Praise for
HANNAH ALEXANDER’s
Hideaway Novels

DOUBLE BLIND

“Native American culture clashes with Christian principles in the freshly original plot.”

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews

GRAVE RISK

“The latest in Alexander’s Hideaway series is filled with mystery and intrigue. Readers familiar with the series will appreciate how the author keeps the characters fresh and appealing.”

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews

FAIR WARNING

“The plot is interesting and the resolution filled with action.”

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews

LAST RESORT

“The third novel in Alexander’s Hideaway romantic suspense series (after the Christy Award–winning Hideaway and Safe Haven ) is a gripping tale with sympathetic characters that will draw readers into its web. The kidnapped Clarissa’s inner dialogue may remind some of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones. ”

— Library Journal

SAFE HAVEN

“ Safe Haven has an excellent plot. I was hooked from the first page and felt like I was riding a roller coaster until the last. Ms. Alexander’s three protagonists kept my adrenaline racing. But Fawn stole the show—who could resist a sixteen-year-old running for her life? This writer is a crowd pleaser.”

— Rendezvous

HIDEAWAY

“Genuine humor and an interesting cast of characters keep the story perking along…and there are a few surprises…an enjoyable read.”

— Publishers Weekly

A Killing Frost
Hannah Alexander

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In loving memory of Don (Teddy) Keebaugh,

a hero in our hometown, whose spirit will live on

through the lives of all the students he inspired.

Acknowledgments

This is an exciting time as we leave Hideaway behind and begin a new series in a new town, new location, new characters. We have received nothing but encouragement from our editor, Joan Marlow Golan, and the talented people who work with her: Krista Stroever, Lee Quarfoot, Megan Lorius, Sarah McDaniel, Maureen Stead, Amy Jones and Diane Mosher. From editing the inside to covering the outside of our novels, we have received top-notch care and professionalism. What an amazing team!

Thanks to our agent, Karen Solem, for her constant challenge for us to dig more deeply.

Thanks to the friends who helped us brainstorm this book on a cold January morning: Colleen and Dave Coble, Nancy Moser, Judy Miller, Rene Gutteridge, Deborah Raney, Doris Elaine Fell, Dan and Steph Higgins (Stephanie Grace Whitson to her many adoring readers).

Thanks to Mom, Lorene Cook, for her constant love, prayers, encouragement and endless promotion for our books.

Thanks to Mother, Vera Overall, whose love for her son and pride in his accomplishments is never-ending.

Thanks to Tim Puchta, of Puchta Winery in Hermann, Missouri, who was a great help to us as we researched last year’s killing frost in wine country along the Missouri River. Any mistakes in this book are not his fault. He’s the expert. We’re simply enthusiasts.

As always, our deepest appreciation goes to God, who has placed the blessing of stories in our lives.

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

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter One

D oriann Streeter had never been kidnapped before, but if she’d ever tried to imagine what it might be like—which she hadn’t—she’d have been wrong. She would’ve expected to be brave, but right now she couldn’t stop shaking. If she weren’t trying so hard just to breathe, she’d be surprised that she’d never expected anything like this, because she had a good imagination.

Her hands shook as she clenched them in her lap.

What had she done wrong? Why was she stuck inside a stinking, rattly old pickup truck between two dirty people with black beneath their fingernails, who reeked so badly she thought she might puke?

And what if she did puke? It could happen.

She dared a glance at the dirty man’s pocket. It was where he’d stuck her cell phone when it rang. He’d grabbed it, turned it off, shoved it into his pocket with an ugly chuckle, nearly driving the truck into the ditch when he forgot to watch the road.

Some things just never occurred to a girl.

The call had to have been Mom checking up on her. Or Aunt Renee. Please, God, make them worry when I don’t answer. Please!

They knew she always answered her calls, even when she was up to something she knew they didn’t want her to be doing.

She gagged again at the smell that filled the hot cab of the pickup. She had a decision to make. Get sick in the truck and get killed, or ask for some fresh air and get killed.

“Could you open a window or something?” she asked finally, after working up her nerve to speak. She hated the way her voice shook. Not strong, the way she’d always thought she’d sound during a crisis, but scared, like a little kid. She hated that these two loser bullies scared her.

Neither of them said a word.

Doriann crossed her arms, holding them tightly against her stomach.

The windows stayed up.

This was not the time to throw a tantrum the way her cousin Ajay would do.

She dared a glance to her right at the skinny woman called Deb, who had teeth missing.

Maybe it was better that these two bullies didn’t listen to her. If they saw her as a threat, then she’d be tied up and thrown into the back of the truck. But since she was just a kid to them—as if an eleven-year-old who’d already graduated from her trainer bra and had a 153 IQ could possibly be considered just a kid—they figured they could handle her between the two of them.

Doriann’s face still stung from the slaps the woman had given her for screaming. Tears had dried on Doriann’s face. The farther the dirty man drove from Kansas City, the faster the tears had come for a while. She’d even been afraid to ask for a tissue, so she’d had to wipe her nose on the sleeve of her jacket.

Can’t panic. Don’t let them see how scared you are. Think of something else.

Deb’s teeth, maybe. Deb was a stupid name for a kidnapper. Deborah was a name from the Bible, a judge and prophetess in the Old Testament. Deborah was Mom’s hero, because she “held a position of honor in a world that honored only men.”

Good thing Judge Deborah was in heaven now. She didn’t need to know how her nickname was being besmirched down here in Missouri.

Besmirched? Yes, that was the word.

They passed a road sign on I-70, and Doriann felt her eyes go buggy. Could that be right? Hadn’t they just left Kansas City less than an hour ago? According to the sign, they were almost to Columbia. Halfway across Missouri. She knew this road well, because she traveled it with Mom and Dad whenever they went to River Dance to visit Grandpa and Grandma Mercer—which was never often enough for Doriann.

But if that sign was right, that meant they’d been on the road for two hours!

How could that be? During homeschool study hour, Aunt Renee always said that time crept by when a person was in a state of high stress, so if Doriann and her cousins would just relax and be quiet, they could complete their lessons in half the time, then go out and play.

This wasn’t right, because time was passing way too fast, and if Doriann was any more stressed, this stinky cloth seat would be drenched with her pee.

Maybe she was in the middle of a bad dream.

The road blurred, and Doriann blinked. She couldn’t cry again. The woman and the man called Clancy might enjoy it. They were the kind of people who probably liked to make kids cry. Clancy would laugh at Doriann’s tears, and Deb was probably waiting for a reason to slap her again.

And so, as they drove past the sign for Columbia, Doriann counted billboards and reworded them to make them rhyme, and added the mileage in her head, while taking slow, steady breaths until her vision cleared.

They’d just passed the exit to Columbia Regional Hospital, leaving the city behind, when the corroded old scanner in the truck’s open glove compartment hissed and spat, and then a tinny male voice said, “We have report of a…pft…pft…pft…male and female, possible hostage situation…pft…last seen two hours ago in the vicinity of Swope Park, possibly headed east on I-70…pft…pft…pedestrian reported seeing a child being forced into the pickup—”

“That would be me,” Doriann said, voice wobbling like a baby’s. “You should let me—”

Deb slapped a dirty hand over Doriann’s mouth. Hard. “Shut up!”

Doriann blinked to keep the tears from falling. She breathed slowly. Tried to stay calm. Not panic. Who’d have thought it would be so hard?

“…pft…FBI’s most wanted couple…at least six already dead…possible sighting at a convenience mart at exit…pft…could be en route toward St. Louis.”

“Six.” Clancy spat on the floor.

Doriann grimaced in spite of her fear. Eeww!

“People can’t even do their job right. The count’s at least nine. No, wait, that’s eleven.”

Deb took her hand from Doriann’s mouth and reached across her to smack the man on the side of the head. “Didn’t I tell you not to grab the brat?” Her voice sounded like the crackle of a campfire built with green cedar branches. “And I told you not to stop for gas along the interstate!”

Doriann nodded. That was right. Deb had told him. But Clancy seemed to be the kind of person who did exactly what he was told not to do.

“What was I supposed to do, let the truck run out of gas?”

“You could’ve taken an exit and found a place out of sight of cruising Feds, but, no, you had to park right out in plain sight, where anybody watching for us—”

“Everybody’s watching for us!” His voice clattered like a chain saw in the truck cab, making Doriann wish she could disappear into the seat cushion. “It doesn’t matter where we are, they’re after us!”

Doriann held her breath as Clancy’s fingers turned white on the steering wheel. She peered sideways at him, though trying to appear as if she wasn’t. His lips disappeared in a red streak, and his eyes narrowed to the point Doriann wondered if he could see the road. She knew that look. Her cousin Ajay looked the same way just before one of his screaming fits.

“I’m making you famous.” He spat the words at Deb as if he was shooting bullets.

“Being on the FBI’s Most Wanted list isn’t my idea of fame,” Deb snapped back.

He cut a look at her. Would he punch her in the stomach again? He’d already done it once, when they’d stopped for gas. Doriann braced herself.

He held his cold stare on Deb, as if his eyes controlled a razor blade. And then, one by one, slowly, his fingers returned to their dirty pink color as he relaxed his grip on the steering wheel. His lips regained their shape. He stuck out his jaw, took a deep breath, blew it out—the way Doriann did when her cousins were getting on her last nerve.

“Why didn’t somebody call the police on us sooner?” he asked, sounding almost normal. “We’re heroes, that’s why. Those idiots deserved to die, and people realize it,” he snapped, then muttered, “Bunch of rich thieves who make their living on the backs of the working class. Bloodsucking scum. That’s why this country’s in the state it’s in.”

Doriann stared at the dashboard. So this guy hated rich people.

“Think again!” Deb said. “The callers were probably scared. Or stupid. Or just found out about the search for us. But they called, all right?”

Clancy turned his attention to Doriann, and his eyes narrowed again, but not as if he was mad. It was as though he became a different person all of a sudden. Very weird. Very scary. Doriann couldn’t take a breath.

He patted her leg, leering at her as if she was a banana split with extra nuts and chocolate syrup. “This here’s our little protector. They can’t get to us without coming through her.”

Deb pounded a fist against the passenger door and spat out a stream of words that made Doriann’s eyes bulge, and started her breathing again.

Doriann was proud of her vocabulary, and always tried to use words properly. These didn’t sound like words she’d need to know, but the anger behind them scared her. They were crazy.

Jesus, help me, please! These people are killers, and I know I shouldn’t have lied about being sick and skipped out to the zoo today. Oh, yeah, and I know I shouldn’t have drank coffee after Mom and Dad told me I couldn’t have it. But I was so far ahead in my studies after this weekend, and I was so tired of Danae and Ajay and Coral and the baby all being so noisy at once, and now the coffee’s going right through me, just like Mom said it would…Oh, Jesus, please don’t let these people kill me, and don’t let me wet my pants.

“Got to get off this highway,” Deb snapped. “Now!” She reached in front of Doriann and grabbed the steering wheel.

Doriann wished she had a seat belt; there was no exit. The truck bounced off the road and nearly hit a tree and Doriann closed her eyes and focused on not screaming as her chest bounced against Deb’s arm.

Clancy was going to kill somebody for sure this time.

Doriann thought about home and Mom and Dad and the great work both her parents did at the hospital, and about how Jesus was always with her, and about how she loved her cousins even though they drove her crazy, and about her schoolwork, and the great future Aunt Renee said Doriann would have when she graduated high school early and—

Clancy jerked the wheel hard to the left. Deb’s head hit the window. Doriann screamed.

Chapter Two

O n Monday morning, when Dr. Jama Keith stepped from her ten-year-old Subaru Outback onto the gravel parking lot in front of the brand-new River Dance Clinic, a chorus of birdsong merged with the familiar splash and gurgle of multiple waterfalls. A serenade. Like old friends welcoming her home.

A wave of unexpected hope and longing struck her.

She fought the hope. This would be a temporary stop. An extended one, yes, but temporary. She had to keep that in mind.

Maybe memories would be short for the citizens of River Dance, her tiny, isolated childhood home. Maybe, at least, those memories would be gentle, smoothed over and worn down by time.

“Hey, Dr. Keith!” someone shouted to Jama from across the street.

