Page 57 of She Autumn Be Mine

“We’re okay.” Jake’s voice reached me. Muffled. Alive. I found him face-down under the fan of the branch, pinned across both legs by wood thick as a body, and beneath him, in the cage he’d made of his arms and chest, he’d hovered above my screaming son, the furious, air-filling wail of a scared baby boy. “He’s okay. Hurry. Get him out from under me, I can’t—hold my weight off him much longer.”

I flattened into the wood chips and worked my boy out from under my husband’s body.

“Oh, baby, you’re alive.” I ran my hands over every inch of him, checking for a scratch, as he screamed into my neck.

Jake’s body gave out, and he flattened beneath the pile of branches. “I’m… okay… Call for… help.”

Only then did I peek at the rest.

Brantley Eaton lay six feet away where the heart of the branch had come down across his legs. What it had done to them, I couldn’t say, and couldn’t even tell if he was breathing. He wasn’t moving, at least.

I ran for my phone and made the calls. First to Harper because she could alert the sheriff and rescue. Then a voice mail to Cash. He couldn’t have gone too far. I prayed he’d come back to help me get Jake out. And finally a call to Dot. She and Mr. McCall arrived first, and worked hard to clear the debris from their son.

All at once the sheriff, deputies, and ambulances swarmed the Double M—and a helicopter flew overhead. It was over.

Katherine Dunn paid a personal visit to us in Jake’s room in the hospital. “Well. Termination of parental rights just became a formality. Brantley signed on the dotted line from his hospital bed upstairs. The good news is, that paves the way for you to adopt Stetson when you’re ready.”

“I’m ready. Draw up the papers immediately,” Jake instructed. We’d already discussed it two days ago. Jake was always Stetson’s dada and nothing would change that now.

Katherine added one more thing. “Mrs. Eaton is here, upstairs in Brantley’s room, throwing a fit. She’s demanding her son be transferred to a Sheridan medical center. Can you believe her nerve? The Sheriff is dealing with her and of course denying her. No way would he let that prisoner out of this state. She’d have to get him past five of the sheriff’s men if she tried.”

Denied. The word stuck with me. A mother denied seeing her son again. We almost both were.

Katherine left, and Jake grew sleepy. He’d be fine. His left leg was broken, back achey, but miraculously that was it.

Brantley broke both legs and it would be a long time before he walked again. He was likely to spend many years locked away, not only for kidnapping, but for stealing a mail car and a week’s worth of the county mail.

I made sure Jake was resting soundly, and slipped out of the room. Stetson was with Dot, so there was only one thing I worried about since Katherine left us earlier.

I searched the halls and asked every nurse I came across until at last I found Brantley’s room, heavily guarded as Katherine said. Through the window of the hallway into the room, I spotted the woman who would forever turn my blood cold.

“Please, officers, can I have a word with Marlene Eaton?” They tried telling me no, but she saw me, too.

Her icy stare shot through me. But she came to the door and stepped out about a foot.

Uneasy was hardly the right word for facing someone who basically had become my mortal enemy. What did I ever do to her other than exist, and grow up in a life less privileged than hers?

“What do you want?” Her steely gaze down her nose almost drove me away. But I inhaled and picked my chin up to say what I came to say.

“From one mother to another: I would never wish harm on a mother’s child. That pain is unbearable, and I’m sorry for you. But hear me. You sent Brantley here. What happened to him was an act of God—but it never would have happened if you weren’t so selfish. You decided I wasn’t worth it. You spent a year trying to take my son. In the end, you nearly lost yours. Was it worth it, Marlene? Can we move on now? You take good care of Brantley. Good luck.”

She gasped but if she planned to say anything, and she probably did, I walked away, head held as high as I could, while a lump collected in my throat. I didn’t need any reply from her.

I was done.

One of the officers who’d been standing apart from the others stopped me. “You’re a better woman than she’ll ever understand.”

About two hours later, while Jake dozed. My phone lit up with a message.

Two words, from an undisclosed number.

You win.

I stared at those two words until they blurred. She’d sent it, of that I was certain. What it took for her to send it must have cost her plenty.

A winner—hardly. Was this a game I didn’t know I played? Did either of us really win in the end?

I turned the phone face-down, and laid my head on my husband’s shoulder.