Chapter 27
Relief and fear flooded Jasper’s every fiber the moment Savannah appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Relief she was there within his grasp. Fear watching her collapse to the hard earth with a thud like a rag doll dropped by a small child.
She’d been immediately surrounded by a dozen or more rodeo hands. Every single one had been sick with worry for the last few months since she’d vanished so soon after Mama Wedgefield’s mysterious death. Jasper hadn’t the heart to tell them possessed Savannah had killed her. It hadn’t really been her. It’d been her maniacal mother—the unstable, diabolical goddess, Manea. But how to explain deity possession to a group of roughneck cowboys… well, that eluded him.
They’d accused Jasper of abducting Savannah. Clearer heads had prevailed when the lead foreman of the crew voiced reason that Jasper had been just as terrified as the rest of them. And—he told Jasper later—even the blind could see how much Jasper loved Savannah. Now, the question of who or what killed Mama… well, they reckoned she’d succumbed to poor health issues. It wasn’t like the boss lady had taken care of her body all those years on the road.
He kneeled beside Savannah’s prone body, slipping his arm underneath to cradle her neck.
“Is she breathing? Oh, God! Is she breathing?” one of the cowboys repeated, his usual gruff voice bordered on shrill.
Leaning over, Jasper listened for any sound of life with his own heart hammering like a bongo drum in his chest. Warm breath tickled his newly grown beard. Jasper checked the pulse point in her neck. A strong, regular thrumming beat against his fingertips.
Tears brimmed in his eyes, blurring his vision until they broke free of their prison to flow freely down his cheeks. Every muscle in his body melted with relief all at once.
Savannah was here… in his arms… alive!
“She… she’s okay!” The words spilled from his trembling lips.
A chorus of shouts of “Amen” and “Hallelujah” broke out among the onlookers along with the rabble of questions that filled the air, questions Jasper knew he could never honestly answer.
“Call 9-1-1 though. Just to be safe!” someone in the back hollered.
That made excellent sense, but Jasper knew a medical doctor couldn’t heal what ailed her. She’d been possessed. Possibly still possessed. He wouldn’t know until she woke up. He glanced down at her rounded belly. They’d need to make sure the baby was well, too. The weight of that truth punched him in the chest hard.
He brushed Savannah’s hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. Her hair had been the shade of winter wheat blonde before the possession. Now jet-black roots sprouted and ran halfway to her earlobes. Manea’s hair was that color. Was this a sign she was still possessed?
“Wake up, my angel,” he whispered into her ear while sending up a prayer of gratitude for her return as well as a prayer she was healthy… and no longer sharing her body with a vengeful goddess. “Wake up.”
***
The ambulance arrived in record time to carry Savannah to a local hospital. Cody—a cowboy who’d been injured during Manea’s rampage when she’d unleashed all the animals from the rodeo and incited them to stampede—strongly encouraged Jasper to ride along in the ambulance. He’d check on them in a few hours but ordered him to call with any updates on her condition. Jasper understood Cody harbored a longtime crush on Savannah, but he’d accepted the feelings weren’t mutual. During Jasper’s brief time back with the rodeo waiting on news about Savannah and for Lucifer to keep up his end of their bargain, the two men had become good friends. Cody had also offered to handle the cops who squealed in behind the ambulance, their tires sending up plumes of red dust. Without ever having said anything to indicate he knew or suspected anything supernaturally having been involved in Savannah’s disappearance, the rodeo hand had displayed more understanding than Jasper would’ve believed in a human who had never experienced anything paranormal in their life.
Now, Jasper paced a tiny waiting room in the small town’s quaint community hospital, waiting for news from the doctor. He’d been told twice already they couldn’t give him any information due to something called HIPAA that he couldn’t care less about. If it took him having to bludgeon the doctor to near death for information on Savannah and his child… well, so be it.
Barry Manilow played over the spotty speaker system while Jasper wore a trail over a ten-by-ten-foot space of torn linoleum. The melody did nothing to soothe his frazzled nerves.
A door creaked open behind the reception desk and a gentleman in a white physician’s coat, cowboy boots, nearly bald head, with his back bowed outward stepped out to hobble over to him. Jasper was going to feel incredible guilt if he had to wallop this poor dude for information, but he’d do it.
Before the doctor could open his thin lips to speak, Jasper pounced with the questions. “How is she? What about the baby? Tell me something, man! She has to be okay!”
A crooked smile spread up the doctor’s face, highlighting all the crinkles around his kind eyes. “Mr. Moreau?”
“Yes, that’s me.” Jasper nodded. “I know the lady over there”—he pointed to the empty reception desk—“told me that she couldn’t tell me anything, but you have to tell me how Savannah is. You have to!”