She turned to see sixteen-year-old Kelly Claybaugh on her way to school. Jama waved and smiled, surprised that she recognized the kid after so many years. And that Kelly had recognized her. And called her “Doctor.” Very cool.

“How’s your great-grandpa?” Jama called to the pretty teenager.

“Still at the nursing home. He said you visit him every time you come to town.”

“I’ll be by to see him in a couple of days.”

“He’d love that!” Kelly said, and Jama guessed by the perky sound of her voice and the bounce in her step that the girl must be a cheerleader at River Dance High. Her great-grandfather, Ted Claybaugh, former teacher and football coach, must be proud.

Jama was an hour early. She needed time to adjust before putting on her professional face for the new director.

River Dance, population eight hundred and thirteen, was a picturesque town built into the hillside above the northern bank of the Missouri River. The location’s charm and beauty drew tourists in spite of the remoteness from more commercial river towns such as Washington and Hermann and the state capital, Jefferson City.

River Dance had inspired more than one calendar company to feature the quaint, restored homes, gift shops, waterfalls, gardens and vineyards. The new clinic was within sight of two rivers, if one could catch a view through the trees. The scent of pine needles wafted over Jama, along with the moist perfume of fresh water and rich, freshly tilled soil.

The whisper of the wind in the treetops harmonized with the mad waterfall rush of the rocky Show-Me River as it danced steeply downhill and into the mighty Missouri. The springlike gentleness of the air belied the weather forecast of a freeze tonight.

Someone honked from the street, and Jama waved instinctively before she recognized Mildred Lewis on her way downtown to her café. Best pies on the riverfront for fifty miles in either direction.

Jama’s new, thick-soled shoes crunched gravel as she strolled to the log building that had recently replaced Charla Dunlap’s sprawling old bed-and-breakfast. To Jama’s joy, the construction crew had managed to preserve five of the seven grape arbors that Charla had so lovingly tended on her property over the years. Grapevines were the lifeblood of this town.

The solid pine porch of the new River Dance Clinic echoed Jama’s footsteps as she strolled past the wooden rockers to one of the multipaned windows and peered inside. The waiting room was well furnished, with tasteful prints on the walls.

She hoped Mayor Eric Thompson had arranged for enough staff to support this place. She grinned to herself. Eric Thompson. Who’d have thought that wild rascal would someday be mayor?

The racket of a loud engine broke the tranquility of wind and water. Jama turned to see a faded blue pickup slide into the parking lot and lurch to a stop barely three feet from her Outback.

She’d have known that farm truck anywhere—she ought to, she’d learned to drive in it. And the brawny sixty-year-old rancher inside had been her teacher out on the dirt tracks that crisscrossed the vast Mercer Ranch.

“Monty?” Jama rushed down the wheelchair ramp at the side of the porch and approached the truck as Monty Mercer slowly opened the door to the sound of protesting metal.

Though Monty’s short beard had aged from black to salt-and-pepper over the years, the big, strapping rancher had barely a touch of silver at his temples. “How’s my favorite blonde?”

“Nervous.” She stepped into his arms and hugged his weathered neck.

He patted her back instead of giving her his usual, bone-cracking bear hug. “First-day jitters?”

“Just settling in.”

“This is what you’ve been preparing for all these years. Kinda scary, huh?”

“Kinda.” What an understatement.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “What’s up, kid?”

“Aren’t you still a city council member?”

He nodded.

“So you met Dr. Lawrence?”

“Can’t say that I did. She’s apparently a friend of the mayor’s, and he did most of the footwork on that one. Her credentials are in order, and she is well suited to the town’s seclusion. Eric said she’ll be driving back and forth from Hermann until a rental opens up in River Dance. You talked to her?”

Jama hesitated. “On the phone. Twice.” The woman had been curt to the point of rudeness, which boded ill for a comfortable working relationship.

Did Monty realize, knowing Jama so well, that she had already decided she would chafe under the leadership of Dr. Lawrence?

“You’ll be fine with her,” he said.

Yep, he’d realized it.

“Give it a chance.”

Jama glanced up at him. Okay, reading her so well, did he also know about her recent drama with his son? Had Tyrell said anything to him?

And did Monty understand her trepidation over returning to a place where everyone was aware of all her past sins?

Or at least most of them.

Monty kept a heavy arm over her shoulders as he turned to walk with her toward the building. “Got any keys to this place yet?”

“Nope. Dr. Lawrence is supposed to show up before nine, but I…thought I’d come early. This is the first time I’ve seen the building all completed and ready to go.”

Monty released her and sank slowly onto one of the wooden rockers on the front porch with a muffled groan.

She eyed him critically. “Been working too many hours again?”

“Something like that.”

“I know you’re a hunk in top form, but even you have your limits, and—”

“And I’m not getting any younger,” he muttered, without the dry humor that typically laced his tone. “The latest studies show that people who remain active throughout their lives will—”

“I know, I know, but I’m just saying—”

“We’d hoped you’d stay with us at the ranch last night, maybe even agree to lodge with us for a while. Do you know Fran hasn’t seen you in at least a month? And you haven’t returned her last two calls. She’s reminded me about that at least twice in the past twenty-four hours. She’s eager to see you.”

Jama sat in the other rocker and allowed the motion to help calm her as she listened to the sound of wood gently moving against wood. “Sorry. My housemates decided to throw a party for me last night, so I stayed in Columbia and drove here this morning.”

“And the calls?”

“Sorry about that, too. It’s been a hectic few days, settling my affairs at the hospital, trying to find someone to sublet my share of the house in Columbia, staying—”

“Staying away from Tyrell.” Monty gave Jama a look. “He’s at the ranch now, you know.”

Her rocking motion stopped. “He’s back in River Dance already?”

Monty rested his head against the pine rocker, closing his eyes to the early-morning sun. “He’s staying in the apartment over the garage. He’s ready to shove all kinds of new ranching ideas down my throat.”

“He told me a few weeks ago that you’d already purchased that new tractor he showed you.”

“I didn’t say I disagreed with his ideas.” Monty opened his eyes and fixed his attention on Jama again. “What’s going on with you two? Last we saw of him, we were sure he would pop the question.”

Jama studied the wooden floor of the porch, but she didn’t see wood grain; she was seeing Tyrell’s face, the light of love in his dark blue eyes. She heard his voice so clearly telling her that he wanted her in his life for as long as he lived. He’d asked her to marry him.

How could it all have gone so wrong? A dream she had nurtured for so many years finally coming true, and she’d been unable to embrace it.

And when she looked up at Tyrell’s father before her, she felt the throbbing ache inside.

“Is that why you came this morning?” she asked Monty. “To heal the breach?”

“At least you admit there’s a breach,” he said. “Tyrell won’t admit that much. All his mother and I know is that he’s changed. He’s not his usual, cheerful—” Monty grimaced, and his face whitened.

“Monty?”

He held a hand up and gave a brief shake of the head.

“Seriously, what’s up with you? Did you pull a muscle or something?”

“I’m not feeling the best, okay?” As he said the words, Jama spotted a streak of blood seeping through the blue sleeve of his chambray shirt.

She sprang from her chair and dropped to her knees beside him. “What happened?” She reached for his arm.

“Had a little accident with a ladder out behind the barn.”

“You fell from the ladder? And you didn’t tell me about it immediately?”

“It wasn’t at the top of my list.”

“I’m a doctor now, remember? We need to see to this.” Jama unbuttoned his sleeve.

“Think that director of yours will be here any time soon?”

Jama slid his sleeve up. “I’m not sure, but I’ll call and find out. Tell me exactly where you’re hurting. How did you land?”

“Think I might’ve busted a rib or two.” He grimaced again.

Jama saw a superficial cut on his wrist. The arm didn’t appear to be broken, but she would delay judgment about that until she had an X-ray. “Why didn’t you say something when you got here?”

“I wanted to meddle in your life while I had the chance, before you could pull out the doctor’s bag.”

“You can meddle as soon as we get you taken care of.”

“Promise?”

“Sure, whatever. First, I’ve got to get you inside. Sit tight.” She clipped her Bluetooth to her ear and punched in the new director’s number on her cell phone. She hadn’t bothered to incorporate the voice recognition for Dr. Lawrence’s name, because she had, without doubt, subconsciously hoped that somehow the director would just go away before the need arose to connect with her again. The woman was as cold as a well digger’s—

“How far did you fall?” Jama asked as she waited for Dr. Lawrence to answer the call.

Monty looked up at her, his face a frightening gray. The director picked up the call just as Monty slumped over, unconscious.

“Monty!”

Chapter Three

J ama felt for a pulse at Monty Mercer’s throat and watched the rise and fall of his chest. “Dr. Lawrence,” she said into her earpiece, “this is Dr. Jama Keith. I’ve arrived early at the clinic, and I have a patient on the front porch who just lost consciousness.”

“Call an ambulance.” The clipped voice of Dr. Ruth Lawrence had not grown warmer since the last time Jama had heard it. “We aren’t open for business.”

“I can take care of him if I can get him inside. We do have supplies, don’t we?” Jama gave what vitals she could. “Where can I get a key? And when is the staff due?”

“I’m at least thirty minutes out, and no one else is scheduled to be there. Either get a key from the mayor or get the patient to the closest facility. That would be Jefferson City or Fulton.”

“I know that,” Jama snapped.

“I highly advise transfer.” No emotion. Not irritation at Jama’s shortness. Not concern. Nothing.

“I’ll call the mayor for a key.” Jama clicked off, then spoke the mayor’s name into her Bluetooth. Why was no staff scheduled to arrive?

With one call, Jama discovered Eric Thompson was out of town for a meeting and wouldn’t be back until later in the morning. She dug her only credit card out of her purse, doubting she could jimmy the lock as easily as she had at the high-school gymnasium on her graduation night. If this failed, she’d break a window.

“Hang on, Monty. I’ll take care of you.” She placed another call as she knelt before the front door and slid the card between the door and the jamb.

A deep male voice sounded in her ear. “Jama? Are you at the clinic yet? What’s up?” Caller ID.

“Hi, Tyrell, where are you?” She was surprised by the relief she felt.

“Getting the Durango serviced down at Joe’s.”

Good. That was only a few blocks away. He could walk from there. Or run. “I need you to come to the clinic. Your dad’s been injured.”

“What happened?”

“He fell.”

“I’m on my way.”

She closed her eyes, allowing herself a few seconds of comfort…followed by regret.

By the time Jama had the clinic’s front door open—Mayor Eric Thompson was welcome to withhold the cost of the broken window from her first paycheck—a crowd of two men, a woman and two children had noticed the activity and now clamored to help. They moved Monty into the clinic and settled him on a bed in the first treatment room.

They continued to hover while Jama ran from room to room, looking through cabinets for supplies to stop the bleeding and assess the damage, slamming doors and tripping over equipment. Where was the EKG machine?

“What can we do, Dr. Keith?” Harold Kaiser, the local grocer, had known Jama since she was a toddler. Her new title sounded odd on his lips. “Just tell us and we’ll do it.”

“Sure thing,” said Carol Saffer, the town postmaster. “I had some first-aid training a couple of years ago.”

Jama grimaced. Sweethearts, both of them, but she needed somebody who really knew how to help. “Hey, guys, doesn’t Zelda Benedict still live across the street?”

“Sure does,” Harold said. He and Carol often competed over which of them knew more citizens of River Dance, and who knew them better. “She walks three miles on the Katy Trail every morning she doesn’t work, then smells up the neighborhood every night before bed when she sits on her front porch and smokes her cigar, if she doesn’t have a night shift.”

Some things never changed. “Would somebody run across the street to see if she’s back from her walk?” Jama asked. Though Zelda was retired from her job as an RN at the nursing home, she had recently told Jama she still did part-time nursing.

To Jama’s great relief, just as she found the EKG machine behind door number three in the largest treatment room, all the would-be helpers were scrambling out the clinic entrance to search for Zelda.

Monty’s eyes opened when Jama began to attach the leads from the machine to his chest. He looked around the room, grimaced and tried to sit up.

“Don’t you dare move.” She pressed him back. “I’ve got work to do, and you’re hindering me. You don’t want me to look bad my first day on the job, because I will make you pay.”

He studied her a moment, then relaxed as well as any man could relax when he’d been stripped half-naked and attached to wires by a woman who’d once been a child he’d helped raise. “Did I bleed all over that nice, clean front porch?”

