“Am I too close?” Mike asked.

“No. Yes. Let’s just say I’m not used to this much, uh, male company.”

“So don’t think of me as male company. Think of me as a computer tutor.”

“That will take some doing,” Lori muttered. He hadn’t moved any farther away, and it was all she could do to think, period.

“Where was I?” He leaned even closer to her, and she could feel the warmth of him along her back as he studied the screen with her.

His voice rumbled in her ear. “I think it was your interest. I mean, interest in figures. No, I mean the interest figures. On the spreadsheet.” He leaned his forehead down to her shoulder. It felt so good to have him there, leaning on her. “Am I making much sense?”

“Not much. But I don’t mind.…”

LYNN BULOCK

lives near St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband, two sons, a dog and a cat. She has been telling stories since she could talk and writing them down since fourth grade. She is the author of nine contemporary romance novels.

Looking for Miracles
Lynn Bulock

www.millsandboon.co.uk

I can do all things in Christ who gives me strength.

—Philippians 4:13

To Joe, always

and

To CJB, who never ceases to amaze me.

Dear Reader,

Friedens, Missouri, is not a real place. At least, you won’t find it on any map. I’ve gotten quite familiar with it in the course of the past six months, though. So familiar that I didn’t want to leave it behind as I have most of my fictional places. Friedens (which is German for “peace,” in honor of the German settlers like my ancestors who built most of the towns in eastern Missouri) is a combination of a dozen of my favorite real Missouri towns. They’re those places that still have a county courthouse, a real town square and a solid brick-and-stone library.

The town square has turned into antique shops and craft stores and restaurants to keep the town café company. And I had Friedens reflect this. Maybe knowing so much about all those places made me reluctant to leave the town behind.

In any case, Steeple Hill has been kind enough to let me stay on in Friedens. Look for Carrie’s story, and those of her two older sisters, all set in my favorite town.

I love hearing from readers, especially those who share my love of small towns that make the heartland of America what it is. You can contact me at: P.O. Box 514, St. Peters, Missouri 63376.

Yours in Christ,

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Lori Harper needed a miracle. It didn’t have to be a big, showy miracle. Not like the time she and Tyler were down to peanut butter, crackers and half a bag of flour in the whole house and Tyler had reached his hand between the couch cushions and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat.

She pushed her shoulder-length blond hair out of her face and shifted her unwieldy body on the edge of the bed. It didn’t even have to be a medium-size miracle. There had been plenty of those in her life, and she was thankful for them. Of course there were times when even miracles didn’t help, or she wouldn’t be in the fix she was in.

She still didn’t understand why Gary had to go and run the car off the road last August or why he didn’t get out before the car sunk in the lake. There had been no miracles that day, unless it was the kind crew from the county fire-and-rescue team that had broken the horrible news.

The young woman, especially, had been wonderful. Carrie had helped Lori face all the awful arrangements. She’d even bullied Gary’s boss, Clyde Hughes, into giving them a replacement car, even though Gary had no insurance, and no paycheck coming except from the week he died. Carrie had stood her ground and argued toe-to-toe with the prominent businessman in a way that Lori couldn’t imagine doing.

That was a minor miracle, even though Gary hadn’t left any others in his wake. He did the best he could as a father and husband until the day he died. Lori wished he could have lived long enough to be here today. Even more, Lori wished she’d told Carrie about this baby. She hadn’t been showing noticeably in August, and didn’t feel like seeming even more pathetic than she did already in this awful place with only her son Tyler for company.

Lori arched her back. The only thing moving did was remind her that her swollen belly dwarfed the rest of her slender body. It didn’t ease her discomfort. Still, she considered herself fortunate. Even if it was out here with no neighbors, at least they had a roof over their heads, and it was warm and dry and there weren’t any crawly things in it, like that one apartment in Kansas City.

A sharp wave of pain across her belly brought Lori back to the present. Yes, this time a little miracle would do just fine. Like the time the lady from the next farm over, where they had a telephone, stopped by the way she did that once before Gary told her to leave them alone. Right now she’d even take Gary’s old boss coming out to ask his aggravating, enigmatic questions.

“Anybody,” Lori said aloud through dry lips. “Anybody at all would be a miracle.” And she needed that miracle soon. Because this time Lori Harper had to admit something to herself. Unlike the time with the peanut butter, when she and Tyler would have been hungry and uncomfortable, she was in real trouble now.

This time it looked as though she was going to give birth in a trailer with no phone, miles from anyone except her five-year-old son. It hadn’t been an easy pregnancy, and if she was reading the signs right, she had maybe an hour until the baby arrived. This time, Lori admitted, if she didn’t get her miracle she could very well die.

“I hate my job.” Mike Martin didn’t answer his friend Carrie Collins because he knew she wasn’t talking to him. She was talking to Dogg, who took up most of the bench seat of the pickup between them. The big black-and-tan shepherd thumped his tail and moaned softly at the attention from Carrie. “I hate my job, I hate my life, I hate…”

“Aw, knock it off, Carrie,” Mike told her. “You don’t hate your job. You’re one of the best fire-and-rescue officers in the county, maybe even in the state of Missouri. You only hate the fact that it’s winter, it’s cold and you’ve got to go out in the middle of nowhere and remind some woman she’s a widow.”

“Like it’s going to surprise her, I’ll bet,” Carrie said glumly, still holding Dogg’s massive tawny head in her hands. “But still, why do I have to do this?”

“Because it’s your job,” Mike reminded her, looking over at the slim redhead. “And despite saying you hate it, you’re very good at it. Besides, you took the original call on this one. And you insisted that Ms. Harper be the one that the department took up their collection for. And let’s add the fact that the captain knew that being a woman, you’d give this part of the job the right kind of sympathy.” What Mike didn’t add was that nobody else wanted to touch the assignment with a ten-foot pole, so naturally it fell to the junior member of the team.

That part was unspoken but agreed. “You gonna help out?” Carrie asked him.

Mike snorted. He might be built like a brick wall, but he was more intelligent than one. “Lady, this is your job. I just drive the truck, remember?”

“Drive the truck, dive for things in the pond, do search and rescue with Mister Big here—the whole nine yards,” Carrie said. “You should be doing my job, you know.”

Mike felt a column of ice replace his spine. He looked straight ahead to where the wipers scraped snow off the windshield. His dark hair was still damp from his shower, and the cold made him shiver. At least he would say it was the cold, and not the thought of doing Carrie’s job. “Never in a million years. You do your job, I’ll do mine. I can handle driving, diving and spending most of my time waiting between volunteer calls back at the real-estate office. But regular patrol work? No, ma’am. Not in this lifetime.”

“Suit yourself. I still say you’d be good at it. How about being backup anyway out here?” Carrie wheedled. “I mean, since my partner deserted me and everything…”

“Bart didn’t desert you. He was listening for the dispatcher.”

“Yeah, well, only because he’d rather spend the morning waiting for a call that might not come than do what I’m doing.” Carrie wore the ghost of a pout on her snub-nosed face.

“Oh, get real,” Mike told her. “Anybody would rather do that than go out to a spot ten miles from anyplace and tell some girl her Christmas is going to come from the fire department because she’s the most pathetic case they had all year.”

