The Long Way Back

by JoAnn Ross

  “This isn’t a playground, Caine. It’s a hospital. And Johnny’s my patient.”

  “But you’re the one who said that there wasn’t really anything physically wrong with the kid. I figured a little TLC never hurt anyone.”

  “TLC? Is that what you call it?”

  “Okay, how about attention? Is that a better word?”

  “That child has been through hell. I will not let you hurt him.”

  “Hurt him?” Caine’s brows climbed his tanned forehead. “I was trying to help, Nora.”

  “Right now Johnny’s proving a pleasant enough little diversion for you. But what about if you get called back to the majors—”

  “When.”

  “What?” She dragged a frustrated hand through her hair.

  “You said, if I get called back. I was merely clarifying that the proper phrasing was when I return to major-league ball.”

  “When, if—the words don’t matter,” she said, brushing his correction away with a furious wave of her hand. “The point is that Johnny’s going to start to care for you, and count on you, and maybe even love you, and you’re going to abandon him, just like—”

  She cut her words off in midsentence, but the damage had already been done. Caine would have had to be dense as a stump not to get her drift.

  “Like I abandoned you?” he asked quietly.

  “That’s not what I was going to say.” It was a lie and they both knew it.

  “Look, I’ll be the first to admit that marriage wasn’t high on my list of priorities ten years ago, Nora.

  “But that day you embarrassed yourself in anatomy class by tossing your cookies all over Irving, I realized that somehow, when I wasn’t looking, you’d become much, much more.”

  “What happened between us is in the past, Caine.”

  “Now why can’t I believe that?”

  “Believe it.” She turned to leave, then stopped long enough to give him a warning. “And don’t you dare hurt Johnny Baker.”

  With that, she marched away.

  Caine wanted to go after her. But remembering his pledge to Maggie, he sighed and returned to watch the rest of the game with the one person in Tribulation who wasn’t asking more than he could deliver.

  * * *

  Five days later, Caine was back in Tribulation, sitting in a window booth in the Timberline Café, watching the rain streak down the glass, when Nora walked in.

  “Hi.” She stopped beside the table.

  “Hi, yourself.”

  “So how was the fishing?”

  “Terrific. Of course, Fortress Lake is easy; you could catch a boatful of Eastern brook trout on peanut-butterand-jelly sandwiches.”

  “You probably stocked your freezer, then.”

  “Naw. Except for the fish we cooked each night for dinner, and one mounted trophy per paying guest, we put the rest back.”

  “Oh. That’s nice.”

  The polite conversation trailed off, but neither one moved. Caine sat looking up at her while Nora looked down at him; both were oblivious to the interested quiet that had settled over the café.

  “I heard from Social Services that Johnny’s settling into his foster home,” she said.

  “I know. I stopped by to see him on the way home from the airport.”

  “How’s he getting along?”

  “Great. When I left, he was rolling on the lawn with a litter of six-week-old golden retriever puppies.” His lips curved into a reminiscent smile. “You should have seen him, Nora. He looked just like any other kid.”

  “You’ve had a lot to do with that,” she said. “I’m not sure he ever would have opened up to that social worker if you hadn’t encouraged him.”

  Caine shrugged. “It wasn’t that big a deal.”

  “It was to Johnny.” She combed her fingers through her hair in a nervous gesture he remembered too well. “I owe you an apology. For what I said the other day. About you hurting him.”

  “You were only thinking of Johnny,” Caine said without rancor. “Did you know his mother is putting him up for adoption?”

  “I heard this morning.”

  Caine shook his head. “Helluva thing, giving up your own child. But I suppose it’s for the best. For Johnny.”

  “I think it probably is,” Nora agreed.

  There was another poignant silence as they studied each other.

  Nora searched for something, anything, to say. “I see you’re working on your second five gallons,” she said finally, looking down at his mug.

  The white mug, which bore Caine’s name in black block print, proclaimed that he was a member of Ingrid’s five-gallon club.

