Night Angel

Janna reached over and touched the tiny cheek of the infant she held. Once more she wondered how she had come to be in charge of the child. Sammy was only weeks old. A young woman had shoved a backpack in her lap and fled just before the plane doors were locked. At first Janna thought the woman had simply gone to the rest room, so she laid the backpack on the floor and settled into her seat. After take-off Janna realized the woman was missing.

“I’ll just turn it in when we land” she told herself. After the plane leveled off Janna was startled by soft chittering noises, and then she realized something in the backpack was moving. Janna considered herself pretty level-headed and decided to investigate, the noises were not threatening.

Gently she lifted the bag onto the empty seat next to her, she looked around, most of the other passengers were settled in to sleep, after all this was a red eye to Texas. Janna was anxious to get home to her ranch, hoping that her sister was keeping things together. Though the ranch was small, it still required her full attention, and the storm that had rolled in yesterday had damaged some of the fences, Jana was afraid some of her herd would wander.

Rayford, her neighbor would try to claim them if any of her colts or fillies made it onto his land. He was so green with jealousy he couldn’t see straight. Janna’s grandfather had left his best stallion and several mares he had bought recently to Janna and her sister Stacey. Rayford had tried to get Grandpa Pete to let his mares in with the great black stallion, but grandpa had simply laughed and said the offspring would never be worth it, Rayford didn’t have the quality needed to do his stallion justice.

Pushing back some stray caramel-colored curls that had come loose, Janna unzipped the first pocket in the back pack. She was stunned to see several small bottles of some kind of liquid. Her long slender fingers trembled sightly as she fumbled with the zipper of the main pouch. As she peeled it back, Janna had to slap a hand over her own mouth, and looked around desperately, the tiny face that peered back at her nearly put Janna in shock. His tiny eyes were pale blue and had dark lashes, he seemed content and small bubbles appeared on his pink lips as he cooed again.

The liquid made sense now. A flight attendant leaned over and whispered, “That is an odd way to carry a baby.” Janna frowned at her and then waved her off. If they check on things, they would know she had not boarded with an infant. In fact, this child was much too young to be on a plane.

Janna wondered now if the young woman had randomly selected her to give the baby to or if she knew that Janna was an officer, a detective in fact. Janna was returning from delivering a prisoner to Montana.

Janna found herself instantly attached to the child. Not sure what to think her instincts kicked in and she searched the other pockets on the backpack. She found several pacifiers, some extra diapers and wipes, a change of clothes and a note scrawled in pencil.

“Take care of Sammy please, do not let his daddy’s brother find him,” was all it said. Janna gently removed the swaddled baby from his little bed and cradled him in her arms. He almost instantly went to sleep but Janna could not put him down. He somehow felt a part of her.

Looking out the window, Janna realized the storm had not passed yet and they were soon going to hit some turbulence. She leaned back and searched her mind for an image of the young woman. Slight of build, dark, brown hair, shoulder length, sweatshirt, green with a logo, ah, Primrose. ‘Hmm that sounds familiar.’ She thought.

The plane began to bounce, "seat belts on" the voice droned over the speaker. “We are experiencing some rough turbulence, likely to last for another twenty minutes, please remain seated.” Real sharp that one Janna thought.

Suddenly the plane lurched and dipped to the right as lightening cracked seemingly inside the hull of the plane. Janna took a deep breath as the plane continued to bump and list down and to the right. “This is not good.” Janna told herself.