Anybody sane, Mike added silently. He’d long ago counted himself among the other part of the population because he would have given his well-muscled right arm to be able to do what the woman sitting next to him did. But like he told her, it wasn’t going to happen in this lifetime. This was the closest he was going to get to her kind of work, with good reason. There was enough trouble in his past to convince Mike he wasn’t capable of the kind of strength this took.

“You’ve got a point,” Carrie admitted. “And you still haven’t answered my question. Are you going to be my backup here?”

Even in the cold Mike could feel himself break out in a sweat. “I hadn’t planned on it. I mean, you’ve got the training in this. I’m just a guy with a truck, the guy who’s dumb enough to drive you out here, remember?”

“All too well,” Carrie said. “You won’t even put on the red suit. Could we at least try the antlers on Dogg?”

“If you want to try antlers on Dogg, go ahead. I am not helping, unless he bites you. Can’t let the old EMT training go to waste,” Mike said, wondering why he’d even agreed to get out of the truck.

His part of this job had been done in August. He’d taken a johnboat across that pond to where Dogg unmistakably told them there was a body somewhere under the surface. He’d put on his wet suit and probed the murky water until they’d found the battered car that yielded Gary Harper’s body still behind the wheel. Facing his widow, even this many months later, was beyond him.

Granted, she might not be that brokenhearted to be a widow. Everybody in the department pegged Gary Harper for a small-time drug runner, out on parole this time for less than a year. The car had yielded evidence that he’d moved here to Franklin County to set up his old trade of running a meth lab. He probably hadn’t been any prize to live with.

A battered mailbox alerted Mike that the turnoff to the trailer was ahead. “Hold on to your hat. Things are about to get bumpier.”

“Like that’s possible.” Their heads nearly hit the ceiling of the big truck. Even Dogg gave a deep “woof” of discomfort when they settled back into the ruts of the nearly nonexistent lane to the house.

They jounced down the ruts for almost a half mile. At the end of the ruts was a single-wide mobile home in poor condition. There were lights on behind two of the windows. At least that was encouraging.

Looking at the mobile home, anger rose in Mike. He wondered how anybody, even a thug like Gary Harper, could let his family live out here. Couldn’t he have provided something better when he was alive? The aluminum siding of the trailer was gray and dented. Two cracked concrete blocks served as the only stoop at the front door. The whole place had such an air of neglect, Mike wondered if anyone would answer the door, even with the lights on.

Carrie got out of the truck cab and coaxed Dogg to stand up. The big German shepherd looked back at Mike with a questioning look. He didn’t shake off the fabric antlers, but he seemed to beg Mike to do it for him.

“Sorry, buddy. You let Carrie do that. Now go to the door with her.”

The dog leapt down with a resigned air and followed Carrie. Mike shut off the engine and got out to stretch his legs. Carrie went up to the door and knocked.

She stood, head cocked, for a long time. “There’s somebody in there. I can hear them,” she said, turning her head toward Mike.

“Kids?” Mike asked her. He hadn’t thought of that possibility. He breathed a silent prayer. Please, no kids. I can handle anything else, but no kids.

Carrie knocked again. “Franklin County Fire and Rescue. Please open the door,” she called loudly. Now things were getting serious.

“I can hear bumping and scraping inside. I wonder if…”

Before she had time to say anything else, the door swung slightly open. From where Mike stood, he could tell that it was blocked from opening all the way. Carrie looked back at him, her pale complexion paling even more. “C’mon, Mike. I need backup here.”

He was at the door in an instant, heart racing. Mike was hoping for some beefy accomplice of Harper’s, a big guy he could take out by brute strength. No such luck. Instead, a small boy with wispy blond hair stood in the doorway. He looked to be maybe five years old.

The child struggled with the chair that blocked the door. “Had to get it to unlock the chain. I can’t reach the chain by myself. But the chair’s heavy,” he said, panting, as he tried to push the chair away. “I’m Tyler. Are you here about Mama?” he asked, still struggling with the chair.

“Let me,” Mike said, picking it up with one hand and getting it out of the path of the door. “Can we come in?”

“Sure.” The little boy motioned them in. “Mama says you guys are her miracle. She says the baby’s coming. Are we going to get to ride in a police car?” His blue eyes sparkled with anticipation.

Carrie was already pushing her way down the narrow hall from the trailer’s main room to the bedrooms. “Something better, Tyler,” she said over her shoulder. “How do you like trucks?”

“Cool.” The boy grabbed Mike’s hand. “Come on and get Mama. She likes trucks, too.”

At the touch of the small boy’s hand, time telescoped for Mike. He went down on his knees next to him, looking at the boy. He saw so much.

There was more in this moment than a slender child in battered blue jeans and a sweatshirt. For Mike Martin there was a reliving of a very similar scene. In a scary instant he knew what was behind that boy’s wide blue eyes. Here the kid was, trying to get help for the most important person in his world, wanting reassurance that everything would be all right.

For this child it probably would be. Mike looked into his eyes. “We’ll go take care of your mom. It’s going to be okay, Tyler.” How he wished with all his heart that somebody had taken time to say those words years ago, when he’d been the boy in blue jeans.

Of course in his case, any such reassurances would have been a lie. Nothing anybody did that cold morning long ago could have made everything all right again in Mike’s world. For the child in front of him there was still a chance. So for this child, Mike had to fight his horror, his fear, and deal with the situation. He stood up.

“Take me to your mom. Ms. Collins doesn’t know much about babies.”

Tyler looked at him in disbelief. “She’s a girl, isn’t she? I thought they all knew about that stuff.”

Mike shook his head. “That girl knows more about cars than babies. I guess that’s why I’m here,” he told Tyler, only realizing the truth of it as he said it. He’d wondered all morning why he had agreed to drive Carrie out here instead of taking Dogg and going back home the way he should have. Now he knew. Just let me do all right, he said silently.

He looked down at the brave little kid leading him down the hall. It had to be all right, just for him. Mike took a deep breath and pushed through the doorway.

The man Tyler led into the room filled the doorway. Lori felt dwarfed by his presence. He looked calm, though, a lot calmer than Gary would have been in the same situation. “I’m so glad you’re here. It really is a miracle.”

“Not quite.” The red-haired woman in uniform looked at the man and telegraphed something to him silently. “But it looks like what we came for will have to wait.”

Lori laughed nervously. “Yes, it does. Do either of you have any training in catching babies?”

“Mike does. He used to be an EMT. I mean, I’ve had the basics, in theory, but I’ve never used it. Mike?”

The big man nodded, and crossed the small room. “Sure have. Where are we, Mrs. Harper?”

“Lori.” This was no time to be formal. “And I think we’re at the point where I hope you’re either driving an ambulance or you have a radio, Mike.”

The man’s smile was rueful. “Can’t say I can help you either way. But I do have a cellular phone in the truck. What do you say we call the county emergency guys on duty, who have the real ambulance and radio, and try to meet them on the closest main road? Do you think we have enough time for that?”

“I hope so.” Lori struggled to speak while she felt a contraction building. “With Tyler, things were pretty quick, once they started happening, and I expect it will be quick this time, too.”

“What does the doctor say?” The man’s large hands were gentle as he helped her off the bed and into a standing position. Lori wished she could avoid his question.

“Nothing. I haven’t seen one,” Lori admitted. His intake of breath was sharp, and an emotion that could have been fear or anger flashed through his dark eyes. “We moved out here before I knew I was, uh, in the family way, and then Gary had the car all day working in Friedens, and after August I never got around to finding somebody…” She trailed off. How could she tell a stranger that there was no money for a doctor? “Will we all fit in that truck outside? I won’t leave Tyler here.”

