But his parents deserved better. They had given him a family. Picked him out, when no one else wanted him. Raised him as their own. His dad always told him that it wasn’t common blood that made a family. It was love. And he had been loved by them. It didn’t matter that they didn’t share the same DNA. He had always known that he was their true son.
But talk about a reality check. With life hanging in the balance, all his worries vanished like smoke in the wind. And right then, he promised himself that if he lived to see another day, he’d work harder to be a better son. A more effective sheriff. A kinder friend.
“All done.” Abby’s sensible voice interrupted his musings. “Now I am going to release the tourniquet. It might feel weird for a few seconds.”
His mind registered her words, but they didn’t add up until he felt a tingling and then a sudden rush of blood flow into his leg. For a moment, they both stared at the neat row of stiches, waiting to see if they would hold.
Abby smiled. “I think we’re okay. You’ll have to get this all redone at a hospital when we get back home.” She paused and then added in a quiet voice, “If we get home.”
“Oh, we’re going to get home. In fact, I’ll be ready to go in a minute.”
Cal pulled himself up from the couch.
“Cal, no. You need to wait until you’re strong enough to move around.”
He shook off her caution and stepped gingerly down on his leg. Pain stabbed through his muscles as he stumbled forward, barely managing to avoid falling on to the floor. Panting from the exertion, he steadied himself against the coffee table, willing the ache to subside.
He looked down at the stiches. Abby had probably saved his life. He wasn’t certain that there was another person, male or female, in all of Dagger Lake County, let alone the state of North Dakota, who would have been competent enough to create a suture under such dire circumstances. But why did the white string, woven in a neat row on the side of his leg, look so familiar? He knew that Abby had used a needle to stich up his leg. He had experienced the stabbing pain firsthand. But where had she found the thread? He had seen the pale lacing before, but couldn’t place it.
He closed his eyes for just a moment and unclenched his fingers from the table’s edge.
A throbbing pain shot up his side, practically paralyzing him with its intensity. Desperate for relief, he swayed, his knees buckling beneath him. Holding on to a chair, he lowered himself to the floor. The coolness of the tile soothed the burning ache, at least temporarily.
Abby reached down and touched his leg. “The stitches held. I think we’re good. But honestly, Cal, I wasn’t kidding when I said that you need to take it easy.”
Inspiration dawned. “Hey. I just figured it out. I thought the thread you used on my leg looked familiar. It was from your bracelet. You took it apart. And pulled off the beads.”
“So I did.”
“Well, thanks for stitching me up, Doc.” Cal pushed up to a sitting position and leaned against the back of the table for support.
“You’re welcome. But don’t try to stand again until I tell you it’s okay.” She pulled a granola bar out of her back pocket. “Maybe you can munch on this while we wait. Fifteen minutes of quiet is all I ask, and then we can see if you’re feeling up to it.”
“How about ten?” he bargained with a smile.
“Fine. But you need to give your body a chance to recover. It would be best if you stayed still for at least a half hour.”
He unwrapped the bar and took a bite. He chewed thoughtfully, and then he shook his head. “That won’t work. I need to be ready. Ricky and the others are still out there somewhere. But where they are at the moment, I just can’t be sure.”
“But they have to be wet and cold. And without a vehicle.”
“Maybe. But after everything that has happened, I can’t see them throwing in the towel and giving up.”
He wanted to say more. But before he could speak, a serious wail echoed across the rafters.
The baby was awake. And from the sound of it, he wasn’t happy.
TWELVE
Abby lifted the crying baby in her arms. Poor little guy. His face was the color of a red tomato, and his fingers were clenched into tiny fists. “I think he’s hungry again, and probably wet, as well. Unfortunately, I put all the extra diapers and formula in his basket. And that got tossed when we made our escape.”
“I jammed all of that under the seat before I set the basket on the snowmobile.”
She handed him the baby. “Well done on that, Cal. While you hold our angry friend, I’ll go retrieve our stash.”
The supplies were just where Cal had said they would be. Once she was back inside, she made quick work of changing the baby’s diaper. She thought the baby might need some more formula, but Cal immediately took the infant in his arms and began rocking him back to sleep.
“Why don’t I take him and give you a break?” Abby said.
“Nah. I kind of like that cute way he snorts when he’s starting to settle down. Like his caregivers finally got the message, and all’s right with the world.”
Abby looked away to hide her smile. This was a side of the gruff sheriff that she had seen more than once during the past hours they had spent together. He put on a good act, but underneath, he was a softy just like her.
“Yeah,” Cal continued. “I’ve always liked kids. When I was married, I hoped that we’d have a couple of our own. There’s something sort of awesome about watching them grow. Like everyday evidence of God’s loving care. I remember holding my nephews and nieces when they were born and thinking about all the milestones that awaited them up ahead. Learning to walk and starting to talk. Grade school. High school. College. Setting out in the world and fulfilling their dreams.” He chucked softly. “The time goes fast, and before you know it, they’re getting married themselves.”