“I wouldn’t know, but you can help pay for the window I broke to get you in here.”

His answering grin was more of a contortion of the face. “Did this on purpose, you know. Wanted to break you in right as soon as you arrived here.”

“So you’re saying you didn’t fall from the ladder, you jumped.”

“That’s got to be it. I’ve climbed plenty of ladders. Never fallen before.”

“So what happened this time? Did a rung break? Did the ground shift under the—” The lines on the EKG machine caught her attention.

“Monty, you said you thought you might have busted a rib or two.”

“Chest hurts.”

She swallowed and tried to keep her breathing even. “Did it hurt before you fell off the ladder?”

He paused. “I’m not sure, but it might have.”

“Think about it. This is important.”

“Why?”

“It’ll give me a better idea about the source of your pain.” She searched through the cabinets for IV supplies and fluids while she punched in the preprogrammed number on her cell phone for the airlift service for St. Mary’s Hospital in Jefferson City. She would need a blood thinner and other meds…“Where was that pain located?”

He pointed to the middle of his chest.

When the line connected, Jama requested a helicopter, explained the situation and location. The emergency personnel would have to land in the parking lot of the winery, the only large, paved surface in River Dance. The gravel on the clinic lot would spray in every direction if the chopper landed here. Jama needed help to make sure the winery lot was cleared. This early in the morning, it should be empty except for employee vehicles.

She disconnected and returned her attention to Monty. “I’ve checked you over, and can’t appreciate any obvious deformities. There was a lot of blood, but it was superficial. Since I don’t have an X-ray tech, I can’t get a film right now, but, Monty, your EKG shows classic ST elevation. I’m going to establish a large bore IV and—”

“English, Jama.” He was looking gray again.

“Sorry. It looks like you’re having a heart attack. I’ve called for an airlift, but—”

“Somebody need a seventy-six-year-old nurse?” came a screechy shout from the waiting room. Zelda Benedict.

Jama was flooded with relief. That voice, recalled from Jama’s past, brought to mind memories of strength and calm assurance. “In here,” Jama called. “Second room to the left. When’s the last time you established an IV in a patient?”

The tall, slender woman entering the room wore orange jogging shorts that matched her hair, dusty tennis shoes and a light green tank top that matched her eyes. She had a green jacket that matched her tank top, but it was tied by the sleeves around her waist. Zelda Benedict looked closer to fifty than seventy-six.

“I did one yesterday, that recent enough for you?” Zelda peered at the monitor, then clucked her tongue. “Large bore? Tell me where everything is.”

“I can’t. I just got here, myself. We aren’t exactly open for business.”

“You got that right. If you’re the one who broke that glass, the mayor’s gonna tear you a new one.”

“Tear a new one…” Monty mumbled. “That’s it, Jama. That’s how my chest felt.”

Zelda patted his hand. “We’ll get you feeling better. An aspirin, a little heparin, a little trip to the hospital, and you’ll be fixed—”

“Hold it,” Jama said. “Monty, what do you mean? You felt something tearing in your chest when you fell?”

“Felt that way. Something seemed to rip, but I didn’t think much of it—didn’t have time after the fall.”

“So you’re saying you felt this tearing pain in your chest before you fell?”

He nodded.

Jama closed her eyes. She’d heard of bad first days, but this was becoming a nightmare. “Zelda, find the sublingual nitro.”

“Where do I look?”

Jama turned, scanned the glass-doored cabinets and pointed to one. “Try there. And locate the heparin and aspirin, but don’t get them out yet.”

“Why not? If this is a heart—”

“Wait a minute, will you?” How could this be happening, today of all days? Was this punishment from God so many years after the original sins?

Jama checked Monty for neurological deficits and found a decided weakness in his left leg.

Zelda brought the nitro. “Here you go. Now, how about the—”

“Forget the heparin,” Jama said.

The nurse arched a finely drawn eyebrow that matched her hair. “An aspirin, at least?”

“Can’t risk the bleeding.”

“What bleeding?” The question was threaded with the steel of Nurse Zelda’s teacher voice, honed from her years of being nurse director of River Dance Nursing Care. “This arm isn’t bleeding enough to warrant withholding blood thinners.”

“Something about this doesn’t seem to be a simple MI,” Jama said.

“So what is it? We need a diagnosis before we can treat.”

Jama touched Monty’s arm. “The ripping in his chest could be a clue about what caused the MI.”

“Did you call Fran?” Monty asked, eyes closed. Under the harsh, bright lights, his pale, grayish skin and leathered wrinkles from years beneath the sun made him look suddenly aged.

“I called Tyrell. He’s on his way here.”

“Don’t let him bully you.” Monty’s words had begun to slur. “Tell him you’ll take good care of me.”

Jama met Zelda’s inquiring look, and all the years of training fled. She was just Jama Keith again, the girl who tagged after Zelda Benedict at the nursing home like a lost puppy, finding acceptance from the elderly patients she loved, even before she began receiving pay as an aide.

Who was Jama Keith now, standing here making life-and-death decisions for the man who had been her second father? How could she—

“Dr. Keith?” Zelda’s soft green eyes held only respect. “What are your instincts telling you?”

“Dissecting aortic aneurysm. A tear in the wall of the aorta—”

“What do you need for a positive diagnosis?”

“I need to see if he has mediastinal widening, and for that, I need a chest X-ray.”

“You’ve got no tech scheduled?”

Jama shook her head. “As I said, we’re not open yet.”

Zelda’s frown finally showed her age. “Well, folderol. I knew I should’ve taken that course at the university.”

“If we treat him for a classic MI with blood thinners of any kind, and this is a tear in the aorta—”

“I know,” Zelda said. “He could bleed to death.”

“I’ve called for airlift to St. Mary’s.”

“How long do we have?”

Jama looked at the large wall clock. “They should be here in ten minutes.”

“I’ll contact the hospital for an accepting physician.”

“I need someone to clear a landing space for—”

There was another shout from the waiting room—one Jama recognized. For as far back as she could remember, that voice had meant comfort, friendship and much, much more.

And now? Tyrell Mercer’s voice stirred conflicting emotions, but she didn’t have time to deal with anything but Monty.

“There’s our man,” Zelda said with a wink. “Just in time, as always. Go put him to work, and tell him his daddy’s being well cared for by the best doctor and nurse in River Dance.”

Jama rushed to intercept “our man” and fill him in.

Tyrell was in the middle of the large waiting room, his six-foot-three broad-shouldered bulk cutting a swath across the polished wooden floor and area rug toward the treatment rooms.

He stopped when he saw Jama, his expression apprehensive. “What happened?”

Jama felt drawn to his comforting strength. She wanted nothing more than to step into his embrace and let it engulf her. Today, however, she needed to be the strong one.

She stepped forward and placed a hand on his arm. “It’s his heart.”

Chapter Four

D oriann mustn’t throw up. If she did, Deb would for sure kill her—though nothing could make this truck stink any worse, so it shouldn’t matter to Deb. Doriann tried to focus on the white dotted line in the center of the road, and on the distant hilltops, not the trees that raced past on both sides in a blur of spring green.

Think, Doriann. Got to think! Where are we?

She glanced at the speedometer. Eighty-two miles per hour.

Speedometer…speed. That was what Aunt Renee had been teaching about during Social Studies lessons for the past month. Speed was a nickname for an illegal drug. Doriann would probably know all this stuff so much better if she attended public school and had friends besides her cousins and other homeschooled kids at church.

Mom and Dad always worried about the development of Doriann’s social skills in a homeschooling environment, but they wanted her to be able to learn at her own pace. In public school, she’d be in sixth grade, not ninth. Who would have thought teaching her about illegal drugs might save her life?

If her life got saved.

There was a drug that stank like dirty socks—the way this truck stank—when it was being cooked, and one of the words for it was speed. Methamphetamines. Meth. Crank. It made sense. Had these people been cooking meth? Dopeheads? All kinds of terms for that drug. Missouri outranked every other state in the country for meth lab busts per capita.

Doriann felt that could be a good thing, or a bad thing. If the busts were because the police in Missouri worked harder than police in any other state to find the meth labs, then that was good. But it could also mean there were more meth labs to be busted.

Aunt Renee said that someone on meth would do anything for another fix. Since this truck had nearly turned over when they left the interstate before waiting for an exit ramp, Doriann bet that either these two freaks were crazy or high on something.

Think, Doriann! How do you get out of this mess?

Aunt Renee said more than once that Doriann was the smartest kid she’d ever known. More like a little grown-up than a kid. Of course, Aunt Renee believed in positive reinforcement. But still.

Aunt Renee had made that statement yesterday, right after Doriann had told her cousins a scary story and made Ajay cry. That meant the statement wasn’t being made in a positive way, but to heap on the guilt.

Mom said Aunt Renee was good at guilt trips. Mom should know that about her twin sister.

So if Aunt Renee says I’m a great storyteller, tell Clancy a story. He does everything Deb tells him not to do. He’s a lot like my cousins, and I know how to handle them. What do dopeheads want most in all the world? More dope, right? And what do I want most in all the world? Out of this truck!

Clancy blasted through an intersection without even slowing at the stop sign, or checking for traffic. Had to be scorched on speed. Right?

“You missed the turn,” Deb said. “94. That’s the road that’ll take us to St. Louis.”

Doriann perked up as Clancy stomped the brake with a screech of tires. They were taking Highway 94. Thank you, Jesus! She suddenly felt less like crying. If she could get Clancy to take the exit to River Dance…Uncle Tyrell was there, and Grandpa and Grandma, and even Aunt Jama, who was supposed to start her new job today.

Uncle Tyrell was big and tough and could take on a dinosaur. He wasn’t afraid of anything. And Grandpa wouldn’t let anybody hurt her, over his dead body. But how was a kid supposed to get Clancy to take River Dance Road?

She cleared her throat. “We’re going the wrong way.”

“Shut up,” Deb snapped.

Doriann braced herself to be slapped again. “I’m just warning you, is all.”

Deb didn’t slap her, but she looked as if she was about to.

“I have to warn you about one of the towns we’ll be passing,” Doriann continued. “River Dance. It’s a bad place. W-we don’t want to go there.”

Clancy’s jaw tightened, and he flexed his right arm. “That’s not where we’re headed.”

“This road will take us right past the turnoff to—”

“Why don’t we want to go to River Dance?” Clancy growled.

“Don’t talk to the brat,” Deb said. “Don’t listen, and don’t talk.”

“Why not? If she knows something about this place—”

“She’s a kid, and she doesn’t know anything. Who takes directions from a stupid kid?”

“I might be a stupid kid, but I know somebody who’s been to River Dance, and you don’t.” Doriann braced herself.

Still no slap.

“They have a lot of drugs in that town,” she continued. “That’s always been a problem there.” Her family would kill her for slandering their hometown this way…That was the word, wasn’t it? Slander. Yes. Not libel. Libel was slander in print.

“My friend says it isn’t all bad,” she said. “I mean, there’s this great winery on top of the hill, and there are some cellars below the main building where wine barrels are stored, and some of the high-school kids sneak in and steal some of the wine. And there are old, abandoned farmhouses.”

“So you know this town, huh?” Clancy asked.

Deb wrapped her hand around Doriann’s arm. She squeezed. Hard.

Doriann winced. She realized she’d better be careful. “My friend did…until she moved to Kansas City. My friend used to play in one of those farmhouses until she found out she was in one of the places where drugs are made. Scary people hung out there.” That should get their attention.

“Scarier than me?” Clancy asked with a laugh that blasted his rotten breath through the cab of the truck.

Doriann nearly gagged. “People like you.” She wasn’t going to pretend she thought he was a good guy. “It’s creepy around that town. There are lots of trees along that part of the river. A person could get lost in those woods and never get out.”

That should convince him to turn there. Didn’t he and Deb need to hide from the FBI agents and police? And if they thought they could find drugs in River Dance, why go farther?

“Sounds like a place I might want to visit,” Clancy said.

Doriann slanted a look at Deb, who didn’t look mad at all. Good. She had their attention.

She sank back into her seat, trying not to show her relief. Grandpa, here I come, ready or not.

Doriann watched the trees whiz by, so fast that she was reminded of her mother’s blender concoction of yogurt and green vegetables—an awful drink that made her feel sick just to remember the taste.