“There’s no way we’d leave him,” the woman in uniform said. “Not alone, anyway.” She looked at the man. “I was thinking maybe you and Mrs. Harper ought to go on, and the rest of us will stay here until somebody else can come out and get us.”

The man shook his head. “Won’t work. That dog wouldn’t take a command to stay at a strange place without me. How long has it been since you’ve ridden in the back of a pickup?”

When the woman started to splutter, Mike looked at Lori and winked. It was such a conspiratorial gesture that she had to smile through the wave of pain that threatened to fold her double. “There’s no other choice, Carrie. You and the dog can sit in the back. Me and Lori and Tyler’ll be up front. What do you bet we can make it to the main road in less time than EMS does from their end?”

Lori stifled a gasp as her protector guided her back through the trailer and helped her down from the front door to the hard ground. “Gently, Mike. Hit any bumps wrong and you’re going to have to use those EMT skills yourself, I’m afraid.”

He looked her in the face, all traces of teasing gone now. His dark eyes sparkled with a light that pierced Lori deeper than the pain of the contractions. “I’ll take care of you. Don’t worry.” And somehow, looking into those eyes, she knew he was telling the truth.

Chapter Two

This was the strangest trip to the hospital Lori had ever witnessed, much less been part of. The red-haired woman in uniform and the huge German shepherd—was he really wearing reindeer antlers?—were in the back of the truck. It was cold in the cab because Mike’s car phone handset was out the open back window, so Carrie could talk to the paramedics while Mike navigated the bumpy road.

Mike had apologized for having to put the phone plug in the cigarette lighter for power. “I never remember to charge the battery.”

“Lost the charger, probably,” she heard Carrie mutter from outside. Lori had to stop breathing so fast. If they hit one more bump, Tyler was going to get to meet his new brother or sister up close and personal. Tyler looked so small sitting next to her on the seat, bouncing up and down even though he was belted in.

“Isn’t this cool, Mama?” His eyes shone. From his perspective, it was probably cool. All of Tyler’s passions were involved here: uniformed police officers, big dogs, huge trucks and a man who actually paid attention to him. When she nodded to agree with him, a wave of nausea roared over her.

“Bad move, huh?” Mike looked over at her sharply. How could he drive and keep his eyes on the road yet still monitor how she was feeling?

“Bad move.” She held her head still. Things felt better that way. “How far are we from—”

“Meeting the ambulance crew? Tell us, Carrie.” Mike turned his head toward the open back window.

Carrie spoke into the phone, then leaned toward the open window. “Maybe five minutes. You going to be able to hang on?”

“Sure.” Lori gritted her teeth. She wasn’t sure, but she was going to have to be, for Tyler’s sake, for the baby’s sake, even for the sake of the large man driving the truck. He didn’t look ready to deliver a baby.

The next five minutes seemed more like five hours. Lori would have burst into tears of relief when the yellow ambulance pulled up to the truck, but she lacked the energy. Mike braked and vaulted out of his side of the truck. “Don’t you dare try to get out on your own,” he warned. “Hey, Kenny, Rosa, this lady’s about to have a baby. How about some real quick movement this way?”

Before Lori could say anything, she was on a stretcher pulled up to the cab of the truck. In moments, she was looking up at the ceiling of the moving ambulance while someone with cold, sure hands was assessing the situation.

“Hi, I’m Rosa.” The dark-haired woman smiled. “You’ve got a head nearly crowning here, but you probably knew that already. Mike said to tell you that they’d follow us there and meet us at the hospital. He said not to worry about Tyler.”

“I won’t. Right now I’ve got all I can worry about right here.”

It was there in the ambulance, holding Rosa’s hand, that Lori had to come to terms with what she’d known for months. Gary was really dead. She was really doing this on her own, and it wasn’t getting any easier.

When Lori thought about Gary, she couldn’t feel any pain. Just a sense of peace, something telling her that maybe the most troubled soul she’d ever known had finally found rest.

She wondered if he was watching them somehow, could see what was going on. There was no time to wonder. Another contraction engulfed her. The ceiling of the ambulance blurred. When they hit a rut on the road she stifled a yelp. “Go ahead and yell if it will make you feel any better.” Rosa was still right there with her. “Anything that will keep you from giving in to that urge to push right now would be welcome.”

Lori managed a weak smile. “I guess you would rather the doctors at the hospital delivered this baby.”

Rosa nodded. “I’ve caught a couple myself, but it’s always good to have help. It would be more comfortable for you in the long run, too.”

“Then I hope the hospital isn’t too much farther.” That ceiling was starting to blur again. This baby was going to be here soon, wherever they were.

“Am I a big brother yet?” Tyler asked, looking around the commotion of the emergency room.

“We’ll find out. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.” Carrie held his hand and craned her neck over the crowd. “You see anything?”

Mike’s vantage point was better, but he still had no indication of where Kenny and Rosa might have taken their precious cargo. “Nothing yet. Let’s ask at the desk.”

“Yeah, she just made it.” The triage nurse came around the counter and went down to Tyler’s height. “You have a very pretty baby sister. Of course she might look all red and squashy to you, but she looks pretty good to Mom right now. If you wait about twenty minutes more, we’ll get you back there to see her, once we clean them both up.”

Tyler’s brow wrinkled. “How’d they get dirty?”

The nurse laughed. “Well, they didn’t, exactly. But being born is pretty messy.” She looked at Carrie and Mike. “Maybe one of your friends can take you to look at the vending machines while we let your mom know you’re here.”

“Cool. Do they have candy bars?” Tyler looked around for the machines.

“They sure do. And really good chips.” Carrie led him to the small room off the hallway where the machines were. Naturally she’d take the easy part. Mike straightened up.

“Guess that means I’m going back with Mrs. Harper. You say she had a girl?”

The nurse nodded. “At least eight pounds. And she really is pretty. I wasn’t lying to her brother. Rough way to start out life, though.”

Lori looked beautiful but frail propped up in her hospital bed holding a very new baby. They were an oasis of calm in the emergency room. Only a curtain separated the bay that held mother and child from organized chaos on either side of them. Mike hadn’t looked in the other cubicles, but one seemed to be occupied by someone elderly and quite deaf, while the other seemed to hold a brace of wildcats, or maybe just an unhappy toddler and mother.

Lori looked up from the bundle in her arms. “Hi. You made it. Isn’t she something?” Her smile was touched with exhaustion. “I’m still figuring out what to call her. Gary was so sure this was going to be a boy. He said it would be Gary, Jr., this time. I can’t think of any way to make Gary into a girl’s name though.”

Mike shook his head. He had no idea what to say to this lady. “Nothing comes to mind right away. Carrie’s out getting Tyler a candy bar. The nurses wanted us to hold off bringing him back for a few minutes, give you some more rest time.”

Lori smiled again wanly. “Good. I have a feeling rest is going to be in very short supply in a little while. Once they figure out we’re both okay, we’ll probably go home. With no insurance, they won’t keep us long.”

“No insurance? Didn’t your husband leave you anything? What about Medicaid? Something?”

