“It’s this boy Jason brought in last—”
“Noah Connors? Has he been found?”
“You know?”
“Yes. Is he hurt?”
“No, he’s okay. I don’t know how the boy did it, but he made it to the hospital where his mom is. Jason found Noah in her room just about the time everything went bad. She stopped breathing, her heart stopped. Jason said it was terrible.”
Allie swallowed. “Did she...”
“No, she didn’t die. Well, she did, but they brought her back.”
“Where’s Noah now?”
“My helper, Brittany, is with him at the hospital. When Jason told me what happened, I just couldn’t make him leave until she got better.”
“I’m an hour away from Cedar Grove. I’ll stop at the hospital and check on him.”
“Does he have any other family?”
Allie hesitated. “His uncle is aware of the situation.”
“Oh, good. That boy needs family around him.”
Allie agreed. She ended the call and pulled over to the side of the road. Matt wouldn’t listen to her, and she didn’t have his phone number, anyway. Maybe he’d listen to her brother. She dialed Clint’s number.
Her brother answered on the second ring. “What’s up?”
“I need you to call Matt.” Allie explained about Mariah and Noah.
“The poor kid.” Clint’s concern came through the phone. “I’ll call Matt and see to it he gets his priorities in order.”
She wished him luck and ended the call. If she pushed it, she’d make the hospital in forty-five minutes.
* * *
WHEN ALLIE ROUNDED the corner to the ICU waiting room, she spied Noah huddled in a chair with his eyes closed. He reminded her of a fledgling bird that’d fallen out of the nest. She nodded to Brittany in the next chair, and then knelt beside him.
“Miss Allie.” He rubbed his eyes.
She brushed his blond hair back. “Are you doing okay?”
His chin quivered, but he nodded. “My mom. They won’t let me see her.”
“Maybe when she feels a little better...”
“But what if she doesn’t get better?” he whispered, his blue eyes round.
Allie gulped. Why couldn’t there be easy answers? Right now she could just about wring Mariah’s neck for putting her son through this hurt. “Let’s don’t cross that bridge just yet.” She squeezed his hand. “Let me see what I can find out.”
At the desk, she identified herself and asked the receptionist about Mariah’s condition.
“Are you family?”
“No. I’m a friend of the family.” Allie leaned in closer so she could see the woman’s name tag. “But, Melanie, I’m asking for a little boy who desperately needs to know how his mother is doing.”
Melanie eyed her, then her gaze slid past Allie toward the waiting room. “We have to ask,” she said. Her mouth quirked down into a frown. “Let me call her nurse.”
A minute later she nodded. “She’s stabilized, and they’ve given her something to keep her knocked out for a while.”
“Can I take him back, just so he can see that she’s okay?”
The receptionist hesitated, visibly tensing.
“If you were in his mom’s shape, wouldn’t you want your child to know you were okay?”
Melanie’s shoulders relaxed, and she nodded. “But you can only stay a few minutes.”
Allie walked back to where Noah sat. “They said I could take you to see her. But, remember, she’s sleeping—we can only stay a few minutes.”
His eyes widened. “Really?”
“Really.” He hopped from the chair and took her hand.
“Wait a minute.” Noah grabbed a piece of paper. “I wrote her a letter. Can I take it back?”
“I don’t see why not.” She turned to Brittany. “I can take over from here. I’ll get him back to the shelter.”
“Will that be all right with Miss Sarah?” Brittany asked.
“I’m sure it will be. I’m a certified volunteer at the shelter, and I’ve taken the children on field trips. You can call and check with her while we visit his mother.”
The double doors opened to let them through. When they reached Mariah’s cubicle, Noah pulled at her hand. “Come on, they might change their minds.”
Allie let him pull her inside the room. She hadn’t expected Mariah to look so...corpselike. Noah dropped her hand and approached the bed as a monitor beeped an irregular rhythm. Allie didn’t even recognize the woman lying in the hospital bed. Mariah lay unmoving, her bloated face as white as the sheet covering her.
“Mom,” Noah said softly. He patted her distended hand. “I’m here.”
The beeping sped up. Allie stepped toward him. “Noah, we can’t stay.”
He blinked fast, his eyes shiny. “Not yet.” He turned back to his mom. “Please, Mom. Wake up.”
A nurse appeared at the door. “You have to leave.”
“No!” His desperate cry squeezed Allie’s heart. “She’ll get better if I talk to her.”
As if on cue, Mariah’s heart rate slowed to an even tempo. The nurse glanced at the monitor then back at Noah. “Five minutes,” she said. Then she gave him a gentle smile. “She needs to rest.”
“I think he’ll be ready then,” Allie said.
Noah patted Mariah’s arm. “Mom, you’ve got to get better.” He licked his lips. “You didn’t finish teaching me how to dance.”
As the boy talked to his mom, the back of Allie’s throat ached. She dug in her jeans for a tissue and, not finding one, used the back of her hand to blot her eyes. The wall clock ticked the minutes by while she leaned against the wall and let her gaze travel around the room. On a white board, someone had written, Good morning. I’m Becky and I’ll be your nurse today. That solved the question of who the nurse was. She glanced through the glass partition at the nurses’ station. Becky tapped her watch, and Allie nodded. She turned to Noah. He’d found a wet cloth and wiped Mariah’s forehead with it. How many times had he done that in the past?