Clancy gave her another narrow-eyed look, making her squirm. “So. You think you know your way around this River Dance?”

She kept her eyes on the road—something she wished Clancy would do. “My friend told me all about it.”

“Then you could be our tour guide?”

“Don’t even think about it,” Deb snapped. “Somebody could recognize her.”

“Nobody knows me there.” Doriann figured if she was going to lie, she might as well go all out, as Grandpa would say.

Deb seemed to space out. She blinked, gave Doriann a confused look, closed her eyes as if the day was too bright.

Yep. Meth.

“It sounds like a good place to hide until the heat’s off. Besides—” Clancy rested his hand on Doriann’s leg “—with little Dori here as a guide, we won’t get lost, will we, darlin’?”

Doriann cringed at his touch. “No, but it’s a bad place.” How am I getting out of this truck?

“She’s gotta go,” Deb said. This time she studied Doriann with a sly look of hidden intention that was scarier than slapping or curse words.

“Not till we’re through with her,” Clancy growled.

Doriann swallowed. Through with her? Through doing what with her? And how was she going to “go,” as Deb said? Did she mean they were going to kill her?

“We’re gonna crash soon if we can’t get some stuff,” Deb said. “What are we gonna do with her then? I’m telling you, Clancy, she can’t be here.”

“Wait a minute, will you?” Clancy’s voice shot through the cab with a force that told Doriann there was more where that came from. Violent killer.

And they were talking about what to do with her? She was sorry she’d said anything. Why couldn’t she have kept her mouth shut?

“We’ll tie her up or lock her in one of those old buildings she’s jabbering about,” he said.

“That’s stupid,” Deb said. “She could get away and we could wake up in jail. Just dump her and leave. And slow the truck down! What if there’s a speed trap? These backcountry roads are known for traps.”

Doriann felt a flare of hope, but then the speedometer needle dropped.

She couldn’t depend on a traffic cop to notice Clancy’s reckless driving and rescue her. She was going to have to think of some way to save herself.

Chapter Five

T yrell Mercer stood frozen as the love of his life looked up at him with tender concern, touching his arm with her warm hands. Jama’s expressive blue-green eyes were dark and troubled.

“Is it a heart attack?” he asked.

“Not exactly.” She described the morning episode, and he heard the hesitation in her voice. For the second time in three weeks, he wished he didn’t know her so well. And he wished she would look into his eyes more often instead of just past his left shoulder or at the ceiling or out the front window.

“How bad is this tear you’re talking about?”

“No way of knowing,” she said. “I’m not even sure that’s what it is. Marty mentioned a sensation of ripping in his chest, and his left leg is weaker than his right.”

“He’s had weakness since his stroke.”

She hesitated, then her gaze met his straight-on. He didn’t like the look of alarm that flashed in her eyes, and as quickly disappeared. “Monty’s never had a stroke.”

“It happened right after…” It was his turn to hesitate. “Dad had a small stroke four and a half years ago, a few weeks after Amy’s funeral.” Just saying the words brought back the horrible grief of his sister’s death. He saw it affected Jama, as well. Of course it did. Amy had been Jama’s best friend…her foster sister. The whole family knew Jama had never recovered.

“The rest of us had already returned to our homes and jobs,” he told her. “Mom and Dad decided not to burden us with it. I only found out about it this year.”

He saw Jama’s eyes darken further, and he fought down his own rush of anxiety. Calm. Stay calm. But he knew from her response that, for some reason, Dad’s stroke could somehow complicate everything. He just didn’t know how.

“Why didn’t he tell me?” she asked.

“You know Dad. Never wants anyone to worry, just like today, I’m sure. What’s the significance?”

She closed her eyes briefly.

“Jama?”

She looked up then, and he could see that she was mentally adjusting her expression for him. It was in this brief change—this infinitesimal moment—that he saw the flash of loss and longing in the depth of her eyes.

“As I said, that tear he felt in his chest is classic for dissecting aortic aneurysm.” Professional again, she looked away, speaking with calm authority. “That means there’s bleeding that could get worse with blood thinners.”

“That’s why you couldn’t treat him for a heart attack?”

“Exactly. But one symptom I was using to help me make the tentative diagnosis, since I had no capacity for any other kind of test, was the weakness of that leg. This is often a symptom of the condition I suspected. With no X-ray tech available, I couldn’t know for sure.” She sought Tyrell’s gaze again.

“Explain a little more, sweetheart.” The endearment slipped out, and he didn’t care. “All of it. You’re scaring the bejeebers out of me, so the plain truth can’t be any worse.” Jama had finished second in her med-school class. He trusted her judgment, because he admired her intelligence and her logic. But when that judgment came without complete knowledge of the facts, it could be faulty.

“This shouldn’t be happening,” she said. “Monty’s too active and healthy for heart trouble, and so that’s the knowledge on which I based my decision not to treat. I didn’t know about the stroke. If this isn’t what I’ve suspected, and if this really is an MI, then there could be further damage to his heart because of the delay in treatment.”

“So it’s up to you to decide, based strictly on your medical judgment.”

“That’s right.”

Jama shouldn’t be forced to make life-and-death decisions about someone she loved. “Where’s the other doctor?” Tyrell asked. “I thought there was a director—”

“The director isn’t here, yet.” Jama raised a hand to her eyes just long enough for Tyrell to see with relief that it was not shaking. He also saw she understood that he didn’t doubt her expertise. She knew him that well. “I have an airlift on its way that will most likely arrive before Dr. Lawrence does.”

He groaned softly. “Where do you need me right now? At Dad’s bedside, or—”

“I need the parking lot cleared at the Dancing Waters Winery for landing.”

“I’ll call now.” He pulled out his cell phone.

Throughout her internship and the early years of residency training, Jama had had doctors, nurses, fellow interns and residents looking over her shoulder as she worked with patients. By the second year of her family practice residency, however, she had gained the trust of her colleagues, and no longer had anyone looking over her shoulder and critiquing her work.

Now, as the flight crew switched Monty from the clinic equipment to their own, she was the authority who stood in the middle of the action, observing every movement. Had any member of the crew made the slightest misstep, she’d have tackled that person and completed the job herself.

As she watched and tried hard to contain her worry, a fresh layer of remorse pressed down on her shoulders like a boatload of river silt.

Monty’s stroke? Had it been caused by the black grief of Amy’s death, and not some clot in his brain?

Medical science was learning more and more about the impact of emotions on overall health.

The male flight nurse, nearly as big and intimidating as Tyrell, frowned at the display on the monitor, then scowled at Jama.

“Dr. Keith, why hasn’t this man been stabilized for transport?”

The man’s attitude startled her. She resented his questioning of her judgment. “He’s as stable as we can make him under the circumstances,” she told him.

“He hasn’t received any—”

“I have reason to believe he has a dissecting aortic aneurysm, which will need to be ruled out before medication can be given for—”

“How did you determine that?” the nurse demanded. “You have no—”

“That’s my clinical assessment,” she snapped. “I’ll take responsibility for it. Don’t stand here arguing with me while this patient needs immediate transport.”

“Excuse me.” Tyrell entered the room. “I’m this man’s son. I believe the doctor has made her diagnosis. If you have any questions, you can take them up with me after you’ve flown my father to St. Mary’s.”

The staring match lasted a few seconds. The nurse backed down. He was, after all, a professional, and it was obvious he took his job seriously.

The crew completed the switch and transferred Monty to a gurney for transport while Jama tried hard to maintain her resolute demeanor.

The nurse was knowledgeable. He knew what he was doing. Jama would not, however, change her diagnosis.

She followed the crew out the front door and across the parking lot, and she might’ve followed them all the way up the hill to the helicopter in the winery parking lot. Before she could do so, however, an ancient station wagon entered the lot and pulled next to Jama’s green Subaru.

If she wasn’t mistaken, the new director had arrived to ramp up the tension a few more notches.

Dr. Ruth Lawrence was at least four inches shorter than Jama’s five-eight. She looked to be about ten years older. She wore her dark brown hair in a braid down her back. Her angular face, free of makeup, didn’t appear to have ever exhibited a smile except for telltale laugh lines around her golden-brown eyes. Her royal-blue scrubs looked well used, as did her lab coat. She’d had the sense to dress for comfort.

Jama altered her course and stepped toward her. “Dr. Lawrence? I’m Dr. Jama Keith.”

The woman nodded without smiling or offering her hand. “I saw the helicopter arrive. Do you have a report for me?” She turned and started toward the clinic, brisk steps, economical movements, no evidence of cordiality, obviously expecting Jama to keep pace.

Once more Jama reported about Monty and her judgment call. When they reached the broken windowpane, Jama promised to pay for the damage.

“I’m sure you will.” Dr. Lawrence paused at the clinic door, which had been anchored open, then she looked at Jama as if to ask why.

Jama didn’t reply.

Dr. Lawrence stepped inside. “Under the circumstances, I believe the mayor will be magnanimous,” she said over her shoulder, “but paying might remind you next time that you aren’t Dirty Harry.”

Jama was beginning to feel a little snarly. “A key might be nice next time.”

Dr. Lawrence stepped into the comfortably spacious reception room and studied the fully equipped business office behind glass. “Would a key have kept you from making a questionable diagnosis?”

Jama pressed her lips together to keep angry words from spilling out. Definitely snarly. “Are you trying to tell me I’m not going to have my own key to the clinic?”

Dr. Lawrence wandered back toward the broad hallway that led to the treatment rooms and private offices, ignoring her.

“Don’t you think the key would have prevented the broken glass?” Jama persisted.

“Couldn’t you have decided on a less destructive way to see to the patient?” Dr. Lawrence asked over her shoulder.

“Are you questioning my diagnostic skills, or my decision to break a replaceable piece of glass for the sake of patient care?”

Dr. Lawrence paused to peer into the first treatment room, where Monty had recently been, and where Zelda was cleaning up as if she had suddenly become a member of staff.

“I did the best I could with the diagnosis,” Jama said. “I’m not a radiology tech, Dr. Lawrence, and we didn’t have one on-site, so I made the best call I could under the circumstances.”

The director turned back to her. “Let’s drop the formalities. They’re stuffy and awkward. My name is Ruth, and I expect to be called Ruth, not Dr. Lawrence, and certainly not Dr. Ruth.” There was no humor in her voice.

“I’m Jama.”

“Yes, Jama,” she said, her voice suddenly softer, as if she’d discovered where she had mislaid her manners. “I’m not saying we will be chummy—” so much for the manners “—but we need to establish some simplicity. It’s going to be a hectic few days as we hire our own staff, develop our management systems, train the team to—”

“There’s no staff? ”

Dr. Lawrence…Ruth…blinked. “Who did you expect to do the hiring? The mayor?”

“It might have been helpful.”

“I won’t have a small-town mayor hiring medical personnel. I specified this before I agreed to work here.”

“Then it might have been nice if someone had informed me, ” Jama complained. Just because she’d had no voice in the decisions and plans that had been made for the next two years didn’t mean she wanted to be treated as if she didn’t exist.

“I will make my own choices and judgments about the people with whom I will spend a huge amount of my time,” Ruth said.

“Mayor Thompson hired me. You didn’t have any choice about that.”

Ruth turned to rearrange a stack of magazines on the center table in the waiting room. “Your situation is different, but since you mentioned it, just because you have a forgivable loan from this town does not mean you may behave any way you wish. Your behavior the next two years will determine whether or not you stay on after that probationary period.”

Jama pressed the tip of her tongue against her front teeth. Why on earth would she want to stay on? “A probationary period of two years? ” That was a nasty slap in the face. She would make Tyrell Mercer suffer badly for getting her into this.

She could have paid back those school loans on her own. Eventually. But Tyrell would not hear of it. Without telling her what he was up to, he’d proposed this arrangement to the city council, and the decision was made before she had time to think about it.

Sure, she’d signed the stupid contract, but she was under duress at the time. Thinking about finances made her crazy.

“Depending on how things work out,” Ruth said, “the two-year probation could be greatly reduced.”

Jama wondered what response she’d receive if she were to share her thoughts at that moment.

