He stepped forward, wanting to stop her tears. Hold her. Embrace her. Make everything all right. “Why is it so important, Rain? Why does it make such a difference to you?”
She stood straighter, leaned up and kissed his cheek in a quiet farewell. “That’s what I’ll be praying for, Luke. That someday you understand why it makes a difference.” She pulled her hands from his and moved toward the door. “We can still have the kids get together, if you want to. You can drop Aiden at our place or I can drop the girls off here.”
“Kids only.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
He wanted to throw something, but cops didn’t give in to fits of temper. They couldn’t afford to. He stayed where he was and shrugged. “I’ll need time to think on that.”
“Of course.”
That was what weeks of hopes and dreams boiled down to. Two simple words of assent that meant nothing.
She walked out the door and through the wind and icy rain to the waiting car. She walked slowly, lost in thought.
No, she’s praying, numbskull.
Luke had prayed. He’d begged. He’d promised anything God required, and got nothing in return, so forgive him for washing his hands of the whole God thing.
At the car door, Rainey turned and faced the house. Her gaze swept his home as though wondering, longing, hoping.
And then she climbed into Lucia’s aging Camry, and drove away.
Chapter Thirteen
Luke wrote more speeding tickets in November than should have been humanly possible. He volunteered for all the overtime he could get and pretended it was okay to leave Aiden with his grandma so often.
His heart ached. Stress headaches invaded his sleep.
He didn’t take Aiden to see the girls. He couldn’t do that, couldn’t pretend to be just friends with Rainey McKinney when what he really wanted was to change her name and offer her a new address in his hillside home above Kirkwood Lake.
He glared at each church he passed, angered by the sheer number of them in the small, lakeside communities. And when Thanksgiving came, he clasped hands around his parents’ table and felt nothing but gut-wrenching anger with his father’s gentle prayer of thanks.
“Luke, did you find someone to watch Aiden this Saturday?” Jenny asked after dinner. “I’d watch him if I could, but Dad’s store will be busy and he’ll need me on hand.”
“Hillary’s taking him to her parents’ place for the day,” he told her. “This will give them some holiday time together. He’s going to help Martha’s parents decorate for Christmas.” He tried not to choke on the word. Right now the thought of Christmas without Rainey and the girls loomed lifeless and glum. But he’d have to get a clue for his son’s sake, because Aiden deserved his full attention.
“I want to go see Sonya and Dorrie this weekend,” Aiden announced. “I haven’t gotten to play with them in weeks!” He shoved his chair back from the table and stood.
“You see them in school every day,” Luke remarked quietly.
“It’s not the same, Dad.”
It wasn’t. Luke knew that. They were living each day as a pale reminder of what could have been, and the loss of that hope needled him daily.
His mother jumped in to ward off the battle brewing between father and son. “Helping Grandma and Grandpa Baxter will be nice, Aiden.” She shot him a look of approval. “They love spending time with you.”
Aiden stomped off, unconvinced, and Jenny turned toward Luke, but his father motioned him over to the noisy television room just then. “Luke. Seth. Have you guys seen this weather alert?”
Luke crossed to the sunken family room. Bold orange stripes scrolled across the bottom of the screen, warning of an approaching storm front. The meteorologists’ map showed two storms converging over Western New York. “This could be bad,” he muttered. “We’ve had nearly three weeks of rain already. A long, drenching storm with sustained winds could mean serious flooding in the southern basin.”
“Which means we’ll be sleeping at the barracks,” Seth announced.
“They’ll be setting up sandbag groups now,” their father speculated. “Luke, check it out, see if they need bags. The Army Corps of Engineers might have some nearby, but I have a pallet of them at the hardware store. If they can send a truck up, we can load them this afternoon and get them to the south shore before the storm actually hits.”
Luke called command, made his father’s offer, and they had a reply within minutes. “Truck’s on the way. They said payment might take a while.”
Charlie brushed that off. “Payments come eventually. I bought these just in case we had an emergency. There’s never time to get them if you wait for things to happen.”
His words etched Luke’s heart.
Was that what he’d been doing these last years? Waiting for things to happen instead of moving on, embracing life with his son?
“I’ll meet you at the store, Dad.” Seth jingled his keys as he headed for the door. “I’ve got to get stuff from my place. Mom, feel free to pack up a couple of pies for the crew. They’d love it, and Luke and I might not see you for a few days. I’d hate to see that chocolate cream go to waste.”
She waved him on. “Go get your stuff. I’ll have the pies ready to go when you guys get back here.”
“I’ll ride with you, Seth.” Luke followed his brother to his SUV. “No sense taking three cars.”
“Sounds good.”
As the Campbell men piled into Charlie’s truck and Seth’s car, Luke had no time to think further about his dad’s words. If this storm mushroomed like the computer models showed, he’d be on duty day and night until the emergency passed, catching catnaps on hard cots in the barracks.
“We’re in for a heck of a Thanksgiving weekend,” Seth remarked.
Luke frowned. “So it seems.”
“And since I’m dreading this whole holiday thing, I’m looking forward to being so busy I can’t think about what Tori’s doing. If she’s happy. If her mother’s new boyfriend is good to her.”
