holding her breath, he said, "Before you get mad and fire me for insubordination, consider that a kiss ‘to make it better.’" He smiled at her, pleased he could sound so cool and unruffled. "I couldn’t kiss your finger because of all that iodine." He got to his feet and held out his hand. "Come on, let’s finish your runway."

She jerked her eyes to his face and her lips parted as if she wanted to say something important. He waited, but she tightened her mouth and shook her head, though she did accept his offer of a hand up.

He thought she was unusually quiet as they worked together to nail the last planks into place. Her buoyant mood had gone flat, and Luke was sorry. He wasn’t sure whether to blame the fact that he’d kissed her or the fact that she was obviously going to have to swallow a hefty portion of crow over the runway issue—although the Delilah he knew was more apt to be upset by the prospect of defeat than by a simple kiss. The funny thing was, though, he didn’t care about scoring a victory anymore. He just wanted to give her this thing. A gift. Something to make her life a little easier. And, he thought confidently, that wounded pride of hers would stop twinging once that first ewe stepped through the holding–pen gate and headed down that runway, straight as an arrow to the barn door.

"There. Not a bad afternoon’s work." Luke stood back to survey the finished job. Not bad at all, he thought. "Shall we give it a trial run?" He could barely conceal his excitement.

Delilah was hanging back, looking, Luke thought with tender amusement, almost apprehensive. "Luke…"

He smiled encouragingly down at her. "Come on, Blue Eyes. I’ll let you do the honors."

Her face was set, tense. She really wasn’t taking the defeat well at all, he thought, but he could understand how she felt. Some people had a hard time facing the idea that they could be wrong.

"Go ahead," he urged her with a victor’s generosity. "Let’s see if it works."

Delilah gave him one last look of stony acceptance, lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug, and moved to unwire the gate at the pen end of the runway. When she moved into the midst of the flock and began shooing them toward the gate, Luke stepped back, arms folded expectantly, to watch.

A ewe stepped into the runway, followed hesitantly by several more. The rest of the flock was bunched around the bottleneck at the small opening.

The first ewe started down the narrow corridor, followed by a lengthening line of her sisters and cousins. When she saw the dark rectangle of the barn door yawning ahead she balked, and tried to turn back. But the runway was just wide enough to permit the one–way, single–file progress of a very pregnant ewe. She couldn’t turn around, and she couldn’t back up, not with her sisters and cousins all jammed in behind her.

The first ewe had only two choices, and she made hers without a moment’s hesitation. Before Luke’s astonished eyes she dropped to her knees and squeezed her impossible bulk under the bottom–most plank. In another moment she was trotting across the orchard, closely followed by about thirty other ewes.

As the dust was settling, Luke heard a strangled sound, and turned, speechless, to see Delilah standing all alone in the empty holding pen. One arm was wrapped across her middle; the other hand was clamped tightly over the lower half of her face. Over it her eyes stared at him, wide and bright with distress. And then she began to laugh—soundlessly and helplessly, the way she’d laughed when Luke had routed her amorous neighbor. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she doubled over, hugging herself and trying to catch her breath.

Luke was too stunned and too hurt to wait for her to give voice to her triumph with a gleeful whoop. He turned on his heel and strode across the orchard, ignoring both sheep and tree branches, making for the nearest fence. He vaulted it with gratifying ease and stalked around the corner of the barn. A minute later he was retrieving the missing component to the Incredible Hulk’s distributor from under the straw in his bedroom stall.

A few more minutes after that, in a blind rage and without a thought for his credibility or personal safety, he was rocketing down the mountain toward the desert floor, toward the lights of town and the warmth and comradeship of
men.

After she heard the pickup start and roar away, Delilah’s laughter evaporated like desert rain, leaving the tears on her cheeks to dry more slowly. She hadn’t meant to laugh. She hadn’t.

She hadn’t wanted to hurt him. Not since—
No. Forget that kiss. It didn’t mean anything.

Okay then, not since he’d fainted over her injured finger. I can’t stand inflicting pain, he’d said. It’s not my style. Well, it wasn’t her style, either. Or never had been, until now. What was the matter with her? She’d never been a cruel person, and yet she’d hurt him. Hurt him unforgivably. She felt small, and sad, and a little bit scared. Afraid she might have let something important slip away.

At least, she reflected with bitter irony as she called Lady to help round up the sheep and return them to the holding pen, she wouldn’t have to worry about getting rid of Luke anymore. Not even someone as persistent as he would want to stick around after this.

Why doesn’t that make me feel any better?

It never occurred to Delilah to wonder how he’d managed to start her pickup so easily. It seemed entirely natural to her that any engine should fire under Luke MacGregor’s masterful touch.

** ** **

For the second night in a row Delilah finished her chores by flashlight. Afterward she carried the bucket of goat’s milk into the house and made herself a sandwich out of what was left of the ham. She ate it leaning against the sink and staring unhappily at nothing. It didn’t taste nearly as good as it had at lunchtime, in the orchard, with Luke.

He’ll be back, she told herself.
Of course he’ll be back. He wouldn’t steal my truck. Who’d want it? And besides, he left some things here. Most notably, his airplane.

It seemed very quiet, and very lonely.

How can I miss someone I never even heard of until the day before yesterday?

She sighed, drank a glass of milk, and picked up her flashlight. It had been too late to try to put any of the ewes into the barn tonight, but it wasn’t too early to give them a final check before bedtime.

The sheep in the holding pen were placidly bedding down for the night. Delilah walked among them, shining the light on first one and then another, looking for the telltale signs of imminent labor: unusual restlessness, pawing the ground, an animal standing off by itself away from the flock. All was quiet. All seemed normal. She made one pass across the upper pasture with the flashlight’s powerful beam and turned to go.