“During this time,” Ruth said, “you will keep in mind that I am your supervisor…director…whatever you want to call me. You will respect my orders and do as I say when on duty. When off duty, you can say anything you want to me. You will report to work when you are scheduled, and you will do nothing to jeopardize the reputation of this clinic.”

Heat warmed Jama’s face. The mayor had obviously not remained silent about her youthful escapades. But at thirty-two, she was far removed from those days.

The sound of squeaky footsteps echoed from the corridor, where Zelda in her orange shorts and green shirt and dusty running shoes came toward them with a familiar glint in her eye.

Chapter Six

J ama braced herself as Zelda held her hand out to Ruth. “Couldn’t help overhearing. Thought I’d introduce myself and give you a proper introduction to our little spitfire here.”

Jama nearly groaned aloud. “Zelda, she doesn’t need any incentive to extend my probationary—”

“Hush, kid. The good doctor just needs some pointers about handling you, is all.”

Handling? “I’m not a farm animal.”

Zelda ignored her. “Dr. Lawrence, our Jama has one of the tenderest hearts in the river valley, and she has a special affinity for the elderly. She was so devoted to our nursing-home residents that she missed class a time or two so she could help out when we were shorthanded, or when one of her favorite patients was dying.”

“Yes, skipping school seemed to be a habit of hers,” Ruth said.

“Unfortunately,” Zelda said, “she was caught and suspended a couple of times, which cost her approval points with some of the River Dance citizens.”

“Zelda, must you rub my nose in it?” Jama asked.

“I can introduce you to a lot of people who feel differently.” Zelda continued to ignore Jama. “She’s always had a special insight when it comes to anyone in pain. She needs to be given a lot of leeway. The child’s been gone from here for fourteen years, and—”

“I’m not a child.”

“Excuse me,” Ruth said, turning to Jama, “but why fourteen years? I was under the impression you just completed your residency training, and it doesn’t take fourteen years—”

“Actually, Zelda,” Jama said, “it’s been fifteen years since I left. I was seventeen, remember? And I took an accelerated course through college. But I took a hiatus from residency training.”

“For what reason?” Ruth asked.

None of your business . “I changed specialties.”

The golden-brown eyes sought Jama’s and held them, probing. Jama stared back.

“That doesn’t mean she’s flighty, Dr. Lawrence,” Zelda said. “Far from it. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like the teenager she was when she left home.”

Jama groaned aloud.

“She especially doesn’t deserve to be placed on probation for two years.”

“I’ll make my own judgments about that,” Ruth said. “I don’t know everyone in town, as you obviously do.”

“Then you’ve got two of River Dance’s own to help guide you through the process if you’d just trust us a little,” Zelda said.

Ruth met the nurse’s gaze. “Give a stranger some time to settle,” she said softly.

Jama had always appreciated Zelda’s outspoken devotion—the same devotion she’d given to her wayward grandchildren when they were in trouble—but now was not the time. The new director obviously needed no more ammunition.

“Uh, Ruth,” Jama said, trying to stop Zelda’s runaway tongue, “you might consider Zelda for the nursing position. That is if you don’t mind being bossed around by a woman who’s been treating patients since before either of us was born.”

Suitably distracted, Ruth returned her full attention to Zelda. “Have you applied?”

“Not me,” Zelda said. “I’ve done my full-time and moved on to choosing my shifts more carefully.”

“Then I don’t see that there’s anything to discuss.”

“We could use your help,” Jama told her old friend, warming to the idea. “You could help us break in the new staff. It isn’t as if you’d have to take the position permanently, but—”

“Have you told the director that I’m seventy-six?”

Ruth studied Zelda with renewed interest, and Jama, in turn, studied Ruth. “What does age have to do with anything?” the director asked. She didn’t smile, but her expression warmed by several degrees. “I’ve seen men and women considerably older participate in clinic work with excellent results. Good experience is more valuable than classroom training any day.”

“Well, anyway,” Jama said, intrigued by Ruth’s sudden thaw, “I have a report to fill out. I need to find the forms, and I have no idea where—”

The front door flew open, and Tyrell rushed inside, dark hair mussed, probably by the wind from the helicopter. “Jama, I can’t find Mom, and I need to get to the hospital in Jefferson City to be there for Dad as soon as I can. He said he wants to talk to me before he goes under. I know he’s worried about the ranch, and I need to reassure him that I’m not going to—”

“Why couldn’t he talk before they put him on the chopper?”

“He wasn’t in any shape to talk, and that flight nurse is a piece of work. I’m not sure if he’s really a nurse, or a runaway from World Wrestling Entertainment. At any rate, I need to get to Jeff City as quickly as possible, but I don’t want Mom driving there alone.”

“I’ll find Fran and drive her there.”

“She’s grocery shopping. You know she refuses to carry a cell phone.”

“Where’s she shopping?”

“She didn’t say. Could be here in River Dance, could be in Fulton.”

“I’ll find her, then meet you at the hospital,” Jama said.

Ruth cleared her throat behind them. “The city police should be capable of finding the patient’s wife.”

Jama turned to her director. “I need to do it myself.”

“Do you feel you’re the only physician who can handle his case?” Ruth asked. “We have interviews set up nearly every hour for the rest of the day.”

Jama bristled. What was she, a mushroom? “Nobody told me that.”

“I need you here.”

“The patient has been my foster father since I was fifteen,” Jama explained. “He’s also a city council member, and since the personnel in this clinic are answerable to the city government—”

Ruth raised a silencing hand. She glanced at Tyrell, then at Zelda. A weight seemed to drag down her features briefly, but her neutral mask returned.

“Then go,” she said.

“Zelda can help with your interviews,” Jama told her.

“I’ll make my own decisions about who will help me.”

Jama shrugged and nodded to Tyrell. “I’ll find Fran, then meet you in Jeff.”

River Dance, 14 miles. Doriann blinked at the sign, then stared down the empty road. They hadn’t passed another car in miles, but a deer had jumped in front of the truck, and Clancy had almost run over a cat. He was a horrible person. He’d aimed the truck toward the cat and tried to hit it. They’d almost run off the road before Deb had screamed and smacked Clancy, gouging Doriann’s chest with her elbow as she swung. Deb and Clancy were both wicked, evil people.

Please, God, oh, please, Jesus, I’ll never skip school again, never lie to Aunt Renee again, never talk to strangers in the park again, and if you want, I’ll even promise never to go near the zoo again, although that would be awfully hard. I mean, the animals are already in those pens and cages, and I didn’t do anything to put them there, so what’s the harm in going to talk to—

“Little Dori Streeter.” Clancy gave a low chuckle.

“My name isn’t Dori.”

“Of course, it isn’t. No kid of Dr. Mark-Streeter-who-thinks-he’s-God’s gonna use a nickname. But your father isn’t here now, and you’re Dori if I want to call you Dori.”

Doriann stared straight ahead. He knows Dad!

Don’t show fear. They didn’t grab me just because I was there. Did they follow me?

“Do you think we’re rich, or something?” she asked. “Because we’re not. Hospital residents don’t get paid—”

“Shut up!” Deb slapped a hand over Doriann’s lips. Hard. “Your mouth is gonna get you killed, brat.”

Doriann shut up. Killed.

“You’re not stupid,” Clancy told Doriann, still with that smooth, fake friendliness. “Now you know I’m wanted for murder. I bet you didn’t know it was your dear daddy’s fault.”

Doriann didn’t want her mouth slapped again. She didn’t say anything.

“If your daddy wants to see you alive again, he’ll do whatever I say. The Feds are closing in, and I’m not going back to prison.”

“Back?” Deb exclaimed. “So you’ve been in—”

“Now it’s time for you to shut up.” Clancy cut a nasty look at Deb. Then he looked back down at Doriann. “I’m gonna make your daddy sorry for what he did to me. And then the government’s going to make a trade with me. They’ll give me a one-way ticket out of the country, and I’ll send you back home.”

“What about me?” Deb demanded. “You’re going to leave me for the dogs to tear to pieces?”

“I didn’t ask you to come with me.” Clancy shot her another look that could’ve been a reflection of the devil.

Doriann felt her head buzz. For the next few minutes, she stared at the road ahead, all the curves and hills and flat, wide-open valleys. She caught a brief glimpse of the Missouri River on the right. She had to do something to get out of this truck. She wished she had the nerve to grab the steering wheel away from Clancy and stomp the brake on a curve. It would cause a wreck, and maybe she wouldn’t go flying through the windshield, even though she wasn’t wearing a seat belt.

Drugged killers didn’t use seat belts. The truck didn’t even have them.

Another curve, and she braced herself. You can do this, Doriann. To save your own life, you can do this. She raised her hand to grab the steering wheel, but Clancy snorted, scaring her so badly she peed a little.

“Yeah, your superdad’s not gonna think he’s so high-and-mighty when he finds out he’s the reason his precious, spoiled little girl’s gone missing. No E.R. doc’s gonna sic the cops on me and—”

“My father isn’t an E.R.—”

“Shut up, both of you!” Deb’s sharp, rattly voice shot through the cab. “How many times do I have to tell you, talkin’s gonna get us in trouble? The less the brat knows, the safer we are.”

Doriann frowned. That didn’t make sense. “If everybody’s going to know soon, anyway—”

Deb smacked Doriann’s cheek, then grasped her chin with the same hand and leaned down to stare hard into her eyes. “And when will you learn to keep your sassy trap shut? We don’t want to hear it.”

Doriann glared into the wicked witch’s yellow-green eyes until the grip tightened more painfully on her face. She looked away. When Deb let go, Doriann didn’t speak, but she did reach back and flip open the catch on the sliding rear window.

When neither Clancy nor Deb stopped her, she slid the window open. She didn’t believe Clancy. He wasn’t going to let her go; he would kill her just as he’d killed others. Crazy, drugged, violent criminals didn’t make bargains, they killed. But before she died she wanted at least one more breath of fresh air.

Silence was settling into the cab again when Doriann glanced toward the curve ahead. She nearly choked. Another animal had stepped into the road at the bottom of the hill. Bigger than a cat, littler than a deer. It was a dog. And Clancy stomped the accelerator.

Doriann braced herself. No! No!

“You moron, don’t you see that curve?” Deb braced herself against the door frame and the dash. “You’re gonna wreck this truck!”

Without speaking, Clancy swerved into the other lane toward the dog—a red-and-white-speckled hound, like Humphrey, Grandpa’s hunting dog, who followed Doriann everywhere when she visited Grandpa and Grandma. She’d rescued him from a ditch when he was a puppy. This dog just stood staring at the truck as it approached, his floppy ears perked with curiosity.

They were headed straight for it, and Deb started shouting again, using all those words that Doriann wanted to not have in her mental vocabulary. Clancy whooped, as if he was on a roller-coaster ride.

Doriann couldn’t let this happen. She couldn’t!

They were close enough to see the dog’s eyes when Doriann lunged at the steering wheel and kicked at Clancy’s leg, trying to reach the brake pedal. He shouted and elbowed her chest. Deb leaped across Doriann, screaming.

The truck jerked. The steering wheel spun. Doriann’s face was squished into Deb’s bony rib cage. Everything went crazy.

The truck bounced, nosed down a long bank, hit a tree, bounced again, slid sideways and rolled back. Trees streaked past the windows, faster and faster.

There was a sudden jerk, then a splash. Doriann saw water surge over the windshield, and panic gripped her. Was this the Missouri River? Were they all going to drown?

Clancy and Deb cussed and hit at each other, squishing Doriann between them.

She had to get out! But Deb and Clancy blocked the way to the doors. She twisted around and looked at the open back window. Not the Missouri. This was one of the nearby swamps.

She reached toward the open window. A hand grabbed her leg and jerked her back.

“You killed us!” Deb screamed. “We’re gonna die!”

Something shoved Doriann’s bottom upward. She didn’t look to see what it was. She grabbed at the edges of the window and tugged herself toward it, kicking at the hand on her leg. The grip relaxed as Doriann squeezed her shoulders through the opening. Freezing water splashed her face, shocking her as it poured into the cab.

With all her might, she dragged her way out of the tangle of arms, plunging face-first into the pickup bed. It was filled with cold water, weeds and rotten, floating logs. The swamp probably was filled with snakes and leeches and the bodies of other people who’d crashed and drowned in the slimy pit. She kicked hard against the cab and swam through the gunk toward the weedy bank.