  It took one hundred cups of coffee to make five gallons, and once a customer made the quota, he got his own mug. The mugs stayed on a shelf on the back wall; the fact that Caine’s had been waiting for him all these years was additional proof that some things never changed.

  “Every man needs a goal,” Caine answered easily. “Pappy comes here every morning. Says that if his mug’s on the shelf, he knows he’s still alive.”

  Nora laughed even as she felt a bittersweet pain. “I was by their house yesterday. Maggie was looking well.”

  Caine’s jaw tensed. “For someone who’s now bedridden.”

  “Oh, Caine.” Feeling his frustration, she put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Refusing to consider whether or not it was a wise or safe thing to do, he raised his own to cover hers.

  They exchanged another long, heartfelt look. Somewhere in the background, Nora heard the sound of bells.

  “Caine…”

  “Nora…”

  They spoke at the same time, then laughed uneasily.

  “Ladies first,” Caine said.

  Before Nora could respond, Ingrid, who’d been watching the exchange along with the others, called out to her. “Nora, telephone.”

  Forgetting that they had an audience, forgetting that such unruly feelings were inordinately risky, Nora struggled against breaking the spell. “Could you please take a message, Ingrid,” she asked softly, not taking her eyes from Caine’s face.

  “I think you’d better take this one, Nora,” Ingrid insisted.

  Hearing the strain in the elderly woman’s voice, Nora dragged her gaze from Caine’s. Concern was etched into every deep line of Ingrid Johansson’s face.

  When she took the receiver from Ingrid, a foreboding chill ran up Nora’s spine. “Hello?”

  “Thank God I found you. Your cells off.” Her brother’s voice, ragged and hurried, came over the wire.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Tom called. Eric is missing,” Dana said.

  “Missing?” She sagged against Caine, who, having seen the color leave her face, had come up behind her. “How? Where?”

  “According to Tom, he was on a Scout hike at Lake Crescent. He got separated from the group and then a squall came up. All the other kids got back to the cabins safe and sound. The sheriff and the Park Service are organizing a search party.”

  “Are they at the lodge?”

  “Yeah. The troop rented a couple of the cabins, but the command post is being set up in the lodge lobby. I’ll meet you there.”

  “I’m leaving now.” She thrust the phone toward Ingrid and turned, prepared to run toward the door.

  Caine took hold of Nora’s elbow and felt her tremors. “Let’s go.”

  Set dramatically among the lushly forested northern ridges of the Olympic Mountains, Lake Crescent had long been considered the gem of the peninsula’s many scenic attractions.

  Although Native American legend taught that Lake Crescent was created when Mountain Storm King, angered by a fight that had broke out in Peaceful Valley, hurled part of his crest and dammed the river, geologists insisted on the more mundane explanation that a slow-moving glacier, gnawing at bedrock, had created the incredible blue-green lake.

  The lake had been drawing tourists since the early 1890s; the two-story, shingled lodge had been constructed in 1915. C
aine had enjoyed many weekend outings at the lake; today, however, the mood was anything but festive.

  When he and Nora entered the lodge, Karin, who’d been standing by the stone fireplace, surrounded by a protective circle of friends, ran toward them.

  “Thank God you’re here!”

  “You know there’s nowhere else I’d be.” Nora hugged her. “Everything’s going to be all right. Eric’s going to be found.”

  “I wish I could believe that.” Karin turned to Caine.

  “Hello, Caine,” she said with a formal politeness that was so ill-suited to the occasion, Caine suspected that it was the only way she could keep from breaking into torrents of weeping. “Thank you for coming.”

  Caine gathered her into his arms, bent his head and brushed his lips against her temple. “How could I not?”

  Tilting her head back, Karin bit her lip as new tears threatened. “Please find my little boy, Caine.”

  “We will,” he promised roughly. “I promise.” He handed her gently back to Nora, squeezed his former wife’s shoulder comfortingly, then strode across the room to join the search team.