Somewhere in the far recesses of his mind, Jasper realized the doctor wouldn’t be grinning if she’d died or was in bad shape, but fear of losing her paralyzed his reason.
“Yes, Mr. Moreau. That is the policy.”
Fury burned up Jasper’s throat. This fucking guy better tell me or else.
“But seeing as the patient is now awake…”
Not waiting around to hear the rest of the words, Jasper ran, catapulted over the desk, and crashed through the door leading to the examination area of the emergency room. “Savannah!”
A couple of startled nurses ceased their conversation behind a round desk in the center of the room bordered on both sides by curtained-off smaller triage rooms. Their eyes rounded with shock before sliding into appreciative stares and mouths hanging open. The older one—a slender man in his late fifties with a buzzcut and wire-rimmed glasses—tilted his head to the right a couple times. “Room Three.”
Wasting no time, Jasper sprinted to that room, threw back the curtain to find Savannah sitting up on the hospital bed with a wide, brilliant smile. “Hello, handsome!”
All that time pacing he’d imagined this moment. He’d run to her. Kiss her. Hold her forever. Now, his boots were rooted to the floor at the entrance to the small, tidy space with the odor of strong bleach invading his nostrils.
A hand clamped down on his shoulder. He swung around, ready to punch someone to find the doctor holding a chart and laughing. “Son, I ain’t never seen someone so fast. You got wings or something?”
Technically… no, but he was a guardian angel.
The doctor continued without waiting for an answer. “As I was trying to tell you out in the lobby, your young lady is fine. Not so much as a scratch or bruise. Her vitals are perfect. We ran some bloodwork that we’re waiting for the results, but as you can see… she’s right as rain.” He chuckled while slapping Jasper on the shoulder again. “The child, too. We were about to run an ultrasound, but there is every indication all is well on that front.”
Savannah was glowing. Her skin—paler than her usual golden tan from being outdoors all day, every day—radiated a beauty he’d never witnessed before. Her eyes were bright and seemed to be laughing at him. Her lips were upturned in a smile that rocked his world. She had been drop-dead gorgeous before, but now—carrying his child—Jasper swore nothing in the universe could rival her beauty.
“Will you get over here and kiss me already?” she laughed.
The doctor chimed in, “Son, I’d hightail it over there. It’s not nice to leave a pregnant lady waiting. With those hormones, she could turn on you in a split second.”
He had no clue just how truthful that statement was.
“Don’t mind if I do.” Jasper quipped, unable to tamp down the smile growing on his face. Savannah. His Savannah. His child.
How happy could a man be?
In his rush, he tripped over the cords hanging down to the floor from the monitors hooked up to Savannah, particularly from her belly to a machine incessantly scratching out lines jumping on the long green graph paper.
Savannah’s giggle sent electric bolts of delight rippling throughout his body. Oh, how he’d missed that. When he disentangled from the cords and stepped up to the bed, she reached up and pulled his face down to hers.
Their lips smashed together. No light chaste kiss, no sweet brushing together. Wild-hot need danced between them. Her lips parted and her tongue darted out to demand he open to her will, which he readily obliged. Sweet as honey… no, sweeter. That was how she tasted. Nectar of the gods lured him into her web. Their tongues cavorted in an erotic dance that had Jasper’s already snug jeans straining in the crotch for freedom.
“Ah hum.” The doctor’s gruff throat clearing splashed their fire with icy water.
Jasper pulled away first even though it physically hurt him to do so. Savannah groaned then slouched back against the pillows. “We’ll finish this later,” she whispered.
The doctor puttered around the room, gathering up latex gloves and fussing under his breath as he struggled to pull them over his gnarled hands. Jasper breathed deep to squash the pulsing need in his groin from that kiss. To distract himself, he checked out the name badge on the physician’s jacket—Albert Edison, MD.
“Dr. Edison—”
“No, please, you can call me Al.”
“Hey,” Savannah piped in, “you reminded me of that song… oh, you know.” She thumped Jasper on the arm. “What’s the song?”
“You Can Call Me Al.” He deadpanned, failing to stifle his own chuckle.
The doctor didn’t pay them any attention or seem to get the joke. He went about his business prepping the ultrasound machine, humming to himself.
“Doctor… I mean, Al,” Jasper tried again, “if everything is okay with Savannah and the baby, would she be able to go home tonight?”
Home being a rusted-out RV trailer on the outskirts of a dirt arena at the edge of town.
Jasper scolded himself for not being prepared when he did find her and bring her home. It was obvious they were going to need something bigger and cleaner. He hadn’t done a good job of keeping it tidy in her absence.
“That will depend on a few things… her bloodwork, how well the child is doing in utero. I’m inclined to keep her overnight for observation considering the circumstances.” He shuffled over to the machine rapidly printing out jagged lines. “Hmm.” While holding up the paper, he tapped a finger at the base of his jutted chin.