She heard Deb’s and Clancy’s angry screeches as her feet sank into the mud. She fought her way through the undergrowth beneath the trees. The splintering tinkle of breaking glass reached her as the voices grew louder, as water splashed.

Doriann crashed through the reeds and cane as fast as she could, and she didn’t look back.

Chapter Seven

D oriann had no idea where she was, or where she was going, but the road had to be just ahead. Briars and branches caught at her hair and her soaked jacket, and the mud that filled her shoes squished with every step. She pushed her way through the briars, ignoring the pain. She’d worry about the blood later. She couldn’t think about that now.

In fact, if she was bloody when she reached the road, someone would stop for sure. Who wouldn’t pull over for a bloody, lost little girl?

Okay, maybe not a little girl, but she sure was lost, and if she kept getting caught in blackberry brambles, she’d be as bloody as a victim in one of the horror movies Mom and Dad never let her watch. Now if only a car would pass on that lonely road…if she could find the stupid road.

She stumbled, looked down and glimpsed a tire rut in the ground. Must be going the right way if that was from the truck. They’d hit the ground hard a couple of times. She plunged through another thicket of trees at the top of the hill. The road was here, it had to be right here….

The ground sank beneath her. She fell on her bottom in soft mud, saw the broad, silvery sparkle of the Missouri River spread out in front of her, flowing in the morning sunshine. She gasped.

It wasn’t the road! She’d been running in the wrong direction! The ground sank farther, and she scrambled backward to keep from plunging into the water.

She looked up to see sunbeams streaking through the tree limbs to her left. So that was east. There were no straight lines in the woods, and that crazy river went every which way.

Aunt Renee said when you got lost in the woods without a fancy GPS device, then you had to look for the sun. If it was cloudy, you had to follow the water. It was the only way to find civilization again. Water followed the path of least resistance, and creeks drained into rivers, and there were people at the rivers, especially the Missouri.

Doriann glanced back the way she had come, and heard the rustle of brush, a voice, swearing and yelling.

She was trapped! She looked down where loose, muddy dirt had sunk beneath her feet. She couldn’t jump into the river; though she was a good swimmer, it was too cold. Aunt Renee said Grandpa was worried about a killing frost harming the vineyard this year. Tonight was supposed to be the killer. It had been a warm spring, but the past two days had been cold. It was a bad combination.

The rustling noises grew louder, the angry voices sharper. She rolled to her side to duck behind a bush. At least the warm spring had produced early buds and leaves for cover.

Unfortunately, the pale green buds and brambles stuck to her clothing, and every time she moved, the whole bush quivered.

She tugged off her bright purple jacket, dropped it onto the ground, then rolled onto it. Maybe her light green T-shirt and blue jeans—now covered with mud—wouldn’t show up too much…and maybe her red hair would blend with…what? The sky? The river? Nothing!

Okay, but her hair was drenched, so it was darker, and might not be so obvious.

Clancy and Deb were getting closer. They would see her for sure. She was toast.

Think, Doriann, think!

Okay, what did people do to hide? They climbed trees. But Clancy and Deb were already too close; she’d be seen if she tried to go up a tree trunk.

She glanced along the riverbank again. Where had she seen someone hiding…Yes! In Lord of the Rings, in the first movie, the hobbits hid beneath the bank’s ledge when the ring wraith was looking for them. There were roots…

She studied the bank in both directions, searching for a tree teetering at the very edge…

Nothing. And there was no one on the river this morning who would hear her call for help. Even if there was, she couldn’t call loudly enough to get anybody’s attention without giving herself away to the killers. Besides, what if they killed whoever tried to rescue her?

She was toast.

Jama drove the familiar main thoroughfare of her hometown, looking for a light blue Honda Civic. She could probably call Kaiser’s grocery store and ask if Fran Mercer was there, but Jama wanted to deliver the news about Monty herself.

Several kindhearted women in River Dance had undertaken the responsibility of mothering Jama after her own troubled mother had left. Tilly Kaiser, who ran Kaiser’s Grocery with her husband, Harold, had watched every Saturday morning when Jama did the weekly shopping, ensuring that the young girl chose nutritious food—fruits and vegetables, lean meats, whole grains, milk. Tilly allowed the occasional candy bar or small carton of ice cream, but no sugary breakfast cereals. Tilly could claim credit, during Jama’s early adolescence, for neither Jama nor her dad developing cavities.

Ellen Schiska, who owned the Second in Time clothing and shoe store, always set aside the nicest—and most modest—recycled apparel in Jama’s size. By selecting clothing that had come from sources out of town, Ellen protected Jama from ridicule by school peers.

Thanks to these women, few of Jama’s classmates realized the struggle Dad had supporting the two of them after Mom left. Few knew the debt Mom incurred for Dad in her state of mind. Dad never spoke to anyone about the night job he held in Fulton as the elementary-school janitor. To everyone in River Dance, Richard Keith ran the local farm implement sales and repair, and managed a thriving business.

And then there was Zelda Benedict. She had a full-time job, a louse for a husband and the responsibility of raising her two willful grandchildren after her daughter’s death from a drug overdose, but Zelda had found time to notice Jama often enough at the nursing home to teach her about patient care. It was partly due to Zelda’s professional recommendation that Jama was accepted into med school.

Despite the kindness of the women in Jama’s youth, it was Fran Mercer who held a mother’s place in Jama’s heart.

One day during Jama’s sophomore year in high school, Monty and Fran Mercer had pulled Jama out of her chemistry class. They walked with her to the counselor’s office and sat with her while she was given the news that her father had been killed in an accident, delivering a tractor to a customer.

Fran had held Jama while she cried, and together, Monty and Fran assured Jama she would never be alone. They took her into their home when she was fifteen, and she became a part of the family.

Jama could never hope to repay Fran’s motherly kindness. She’d loved Jama the most when Jama was the least lovable, the most angry over life’s losses, seething at a mother who’d abandoned her, and at a fate that had taken her father from her far too soon.

And so it was Fran for whom Jama would risk anything, including her job.

Jama found her moments after leaving the clinic. Community-minded, Fran preferred to do as much of her shopping in River Dance as she could.

When Jama drove into the parking lot of Kaiser’s, she immediately spotted Fran’s bright red hair, which had been inherited by three of her five grandchildren. Fran was carrying two bags of groceries toward her car. When she saw Jama, her face broke into a wide smile. She rushed to her car, placed the groceries inside and was waiting with arms open wide when Jama reached her.

“Sweetie, I was just thinking about you.” Fran smelled of the lavender soap she had used for years. The yarn of her pink sweater tickled Jama’s chin.

“Fran, I’ve got—”

“I know you must be on your way to work.” Fran checked her watch. “I bet you ran off without breakfast again, didn’t you? I was going to deliver some sausage quiches by the clinic, knowing your habits haven’t changed much over the years.” She patted Jama on the back. “Too bad I didn’t bring them with me to the store, but—”

“Fran.” Jama took her sixty-year-old foster mother’s hands. “I had my first patient at the clinic. It was Monty.”

Jama explained the situation, slightly surprised that Fran hadn’t already heard about her husband by way of the lively River Dance grapevine.

Fran’s fair skin paled visibly.

“You took care of him yourself?” Fran asked.

“I was the only one there or I’d have requested someone else—”

“Nonsense, I’m glad it was you. Sounds to me as if you made the right call, hon.”

“Harold Kaiser helped carry Monty into the clinic,” Jama told her. “Haven’t you seen him this morning? I’d thought he might tell you.”

“You know he hired that new manager. He and Tilly don’t come in until the afternoon now. I’ll just go see if the store will hold my groceries for me until I can collect them.”

“You can ride with me, and we’ll have Tilly take the groceries to your house when she’s off her shift. She still has a key to your house, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, but I never lock my doors, you know that. Honey, I can drive myself to the hospital. You have a new job, and a new boss who needs your—”

“My new boss doesn’t need me as much as my family does right now. I would be little help to her when I’m worried about Monty.”

Fran’s gentle gaze rested on Jama. “No reason to worry. He’s receiving excellent care, I’m sure. It’s in God’s hands.”

Jama carried the groceries back into the store, explained the situation to Anita, the cashier who had worked the register for twenty years, and returned to the parking lot. She opened the passenger door of her Outback for Fran and waited. Fran was not driving herself, and that was final.

Fran relented with grace—more likely for Jama’s sake than for her own.

“I don’t know how you do that,” Jama said as she pulled out of the parking lot and drove north toward Highway 94.

“Do what, hon?”

“Place everything in God’s hands and let Him handle it.”

Fran paused, staring out across a portion of the family vineyard to the left of the road. “Sounds like a simplistic Sunday-school answer, doesn’t it?”

Jama grimaced. That was exactly what she’d been thinking, and she was ashamed. She was a believer, but this bit about trusting her loved ones and her future to God…that was a hard lesson to master. She’d failed repeatedly at the faith walk that Fran made look so easy.

“Did you ever think it’s the Sunday-school answer because it’s the right one?” Fran asked. “Oh, wait a minute.” She fluttered her fingers over her mouth. “I forgot I’m talking to the original Missouri mule. Little Jama Keith always had to develop her own theory about everything from cooking a breakfast of fried potatoes, eggs and mountain oysters, to understanding God.”

Jama cast her foster mother a stiff grin. “Some things—”

“Never change. I know. But, honey, I trust in God’s power and in eternity. Otherwise, they’d have buried me with Amy.”

Jama turned left onto the highway and headed west, her hands a little tight on the steering wheel, a lump swelling in her throat. She swallowed and focused on the road.

They rode in silence for several miles, and Jama struggled to think of something besides Monty’s gray face, and her instinctive decision to withhold treatment for the most obvious symptoms.

“When I was a young mother,” Fran said, once they were a few miles from River Dance, “I used to worry about how my children would turn out as adults, what I was doing, the decisions I might make that could scar them for life.”

Jama glanced at her. “You were a great mom. Your kids always loved you.”

Fran nodded. “I never doubted that. I finally realized that the worry didn’t do anyone any good, and it took too much time—I was too busy raising my children, keeping house, helping Monty in the fields and vineyards to spend much time worrying. I still struggle with it occasionally. Who doesn’t? I mean, it seems the motherly thing to do, you know. To worry about your children. A loving gesture.”

Jama swerved to miss a dog, honked at it, glanced at it in the rearview mirror. “That looked like Monty’s hunting hound.”

“Probably is. He wanders away sometimes. Monty likes to hunt on Andy Griswold’s property, so Humphrey knows the area. There’s no leash law in River Dance. I suppose there should be, but you know Humphrey, he loves to wander.”

Jama cast Fran a quick look, saw that she was gazing at the Missouri River to the left. Her lips curved downward, her eyes seemed to have dulled in the past few minutes. For all the talk about not worrying, she appeared less than serene. And then she saw Jama’s expression.

“Okay, you caught me.”

“You doing okay?” Jama asked.

“I’ll be fine. How about you? It can’t be easy, making the kinds of decisions you have to make.”

“All that expensive training has its advantages. If I had worried about every patient I saw during residency, I’d have been no good to anyone.”

“But this is Monty,” Fran said gently.

“As I said, that’s where the training kicks in. I’ve seen enough cases like Monty’s to be able to read signs that might not be immediately apparent to others.” She thought about the nurse who had questioned her skills.

Jama glanced toward the river—that steady, curving constant in her life. The Missouri River Valley, lush and fertile, contained the winding force of nature with some difficulty. The flatlands produced high yields when the weather cooperated, but the farmers had to “get while the gettin’ was good,” as Monty would sometimes say. Flooding could wipe out a season of work in a few hours.

Farming was always a risky endeavor, though Monty had done well over the years, supporting his family in comfort through hard work.

Much like medicine. It was never a sure thing.

Jama cast another glance at her foster mom. Monty would be okay. He had to be okay.

Chapter Eight

D oriann’s lungs felt filled with the hot glue Aunt Renee used for the homeschool art projects. From behind the bush that didn’t hide anything, she watched the two creeps approach. They looked bigger and scarier than they had in the truck.

They were mad, for one thing. Both kinds of mad—crazy mad and angry mad. And they shouted at each other while they called for her. How stupid. As if she was going to answer them? Run to them through the trees like a lost puppy?

