Hero In Cowboy Boots Ch. 1

Here is Chapter 1 of my story. I hope you like it.

Hero in Cowboy Boots

Chapter 1

 

Jayda Michaels squinted as she tried to keep her five-year old Ford Escort between the ditches. Visibility was down to about ten feet. Rain and dust blew across the road like a dusty blizzard. Rutted from past drivers who also took a wrong turn in this storm.  Not a house in sight for miles added to her tension and fear. She needed to get to the hospital. Now!  She was about ten miles north and west of Salina on a narrow dirt road with little to no shoulders.

 

Another contraction gripped her belly. Harder this time. She watched the clock until it passed. Six minutes apart now and more painful. Her body stiffened until the contraction ended and then gradually relaxed. She cursed the baby’s father, Brad Jenkins, for deserting her in her time of need. It wasn’t fair to her baby, and it certainly wasn’t fair to her.

 

Tears gathered at a memory. It had been on a Saturday night, at Brad’s favorite bar, Barney’s Bar and Grill. Brad had promised he would stand by her when he first learned of her pregnancy. Even though he really didn’t want children. He “wasn’t even ready for marriage, let alone the whole diapers and baby bottles type of thing.” But he said he would stay with her---then.

He had never been kind to her. Good looks and a warm bed at night did not make her happy. She wanted a marriage made in heaven, like her parents’ marriage enjoyed.

 

She was not a church member, even though she believed in God and that if she believed in God, she would be saved. She didn’t see any reason why she had to go spend an hour every week with a bunch of hypocrites who stared at her and her burgeoning body and whispered about her.

 

Her pregnancy had been uneventful, for the most part. Jayda stayed at home, just leaving the house for groceries and supplies. She helped support herself by selling products online. Her bills were low, except for the mortgage, and the house was well insulated. She had no animals to take care of, no crops that she had to tend to, They were handled on a cash rent basis and no obligations to anyone else.

Jayda preferred to stay at home alone. Life was easy there. It was private. She had inherited just enough money to make ends meet if she was careful with her spending habits and busied herself with her online sales.

 

Jayda didn’t see much of Brad anymore and that was ok with her. She was tired of his abuse and slovenly habits. She socialized on Facebook and Snapchat. Occasionally, she would drive into town to the bar.  Not to drink, but to sip on some iced tea and enjoy conversations with friends.

 

Sometimes she spied Brad at the bar. He’d glare at her, but normally he avoided her and she him. As she came close to term, he pointed at her and laughed at her belly. So humiliating, embarrassing!

 

Then one night, Brad, well on his way to a fallen-down drunken state, and ruder by the minute, became especially obnoxious. His disheveled brown hair needed shampoo. His bloodshot hazel eyes   blinked often, trying to focus on the people around him. His clothing looked like he had slept in them with dirt and food stains on the sleeves and knees.

“Jayda, you knew when we got together that I didn’t want kids, or even a long-term relationship! Did you plan this all along? Did you think you were going to trap me into marrying you? Well, you can just think again, sweetheart! Brad Jenkins wasn’t born no kind of fool! I’m not marrying you, and I don’t want your damned kid! I could just kill you now and never feel a bit of remorse! Now, get the heck out of here and leave me alone!” He slammed his beer glass on the bar for emphasis, sloshing beer all over the countertop and causing other customers to stare and comment on the scene just witnessed.

 

Jayda ran, sobbing with humiliation and anger from the bar to her little red Escort. She drove herself home to her family home of all her twenty-five years. She missed her parents so much! She needed their advice and support, and--- just someone to love her. She wondered how she would survive this pregnancy. Still six weeks to go before her due date!

 

She didn’t try to contact Brad. Too much pride to throw herself at the feet of someone who didn’t want her. And this baby didn’t deserve a deadbeat dad either. Brad stalked her during the first few months, then he seemed to drop off the face of the earth. A sigh of relief, for sure. Life began to level out.

 

So, when she first started contractions on a late August night, she stubbornly refused to consider calling for an ambulance to take her to the hospital right away. Jayda determined to wait until closer to delivery time. The most common thing to do when alone and starting labor is to demand your significant other drive you to the hospital once your labor has been well established. Thanks to Brad’s immaturity and selfishness, that was no longer an option.

With few or no friends in the area, no money, no insurance, not even a steady doctor, her options seemed limited. A self-pregnancy test confirmed her pregnancy months ago. She had read books at the library about pregnancy and childbirth. The whole thing terrified her. She didn’t believe in abortion and couldn’t afford one anyway.

So here she sat, driving in the middle of the night through the pouring rain to a hospital she’d never set foot in, to have her baby. Water dripped from her long brown hair. Her brown eyes shone with unshed tears.

 

She turned on the car radio to check the weather forecast. Tornado warnings were posted for the entire area until four a.m. Two a.m. now, the clock read. The visibility was terrible. She couldn’t see five feet in front of the car. Debris flew across the road as the winds swirled around her car. A loud roar filled the air around the car, so loud she could no longer hear the radio. She shut the radio off and glanced in the rearview mirror. Visibility nil. Her little car began to rock violently, and the pressure caused her breathing to struggle. Terrifying.

 

Another contraction almost bent her over double. She jerked as   the baby kicked violently. Her belly muscles felt like she could bounce a tennis ball on it. “Oh, Jayda! You do get yourself into some fine messes, don’t you? I wish Mama were with me! She’d know what to do! And Daddy could be driving me to the hospital instead of myself having to do everything! “

Her parents were gone. Jayda teared up again. A plane crash killed them both at the same time a year ago, returning home from a Mexican vacation. No survivors. Everything burned to ashes. Jayda grieved so extremely hard since then. When Brad tried to comfort her, they conceived this child. Now she not only was grieving from her parents’ passing, but the loss of Brad as her support system, and unless she could get to the hospital, she might lose her baby too.

As sole heir to the farm, Jayda should have been set for life. Unfortunately, the farm was struggling, and she was behind on the mortgage. No experience at farming, she tried to lease the acreage to a neighboring farmer. The cattle, hogs, and chickens sold last year to help pay for the taxes and utilities. Even with that money, she still wasn’t keeping up with the mortgage payments.

 

Thinking about all her bad situations, Jayda almost did not see about ten head of cattle standing in the middle of the muddy road. She screamed and swerved, sliding into the shallow ditch. The cattle swarmed around her car and put their wet noses on the windowpanes, obviously hoping she would feed them some hay.

 

Jayda sat for a moment, violently shaking with shock, and looked around her, trying to get a bead on where she was. She could see headlights piercing the rain and wind, traffic was getting heavier at a crossroads about two hundred yards ahead. Finally, she must be close to the interstate highway. Fat lot of good that did her, though. She knew she was stuck in this ditch and going to deliver this baby herself, right here in this dang car.

 

The rain began to lighten up now, and visibility improved to about one hundred yards. As she stared morosely out of the windshield, she observed headlights turned toward her from the interstate.

“Oh, God, please! Please let this be someone who can help me!” Jayda prayed.