Guilt struck Luke hard. His brother had been going through a rough time since his wife left him nearly two years ago. Last Christmas had been tough on him, but Luke had assumed this one would be better. That time had helped heal the ache in Seth’s big heart. It was a stupid assumption because he knew how painful the holidays were after he lost Martha.
You didn’t lose her. She left you. You and your son. You got dumped just like Seth, but in a different way.
As they wound through the village to Seth’s historic home, Christmas lights brightened up the darkening afternoon. The village roads crew had attached illuminated wreaths to each lamppost. Twinkle lights blanketed every tree. Storefronts, ready for tomorrow’s start to the holiday season, featured Christmas displays of toys, villages and winter scenes.
For the first time in years, Luke had been looking forward to celebrating Christmas. The beautiful town gave him another harsh look in the mirror.
He’d barely decorated for the holiday. His mother kept up the traditions Aiden had come to know and love. Making cookies. Setting up the crèche. Stringing popcorn and cranberries to wrap around the big tree his father complained about every year.
While smiling at his wife across the room.
Luke wanted to shove this Christmas aside, too, but it was time for him to make things special for his son. What had he been thinking these last three years? Passing through the picturesque village, he promised himself he’d do whatever it took to make Aiden’s holidays special. Luke was only sorry he’d wasted so much time.
He couldn’t think about Rainey, about her first Christmas back home with the girls. He pushed thoughts of her and the twins away. Keeping busy was more appealing than feeling sorry for himself, and the incoming storm might break the anger he’d clung to since Rainey had
walked out that door. Because more than anything, he wanted her to say it had been a mistake and promise they could work things out.
But three long, silent weeks later, he understood that wasn’t going to happen. No matter how much he wished for it.
Chapter Fourteen
“Mommy, can we play with Aiden today?” Sonya asked Saturday, her soft voice beseeching.
“We haven’t played with him in forever!” Dorrie’s righteous indignation and the vigorous foot-stomping highlighted the differences between the twins.
“Not today, ladies. I think his daddy is working because of the storm.” She assumed that was true. She’d texted Luke twice in the past few weeks, offering playdates for the kids, and got short negative replies for her trouble.
He was right to refuse. She knew that. Even seeing him from time to time, dropping the kids off, would make it hard to step fully away, so kudos to him for being the strong one.
She got out a Lite-Brite her mother had found at a garage sale and turned the girls loose with the colorful acrylic pegs and the lighted board. As the storm raged around them, she took time to sit and pray.
The store’s business had mushroomed over the last week. She’d filled dozens of orders for cakes, and they’d sold nearly as much cinnamon milk as they did eggnog.
Her head celebrated the success.
Her heart longed for Luke. She thought it would get easier with time, but the approaching holidays warned otherwise. As she strung twinkle lights in the farmhouse windows, she wondered if Luke would bother to decorate for Aiden. Would he see how perfect a crèche would look on his side table? Did he have garlands to loop along the pretty front porch? Would he bother with a wreath for the thick oak door?
Stop torturing yourself. Move on. This Christmas you should be celebrating your family, your faith, your homecoming. Trust God in all things, but grasp what you’ve been given. It’s so much more than you had before.
She would listen to her conscience. Trust her instincts. God had delivered her from evil and given her joy in the form of two blessed girls who’d grown to love her. No matter what, she needed to appreciate that blessing.
The house phone rang. She saw Luke’s number in the caller ID, hesitated, then picked up, but it wasn’t Luke on the other end. It was Hillary, crying. Hysterical.
“Aiden’s gone. He got mad at me because he wanted to go to your house and he couldn’t, and Luke’s fighting the flood in the river valley, and I called the police but the weather is so bad, and he’s so little, and what if he’s trying to get to your house and he’s hit by a car?”
Aiden. Ran away from home?
Guilt broadsided Rainey. They should have prepared for this. They’d worked to make the little boy more assertive and independent, so why wouldn’t he strike out on his own when the adults around him did foolish things? “I’ll be right there. My mother’s here. If he makes it around the lake, she’ll be here to welcome him.”
Hillary’s sobs were the last thing Rainey heard as she disconnected. She grabbed her boots, her hoodie and one of Piper’s farm coats, checked the pockets for waterproof gloves, found them, and headed for the door. She waggled her phone at her mother. “I’ll explain from the car, gotta go.”
The gravity in Lucia’s face said more than words. “I will be here, waiting.”
As Rainey popped the car into gear, she thought of what her mother had said. That’s what she’d aspired to those years in Illinois. To become the kind of mother who withstood crisis after crisis, waiting. Praying. A port in the storm. It took years on her own for Rainey to realize what she’d had, and how she’d misused her mother’s love.
Now she wanted nothing more than to emulate it.
She called Lucia on the phone so the twins wouldn’t overhear what was happening, and rued every extra minute it took to get to Luke’s place in the teeming rain. Twice she had to ease around tree branches in the road, but eventually she made it, hopped out of the car and onto Luke’s porch.