  * * *

  What had been a dreary drizzle in Tribulation was a full-fledged squall at the lake. The cold wind howled off the steep slopes of the mountains; icy rain intermittently turned to sleet. The sky over the lake was as thick and dark as a wet wool blanket.

  The searchers, working in teams of four, had been assigned sections: each section led in a different direction from the trail from which Eric had disappeared. As darkness descended on the mountains, the temperature dropped.

  An icy rain dripped off the hood of his poncho as Caine searched; the yellow beam of his flashlight disappeared into the fog and mist.

  The look of absolute fear in Karin’s eyes had sliced at him like a sharp knife. It had been the same look he’d seen in Nora’s eyes when she’d arrived at the emergency room that fateful day. The day Dylan…

  No! Caine shook his head, spattering rain the way Ranger, his old springer spaniel, used to do when he’d gotten wet waiting with his master in a duck blind.

  Never again would he listen to the sound of a human heart shattering. He was going to find Eric, dammit! He was.

  It was then he heard a faint sound that could have been the wind whistling.

  Caine stopped and gestured for the rest of his team to do the same. The sound grew more distinct. It was, Caine realized with a burst of relief, the unmistakable sobbing of a child.

  They found Eric lying on a bed of needles beneath the spreading dark green arms of a towering Douglas fir. He was filthy and scared and exhausted. But, Caine determined as he ran his hands over the young body, unharmed.

  “Uncle Caine? Is that really you?”

  “It’s me, all right.” Caine scooped the eight-year-old into his arms. “Come on, sport,” he said. “We’re taking you home.”

  Two wet, dirty arms crept around Caine’s neck. “I saw a fawn. I was following it when I got lost.”

  “That’ll teach you to stick to the trail,” Caine advised with a calm that belied the runaway pounding of his heart.

  “I’m probably going to be in trouble, huh?”

  “Your mom’s real worried.”

  “Was she crying?”

  “A little. When she sees you safe and sound, she’ll probably cry a lot more.”

  “And then she’ll ground me.”

  “I’d say that’s a distinct possibility,” Caine agreed. “But my grandpappy taught me, when I was about your age, that it’s best just to take your medicine and get it over with.”

  “Yeah. That’s what Dad always says,” Eric said glumly.

  “Of course, my gram taught me something else about medicine,” Caine said.

  “What?”

  “That it always goes down smoother if you follow it with a spoonful of honey. So how about, after you get ungrounded, you and I go to Seattle and take in a Mariners game?”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  They entered the lodge with a gust of rain and wind. Caine, carrying Eric, was flanked by Dana and Joe Bob Carroll. Bring up the rear was Harmon Olson. Which wasn’t all that unbelievable, Nora decided. Tribulation’s citizens were the type of people who always pulled together in times of trouble. And a missing child was enough to make even the most long-term adversaries put aside their personal differences.

  “Oh, Eric!”

  Tears of joy coursing down her face, Karin ran toward Caine and flung her arms around both of them. “I was so worried.” Her hands trembled as they moved over her son’s dirt-caked face. “Are you all right?”

  “I think he’s fine,” Caine answered. “Nora can confirm that, for sure.”

  “So worried,” Karin repeated shakily. “I’m so happy to see you.” She combed her hands through his tousled hair, dislodging fir needles. “You’re grounded for a week.”

  Heaving a deep sigh, Eric exchanged an I-told-you-so look with his uncle over the top of his mother’s pale blond head.

  Feeling better than he had in ages, Caine threw back his head and laughed.

  CHAPTER 10

  Caine and Nora drove back to Tribulation in weary, but comfortable silence.

  “My car’s at the Timberline,” she remembered when he turned down the street toward her house.

  “I’ll bring it by tomorrow,” he suggested. “You look beat. I thought you’d rather go straight home.”

  “I am tired.” Nora glanced over his strong profile silhouetted in the slanting silver moonlight. “But I wasn’t trudging around in the rain all night. You must be exhausted.”