Then she stopped and made another sweep. In that brief moment’s illumination something had jolted her awareness, something not quite right. Something out of the ordinary. She probed the darkness with the beam, stabbing at the abstract bulk of the disabled plane.

There it was—a woolly gray lump. One ewe, all alone, in the shelter of the orange airplane. One ewe, standing off from the rest.

Delilah’s heart began to beat faster. "Oh, damn," she murmured, and climbed the fence. Moving cautiously, not wanting to startle the animal, she started up the hill. She was still a good fifteen feet away when the ewe, who had been furiously pawing at the pasture stubble, dropped to her knees, then flopped onto her side.

Delilah swore softly. She knew who it was now. She’d recognized the purple ear tag and arrogant Roman nose. Number 907, and she was in the advanced stages of labor. Delilah trained the light on the ewe’s hindquarters, and went cold all over. "Oh, no," she whispered.

In the flashlight beam she could plainly see one slippery black head and two forefeet—and that was good. But just as plain to see was a second set of feet, soft little white hooves facing upward. Hind feet. Baby lambs managed to get themselves incredibly tangled, and often turned around, while trying to be born, but there was only one explanation for an arrangement like this: Two lambs were in the birth canal at the same time. The backward twin was blocking the birth of the headfirst one. There was no way of telling how long the ewe had been struggling, but it didn’t look good for the lambs’ survival.

Delilah’s shoulders sagged with the weight of frustration and futility. This was exactly the kind of thing she’d gone to the trouble and expense of building a barn for. In the confines of a clean stall she could have controlled the ewe and attempted to rearrange the lambs, but out here in the open, with an animal as big and wild as 907…

Oh, if only Luke was here!

The ewe was still down, and obviously tiring. Delilah knew she had to try to do something, and it was now or never. Setting the flashlight on the ground, she darted to the ewe’s side, gripped the upper foreleg, and folded it tightly against the animal’s flank. By leaning her own weight onto the ewe’s side, she could keep her pinned down. But all her efforts to push the lambs back to where there would be room to maneuver them into a single–file arrangement were being frustrated by the powerful contractions of the ewe’s body. Delilah simply wasn’t strong enough to hold down the mother and manage the lambs by herself.

She was sobbing and swearing, and sweat was running down her face to mix with the tears of despair. When she heard her pickup groan and clatter to a stop, then the truck door slam, something shifted inside her.

"Luke," she whimpered, and then louder, "Luke!"

But the door to the house had already banged shut. He hadn’t heard her. She sobbed in desperation. "Luke, damn you, I need you. Please come."

And then, miraculously, the door slammed one more time, and his voice came, calling, "‘Lilah, are you out there? ‘Lilah?"

Summoning all her strength, she lifted her head from the ewe’s heaving flank and shouted. "Up here—by the plane. I…need… you!" Then she collapsed, breathing in gulps, and whispering, "Please hurry, please hurry…"

There was the thump of running footsteps, and the erratic zigzag of a flashlight’s beam, and then Luke was beside her in the night.

"Here," Delilah said, and folded his strong hand around 907’s foreleg. "Hold on tight." She began to explain in breathless gasps as she worked. "There’s two…at once. Can’t…push them…back. Got to…get this one…out of the way––There! I think…I think I can…get it now—"

In the next instant a very long, very slippery, and very limp black bundle was sprawling in the rough pasture stubble. Delilah began to work quickly and frantically, wiping away the mucous that was clogging breathing passages, massaging and slapping the limp body.

"Here," she croaked, pulling her sweat shirt off and rubbing the lamb’s head with it. "Take over. Never mind the mother, she’s not going anywhere now. I’ve got to get that backward lamb out of there before it drowns."

"Is this one—?"

"I don’t know. Don’t give up. Pick it up by the hind feet and swing it back and forth—hard, like you’re about to lob it over the fence, only don’t let go. Luke," she begged with a sob when he still hesitated, staring at her as if she’d lost her mind, "
please.
No questions. Just do it, please!"

In less than a minute she had the second lamb, and, after a quick wipe of its face and nose, was swinging it like a giant pendulum, letting gravity and centrifugal force work to clear and stimulate the infant lungs. After a moment she felt some tension in the hind legs, and lowered the lamb quickly to the ground. There was a raspy gurgle, a rattling indrawn breath, and then a wet slapping noise as the lamb shook its head, setting its long ears to flapping.

"This one’s gonna make it," she said in a low, tense voice. "How are you doing?"

There was silence. Delilah waited, swallowing a throatful of tears. Luke’s voice came from out of the darkness, filled with wonder. "It’s sucking my finger. I guess that means it’s all right, huh?"

"Yes." Delilah laughed softly, and then suddenly was crying and laughing at the same time. "We did it. I don’t believe it. We did it, Luke, we saved them, both of them."

Luke trained his flashlight on her. She was shaking, and her teeth were chattering. "Good lord, you’re freezing. Where’s your shirt?"

Delilah looked down at herself, belatedly realizing the only thing between her and the frosty night air was a blue satin chemise with champagne lace trim. "On the lambs," she said jerkily, hunching her shoulders and trying to shrink away from the light.

The light moved, becoming a stationary slash across the pasture stubble. She heard Luke swear, then heard the metallic rasp of a zipper. Warmth enveloped her—the intimate warmth of Luke’s body heat trapped in the fibers of his flight jacket. Still softly swearing, he pulled her back against his chest and tugged the edges of his jacket around to encompass them both.

Delilah protested, but the chattering of her teeth made it no more than an inarticulate whimper. "Hush," Luke whispered, and settled her more comfortably between his thighs. "What now?" he asked, wrapping his arms firmly across her chest.