The Forest Ranger's Child. Leigh Bale

With jerky movements, he shifted the truck into gear and turned it around in the sagebrush. As he headed back to town, he sped all the way. The truck bounced over the rutted road like a flat basketball hitting pavement.

       Glancing at the woman, he noticed her chest moved with each shallow breath she took. She murmured several words, not making any sense. Her spiked eyelashes lay closed against smooth, ashen skin. Her long hair lay in sodden, dark strands around her shoulders. Even in this condition, he could tell she was beautiful. With her thin arms and legs, he couldn’t help wondering how she’d clung to that rock. How long had she been out there? He hoped she hadn’t suffered any trauma to her abdomen. How had she survived the ordeal?

       Within fifteen minutes, he pulled into the parking lot of the small clinic in town. He pressed on the horn long and hard to draw attention, then stumbled around the truck to open the door and get the woman out. His strength had recovered a bit and he picked her up, staggering to the sidewalk where Clara Richens met him with a wheelchair.

       “What happened?” the nurse asked.

       He set the unconscious woman in the chair. Her head rolled back, her hands resting lifelessly in her lap. She looked dead and a blaze of panic overwhelmed Nate. She just couldn’t die. Not on his watch.

       “She was caught in a flash flood in Emerald Valley.” Together, he helped Clara wheel the woman inside.

       “Do you know who she is?” Clara eyed his soggy clothes and bloodstained shirt.

       “No. I just found her and pulled her from the flood.” He stood back on wobbly legs.

       Clara looked at the woman’s face, her eyes filled with sympathy. And then her expression changed to stunned recognition. “Oh, my goodness. It’s Lily!”

       “What? You know her?” Nate asked.

       Without another word, Clara motioned to an orderly to come and help.

       As they whisked the woman away, Nate called after them. “She’s pregnant and worried about her baby.”

       Clara nodded. “I can see that. I’ll warn the doctor.”

       They disappeared behind the swinging double doors and Nate just stood there, adrenaline and fear pumping through his body. Clara must know the woman.

       Lily. A pretty flower, just like the woman he’d rescued.

       “Nate, you look awful. What happened?”

       Nathan turned to find Shelby Larson standing beside him. In this small town, almost everyone knew everyone else by name. Shelby was married to Matt, Nate’s ranger assistant. A pleasantly plump woman, she wore a white nurse’s smock on top of her street clothes.

       “Hi, Shelby. It’s been quite a day.” He chuckled and raked a hand through his damp hair before explaining the events that had led him to the clinic.

       She touched his arm. “Come with me so I can take a look at that wound on your side. Maybe we’ve got some dry clothes around here somewhere.”

       “It’s okay. I’ve got an extra change of clothes in my fire pack. I’ll get them and be right back.”

       “But your wound…”

       “It’s just a scratch. I’ll let you look at it in just a moment.”

       He left, going to retrieve the spruce-green Nomex pants and yellow fire-resistant shirt from his fire pack before returning and changing in the privacy of an examination room. He had two extra pairs of dry socks and pulled one pair on before shoving his feet back into his damp cowboy boots. If he didn’t wear the boots until they dried, they’d be ruined.

       Shelby cleaned the deep scratches on his side and bandaged them. No big deal. They’d heal up fine.

       Back outside in the reception room, Nate slumped on the sofa and borrowed Shelby’s cell phone to call his office at the ranger’s station. His cell phone had been ruined by water and his people should know what had happened and where he was.

       “You don’t know who the woman is?” Margaret, his office manager, asked.

       “Nope, but Clara Richens recognized her. Her car’s still out there, buried in the riverbed. She probably got caught in the flood when she tried to cross the stream. Can you make some phone calls to each of the ranchers in Emerald Valley? Warn them to use the Bailey bridges or stay put. I don’t want anyone else trying to cross a flooding stream until it stops raining up in the mountains.”

       “Will do.”

       “And Margaret? Ask Matt if he’d mind driving out and checking the status of the flood. Tell him not to cross it or do anything that might get him hurt, but see if the flood has passed yet.”

       “You got it. You take care and check in with us later, okay?”

       Nate hung up the cell phone, his body feeling wilted, his mind full of activity. What if the woman lost her baby? What if she died after all? Somehow he felt responsible for her. His heart went out to her and her child. He should call her husband, but had no idea who that might be. Her ID was probably still in her car.

       He stood and approached the front counter. “Any news yet?”

       Shelby shook her head. “I’m sorry. The doctor’s still with her.”

       An hour later, Nate had laid his head back against the sofa in the waiting room to rest. Dr. Kenner came down the hall, a stethoscope dangling around his thick neck. Nate breathed a sigh of relief and stood. Finally some news.

       “Hi, Nate.” The doctor smiled, his bald head and ruddy cheeks flushed with color.

       “How is she?”

       “She’ll be fine. She’s resting now. A very lucky young woman. What you did was heroic.”

       Nate ignored that remark. He didn’t feel heroic. He just felt worried. “And her baby?”

       “The baby seems fine. Strong heartbeat, vigorous movement. Lily’s almost six months along, but she didn’t receive any trauma to her abdomen, just her head. She took eight stitches in her scalp, but that’ll heal soon enough.”

       “Lily is her name?” The delicate flower of the resurrection.

       “Yeah, Lily Hansen. Hank Hansen’s girl. I was there when her momma died after being bucked off one of those wild mustangs she loved to ride. She trained horses for the rodeo. Quite rare for a woman.”

       She sounded like Nate’s kind of gal.

       “I didn’t know Hank had any kids.”

       “Just Lily.”

       A twinge of sympathy pinched Nate’s heart. Hank owned Emerald Ranch and was one of the grazing permittees on the national forest. Hank kept to himself for the most part, but he and Nate had become friends. Both men had ridden the national rodeo circuit at one time. Even so, Hank was one of the most irascible men Nate had ever met. If he’d lost his wife in a horse-related accident, Nate could understand why. The man also seemed to be having some financial troubles of late. “Last I heard, Hank was ailing. Heart attack or something.”

       The doctor didn’t respond and Nate figured the man knew the details but was maintaining patient confidentiality.

       “It’s probably good that his daughter has come home to take care of him,” Nate said.

       “Yeah, she grew up here in Jasper, but she left right after high school. After her mom died, she and her dad didn’t get along too well. I’ve just called Hank to let him know she’s here. He’s driving into town as soon as he can.”

       Nate frowned, hoping the rancher didn’t try to pass the stream while it was still flooding. Hank should use the high Bailey bridge the Army Corp of Engineers had constructed across the river a couple of weeks ago.

       They chatted for several more minutes, mostly with Nate asking questions