Rebecca Winters - The Count's Christmas Baby

“As time went on and no help came, we realized we were going to die. At that point we drew warmth and comfort from each other’s bodies.” She took a fortifying breath. “We made love. It happened so naturally, it was like a dream. Then I heard a shifting sound. The next thing I knew a piece of wood had pierced his forehead.”

A sob caught in her throat. “It knocked him unconscious and his warm blood spilled over both of us. I couldn’t get a pulse and knew he was gone. When I woke up in a clinic, the last thing I remembered was that he’d died in my arms.

“We’d been literally tossed together with the broken walls and furniture in the darkness of a catastrophic avalanche that hit the hotel. But for the time we were together, hanging on to life because we knew they were our last moments on this earth, I felt closer to him than to anyone I’ve ever known.

“When I look at my adorable Ric, I know I’m seeing his father. My only hope now is to raise him to measure up to the great man who gave him life. I know he was a great man because he was so selfless in the face of terror. He never once thought of himself, only of me. So now I hope that explanation answers your questions, Mr. Degenoli.”

She stared at the tall figure still standing there. His face had gone ashen. The birth certificate had fallen to the floor. How odd he’d left it there …

“If you still don’t believe me, then I don’t know what more I can say to convince you. Maybe now you’d answer a question for me. Was Alberto your uncle?”

“No,” he answered in a voice as deep as a cavern. “He was my father.”

“Chief Coretti introduced you as Alberto, but that really isn’t your name, is it? He did it to protect you. I can understand that.”

He moved closer to her. “Let me explain this another way. My father was christened Alberto Enrico Degenoli, and was called Alberto. I was also christened Alberto Enrico Degenoli, but I go by Enrico. However my immediate family calls me … Ric.”

As Sami stared at him, the world tilted.

“But you couldn’t be that Ric. I wasn’t able to waken him. He died in my arms—”

“No, Sami,” he countered in a husky voice. “I’m right here.”

She was so staggered to hear him use her nickname, she clutched the crib railing with both hands. A small cry escaped her lips. “You’re Ric?” She shook her head, causing her hair to swish against her pale cheeks. “I—I can’t believe this is happening. I—”

The room started to swim. The next thing Sami knew, she found herself on the bed with the man who’d made her pregnant leaning over her. He sat next to her with his hands on either side of her head. “Stay quiet for a minute. You’ve had another shock.”

He spoke to her in the compassionate voice she remembered—exactly the way he’d done in the avalanche. With her eyes closed, she could recall everything and was back there with him in spirit.

But the minute her eyelids fluttered open, she saw a stranger staring down at her. In her psyche Sami knew he was Ric. But she couldn’t credit that the striking, almost forbidding male who’d swept past her at the police station was the same Ric who’d once given her his passion and the will to live.

Sami’s hair spilled onto Ric’s fingers. If he closed his eyes, he could recall the same silky mane he’d played with in the darkness. The strands had been as fragrant as every part of her face and body. It was the same now, but at the time he’d had no idea its coloring resembled spun gossamer.

Still noticing her pallor, he got up from the bed to get her a cup of water. When he returned from the bathroom, she sat up. He handed it to her and she drank thirstily. “Thank you,” she whispered in a tremulous voice before lying back again like a spent flower.

Ric put the empty cup on the side table, then sank down next to her once more. “Our survival was a miracle,” he began.

“Yes. I’m still trying to deal with the fact that you didn’t die and are here where I can see you.”

She wasn’t the only one. “When we were trapped together, I would have sold my soul to know what you looked like,” he confessed emotionally. “Feeling you told me that you were a lovely woman, but I must admit that no dreams I’ve had of you could measure up to your living reality.”

Like someone shell-shocked, she lifted one of her hands to his face in wonder. She traced his features, bringing back memories he would never forget. “Ric—” Her fingers traveled over his lips. “Maybe I’m hallucinating again.”

He kissed the palm of her hand. “It was never an hallucination. We were mortal then and now.”

Tears trickled out of the corners of her eyes, eyes that were alive like the green of a tropical rain forest. “When I thought you were dead, I wanted to die. While you were still breathing, I could hold on. But after that beam hit you and I couldn’t get a response, it was the end of my world.”

Ric heard the same pain in her voice he’d carried around for months afterward. He studied her facial features, overlaying his memories of her through eyes that could see the throb at the base of her slender throat. Tears trembled on the ends of long dark lashes so unusual on a blonde.

She kept looking at him with incredulity. “I feel just like I did after the avalanche struck. Maybe I’m hallucinating and none of this is real, but it has to be real because I’m touching you and it’s your voice. You’re actual flesh and blood instead of the stuff of my dreams.”

“You were the flesh and blood I clung to while we were entombed,” he confessed. “You saved my sanity, too, Sami. Like you, I felt I was in this amazing dream. When we made love, I remember thinking that if it was a dream, I never wanted to wake up from that part of it. Everything about our experience had a surreal quality.”

Sami wiped the tears off her face. “I know. Until I found out I was pregnant, there were times when I thought I’d made it all up.” She stared at him. “What happened to you after you were rescued?”

He grasped her hand. “I was told that another few minutes and the medics wouldn’t have been able to revive me. I knew nothing until I woke up in a hospital in Genoa. I was in a coma for two days. When I came out of it, I was surrounded by my family. My first request of the doctor was to find out if you were one of the victims.

“He came back with the message that you must still be alive because there was no name of Sami or anything close to it on the list of fatalities. After hearing that news, I determined to go after you once I got better. After our family held funeral services for my father, then I started looking for you.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Why are you so surprised? What we’d shared together was something so unique, I’ll never forget. But when your name didn’t show up on any established tour-group lists in the area, I had to look further afield. I remembered you’d told me you were from Oakland, California. That’s all I had to go on. I put my people on it while we searched for you for several months.”

“Oh, Ric—” she cried softly before sliding off the other side of the bed to come around.

He got to his feet. “You were my first priority, but you weren’t listed in the Oakland phone directory. No flights leaving Austria for the States with your name. No planes arriving in Oakland or San Francisco had a name that could be traced to you. It was as if you’d disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“That’s because you didn’t know my real name,” she cried out in dismay. “I was nicknamed Sami because my father’s name was Samuel. After my parents died, my grandparents took over raising me and my sister, and my grandfather said I reminded him so much of his son he started calling me Sami, and it stuck.”