Lori’s eyes clouded. “He hadn’t been at his job that long. Gary’s boss said we wouldn’t be qualified for health insurance until he’d been there for a year anyway and even then not for a baby that was already on the way. Said it was one of those ‘preexisting conditions’ all the insurance companies talk about.”

Mike suspected that whatever Harper was doing in Friedens, Missouri, it hadn’t been the kind of job that came with a medical plan. Meth labs were a little short on benefits. Still, now wasn’t the time to bring any of that up. Lori Harper didn’t seem to know much about what her husband had really done for a living. There would be plenty of time to break the bad news to her later.

Right now it was time to admire the baby. That was easy to do. She was fairly red and squashy, but she looked a whole lot better than most newborns Mike had seen. At least this one had open eyes of that fuzzy indeterminate blue most newborns sported. And she had hair. Squiffs of blond fuzz poked up all over her head.

She was quiet, too. Mike expected her to be squalling, but the baby was making little noises, most of which sounded fairly content. As if to jinx him once he thought that, her small face screwed up, flushing and ready for a howl. “What’s the matter?”

Her mother smiled. “Nothing. She’s probably just tired and hungry. So if you don’t mind…” She looked at him pointedly. Mike could feel himself turning all kinds of colors once he realized what she was asking.

“I’ll be outside here if you need me for anything.” It was all he could choke out as he retreated.

The baby’s howling stopped almost as soon as he was on the other side of the curtain. Mike fought not to entertain any picture whatsoever of the scene that created the quiet. As he struggled with his thoughts he saw two young men dressed in scrubs rolling a gurney off the elevator and into the E.R.

They rolled it up to the nurses’ station, which was empty. Looking around, one of them spotted a very young woman rushing by. “We’re here to transfer Harper up to the maternity floor.”

He wasn’t very quiet, and his partner was even louder. “Yeah, I heard this one was related to that drug dealer we had in August. The one that took the methedrine plunge…”

The young nurse’s aide, or whatever she was, finally got the jerk quieted down. Mike steeled himself for what he would find behind the curtain. Maybe they’d been granted a little miracle and Lori would be so wound up in her beautiful new daughter that she hadn’t heard what went on.

He couldn’t imagine that was true. “Mike?” Her voice was choked and faint.

The baby was still nursing under a white cotton blanket. Lori’s shaking arms could barely hold her. “I wasn’t supposed to hear that, was I?”

“Hear what?” He could try to brazen it out for a little while.

“That bit about another Harper. A drug dealer. Again? But he told me he was going straight this time. That he was doing a real job for honest money.” Her lips tightened into a thin, white line. Her eyes were huge. “Is that why his boss was so strange? And there was nobody at the funeral?”

Mike came over to her side. He couldn’t watch her tremble alone anymore. He put one arm around her shaking one, supporting the baby. “I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell you.”

“Even out at the trailer, I could tell that. You and Carrie knew something you weren’t saying in front of Tyler. Does everybody else in Friedens know this for a fact?”

Mike told her softly, and as gently as possible, what he knew. “Talk around the department was that he was dealing. Maybe even manufacturing.”

Lori’s expression hardened. “So that drug-informant part of what he told me about being relocated… It wasn’t true, was it?”

“It might have been.” Mike didn’t want to lie to her, but keeping hope in a dead man didn’t feel much like a lie. The baby made a little sighing, gulping noise. “Do you want help shifting her around?”

“No, I can manage. I think you can let go now.” Lori looked down at his arm, stretched the length of hers. Mike was aware of how soft she was, how fine boned. Her elbow fit in his cupped hand with so much room left over. He let go and looked away.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry that he died, or sorry you had to be the one to tell me the truth about him?” Lori’s voice was sharp. Mike looked back into her face. “That wasn’t real nice, I know. But I also know that Gary wasn’t a real model citizen in the county. We didn’t exactly have a welcoming committee beating a path to our door when we moved in.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still sorry he’s gone. No matter what he did for a living. I mean, he was probably a good daddy, and now—”

“Don’t go there.” Lori’s voice was still sharp. “If I’m truthful with myself, he was an awful father. He never knew what to do with Tyler, and a new baby wouldn’t have made any difference. Finding out about her was probably what made him turn to the drug thing again. It seemed to be the only way he knew how to make money.”

Lori’s tough facade couldn’t last. Mike told himself that, and as he did, he watched her crumble. Her arms beneath the baby shook, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Lord, what am I going to do?”

Suddenly everything caught up with her and she lost what little color she had as silent tears coursed down her cheeks. Mike had no idea what to do besides sit there and pat her arm. He hoped that was okay, because it was the only thing he could do. So for a while they all sat quietly.

The baby nursed. Lori wept. Mike patted her arm. Both of the adults were conscious of the presence of the two young men with the gurney, just beyond the cloth divider. Even this little oasis of calm they had created wouldn’t last long. As the last of the calm there trickled away, Mike heard the echoes of Lori’s wail in his mind. What were they going to do? The thought of leaving this young woman alone to deal with whatever fate handed her was unthinkable.

Now the pittance the department had scraped together for Christmas wasn’t enough. For a brave young widow with a five-year-old, it might have been. But not now. Not with this baby, and Lori’s new knowledge of her desperate situation. The moment Tyler Harper had opened the door and let Mike into his home, he was hooked. And even for a problem this size, he intended to be part of the solution.

Chapter Three

It took Lori about an hour to get settled in her room on the maternity floor. Brisk nurses whisked her daughter away to be washed, weighed, measured and looked after. Once the baby was out of her arms, Lori sank back into the bed pillows. She was too exhausted and confused to think. Her body ached for a hot shower, but she knew what the nurses would say to that.

She should be making phone calls. But to who? How long would it be until someone told her she had to leave the hospital? “I asked for a miracle,” she reminded God out loud. Maybe this looked like a miracle on the other side of heaven, but it sure didn’t look like one from under a white cotton blanket in a hospital bed.

Lori let the crisp sheets and firm pillows envelop her. Okay, time to take stock. There were miracles here. She’d had the baby in the hospital, surrounded by doctors and nurses, instead of alone in the trailer or in the ambulance on the road. And her daughter was beautiful and healthy, as far as Lori could see.

So the immediate past was full of miracles. As for the near future, Lori wasn’t so sure. She felt very fragile just now. Where was her hope right now?

She let out a little laugh. Hope? That was all she could have right now, wasn’t it? There certainly wasn’t any money around. Or much solid that she could put her hands on. There was a rickety trailer whose rent was paid for maybe two more months. And a rattletrap heap of a car Gary’s former employer had been bullied into signing over the title on. Maybe that was her ticket out of this mess, at least for the time being.

Lori dreaded going back to that trailer in the middle of nowhere. It was bad enough when Gary had come home almost every night bringing groceries and bits of the outside world. The last few months had been awful. Now with a new baby, it would be horrible with no other adults, no phone…

A shudder ran through her body. Lori covered her face with her hands, fighting sobs. Was there any hope for the future? As if to answer, a woman walked through the door of the room, pushing a cart. In a plastic bassinet on the cart was the most beautiful baby Lori had ever seen. It was her baby. “Isn’t she gorgeous? What’s her name?”

“Mikayla Hope.” The words popped out before Lori could stop them. The little girl looked pleased with her name somehow. She knew that babies less than a day old didn’t smile. But this one seemed to if you looked just right. And nestled back in Lori’s arms with the help of the woman, who brought her into the room, she was a warm, welcome weight.