“Noah.” Her voice cracked. She pressed her lips together and took a breath and blew it out. “We have to go.”
“Just one more minute.”
“The nurse wants her to rest. Come on,” she urged softly. “We’ll come back.”
He reached on his tiptoes and kissed his mother’s pasty cheek, then ducked his head as he walked toward Allie.
She reached to take his hand, but he stopped short. “Wait! I didn’t give her my letter.” Noah slipped the paper from his pants pocket and folded it until it was small enough to tuck into Mariah’s closed hand.
At the nurses’ desk, Allie fished one of her business cards from her purse and gave it to Becky. “Would you call me if there’s any change?”
“I’ll put this with her chart,” the nurse replied.
“And thanks for letting us stay longer than five minutes.”
“I think your visit may do more good than all the medicine.”
Noah flipped his bangs out of his eyes. “Will you read my note to her when she wakes up?”
Becky leaned over the desk. “I will, honey. Your mama’s going to be all right. She’s got some mighty fine doctors.”
Don’t tell him that. You don’t know for sure. Allie bit the words back. The nurse meant well, but what if Mariah didn’t make it?
Back in the waiting area, Allie called Sarah and gave her an update on Mariah. “The regular visiting time is at three. I’ll bring him back to the shelter after that, unless something comes up. If it does, I’ll call you.”
Noah glanced up at her after she’d disconnected. “Do I have to go back?”
“You don’t like it there?”
He shrugged. “Miss Sarah’s nice. And Logan’s okay. Lucas is a pain....”
“But?”
He shrank back into the chair and lifted his thin shoulder in a timid gesture. “Have you ever stayed in a place like the shelter before?”
Noah glanced toward the exit sign. She cupped his chin and turned his face back to her. “Where was it, Noah?”
He licked his lips. “In another state. Before we came to Cedar Grove. Mom was...sick, and this woman came and took me to this house.”
“What happened?” She forced out the question, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.
“I ran away.”
* * *
AFTER THE DOOR closed behind Allie, Matt pressed his fingers against his eyelids, then slid his hands to the side of his head and massaged his temples. If New Year’s Day was any indication of how the rest of his year would be...he didn’t want to go there.
“Matthew...” Jessica stood at the sliding door with her back to him. She turned to face him. “I think we need to talk.”
He rose and went to her, taking her hands. “You’re right.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about your sister? I mean, I realize you may not be all that proud, her being on drugs and all, but you could’ve told me. Did you think it would change the way I feel about you?”
He wanted to say he didn’t know why he never mentioned Mariah to Jessica, but he did know. Just like he knew why he never mentioned anything else about his past, and it had nothing to do with Jessica. “I know you better than that. It’s like I said before. Mariah and I have grown so far apart, it’s almost like she wasn’t there. I didn’t even know about the kid.” He rubbed the locked muscles in the back of his neck.
“But family is important. I think you should go.”
Matt stiffened. Jessica didn’t have a clue what she was asking him to do. He wasn’t ready to go back to Cedar Grove, where everyone remembered him as the kid from Beaker Street. The kid who had said he’d own his own company by the time he turned thirty. Well, he was thirty and still working for someone else. It didn’t matter that he pulled in six figures a year—he wasn’t his own boss, and that’s what everyone would remember.
His cell phone rang, and he glanced at the caller ID.
“It’s Clint.” Allie was calling in the big guns. “I’m not going,” he said when he answered.
“Did you know her heart stopped? And she’s in a coma.”
Clint’s blunt words startled Matt. He sank onto the couch. “I...had no idea. How about the boy? Has he been found?”
“Yes, he was at the hospital. Do you want me to go with you? You know, so you won’t have to face this by yourself.”
Or to make sure Matt went. “No. You have responsibilities here.”
“You’re going then?”
Matt sucked in a breath of air through his nose and exhaled. A memory of Mariah standing between him and their drunken father surfaced. Mariah taking the beating. He closed his eyes. “Yes, I’m going.”
“I’ll text you Allie’s number so you can let her know,” Clint said.
“Is she worse?” Jessica asked after he hung up.
“She’s in a coma.”
Jessica crossed the room and sat beside him, squeezing his hand. “I’m going with you.”
“No!”
Jessica flinched.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bite your head off, but I don’t know how long I’ll be there.” No way was Jessica going to Cedar Grove. He could just see her in his mother’s tiny frame house. No amount of paint or chrome and fancy furniture would transform it into something other than the four-room, white-clapboard dump that it was. And even though it wouldn’t matter one way or the other to Jessica, he wasn’t quite ready to show her how he’d grown up. “Not this time. There’s the boy to consider, and I don’t even know if Mariah will make it.”
“Oh, Matthew.” She put her arms around him. “That’s all the more reason for me to go.”
He stilled. Jessica could be quite stubborn when she wanted to be. “Maybe next time.”
“But—”
A plaintive meow interrupted her. Matt had forgotten the kitten.