Wow. In all the time she had known Cal, that was the longest she had ever heard him talk about something so personal. In truth, Cal had always been a bit of an enigma. Not exactly standoffish. Reserved seemed to be a more apt description. He maintained his distance and didn’t share much about his past. And Abby respected that. After her dad died, she had shut down a lot of conversations by refusing to describe the details of the accident or to share what she had been feeling those last few moments the two of them had been stuck in the car. So she understood his need for playing it close to the chest. But now it seemed that Cal was making it clear that his private life was no longer off-limits and that he was willing to finally open up.
She knew a little bit about Cal’s wife’s death and his decision to move to Dagger Lake to make a new start. That part of his backstory had been grist for the gossip mill in the first few months after he arrived in town. But no one seemed to know exactly what transpired in the tragic, officer-involved shooting in Saint Cloud. There had been rumors that Cal’s wife had not followed proper procedure in handling a domestic dispute, that she had ignored the rules and tried to diffuse a dangerous situation on her own. It would have been easy to find out most of the details, but Abby thought it was best not to pry.
Still, Cal was the one who had brought the subject of his marriage up, so it seemed safe to assume that he wanted to talk about it.
She took a deep breath. “Cal, I know your wife died in the line of duty. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard that must have been for you. And I just want you to know that I am very sorry for your loss.”
Cal nodded. “Thanks, Abby. What happened with Shannon is all part of the public record, so it’s no big secret how it all went down.”
“I don’t really know any of the specifics. I figured it was none of my business.”
“I appreciate that. The whole thing is still so difficult for me to understand. Shannon had just gone off duty when she got a call about a domestic dispute. Backup was less than two minutes away, but she decide
d not to wait. She rushed right in, determined to make an arrest. Turned out the husband of the woman who had called in the complaint had a big old rifle and an even bigger death wish going for him. Shannon never had a chance.”
Abby blew out a long breath. “That’s terrible. It sounds like she was very brave.”
“She was. According to the incident report, she showed courage to the point of being foolhardy. And that last part of the equation ended up costing her life.”
“Knowing that it might have gone down differently if she had waited for backup must have made the loss even harder for you.”
“It did. But the truth is, Abby, even before the shooting, Shannon and I weren’t on the same page about a lot of things. We met at the police academy and got married a month after graduation. And we started having problems immediately. We were too different, I guess. I believed in following rules, and she was a maverick, always wanting to be in the middle of all the action, even when it was the last place she belonged. We argued about it quite a bit, especially after she was written up for risking her partner’s life in a drug bust downtown. When she agreed to go to marriage counseling, I thought the situation would to take a turn for the better, but that didn’t end up being the case. During one of our sessions, the counselor asked about our ten-year plan for our lives. Mine was pretty typical—kids, a bigger house, a bigger yard, vacations with the family.” He shrugged. “Shannon’s plan didn’t include kids—or me. It focused on a rise up the ranks, with her eventually becoming a captain of a large city police force. Needless to say, I felt blindsided.”
Abby pressed her lips together. She didn’t know what to say.
“Not surprisingly, we drifted apart. We called it a trial separation, but we both knew that it was the first step in an inevitable move toward divorce. We were keeping the situation a secret from our colleagues at the station while we worked out the details, so when she died, everyone assumed that I was a grieving widower. It was true that I was grieving, but I felt like a fraud because no one knew that our marriage had been over for almost a year before she died.
“Sorry,” he said. “That story is kind of a downer. Maybe I need to stick to things from my book of biographies. Let me think.” He pressed his lips together and tilted to his head. “Okay. I got one. So, what do you know about...?”
Abby held up her hand. “How about I tell you a story for a change?”
He said, straightening his back against the pillow, “That would be better. I’m all ears.”
“Okay. My story is about a woman named Miriam. You won’t find her name or picture in any history books, but she made a big difference in the lives of the foster kids she took in and raised as her own. Her house was right next door to the place I lived with my mom and brother when we came to live on the reservation.”
“That was after your dad died, right?”
“Yeah. My mom had been struggling even before we moved to Dagger Lake. But once we were surrounded by a network of family and friends, she took a major step backward on her parental responsibilities. Unfortunately, most of our relatives didn’t realize how checked out my mom really was, especially when it came to us kids.”
Abby was quiet for a moment as she thought about the night she had shown up in her brother’s classroom to watch him perform in a school play. None of the other parents in attendance acted like anything was amiss about an eleven-year-old wearing a name tag that said “Mrs. Marshall.” But several days later, there was a knock on the door of their house, and there was Miriam.
“But it all got better when Gideon and I began spending time after school with Miriam. She taught us so many practical things and quite a few life lessons, too. How to be strong and brave. How to climb off your high horse to lend a friend a helping hand. She was awesome. One of those adults that can relate to kids while still managing to be firm but fair. Miriam died a couple years ago, and over five hundred people came to her funeral. Five hundred. Can you believe it? One guy even flew in all the way from Australia. That’s the kind of person she was.”