She smelled of mild soap, fresh cotton and some magical scent all her own. “Mikayla Hope,” Lori whispered in her ear. The velvet warmth of the baby’s face was overpowering. Here was her little miracle.

As if on cue Tyler burst into the room, followed by Carrie. “Hey, there’s our baby. And she’s not dirty at all,” he said, crowding up to the bed. “What’s her name, Mama?”

“This is Mikayla Hope. Come up and see her. Gently.” Tyler scrambled onto the bed. He reached out one hand and stroked the baby’s cheek.

“Hi, Mikayla. I’m Tyler. I’m your big brother.” His voice was soft. “She feels good.”

“I’ll bet she does.” Carrie pulled up the bedside chair. “Mikayla Hope, huh? Does a certain someone know about the Mikayla part?”

“Not yet. I just found out myself.” Carrie’s look was one of pure confusion, and Lori hastened to explain. “The nurse asked what her name was, and the words just came out. But it’s perfect. I can’t see her being anybody else, can you?”

Carrie peered over at the swaddled baby. “I don’t know. I think she looks like Mr. Peanut in that wrapping. Or I guess Ms. Peanut. What do you think, Tyler?”

“Ms. Peanut!” How could Carrie say that about her beautiful baby?

“Sure.” Carrie stifled a giggle, although the stifling wasn’t very successful. “Look at her, all wrapped in that blanket. She looks just like a little peanut. No arms, no legs, just a cute little face for one half and…”

“All right, have it your way.” Lori couldn’t help laughing with Carrie. Tyler got into the act, too, chortling while he put a finger into his sister’s fist.

“Look, Mama. She’s holding on already. Isn’t she smart?”

“Smarter than the rest of us. She’s going to sleep while she has the chance.” Lori looked over at Carrie. “You want to take her and put her in her bassinet?”

Sheer panic flashed across Carrie’s face. “Me? Take her all the way across the room?”

“I think you’re up to it.” Lori lifted her right elbow, lifting Mikayla’s head as well with her gesture. “She won’t break.”

Carrie swallowed hard. “If you say so. How do I settle her in that thing?”

“On her back. Just ease your arm out from under there when you get ready to put her down.”

Carrie spoke through gritted teeth. “Easy for you to say. I know she’s going to wake up when I put her down. Oh, see…” The baby startled a little, then went straight back to sleep. “Okay, maybe not. Maybe I can do this.” There was a note of incredulity in Carrie’s voice.

“Sure you can. Now come back here and tell me some stuff about what I do next. How much does Tyler know?”

The little boy looked up from where he was driving an imaginary car through the hills and valleys created by Lori’s legs under the blanket. “I know lots. What do you want me to know?”

Carrie shook her head. “About his sister, plenty. About the other situation, nothing. And nobody’s going to tell him anything, either. Do you have any idea why Mike and I went out there?”

“Not a clue.” Lori took a deep breath, trying to sort things out in her mind. “There wasn’t more trouble somehow, was there?”

“Just the opposite. The guys do something for Christmas every year, and well, your name came up. I guess Mike and me were the ones who got to…”

“Play Santa Claus.” So that was why the silly dog was wearing antlers, poor thing. “But I can’t take anything else. That would be worse than ever. Or will it be more paperwork for you if I turn this down?”

Carrie looked skyward. “Don’t even remind me. Sitting in this hospital room is far more pleasant and entertaining than starting my reports.”

“Well, don’t get too comfortable. I don’t expect to be here too long.” Lori told her about her situation—the lack of insurance and money needed to stay in the hospital. As she talked, Carrie looked more and more grim.

“That isn’t right. I bet there’s somebody I can talk to and get that straightened out. Maybe even Mike. I think his mom’s on the hospital board.”

Carrie was out of her chair quickly. She might not be confident of her baby-holding skills, but she showed great self-confidence in other areas. Lori wished she could think that fast on her feet.

“No, really, don’t do that.” Didn’t she owe Mike enough already? No sense in being beholden to him for one more thing she couldn’t pay back.

Carrie wasn’t listening. She was already out the door. Tyler pulled on Lori’s sleeve. “Mama? Do we have movies? I’m sleepy. Can we watch movies in bed together and take a nap?”

“I’ll find out.” Lori pushed the call button, preparing herself for the storm that would envelop her when the nurse found out she had a five-year-old for company in her hospital room with no one to take care of him. Maybe nearly giving birth in an ambulance would be the easiest part of her day after all.

“Okay, it’s all fixed…” Mike came into the room talking. He stopped once he crossed the threshold and noticed that nobody was listening to him. Lori and Tyler were both on the bed, cuddled together and asleep. A video played on the TV, sending bright, cheerful cartoon music into the room. A few feet from the bed the top of a swaddled bundle rose and fell in a hospital bassinet.

Mike walked over to look at the baby. She was so beautiful. He saw the card for her name had been filled out at the bottom of the bassinet. Mikayla Hope. Ouch. Why did Lori have to saddle such a beautiful baby with that first name? He wasn’t even sure he liked Michael after all these years. It still felt funny much of the time, as if it ought to be something else that was just beyond the tip of his tongue.

He’d talked about changing his name as a teenager, but his mom had protested. Every teenager hated their name. And everyone that changed it legally had regrets, according to her. Maybe she was right. When he thought about his high school classmates, almost all of them had reverted to their given names by their recent ten-year reunion. All but Sunshine Feathers. And he couldn’t blame her a bit.

There was noise behind him. Mike turned around to see Tyler slip off the bed. “Hey, Mike. That’s my baby sister. That’s Mikayla Hope.”

“I see.” Mike motioned to the name tag on the end of the bed. “Her name’s written right here.”

“Yeah? That says Mikayla Hope? Cool. Does it say anything about me?” Tyler looked at the card. “I don’t think so, ’cause I don’t see a big T anyplace.”

“You know your name starts with that big T. Pretty smart guy.” Mike ruffled the kid’s blond hair. It felt good under his hand, almost as good as Lori’s would feel. He pulled back his hand. Now why was he making that comparison? He had no right to put a hand in Lori Harper’s hair. He would never have that right. No sense in even thinking about it.

“Hey, you guys, don’t wake her up,” came a sleepy voice from the bed.

“Don’t worry. I know that much.” Mike crossed the room and sat in the bedside chair. Tyler launched himself onto Mike’s lap. “So how’s the patient?”

“Good, I think. I needed the sleep. What time is it?”

“A little after one. You hungry?”

Lori nodded. “Starved. I don’t know if I could really eat if there was food in front of me, but I’m starved. Does that make any sense?”

“It does, actually. I can remember times after a fire when I was so hungry, I couldn’t think straight. I also didn’t have the energy to lift a burger to my mouth once I stopped for one. And I imagine giving birth is a lot harder than putting out a fire.”

Lori laughed. “I don’t know about that. It is plenty of work. Is that what you do? Work for fire-and-rescue?”

“Only volunteer. Dogg and I are part of the search team when they need us. Mostly he chases goats and I help manage the family property rental business.”

“Oh.”

“I know. It doesn’t have nearly the excitement level as putting out fires. But that’s okay most of the time.”

Lori colored. “I didn’t mean to put down the family business…”

“Good, because I think it’s about to come in handy. I don’t think you’re going to have to go back to that trailer in the middle of nowhere.”