Jessica glanced toward his bedroom. “Where did you get that kitten? And what are you going to do with it?”
Good question. Jessica certainly couldn’t take it, because of her allergies, not even for the two days until the animal shelter opened. “Maybe Clint will take it.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Tell me about you and Allie. You two seem very close.”
“We grew up together, went to the same college.” His hometown wasn’t the only thing Matt wasn’t ready to tell Jessica about. “Sweetheart, I have a lot to do, and I need you to leave so I can do it. I’ll call you tonight after I see Mariah.”
She patted his cheek. “I could help you. You know, clear the table, put the dishes in the dishwasher...”
“Thanks, but you would be a distraction.”
“You mean, like this?” Jessica slipped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.
He leaned into the kiss...until the kitten intruded again with another insistent meow. He eased his lips away from hers and he turned her to face the door. “Yes, like that.”
After he closed the door behind Jessica, Matt leaned his head against the wood. How he dreaded returning to Cedar Grove.
* * *
JUST OUTSIDE OF MEMPHIS, a black sports car with its top down passed Matt on the four-lane highway. Unthinkable for it to be warm enough to lower the top on New Year’s Day, and if it hadn’t been for the kitten he’d been forced to bring along, he’d be enjoying the fresh air.
“Thanks, Kiddo,” Matt muttered to the kitten curled up in the pet carrier he’d stopped to buy after Clint had been unable to come for it. Something about his apartment lease. Maybe Cedar Grove had a good animal shelter. At least he’d been able to reach the real estate agent who managed his mother’s house for him. The last renters had moved out before Christmas, and it hadn’t been rented yet. The agent assured Matt that linens and a few basic items would be waiting for him. He’d forgotten that aspect of a small town—the willingness to accommodate.
His cell phone chirped, and he glanced at the ID. A Cedar Grove number, but not Allie’s. That one he knew by heart after trying to reach her for the better part of two hours. He’d finally given up and left her a voice mail that he was on his way and should be there by four-thirty.
“Hello?”
“Peter Elliott here. Clint gave me your number.”
“Hello, Peter.” Matt deadpanned his voice. “If you’re calling about Mariah and her son, I’m on my way to Cedar Grove. I understand the boy has been found.”
“Yes. Noah will be returning to the shelter, and that’s where he will remain until Tuesday’s youth court hearing. I’m looking for a foster home to place him in until it can be determined that Mariah can care for him.”
Matt gripped the phone. Who did Peter think he was, making decisions for his nephew? A car whizzed past him, the horn blowing, and Matt glanced at the speedometer. Fifty miles an hour. Time to pull over and focus on one thing. “No. He’ll be staying with me. I’m his uncle,” he said as he maneuvered the car onto the shoulder of the road.
“He’s a ward of the state, Matt.”
“He can’t be. Not legally. It’s New Year’s Day, and there’s no way that you’ve been able to file the paperwork. And when Mariah regains consciousness, I’m sure she will agree.”
“It’s not that simple, Matthew.”
His phone beeped, and he glanced at it. A text from Allie. Noah and I are at the hospital. ICU waiting room. “I’ll contact you when I reach Cedar Grove, Peter.” Matt broke the connection. In a pig’s eye he would.
Maybe he should ca
ll his attorney. He hated to on New Year’s Day, but on the other hand, Matt needed to know his rights. He scrolled through his contacts and found his attorney’s cell phone number. Ten minutes later, he disconnected, satisfied that all he needed to do was get a notarized statement from Mariah giving him temporary custody. And one of the attorneys in the office would be available to attend Tuesday’s hearing if he needed one.
An hour later, Matt turned off the highway onto the street to the hospital as dusk edged toward night. He hadn’t planned to stop there first, but he wanted to take custody of the boy before Peter got to him. He parked near the door and glanced at the kitten. Check on Mariah, get Noah. Shouldn’t take fifteen minutes. Kiddo should be fine.
He hurried to the waiting room. Allie sat on a small sofa in a corner of the room, cocooning a sleeping boy in her arms, and it hit him—this was a living, breathing nine-year-old boy. With needs. What was he thinking? He clenched his jaw. Peter Elliott had him cornered. No. Truth smacked him in the face. Nothing but his pride had painted himself into this corner.
Allie saw him and held her finger to her lips. Matt nodded. It was better if he visited Mariah first, anyway. He pointed to himself and then to the double doors. Allie nodded she understood and Matt approached the reception desk. “I’m Mariah Connors’s brother. I live out of state and just found out she was here. Is there any way I can go back and see her now?”
The receptionist frowned.
Before she could give him a no, he pointed toward Allie and Noah. “My sister’s son is really worn out, and I’d like to get him home. If I could just go back for a couple of minutes, see for myself how she is, it’d be great.”
She waved him back. “But just this once...since you’ve come from out of town. Room twelve.”
Inside the steel doors, his muscles tensed as he counted the glass-encased rooms. Near the end his mother had been in one of these very rooms, struggling for each breath. He stopped outside the door of room twelve to collect himself. Somehow he hadn’t gotten here in his mind. Matt sucked in a deep breath and squared his shoulders, but nothing could’ve prepared him for what waited inside the cubicle.
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