Strange, all that brush had seemed so much thicker when she was trying to push through it. Now, with the sun higher, it seemed that she could see for miles in every direction. Which meant, so could the goons.

Clancy stepped around a tree branch, and looked in Doriann’s direction. Toast. She was—

Deb swore loudly. “You just had to go after the dog, didn’t you? Swerve off the road and nearly get us all killed. I guess you know she’s gonna find the cops and lead them straight to us.”

Clancy turned an ugly look on Deb. “That stupid kid’s not even gonna find her own way out of this jungle.”

“You’d better hope not,” Deb muttered. “If that frost hits tonight, we could all freeze to death.”

“What frost?”

“Don’t you ever listen to the weather report? There’s supposed to be a killing frost tonight that could wipe out all this year’s crops. Where do you live, in a tree stump? The kid could freeze to death.”

“Then that’ll be one more problem we don’t have to deal with. I’ve got enough to worry about. I’m soaking, I’m starved, and I need a hit.”

Deb swore again. She did a lot of that. “You think you’re the most important person in the world?”

Doriann saw their heads appear more clearly over some bushes as they drew closer. She saw Clancy give Deb that ugly look again. Deb was too stupid to back away.

He grabbed her by her shirt with one hand and socked her in the face with the other. Doriann heard the smack of flesh, Deb’s low grunts. “I’m the only person in the world.” Clancy growled the words like a mad dog.

Doriann caught her breath. There was a fiend in that man, and for once, Deb apparently agreed with her. She said nothing.

“All the rest are slobs and morons who don’t deserve to live,” he said.

Doriann cringed.

He shoved Deb to the ground. She grunted again, and stayed where she was. Maybe she wasn’t as stupid as Doriann had thought.

“Well, this slob plans to live whether I deserve it or not.” Deb didn’t sound so sure of herself now. Her voice shook a little. “I need a place to crash and I need it soon. We can’t sleep in the truck now that you’ve decided it would make a good submarine.”

“It’s my truck, isn’t it?” Clancy snapped, his voice still hard and dark.

Deb slowly got to her feet, then walked in the other direction. “No, it’s a stolen truck.”

“It’s mine now,” Clancy called after her. “I can do what I want with my things, just like I can do what I want with you, and with the kid. Out here in these woods, there ain’t nothing you can do about it. I’m going to find little Dori, and then her self-righteous daddy’s going to be sorry he tried to ruin my life.”

Doriann couldn’t breathe. She felt like a hardening clay model, ready for the kiln. Deb wasn’t looking as scary right now. Sure, she looked as if she ate kids for breakfast—but that couldn’t be true, because she was too skinny. And her teeth were too bad.

“Did you see that old abandoned barn a couple of miles up the road before you ran us off?” Deb called over her shoulder.

“I didn’t run us off the road, you and the kid did that. I was doin’ fine till you grabbed the wheel.”

Deb stopped suddenly, and Doriann froze as the woman turned facing directly toward her. But she didn’t look up. She sat down on a fallen log. “I’m going to crash. We need to find a place. That barn would—”

“You can’t.”

Deb didn’t look at him. Instead, she spread her hands out and studied them. Scraggly strands of blond hair fell into her face, mingling with the blood on her cheek.

“You’re not forgetting what the brat said, are you?” he asked. “There’s stuff in the area, and I’d bet she knows who has it. We won’t have to crash if we can—”

“I don’t see her anywhere, do you?”

Without warning, Clancy stalked over to Deb and grabbed her by her shirt again, jerking her up. “Get out there and start looking.”

Doriann shrank as small as she could get, and prayed harder than she ever had in her life.

After moving in with the Mercers at the age of fifteen, Jama had developed a special ability to sense when Fran was going to become serious and initiate a mother-daughter talk. That sense had never disappeared, and as she and Fran hit a straight stretch in the road, Jama felt one of those little talks in the air. Maybe Jama was alerted by the way Fran glanced at her every few seconds. The wonderful, strong, loving woman could speak volumes through her silence.

“You’re handling everything so well,” Fran said. “And in spite of what I said, I’m truly glad you insisted on coming with me.”

“So am I. It would have been hard to stay in River Dance today, waiting for a phone call, wondering about the results of the chest X-ray.”

Fran gave the barest shake of her head. “You know I’d have called you first thing.”

“So now there’s one less phone call you’ll have to make.”

They rode in silence a few more moments, and Jama relaxed enough to admire the dazzling light of the morning sun illuminating the pale green of new spring foliage, the white blossoms of dogwoods and the magenta of redbud trees. How many times over the past fifteen years had she longed to leave the classroom or the hospital and drive to the river, perhaps park at a Katy Trail lot and just walk for miles, maybe rent a bike and ride until she was far from everything and everyone?

Of course, it was impossible to run or bike far enough.

Fran rested her hand on Jama’s arm. “Other than this morning’s events, how do you feel about being back in town?”

Here it came. “I haven’t had time to decide.”

“You had time to think about it before coming.”

Jama flexed her hands on the steering wheel. “Why think about it? I had no choice. I couldn’t pay back the loan, not with all my other outstanding school debts.” Sometimes she felt as if she’d never get out from under. She had to admit to herself that Tyrell had done the right thing for her.

“You didn’t want to come?”

Jama hesitated.

“You have a home and a life in River Dance, if you’ll accept it, Jama. You’ve succeeded, just the way you and Amy dreamed you both would. That’s in spite of the odds against you, which weren’t your making.”

“I can’t blame anyone else for my behavior in high school, the drinking, running away from home, experimenting with drugs, vandalizing the school.”

“You did not vandalize the school,” Fran chided, conveniently ignoring the other self-recriminations that were right on target. “You simply climbed a tree with branches that were too slender to hold your weight. I don’t think breaking tree branches on school grounds constitutes vandalism.”

“The principal did, and it’s on my school records.” Besides, Jama had been drunk at the time.

“Nobody pays any attention to those records.”

“Except for scholarship boards.”

For a moment, Fran was quiet. Jama searched her mind for another topic to redirect this mother-daughter talk.

Tyrell, the stereotypical, high-achieving elder son, had earned a full scholarship to Columbia. He had been confident and strong from the cradle, it seemed, and yet he possessed a serene humility that drew people to him like birds to the Vignoles grapes on the Mercer Ranch hillside. He’d been the only Mercer sibling who’d already left for college when Jama came to live with the family, and though he’d always been affectionate with his kid sister’s best friend, Jama had never felt sisterly toward him.

Daniel, the second son, had sown his wild oats for about six months his junior year of high school, gotten it out of his system, and qualified for a scholarship, as well.

Heather and Renee, the twins, had surprised everyone. Inseparable through high school, they had pursued decidedly different careers. Heather and her husband, Mark Streeter, were both in the cardiothoracic surgery residency program in Kansas City. Renee, homeschooling mother of four, had completed two years of college, then pursued her lifelong dream of being a wife and mother with a large family. She even mothered Heather and Mark’s daughter, Doriann, while they worked their long hours at the hospital. Renee was a natural nurturer.

“Your kids have always been so encouraged to succeed,” Jama said. “You and Monty helped them follow their dreams. What a difference that makes in a kid’s life.”

“We’re so glad that Tyrell chose to follow in his father’s footsteps,” Fran said.

“He always loved the ranch. The rest of us chafed at the chores, but he really loved the work.”

“Yes, he did, but one reason Tyrell decided to return to River Dance and take over the ranch was because he knew you’d be here,” Fran said.

Jama glanced at Fran, then braced herself. Here it came again. “He told you that?”

“Didn’t have to. I’m his mother. Besides, he isn’t a hard man to read. I think you’ve probably developed that skill, as well.”

“There’s no way he would have quit his job at the university extension center just because I’d be here. We talked about it, and he wanted to come back, anyway. He loves the ranch.”

“He’s always loved the ranch, but can you tell me why else his arrival back home would coincide with the arrival of a certain young, beautiful doctor?”

Jama couldn’t answer that. She hadn’t asked him to come back.

“So things might become a little awkward now,” Fran said with a slight lift in her voice. It was a gentle question.

“Nope.”

From the corner of her eye, Jama could see Fran watching her.

“Not just a little?” Fran asked.

“Not at all. We’re both adults, and we know how to handle ourselves with maturity and grace. Or at least, Tyrell does.”

“You’re not going to give up information easily, are you?” Fran asked. “What’s going on between you two?”

“At this moment, we’re both focused on Monty.”

“Jama.”

“Nothing awkward, we’re both just concerned about something more important.”

“You know what I mean. What happened between you two that Tyrell won’t talk about to anyone?”

“Tyrell proposed, I didn’t accept. End of story.”

There was a brief silence, then Fran said, “I find that hard to believe, sweetie. That it’s the end of the story, I mean.”

“It’s true. It’s difficult to talk about, and I know it hurt Tyrell as much as it hurt me.”

“Are you telling me the crush you’ve had on him all these years didn’t evolve?” Fran asked.

Jama suppressed a sigh. Growing up, Jama never could conceal her feelings, and certainly not from Amy and Fran. “It’s me, Fran. It isn’t Tyrell’s fault that I’m not ready for the commitment of marriage.”

“For goodness’ sake, you’re thirty-two, my dear. When will you be ready?”

“Some people never are. I may be one of those people.”

The silence swelled inside the car as Fran waited for further explanation. None came.

“Oh, honey,” Fran said with a sigh. “If you’re afraid of marriage because of your poor mother, then you can rest assured that you aren’t going to do what she did.”

Jama cast her a brief glance. “How can you know that?”

“Why, look at you. You’re the age she was when she left, and you’ve had the strength to make a success of your life. You’re steady and dependable. I know you still have regrets, but don’t we all? You’ve got to look forward to the life waiting for you, not backward.”

“Dad never told me much about Mom’s departure. He only said that she was sick and not able to be the mother I needed.”

“I remember the day Amy brought you home with her after school.”

Jama nodded. The memories of that time were branded on her mind, too. Everything in her life had changed in one afternoon when she was seven.

For years, she’d had nightmares about arriving home that day to find all the doors locked. She’d shouted and screamed and pounded to get in. Then she’d caught sight of her mother’s face in the window, just watching her. Cold and remote. Later, Jama had heard her mother tell her father that she didn’t want to be a mother anymore.

Amy had found Jama that day outside the house. Jama remembered walking beside Amy down the long lane to the Mercer home. She remembered seeing later in Amy’s bedroom mirror that smudges of dirt and tears had been streaked across her face.

How was a second-grader supposed to understand the dark world of the adult mind? Jama understood mental illness now, but she still wondered about her role in creating her mother’s sadness, and she still felt the pain of abandonment.

Fran touched Jama’s shoulder. “My dear, something tells me this chapter in your life isn’t quite over yet. Give it some time. And thought. And give it a lot of prayer. Whatever is standing in your way with Tyrell affects your entire future.”

Jama swallowed hard.

“And when you look forward,” Fran said, “I suspect you’ll see Tyrell as an important part of it.”

Jama grimaced.

“Okay, sorry, honey. This is a conversation you should be having with him, not his mother. I cannot imagine a better match than the two of you.”

Jama could easily imagine just such a thing.

Chapter Nine

T yrell paused in the threshold of his father’s cubicle in the E.R. at St. Mary’s Hospital in Missouri’s state capital. It was a busy place. Medical dramas were taking place around him in every direction. Despite the federal regulations about patient privacy, there was no way every word spoken in this department could be kept private.

Monty Mercer opened his eyes and looked up, motioning for Tyrell to come closer.

Tyrell stepped to his father’s bedside, willing away the anxiety in his stomach. He didn’t attempt a smile. His father would see through it.

Dad remained awake, but it appeared to take an effort. “Glad you made it. D’you bring your mom?”

“Jama’s bringing her.”

Dad nodded and closed his eyes. “Then maybe you two can work things out while she’s here.”

“Dad, we need to focus on getting you better right now.”

“Something’s up with her.”

“She’s not talking to me about anything,” Tyrell said.

“Then you need to help her start talking. If you’re wanting to become her husband, you’d better find out how to get her to open up.”

“I guess it’s a good thing I majored in agriculture instead of psychology.”

Dad nodded his agreement.

“I’ve given her every opportunity—”

“She turned you down, right?”

Tyrell nodded.

“Did she say why?”

“She said she wasn’t ready for marriage.”