She looked down and touched the hem of her blouse.
“She taught you to sew, didn’t she?”
Abby nodded. “She did. She showed me how to make a pattern and then find the perfect fabric for just the right look. It was great when I was in high school because I had the skills to whip up a new outfit in just a couple of hours.”
“Well.” He took a deep breath as he once again trained his gaze on the baby in his arms. “You always look very nice, so I’m guessing that you must be an excellent seamstress.”
She smiled. “Thanks, Cal.”
He shook his head. “We both have quite the sad stories to share, don’t we? But think about this. Thanks to our combined forces, we’ve been able to give this little guy a chance at a happy ending. Because if we hadn’t arrived on the steps of the bank when we did, his mom would be dead, and he would have been kidnapped by his dad. And no one would be the wiser.” Cal looked down at the baby in his arms.
Then he lowered his lips and kissed the little boy’s head.
* * *
Abby had started to cry, and Cal wasn’t sure why. He thought that his comment about them saving the baby would make her happy. Then again, maybe she was happy. He detected the trace of a smile through her tears.
“Thanks for listening to my tale of woe,” he said.
Abby shot him a bemused look.
He hastened to explain. “About Shannon and everything. I never told anyone—not even my parents—that Shannon and I were separated and living apart at the time she got shot. I guess I thought that it would only disappoint them. And since she was gone, it didn’t seem necessary. But it felt good to share the story with you and allow the truth to be out in the open.”
Abby pushed back her tears. “I know I said it before, but I’m really glad we decided to be friends.”
He was, too. Even though he had plenty of acquaintances—Abby’s brother Gideon, a few of the regulars who met every day at the diner for breakfast—he didn’t have many true friends. He wasn’t a guarded person by nature, but Shannon’s death had caused him to become closed off and cautious in his personal interactions. And it didn’t help that he was the sheriff. People loved to buttonhole him when he was out and about, offering up helpful suggestions and advice. But for all their talk, conversations never went beyond the superficial.
Not Abby though. With her, he felt comfortable sharing his deeper feelings and letting her see who he was beyond the uniform and the job.
The sudden clatter of something crashing into a window claimed his attention. A gnarled branch pressing against the glass and rattling in the wind. A sigh of relief left his lips. Nothing to worry about this time. But Ricky and the others were out there somewhere, waiting to strike. The lodge might be warm and comfortable, but it was far from safe.
Abby had to know that, too. She had stopped crying, but she was still upset. It had been an arduous couple of hours, filled with close calls and last-minute escapes. Of course, she was worried. She had been thrust into the role of midwife and protector of the newborn who had been left in her care. In fulfilling her promise to Isobel, Abby would do whatever it took, even if it meant putting her own life and dreams on the line.
Dreams like adopting Davey Lightfoot. He remembered the kid well. A solemn little boy who had been dealt a tough hand in life. He should have been surprised by Abby’s intention to make a home for the child. She had always seemed so dedicated to her career, always ready to work extra shifts, not seeming to have much of a life beyond her paramedic work. But it made sense when he thought about it. Over the past few hours, he had seen firsthand how selfless she was. Turned out he had been right about some of the details, but wrong about almost everything else. In fact, he was wrong about so many things related to Abby Marshall that it made his head spin just thinking about it. He didn’t want to stop and consider why this new
information filled him with excitement and warmth. It was enough that it did.
Telling Abby about Shannon’s death had helped him understand something surprising about himself. The comparisons he had been making between Abby and Shannon? They didn’t add up. Maybe focusing on a bunch of superficial similarities was just his way of protecting his heart.
“Why don’t I take the baby and give you a break?” Abby stretched out her arms. For a moment, she held the little boy close, and then she slipped him back into the sling around her chest. “Time for a nap, little friend,” she said, tucking in the sides of the blanket and running her fingers over his soft tufts of hair.
She walked over and sat down on the couch, her forehead wrinkled as she turned toward him with a worried smile.
“I know you’re right about Ricky. After everything that has happened, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to assume we’re safe. I’m not as familiar with this place as I was with the convenience store. But my brother worked here one summer when he was in high school, and I remember him saying that there’s a hut where they keep the golf carts and ATVs behind the main premises. There’s a chance that the keys to all the vehicles are hanging inside on a board. So you might not need to use your skill set for hot-wiring ignitions.”
“Hey! My talents came in handy with the snowmobile. But checking out the ATVs is a good idea. It would be smart to find some potential transportation out of here just in case our friends show up.”
“You’re a man of many talents, Sheriff Stanek. But—” her forehead creased as she looked down at his leg “—your stitches aren’t really looking all that good. I think the baby and I should wander into the kitchen to see if we can find something nourishing for you to eat.”
“Sounds like a plan. But I’m coming with you. My leg has started to stiffen up from lack of movement.”
Rescue on the Run Page 12