  Caine pulled up in front of her grandmother’s house and cut the engine. “Actually, I’m still a little wired.”

  They went up the front walk in silence, side by side, shoulders almost touching. The boards creaked underfoot as they climbed the five wooden steps to the porch. They stood there, facing one another in front of her door. “Would you like to come in?” Nora asked. “I can make tea. Or decaf.”

  A prudent man would go. A wise man would avoid a situation rife with dangerous possibilities. The problem was that Caine had never thought of himself as either a wise or prudent man.

  “Decaf sounds great. But you’re tired and—”

  “It’s instant.”

  His last excuse gone, Caine said, “Perfect.”

  He followed her into the kitchen and sat at the table, watching her fill the kettle with water.

  The trestle table was piled high with books and papers. One particular stack of typed pages caught his attention.

  “What’s this?”

  When she saw what he was holding in his hands, she flushed. “Oh, just an article I’ve been working on.”

  He scanned the opening paragraphs. “It’s about treating children in emergency rooms?”

  “Trauma centers,” Nora corrected. “Emergency rooms are overwhelmed with nonsurgical emergencies, like asthma, dehydration, stomach pumping, things like that. This causes delays, but they’re mostly not life-threatening.

  “Until a trauma victim shows up. And things become even more complicated when the victim is a child.”

  “Like Dylan.”

  He lifted his gaze from the paper; his eyes met hers, asking her to finally share the most tragic experience of their lives with him.

  Knowing what he needed and needing it, too, Nora didn’t take her eyes away. “Yes,” she said softly. “Like Dylan.” She took a deep breath. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to say.” The teakettle began to whistle shrilly. Caine watched and waited as she poured the water over the dark crystals. She sat down across from him.

  “When I stopped by to check on Maggie yesterday,” she said quietly, “Devlin told me that you still blame yourself for Dylan’s death.”

  When Caine’s grandfather had divulged that particular piece of intimate information, Nora had been shocked.

  “I think that’s when I finally realized that it was time for me to
stop blaming you. And for you to stop blaming yourself.”

  “Oh, hell, Nora, if Dylan hadn’t been in the car—”

  “You’re being too hard on yourself.” How strange that after all the years of blaming Caine for the death of their child, she now wanted so desperately to convince him of the contrary.

  “I had a teammate in Detroit,” Caine said slowly, painfully. “A shortstop. He dabbled in a lot of Eastern religions. When I knew him, he was into Zen.

  “Used to drive us crazy, sitting stark-naked in front of his locker before every game, chanting his mantra. But I have to admit, he was the best player under pressure I’ve ever seen.

  “One time, on a road trip, he told me something I’ve never forgotten.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He said that there is no such thing as coincidence, that life is only a response to Karma. That every word we utter, every breath we take, stirs the cosmos around us. That around every corner is a consequence, under every rock a repercussion.”

  Nora rose abruptly from the table and began to open a box of cookies. “I refuse to believe that Dylan’s death was part of some enormous cosmic plan.”

  “But how do you know he’s not right? What if it was a consequence of my ambition?” Caine asked. “How else can you explain that he died the day after I learned I was finally getting called up to the majors?”

  “Coincidence, dammit!” Her hands were trembling as she overturned the box, scattering cookies all over the table. “I was just as ambitious as you, Caine. We were both obsessed by our own goals.

  “But that doesn’t mean that we didn’t love our son. And it certainly doesn’t mean that either of us caused his death. It was an accident. A stupid, tragic, senseless accident.”

  The words were meant to comfort Caine. What Nora hadn’t expected was, that for the first time in nine years, she could truly believe them.

  “You sound awfully sure of that.”

  Nora drew in a long, shuddering breath. “I’ve seen too many children die since that day. I’ve had a great deal of time to think about how that could happen and why.”

  “Which brings us back to this paper.”

  “Yes.” She took another breath, clearing her mind. “There are so many things people need to know about the treatment of children who’ve suffered accidents. So many ways they’re different from adults.”