For a moment, Dad was so quiet that Tyrell thought he had fallen asleep again.

“You remember that young pup Doriann found in the ditch, half-dead, three or four years ago?” Dad asked at last.

“Humphrey?”

“He turned out to be the best hunting hound I ever had, even if he does run off on his own rabbit trails every so often.”

Tyrell waited. Sometimes his father had a roundabout way of getting to his point, but he usually had one.

“You remember the shape that pup was in when Doriann first brought him home? Couple of broken ribs, blood all matted in his fur, and he was afraid of everything, even the barnyard kittens.”

“I doubt Jama would appreciate being compared to a stray dog.”

“I’m too sick to joke right now.”

“Sorry. Look, I know Jama had a hard childhood. I was there, remember? I want to be there for her now.”

Dad winced, reached for a tube in his arm, adjusted it.

Tyrell placed a hand on his father’s shoulder. “Now is not the time for this discussion.”

Dad ignored him. “That dog never did completely get over whatever happened to him as a pup. Any time somebody shouts or raises a hand suddenly, poor Humphrey cowers as if he thinks he’ll be hurt again. That’s how Jama’s been acting.”

Tyrell thought about that. His Dad was usually very perceptive. So why hadn’t Tyrell seen this wariness in Jama for himself? As close as he and Jama had grown over the past few months, and with so much shared history—

“Sometimes, I guess a fella can have trouble seeing through the haze of all those romantic feelings to a festering problem,” Dad said.

“Maybe, but—”

“Especially when that fella might be struggling with the same problem.”

“You’re talking about Amy’s death? How can that be connected to Jama’s childhood traumas?”

“It’s a resurrection of everything bad, son. Help her through it. That’s what a man does for his woman. Give her time.”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“But don’t just go all silent on her. Draw her out.”

“Okay, Dad, I’ll twist her arm and beat it out of her. Now, you relax and I’ll go talk to the doctor.”

Dad glared up at him.

“Sorry. I’m not going to bully her about anything today. She’s got her mind on one thing, and that’s your health. That’s my focus, too. So you need to come through this and prove her diagnosis correct. Now will you let me talk to the doctor about—”

“One more thing,” Dad said. “There’s supposed to be a freeze tonight.”

“I know. I’ll see to it as soon as you come through this surgery.”

“Nothing you can do to help the surgeon except pray, and you can do that at home on the ranch.”

“Think I don’t know my job? What you didn’t teach me, the university did.”

Monty closed his eyes and moaned.

Tyrell leaned over him, alarmed, until he saw the very faint lines of a smile around his father’s eyes.

“Dad, the ranch will not be ruined by the time you get back home. I promise I won’t make any changes without your permission.”

“Those shoots are fragile right now. You can’t cover the vines or they’ll break off.”

“Dad—”

“And I don’t know that burning hundreds of dollars worth of hay will even make a difference.”

“We can place the bales along the road at the bottom of the hill. The heat will rise.”

“Not evenly.”

“Dad, if you meant what you said about wanting me to manage the ranch, now’s the time to prove it.”

To Tyrell’s relief, his father finally gave a faint nod and released a quiet sigh. “Just remember, though,” Monty said, “if this heart problem doesn’t get better, it’ll be your decisions from now on that make or break the future of our ranch.”

“Don’t write yourself off yet, Dad. It’s going to be okay.” He trusted Jama’s instincts.

Clancy’s angry voice filled the air with ugly words about the people in the world who didn’t deserve to live. Doriann knew she was imagining the smell of his bad breath from twenty feet away.

She also knew that her prayers were being answered, because anybody else would’ve seen her in her hiding place.

Thank You, Jesus. She had lain trapped, waiting for Clancy and Deb to move for what seemed like forever, and her right leg was cramping so badly she was about to cry.

When she could stand it no longer, she shifted. Brush rustled. Dirt crumbled beneath her left knee. She peered across to see if Clancy and Deb had heard. Apparently, Clancy’s voice had masked the sound.

Doriann tried to straighten her leg a little more, and more dirt fell.

Deb turned to walk in the other direction. Clancy followed.

Doriann remembered to breathe.

The ground sank a little more beneath her left knee, and she felt her right knee sink, too. She heard the scattering of pebbles far below, and felt herself sliding.

She grabbed at the base of the bush that barely camouflaged her. It rustled.

“What was that?” Clancy growled.

Both of them stopped and turned, but Deb pointed up into the trees. “Squirrels.”

Doriann’s eyes squeezed shut as the dirt kept crumbling beneath her. She could let go of the bush and fall into the river and freeze to death, or she could be killed by the beasts nearby.

“Look at the great blue heron,” Deb said. “It just took off.”

The Missouri River was Doriann’s friend. She let go of the bush and braced herself.

The ground stopped crumbling. Clancy told Deb how stupid she was for bird-watching. Then he blamed her for letting “Dori” get away.

Thank You, God. Now He was answering prayers Doriann wasn’t even praying.

“No runny-nosed brat’s gonna outsmart me,” Clancy said.

Doriann pressed her lips together. Want to bet? A slug could outsmart you.

“We need to find a hiding place,” Deb said. There was a pleading note in her voice. “You may be macho man, but I’m fading.”

“You told me you knew how to cook a batch.” His voice was getting harsher with every word. Aunt Renee said that would happen when someone was tweeking. Needing a fix. Craving a jolt, unable to think straight, and totally stupid.

“Only if I have something to cook!” Deb snapped. “The stuff for that’s in St. Louis, and we’re a long stretch from there, with no ride. I’m headed for that barn. You can stay here and argue with yourself.”

“I’m going to get that kid.”

“She’s gone!” Deb shouted. “Look around you. See anything moving? You can come if you want, or you can get lost in the woods and be rescued by the FBI.” She turned and plunged back into the brush in the direction they’d come.

For a moment, Clancy stood watching her leave. He said a few ugly words under his breath, stuffed his hands in the back pockets of his ratty jeans and glared at the ground.

Doriann watched him. His shoulders gradually slumped. He took his hands from his pockets and crossed them over his chest, still watching Deb walk away. He looked up into the trees, as if he thought something might jump down on him.

Doriann heard a thump nearby, and she nearly cried out. But Clancy didn’t hear it. He was rushing after Deb along an overgrown path through the woods.

There was another thud, and again the sound of scattering pebbles. It wasn’t the twig-snapping buffalo tramp of Clancy’s or Deb’s footsteps. What she heard was behind…

She leaned on her left elbow and turned to look back to where the river flowed. It wasn’t until she felt the dirt disappear from beneath her right leg that she realized what was happening, and then it was too late.

This time the ledge crumbled.

Her mouth opened to scream, and she gulped it back, choked as the dirt beneath both legs gave way, then fell from beneath her belly, then she tumbled down with a slide of rocks, dirt and mud.

Chapter Ten

T he white capitol building in Jefferson City was visible for many miles, standing out against the vivid blue of the Missouri sky, before Jama and Fran reached it. They wouldn’t arrive at St. Mary’s Hospital for another ten minutes.

“I can’t believe Tyrell hasn’t called,” Jama said.

“There obviously hasn’t been any news about Monty, or he’d have let us know,” Fran assured her. “And you know cell phones aren’t allowed in certain parts of hospitals.”

Jama could feel her tension building with each mile.

“I remember the last time I rode in a car to a hospital for an emergency.” Fran’s voice came soft and gentle, as if her mind had been sifting through photos of the past.

“You’re talking about when Monty had his stroke.”

Fran nodded. “I thought I’d lose him, too. Only God knows how badly I lost my cool that day. Even though Monty’s recovery went well, I still had this nagging sense that something was wrong. The trip to the hospital, the emergency room, the medical staff, all reminded me of our trip together to the hospital only weeks earlier for you and Amy.”

Jama stared straight ahead at the road.

“The sheriff came to the house about midnight Christmas Eve,” Fran said.

Jama didn’t want to hear this. Yet she owed Fran a listening and compassionate ear. They’d seldom spoken about that horrific night because when it came up Jama either had someplace else to be, or she changed the subject.

“It had to have been a nightmare for you,” Jama said.

“Worse than any nightmare, because I didn’t have the relief of waking up to find that everything was okay.” Fran patted Jama’s arm, then allowed her hand to linger, as if she needed that connection. “We got through Amy’s death, didn’t we?”

Jama glanced at her. Had they, really?

“We’re still functioning, sweetheart,” Fran said in answer to Jama’s unspoken thought. “For a couple of years after she died, I wasn’t sure I could keep going.”

It grew difficult for Jama to breathe normally. This was why her visits to River Dance the past four years had taken so much effort. It was a major reason that she dreaded the next two years. To be reminded over and over…

“We’ve got purpose to our lives again,” Fran said. “It’ll never be the same, but we’ve discovered life does continue.”

Jama caught her lower lip between her teeth. Life had continued, but not the same way.

Not a day passed that Jama didn’t have something she needed to talk about with Amy. Since losing her best friend, her sister, she didn’t think the same way anymore or feel the same about anything.

She slowed for a narrow bridge. “Amy was so much like you, Fran. She had a solid strength that made everyone around her feel secure. She could carry the world. She did, too, often. Or she tried.”

Fran squeezed Jama’s arm, then let go. “Face it, honey, Amy was as strong-willed as you are. I worried about that tendency of hers a lot. I worried that her independence would cost her the opportunity to have a man’s love, to settle and have a family. After she died…” Her voice cracked. She stared out the window for a moment.

Jama stared straight ahead and focused on breathing deeply. Jama never cried.

“Afterward,” Fran continued, “I realized that I’d been wishing for her to live out my dreams for her. I wasn’t wise enough to allow her to live her own. With all the other kids, I’d allowed them to find their own way, but Amy…she was different. I guess I identified with her more. I wanted her to have a happy life, and I was afraid she would burn out before she could find someone to share that life with.”

“Med school and residency are tough on a marriage,” Jama said. “We saw several of our friends divorce. Amy wanted to wait until she had more time to devote to someone else in her life.”

Jama still felt regret that she’d never been able to say a formal, final goodbye to Amy. She’d been in the hospital, too badly injured with a damaged spleen, collapsed lung and cracked ribs, to attend Amy’s funeral.

“I wonder what she would be doing now,” Fran said.

“She would be saving lives.”

There was grief in Fran’s hazel eyes. There was also a strong faith that Jama could never hope to emulate. How did a mother like Fran cope with the death of her daughter?

How many times had Jama wished that Fran had been her mother? Not just mother of her heart, but mother in reality.

And why, after all these years, was Jama recalling her own mother’s failings so often?

Jama braked at a light and turned left. She’d driven this route so many times….

“Jama,” Fran said softly.

“Yes.”

“You know worrying doesn’t help.”

Jama was so glad Fran couldn’t really read her mind at that moment. “I know.”

“Neither does brooding about the past.”

“Are you talking about yourself now? Sometimes we can’t control our thoughts.”

“I know. Sometimes we do it anyway, don’t we?”

“Yes.”

“Sometimes, maybe, it’s simply a way of honoring those we love,” Fran said. “A way of giving them space in our hearts. And you’re one of my kids. You have one of those places of honor in my heart.”

Jama negotiated a sharp curve as the pressure flooded her chest and worked its way up. Over the years of residency, she’d learned the important art of emotional detachment. She’d lost that skill for about a year after Amy’s death, but eventually it returned.

Until now.

For a long moment, Fran said nothing. Jama glanced over to find her staring out the window, and the pain in that brief glimpse was dark and hard—the harsh and ugly scars of a break in the earthly bonds of mother-daughter love that weren’t meant to be erased by time, or by faith. They were simply meant to be endured. At least, that was how Jama saw it.

“You were the sister Amy so desperately needed in her life,” Fran said at last. “As a middle child, with two older brothers who were into their own activities, and younger twin sisters who were inseparable, she sometimes felt left out, I’m afraid. If not for you, Amy would have had a much lonelier childhood.” Fran looked over at Jama. “And now you’re the one who’s alone.”

“Now who’s worrying?” Jama teased. It was time for a lighter mood.

Fran tapped her lips with her fingers. “Shame on me.”

“So to give you something different to ponder, what do you think about Zelda Benedict joining the staff at the clinic? She helped me with Monty this morning, and her skills are top-notch.”

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