“I’m not? Why?” She sat up straighter. Great. She was going to argue with him.

“Because I’ve got a better idea, and I’m sure it will be okay with my mother. She’s the other half of the property business. When I tell her I found the right client for the property she’s most finicky about, she’ll thank me.”

“Not when you tell her the client can’t pay any rent.” Lori’s chin stuck out defiantly. “I can’t let you do this.”

“And I can’t let you go back to that place alone with no phone, a five-year-old and a day-old baby.” Mike tried to keep from shouting. Surely she would listen to reason.

“You can, and will, let me do anything I want. It’s not like you’re responsible for me or anything.”

“I feel like I am.” Why did she have to be so defensive? Why couldn’t she just thank him and be grateful? “Besides, this is property that adjoins our home. A lot of times we’ve rented it out to somebody who either farms a chunk of ground behind both places where my mom doesn’t run her goofy herd of Nubian goats, or who can come in and do some of the heavy cleaning and stuff.”

Lori brightened. “Well, I don’t know a thing about farming, but I sure can clean.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that. Not for a month or two anyway.”

Lori laughed at him. “A month or two! Do you really think giving birth is that strenuous?”

Mike felt himself blushing. “I don’t know. On TV and in the movies, the women always look so fragile, and lie in bed…”

“Not me, my friend. I’m too young to do that.”

“And too alone.”

Lori shook her head. “No, not alone. The Lord is always with me.”

Mike just barely controlled a snort of derision. “Some help He is. If it was up to the Lord you would have given birth in that trailer with Tyler for company.”

“Nah…” Tyler’s answer surprised him. Mike had forgotten the boy on his lap was probably paying attention to the conversation. “Remember what I told you? Mom said you were her miracle. That means God sent you, silly. He doesn’t leave us alone, right, Mom?”

Lori smiled. Mike kept the rest of his opinions to himself on the subject. All he knew is that if God had sent Lori Harper a miracle, He would have done a lot better than him. “Whatever. Can I really not convince you to move in to the house next door to ours?”

Lori’s smooth forehead wrinkled. “It’s tempting. I don’t really want to go back out to the middle of nowhere, especially now. And I could do that heavy cleaning you talked about, probably by next week.”

“Oh, no. We’re not going to go there for a while. Just having somebody in the house will make Mom feel better. She is sure somebody’s going to break in over there when it’s empty. Kids partying or something.”

“And a widow with two babies is so much better than kids partying.”

Tyler looked up. “I’m not a baby. An’ what’s a widow?”

Lori got paler and swallowed hard. “Oh, boy. Here comes the hard part. Ty, come up here on my bed, okay?”

“Okay.” He slid off Mike’s lap, taking his warmth with him. Mike didn’t know what to do next. Did he stay, to give Lori support? Or would it be better if he slipped out of the room to let her do this alone? He tried to convey his confusion without saying anything. Lori wasn’t watching. She was reaching out a hand to stroke her son’s blond hair.

“He looks so grown up after the baby. But not grown up enough for this.” There was a pain in the depth of her eyes that Mike could only imagine.

Is this what his mother’s face had looked like when she broke similar news to him? He hadn’t been much older than Tyler when his dad died.

“Mind if I stick around?” It took him a moment to force out the words. “I kind of have some experience here. From Tyler’s perspective.”

“How old were you?”

“Six.” It all came rushing back. At least Tyler wouldn’t have the guilt Mike had borne for years. At six he was sure he’d killed his own father. It had taken years more maturity than a first grader possessed to know that his father’s fatal heart attack hadn’t been Mike’s fault.

Tyler cocked his head. He was an astute little kid, and he knew something was going on. “Where’s Daddy? When we looked at that place where some of the new babies were, when Carrie was bringing me up here, there were some other kids looking. They were all looking with their dads.”

“That’s what we need to talk about.” Lori stroked his hair again. “Remember when Carrie came this summer? With the truck and the other guy?”

“Mr. Bart? Yeah. He was cool. He let me play with the siren.”

Lori swallowed hard. “That’s right. And remember they told us something about Daddy? Something I tried to tell you?” Mike could hear her voice shake.

“Right. That he wasn’t coming back. But last time he went away it was different. You said he wasn’t coming back for a long time, but then he did. Isn’t he coming back to see Mikayla?”

“No, Tyler, he isn’t. Not the way you mean it. Daddy had an accident on the way to work. His car went into a lake, and he couldn’t get out by himself.”

Tyler looked at him, and Mike felt his heart make an elevator ride to his shoes. “Did you help get him out? You and Carrie?”

Mike leaned forward. “No, Tyler, we didn’t. We got there too late to help him get out.”

“Daddy’s dead, Tyler.”

“Like Max?”

“A little like Max.” “A puppy,” Lori mouthed in Mike’s direction. “It will be like Max because Daddy won’t come home again. The part of him that made him walk and talk and be Daddy isn’t here anymore. Being dead means he went to heaven to be with Jesus.”

That wasn’t an assumption Mike would have made about Gary Harper, but Mike forgave Lori for the fib. After all, this was Harper’s kid.

“Do you think Max bited him when he got there?”

“No, I think they’re friends. In heaven nobody remembers the bad things you did,” Lori said simply.

“So Daddy’s still in heaven with Max and Jesus? Can we call him on the phone there?”

“No, Tyler, we can’t.” Lori was fighting tears now.

Tyler looked puzzled. “Last time he went away, we could talk to him on the phone.”

“That’s true. But this time is different.”

This was raising a lot of questions. Mike felt an ache in his chest at what Lori was facing. “I think I’d better leave both of you alone for a while. Can I go talk to my mom about the house?”

Lori looked up from the bed. “I think you’d better. I’m going to need more help than I thought. Maybe you’re going to be the answer to a prayer twice in one day, Mike.”

The answer to a prayer? It was the first time he’d ever been called that. Mike wasn’t sure it fit. But looking at the glowing eyes of the young woman in the room, he was willing to be the answer to any of her prayers. He’d never been part of a miracle before. But for somebody like Lori, trying to explain the finality of death to a child too young to understand, he could try. She needed all the miracles she could get.

Chapter Four

Mike rehearsed his speech to his mother while he drove home. It earned him a few strange looks from Dogg, who sat in the cab of the truck with his head tilted sideways. True, he’d told Lori everything was worked out and Mom would be fine with her renting the house next door. Now he just had to make sure of that.

He pulled into the drive that circled the house. Parking the truck in his accustomed spot off to the side, where he could pull out any time night or day that a volunteer fire call sounded, he held the door open until Dogg leapt down. He still looked mightily relieved to be rid of those antlers.

“Wipe your feet,” he told the beast as they both entered the kitchen. Dogg looked as tired as he did, except the animal’s tongue was hanging out farther. Still, he didn’t have to worry about the dog’s manners; Mike swore Dogg was better about neatness indoors than he was.

The kitchen smelled wonderful. There had to be either veal stew or beef Stroganoff in that pot on the stove for Christmas Eve dinner to make his nose twitch like this. My mother loves me was his first thought. She showed it in a variety of ways, but as a savvy woman, Gloria Martin knew how to get to her son through his stomach.

“Hey,” Mike called through the house, knowing where he’d find her anyway, even on Christmas Eve.