“What’s that mean?” That hmm made Jasper uneasy.
The doctor dropped the printout, then pulled up a swivel chair next to the hospital bed on the opposite side from Jasper without answering the question. He squirted blue gel onto what looked like the handheld scanner in the grocery store self-checkout line. “Now, let’s see this baby of yours.”
Jasper exchanged a nervous glance with Savannah. They both knew the baby was far from normal. For one thing, the baby was part guardian angel and part demigoddess. Being a guardian angel meant Jasper was divinely gifted but still had all the parts that made him appear and function as a human even if he hadn’t been human in over six hundred years. Savannah was born of a human mother and father but had been conceived during her mom’s possession by the goddess, Manea.
The baby could be one hundred percent normal or could be a freak. It was anyone’s guess what that particular mix of gene pools would produce.
He clasped Savannah’s hand intending to impart reassurance and courage when he didn’t feel either of those emotions. Her return squeeze did more to calm his nerves.
“It’s all going to be okay, I promise,” she whispered. She jumped a little when the scanner came in contact with her belly. “That’s cold!”
The doctor didn’t look up, just chuckled. “Always is. Guess I should’ve warned ya.”
“Yeah, guess you should have,” she muttered.
A wobbly noise resounded through the tiny room.
“There you are, little guy.” The doctor grinned. “That’s your baby’s heartbeat. Sounds healthy and strong to me.”
The edges of Jasper’s vision darkened. Every muscle in his body froze. He prayed he didn’t pass out with the sheer joy of hearing his child’s heart beating. It was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. Tears brimmed along his lower eyelids. A single tear trickled down his cheek. Glancing up, Savannah’s smile lit the world and tears coursed down her own lovely face. Her eyes never left the monitor next to the doctor that showed a blurry mass of… well, Jasper couldn’t tell what any of that was. There were shapes, then grayish clouds, then his eyes laser focused on a speck that appeared to be pounding in time to the sound of the baby’s heartbeat.
“There,” the doctor pointed at the screen. “There’s your little ray of sunshine.”
***
After hours at the hospital, more blood draws, and being pumped up with so much fluid from an IV, Savannah had decided she’d had enough. She checked herself out of the hospital, against the physician’s orders and Jasper’s pleas to stay until she was fully cleared. Her body was healthy. The baby was perfect for his eight months in vitro (where the hell had all that time gone?) without any prenatal care, just his heartbeat had been a little fast. Hell, so had hers whenever Jasper walked into a room.
The ultrasound hadn’t shown if the baby was a boy or girl, but she knew.
And there was no way, after all this time apart, she was going to stay squirreled up in a lonely hospital bed for the night with machines beeping and wires and tubes stuck in her. Besides, she’d been sleeping for months apparently. There was no need to waste more time.
She and Jasper would need to talk about a lot of things, like when did she become pregnant, how had months passed in a blink, and where the hell had he been all this time. But it could all wait. For tonight, she had other plans.
It was well past two in the morning when they’d escaped the confines of the hospital. Cody had pulled up in his dually truck just as she had stormed out the sliding glass doors determined to walk every step if necessary. He hadn’t asked any questions, other than whether she was okay, but his gaze fell to her belly often enough on the ride back. Oh, this was going to be a doozy to explain. He’d opened his mouth, the question on the tip of his tongue, but snapped his lips shut after Jasper growled at him.
The second the truck’s tires crossed into the parking lot that housed all the trucks, trailers, and equipment for the rodeo, her heart leaped with joy. She was home!
The last she’d known, she’d been in Anaconda, Montana, but this was not the same place. It was obvious the rodeo had moved on, so how had she ended up here… wherever here was?
Cody dropped them off at her rundown trailer. “I’ll share the news with the rest of the crew in the morning. You get your sleep, Savi. Glad to have you back home. Perhaps when you’re feeling better, we can get you all moved into your new home.” With a tip of his hat and a wink, he pulled away.
“My new what?” Confusion pressed at the front of her skull.
“Well,” Jasper grinned, “it seems you’ve come into a bit of wealth… not let’s vacation in Bora Bora six months out of the year, but not shabby. While we were both away, Cody and the boys sold off Mama’s wrecked trailer and bought you a sparkling new RV complete with a sunken tub for relaxing. They were confident you’d be back.”
Surprise stopped her feet in their tracks. “Why would they do that?”
A grin spread up Jasper’s beautiful face, even more tanned than before her mysterious disappearance. “They love you, Savi. In case you hadn’t noticed, you are their family.”
Her lips parted to ask another question, but the words were stuck in her throat.
Rather than dwell on those questions, Savannah had other ideas for the rest of the night. And it didn’t involve sleeping.