Hillary opened the door quickly. A gust caught the storm door, and the force of the wind slammed it into Rainey’s face. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry. So sorry!”
Rainey shook her head, her cheek stinging from the unexpected slap of metal. “Doesn’t matter. Tell me what you know.”
“Nothing. He was mad and went to his room, and I was playing solitaire on the computer. I went to check on him, thinking he fell asleep, and he was gone. His window was open and I could see footprints in the mud.”
“Which way?”
Hillary pointed south. “Down the hill. But there were only a few prints, so maybe he didn’t go that way at all.”
“You checked the barn?”
“Yes. Well. Kind of. Not, like, up the ladder.”
Rainey bit back words of recrimination. Not everyone was raised on a farm, or accustomed to crawling through straw stacks and meeting four-footed little critters eye to eye. “What did the police say?”
“They’re overwhelmed with the storm and they’ve got emergencies everywhere, but they said they’d swarm the area to look for Luke’s son. Again.”
Again. Because Luke’s son had been lost once before. That time he’d survived, tucked inside a car. Now, with two days of pouring rain, out in the cold?
God help Aiden.
Rainey didn’t want to hug Hillary. She didn’t want to befriend a woman whose shallow dislike fed others’ anger. But she’d never lost a sister to suicide or spent days combing the hills, looking for a small child. Aiden’s disappearance would push old buttons. Bring up difficult losses. And for that she reached out, hugged Hillary and headed back out. “My mother will call if he shows up there. The roads are bad, so it might take the sheriffs in the southern sector a while to get here. I’m going to check the barns. If he’s not here, I’ll take a horse out and look. Stay by the phone and pray, Hillary. Pray hard. And if you belong to a prayer chain, get them involved.”
A spark of hope lit Hillary’s eyes. “I will. Right now.”
Rainey ran to the barn. Luke’s barns were ridiculously clean, so it didn’t take her long to decide Aiden wasn’t there. She headed to the horse stalls, eyed the three pensioners and reached for the latch on one door. “Come here, Star, I’m going to need your help.”
Spirit stomped in the stall next door.
Rainey met his gaze as she undid Star’s latch. “Hey, old boy.”
Stomp! Stomp! He shook his head at her, and the look in the old horse’s eyes said he wondered why she’d consider taking an everyday mare out on a search when she had a trained deputy nearby.
The horse had a point. She studied him, then Star, then relatched the door. “You want to go?”
Spirit nodded. He pawed the ground as if understanding time was of the essence. Rainey disregarded the craziness of her decision, opened Spirit’s stall and got him saddled in record time. She walked him out of the barn.
He sniffed, head high, then pawed the ground with his right hoof, telling her to mount up. She took a breath, put one foot in the stirrup, grabbed the horn and hauled herself up and over. Spirit’s size didn’t make mounting easy, but once astride, she loved the feel of the powerful horse beneath her. Nothing dainty about the sixteen-hand, twelve-hundred-pound Morgan cross. She leaned down and whispered in his ear. “We’ve got to find Aiden, old boy. The roads are wet and the hills are slippery. But we can do this together.”
His head bob was all she needed. They started down the southern slope, Spirit picking his way, getting a feel for the ground.
They had only a few hours before dark. A few short hours of daylight before a five-year-old boy would be lost overnight. No way was Rainey about to let that happen.
She urged Spirit into the woods leading toward the creek ravine.
She found nothing.
She called Aiden’s name un
til her voice went raw.
No response.
Her phone rang. Hillary was calling. Rainey answered promptly. “Nothing yet. Spirit and I are on the southeast side, heading toward the ravine.”
“It was flooded this morning.” Hillary’s voice rose with worry. “I passed it on my way here. My parents wanted to have Aiden over today but my Dad got the stomach bug, so I told Luke I’d watch him at home instead. And that’s when Aiden got so mad.”
Rainey couldn’t discuss blame now, not when every moment counted. “Hillary, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you if I find him.”
“Oh, please. Please find him. Please.”
It’s you and me, God. I don’t have a clue, so if You could give me a sign? A glimmer of what a little guy might be thinking? That would help.
She eased Spirit to a spot where she could see the ravine, but not risk the horse’s weight on an eroded edge. The creek was swollen to three times its normal size, a rush of water cascading from the little falls above, streaming to the lake below.
Aiden wouldn’t have gone there, would he? He loved the creek, he loved to roam the woods with his father, but would the danger of the water lure him? Or send him scurrying back uphill?
She didn’t know, but she turned Spirit and urged him gently up the slope.
The rain had lessened. A hint of light to the west said the clouds were thinning, but the day was waning. Soon it would be dark. Too soon.
A sound drew her attention to the right.
She turned, scanning the woods.
Then the sound came again, farther uphill.
She spun back, astride the horse, and the sight unfolding before her made her heart stand still. A small doe leaped among the trees, dodging right, then left, her white tail flagging in the dank, dark woods. Behind her, a black bear gave chase, either hungry or mad, Rainey didn’t know. Or care.
Because there to the left of the bear and deer stood a frightened five-year-old boy, drenched to the skin and afraid to move.
The Lawman's Holiday Wish Page 17