“Hey, yourself.” Gloria was in stocking feet, black pantsuit made festive by an enameled pin in the shape of a holly sprig. As she stood up from the desk in her office, Mike marveled that this tiny woman had borne a big brute like him, and put up with him for all these years.

“I was beginning to think we had to call out the search party. Except you usually are the search party, so that didn’t leave me with many options.” Her red lipstick was unsmudged even this late in the day. Her lacquered nails were the same glossy red. She looked the picture of the successful middle-aged woman.

Mike shrugged. “Well, we had plenty to do. Remember that water rescue we did in August? The department decided his widow should be our Santa Claus case this year. When we went to tell her, we nearly delivered a baby that was a surprise to everybody involved except the mother.”

Gloria’s hand flew to her mouth. “So what will that woman do? Are there other children? And didn’t you tell me that man was a drug dealer? Obviously there’s no insurance or anything…”

Mike knew his job would be far easier now. “There’s another kid, a little boy about five. He and his mom and his new sister are all as well as can be expected. And as far as what they’re going to do now, I think I solved that, as well.”

Gloria’s eyes narrowed. “You rented them the house in back, didn’t you, Michael? Or knowing you, the use of the house has been promised, but this woman has no hope of paying rent.”

“Got it in one, Mom. She does promise to do the heavy cleaning. In fact if it was up to her, I think Lori would be doing the heavy cleaning before the first of the year.”

Gloria’s artfully tinted brown curls bounced as she shook her head. “Not that soon. I’m glad you did it, Mike. It will be good to have children around. Especially since I seem destined to be without grandchildren until I am too old and feeble to hold them.”

Mike scowled. “Okay, it’s Christmas Eve. We are not going to get into that tonight. You going to open your present before supper or after?”

“After.” Gloria laughed. “It’s not even dark yet. I don’t open presents before dark on Christmas Eve. And you need a shower before dinner anyway. Go wash up and come back presentable.”

“Okay, but no decorating Dogg while I’m gone. He’s had enough of that today.”

“Not even one plaid bow?”

Mike sighed. “If he’ll let you put it on, you can do that. And of course you can brush him. But no jingle bells or pine roping or anything.”

His mother gave a very unladylike snort behind him. “Pine roping. Who does he think I am?” Even though he was headed out of the room, Mike already knew that Dogg’s big head was in her small hands. They both loved the attention. “You’d eat pine roping. And mistletoe is poisonous, so we can’t have you wearing that, either. Let’s go find that plaid ribbon, the one with the gold edges, shall we?” Mike heard the sound of Dogg’s nails ticking down the hardwood hallway as they both went their separate ways to prepare for Christmas Eve.

An hour later they were all in the dining portion of the big country kitchen. Mike tried to disguise his exhaustion with aftershave and a bright red sweater. It might work, depending on how close Mom was paying attention.

There were candles everywhere there was flat space in the kitchen. It did seem kind of quiet, just two people and one dog, even if he took up more floor space than one of the people. Maybe his mom was right about the lack of grandchildren. A few rug rats would definitely spice up the holidays. Of course he’d have to meet the right woman first. One that would pass muster with his mother, as well as being able to put up with all his foibles. And it wouldn’t hurt if she were soft and small and easy on the eyes, too. That would take another couple of decades at least.

As a special treat, Dogg got a little veal stew on top of his kibble. He inhaled his food and stretched out on the rug with a sigh. Mike ate in silence for a while, then pushed back from his place. “I’m probably going back to the hospital tomorrow to get Lori. She and the baby are both healthy, and I expect they’ll be ready to discharge her by noon. She doesn’t have much in the way of insurance and there’s nobody she can stay with.”

“She’ll need people around. Don’t take her straight to that empty house. Bring her here and I’ll stretch out Christmas dinner.”

Jumping up from the table and hugging his mom felt like a good idea right now. But that would not be Gloria’s idea of good dinner decorum. Better to stay seated. “Great. I can’t thank you enough for being understanding about this. I know I don’t usually bring fire-and-rescue home with me, but this time something was different.”

“I’m glad you’re reacting this way. I can honestly say I’ve been where this young woman is, and it’s not a pretty place to be.” Gloria looked down at her plate. As usual she’d stirred around a small portion of dinner, hardly seeming to eat.

“At least you had money to fall back on. I don’t think there’s any there.” Mike looked at his mother. Did he dare ask a question he’d wondered about for years? Hey, it was Christmas. Why not? “And you just had me. Did you ever regret that I was an only child?”

Gloria’s smile was crooked. “All the time. Except maybe that year your dad died. Then I was thankful I didn’t have any littler ones to deal with. You were a little old man by then, so serious. I couldn’t imagine having a baby or a toddler in that situation.”

“Well, try a five-year-old, a baby, one junker car that I could see out there in the middle of nowhere and only the possessions that fill a very small mobile home that ceased to be mobile during the Nixon administration.”

Gloria actually grimaced. “Definitely bring her here. I wonder if there was any Christmas for the little boy.”

“No idea. I pretty much doubt it.” Sitting there contemplating the Harpers’ Christmas made his head hurt. “Could we have coffee and some of those Christmas cookies I know are on that tray on the countertop? I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck all of a sudden.”

Gloria got up briskly and cleared the plates before Mike could move. Putting them next to the sink, she flipped the switch on the coffeepot, which hummed to life. “I had it all set up. I figured the day would catch up to you sooner or later.” She walked over to him at the table and massaged his shoulders. Her hands were so fine boned. “Think you’ll still be awake when the carolers come?”

“Only if they make it in the next half hour. Otherwise I’m joining Dogg under the tree so we can look up at the pretty blinking lights.”

Gloria looked at the bubbling pot. “I should have brewed more coffee.” Even as tired as he was, Mike had to laugh. His mother was ever the hostess. Even with just the two of them there on Christmas Eve.

“Hey, for your sake I’ll try to stay awake until at least nine. And then we’ll open gifts. Can Dogg unwrap his this year?”

Gloria made a face. “Only if you feel like vacuuming before you go to bed.” His mother loved him. But she was definitely still the mother he’d grown up with. Somehow that gave Mike more comfort than if she would have said yes to his goofy request.

“C’mon, Dogg, let’s go plug in those tree lights.” The big beast’s ears perked up and he padded behind Mike into the living room, where they could both take an after-dinner nap.

Gloria liked her bracelet. Of course, she would have professed to like anything Mike gave her if he’d picked it out himself. But Mike could tell once she’d seen the delicate serpentine gold chain with its Victorian slide charms that she approved. It went on immediately with several exclamations.

Dogg helped unwrap his present after all. He could smell the basted rawhide bones through the package, and nosed his way into Mike’s lap to help with the paper. “Take that into the kitchen,” Gloria cautioned him. Mike didn’t bother answering because he knew she was speaking directly to the dog. And he listened, too. One prized bone in his mouth, it never touched the carpet in his trek to the right spot on the woven rag rug in front of the sink.

“Aren’t you going to open yours?”

“Sure.” Mike eyed the box. “Bet I can guess what it is anyway.”

Gloria shook her head. “I bet you can’t.”

It was on the tip of Mike’s tongue to describe in detail the baseball jacket he expected. Surely it was there in red splendor, complete with the number 25 of his favorite St. Louis Cardinals player.

But something held him back. That was his fantasy. His mom was not likely to know that’s what he’d been looking at in store windows, nor believe the kind of money to be spent on such foolishness, at least in her eyes. One look back at Dogg decked out in gold-edged plaid told Mike he was going to be vastly disappointed if he expected that jacket.

So while he unfastened the neatly taped edges of the paper, he rearranged his expectations. It was easier than asking to exchange a present from Gloria. When he opened the bulky box, there was a jacket inside. A beautiful salt-and-pepper herringbone tweed in soft wool. He didn’t even have to look inside to know that it was the 46 long he wore. “All right.” He held up the garment, trying to inject as much enthusiasm as he could into the statement. “This is some jacket.”

“You’d been hinting about needing a new one. If it doesn’t fit, you’ll have to go into St. Louis to exchange it, because nobody around here had anything nearly good enough.”

They wouldn’t, not for Gloria. “Thanks, Mom.” Mike got up and went to her chair, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “I’m sure it will fit, though.” It would also hang in his closet about twenty-nine days out of thirty until he was escorting his mother to some business-related function, but he wouldn’t bring that up.

“I think I’ll call it a night. Guess I’m going to miss those carolers after all.”

“You do look tired. Merry Christmas, dear.”

“Merry Christmas.” It sounded hollow somehow. And once he was in his room stretched out on his bed, sleep wasn’t quick in coming. He was exhausted. How could he not sleep? Easy. All he had to do was take his imagination across town to the hospital. Up to the third floor to where he knew a young woman was probably staring at a ceiling with the same intensity he was.

After half an hour Mike surrendered. He picked up the cordless phone on the bedside table and punched in the numbers of the hospital. The switchboard was long closed and he got the long series of recorded instructions. While he listened to them drone on, he cast about frantically in his memory for Lori’s room number.

Finally at the point where the recorded message was repeating itself and he was sure he didn’t remember the number, it popped into his head and he punched it in. One ring, then two. What if it wasn’t the right number? He had this vision of waking up somebody that had finally taken his or her sleeping pill and drifted off.

“Hello?” That was Lori’s voice, wasn’t it?

“Lori?”

“Yes.” She sounded puzzled. But then, Mike reasoned, the woman had no family around here, and precious few friends. It was probably kind of odd to get a call in the middle of the night in the hospital, on Christmas.

“It’s Mike. Mike Martin. I couldn’t sleep, and I wondered how things were going. I woke you up, didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t. We’ve got Tyler on this cool fold-out recliner thing, and he’s sound asleep. Mikayla is in her bassinet, and she’s asleep too. She’s fun to watch sleep, Mike. I’d forgotten what kind of squinchy little noises newborns make. They squeak.”

There was a touch of laughter in her voice. Mike marveled at it. How could somebody go through everything Lori had, and still be able to laugh about squeaky babies?

“Now that I’m talking to you, I have no idea why I called.” It felt better admitting it. “I’ll let you get to sleep like your kids.”

“No, I’m glad you called. I was lying here doing the craziest thing. You’ll think I’m even stranger than you do already, but I was connecting the dots on the ceiling tile.”

“What do yours make? Our house has this textured ceiling paint, and in my bedroom there’s a rabbit. Or a llama or something.”

“Lucky you. Best I’ve come up with is an amoeba.”

“That’s one ugly ceiling.” And one strange conversation. But somehow it was comforting. “So do you think they’ll still let you out before noon?”

“Looks like it. Everybody’s healthy, and the nurses have been so sweet about keeping Tyler here. Not that there’s much of an alternative, unless we talk about temporary foster care. And nobody wanted to do that to us at Christmas, thank heavens.”

“And you’ll let us bring you here?”

Lori sighed. “I will. I hate to take charity from total strangers, but watching Mikayla sleep has been the last straw. I can’t go back out to the country, with no phone, a car that only starts when it wants to and this tiny baby. But I am going to be doing that housecleaning by next week.”

“Next year. That could be after next week.” Or it could be in a couple months, like spring, when Mike might feel more ready to let this pixie of a woman clean anything in his mother’s house.

“We’ll see.” She was quite a determined pixie. There was a pause for a moment. “I did think of one thing we need tomorrow. Do you have access to a car seat?”

Now that had him stumped. It took a minute for the reality of this to sink in. He was bringing home a real, live newborn baby. On Christmas Day. “I’ll call Carrie. I’m pretty sure fire-and-rescue loans them out to parents who don’t have one, so that nobody goes home from the hospital without. Besides, she’ll love getting a call about six in the morning on Christmas Day.”

“You hound. Wait until at least eight or nine when she’s up. I think single people sleep in past daylight on holidays.”

“Maybe. I still think I’d have more fun my way.”

“For about ten minutes. Then she’d be figuring out ways to murder you, wouldn’t she?”

Mike had to laugh. “Yeah, she would. Even Carrie isn’t a good enough friend that she’d let me get away with that. Hey, I had one other question. What’s the Santa situation for a certain young man asleep in your room?”

“Not real great, I’m afraid.” There was sadness in her voice. “I haven’t exactly had the time or the money to go out and get much. Especially with him tagging along. He’d figure things out pretty quickly if toys that showed up in a shopping cart he was sitting in came from Santa.”

“True. There’s a lot to this kid business that I have to learn.” Mike’s own statement stopped him cold. He didn’t know anything about kids, except what he remembered from being one. And that was pretty sketchy. But how he wanted to learn, for Lori’s sake, and maybe for his own.

This was getting way too deep with somebody he’d only met this morning. Lori must have thought so, too, because she hadn’t said anything for a while. “Hey, I’ll let you go. Want me to call in the morning before I come by to get you?”

“Please. Tell the rabbit good-night for me.”

Huh? Oh, yeah. The rabbit on the ceiling. “Will do. And you tuck in that amoeba.” Mike hung up. This was way, way too deep already. And he knew things could only get deeper. Why wasn’t that bothering him?

Chapter Five

Carrie found a car seat. And two stuffed animals from the ambulance supply that they gave to transported kids. And a bright shiny red fire truck that Mike suspected came from somebody’s private stock, meant for a son or nephew. Fire and rescue folks were generous that way.

Tyler had no problem believing that Santa made a drop-off at Carrie’s house when jolly old Saint Nick found out he wasn’t home. It made perfect sense to him that his toys would find him, no matter what.

The fire truck was an instant hit. Stuffed animals were okay, and got a few seconds of perusal before being put down. But Mike could see that the kid was probably going to sleep with that fire truck before he let go of it. That small thing meant a lot to him. Kids were so resilient.

He could see the thanks in Lori’s eyes. Of course she couldn’t say anything out loud without giving away the game. Carrie had also brought a fluffy pink receiving blanket and some amazingly tiny sleepers for Mikayla. “She looks like an elf.” Carrie settled a matching pointed hat on the sleeping baby. “Doesn’t she, Mike?”

She actually looked like a red, squashy baby to him, but he suspected admitting that would be trouble. Silence was probably the best route here. He smiled, hoping to look sincere. “Can I carry anything down to the truck?”

“Not much to carry.” Lori looked around the room. She had her hospital supplies, issued on admission, and a bag that must have contained yesterday’s outfit. It was then Mike realized that what he’d taken for a relatively attractive matching shirt and pants were hospital scrubs lent to her by a nurse. Even a day after giving birth she managed to make the outfit look like tailored separates.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “We were so busy getting stuff for Tyler and the baby. I didn’t think about you.”

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