Healing the Boss's Heart (6 page)

“No. I’m gonna find him.”

“Not if you fall in the river, you’re not,” Gregory interjected, still holding him fast. “Besides, our legs
are longer. We can cover more ground faster than you can. Give us a chance. Let us help you.”

Tommy folded his arms across his chest and shook his head firmly. “Nope. I’m gonna do it.”

“Hate to disappoint you, kid, but that’s not going to happen, at least not until more of this mess is cleaned up, so let’s quit wasting valuable time arguing when we could be looking for your dog.”

Certain that the boy would fight, Maya stood ready to assist, to reason with him. However, instead of beating on the man’s shoulders the way he had during the tornado, Tommy merely slipped one arm around Gregory’s neck and permitted himself to be carried.

Flabbergasted, she fell into step behind them. The wonders of the day just kept getting stranger and stranger.

They caught up with Reverend Michael and his fourteen-year-old niece, Avery, in the church office.

Gregory knocked on the open door, then entered. “Got a job for you, cousin. My friend Tommy needs a place to wait while we go look for his pup. Can you oblige?”

“Sure,” the pastor said. “Avery can watch him. She was wanting something useful to do, weren’t you, honey?”

“Oh, sure.” The aloof-acting girl tossed her head, swinging her long braids over her shoulders as she stared at Tommy without cracking a smile.

Maya’s gaze jumped from the rebellious teen to
Tommy and the similar expressions she saw on both their faces made her smile. Avery was about to get a good lesson in what it was like to deal with a rebellious child. The experience might actually do the girl some good, not to mention Tommy.

“We’ll head west, along the river,” Gregory said, passing Tommy to Avery while addressing Michael. “I don’t have a flashlight so we’ll have to be back here before dark.”

“Fine. There are more rescue crews working in the residential neighborhoods now that they’ve finished checking most of the downtown businesses. Looks good, so far. Last I heard, they thought everyone was accounted for except Lexi and Chief Ridgeway.”

“Maybe they’re together,” Greg suggested.

Michael shook his head. “Unfortunately, I doubt that.”

“Well, don’t worry about us. We’ll be back ASAP.”

Michael shook his cousin’s hand as he considered Maya gravely. “Are you taking her along?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Be careful.”

“We will.”

She waited till they were outside and headed back through the park before she said, “You sure have a way with kids. Especially Tommy.”

“I wouldn’t go that far but I do know he’s pretty scared,” Gregory answered. “He mostly needs a firm hand and fair rules to follow.”

“Is that the way you were brought up?”

He shook his head. “No. There wasn’t much that was fair or stable in the way I was raised.”

Judging by his apparently grim mood and the way he’d averted his gaze as he spoke, she decided to refrain from commenting. The Garrisons had always had plenty of money. Evidently, that had not been nearly enough to ensure happiness.

Greg wondered why he’d spoken so openly to Maya about his upbringing. It was no one’s business but his own and he seldom revealed even a glimmer of the way he’d felt back then. So why had he told her?

Probably because of the severe stress they were all under, he concluded. That kind of trauma had to have a strong effect on everything, including a person’s emotional stability. Sure, he and the other men had laughed and joked as they’d worked on the cleanup around the old town hall and church, but truth to tell, the circumstances were still so unthinkable they were hard to fully comprehend. Greg figured it would be days, if not weeks, before the total extent of the damage was known.

“Where do you think we should start looking?” he asked to take his mind off his personal reflections.

“I suppose over toward the old Waters cottages,” Maya answered. “I think that was the way the dog was headed the last time we saw him. He could have holed up there.”

“If he wasn’t picked up and blown into the river.”

“If that’s the case he probably didn’t make it,” Maya added.

“Yeah.” Greg knew she was right. He just wasn’t willing to accept defeat. Not yet anyway.

As they proceeded along the sloping, grassy banks of the High Plains River, they had to detour around limbs, downed trees and fractured lumber and roofing from houses that had been ravaged. The farther west they went, however, the fewer signs of the storm’s depredation they encountered.

“Michael had mentioned maybe using some of the old cabins over this way as temporary housing,” Greg said. “And that plan looks workable. The biggest problem is finding Heather Waters and getting her permission to open them up. He’s lost track of her.”

“I think she’s working for a Christian aid agency somewhere. Last I heard, she was heavily involved in that kind of philanthropy.”

“Thanks. I’ll tell Michael.”

Maya pointed toward the bank of small, quaint cottages that had once been part of the popular riverfront resort. “Will you look at that? The windows were boarded up so they couldn’t be blown out and the rest of the place looks almost untouched.”

“Except for a little wind damage and needing a fresh coat of paint.” Greg pointed to some debris. “And that.”

“I think that’s just normal camping trash, not
from the storm. There haven’t been any renters out here for more years than I can remember. I’m pretty sure teenagers have used the area as a rendezvous.”

When he arched an eyebrow and looked at her she blushed. “Not me, okay. I managed to get into plenty of trouble right around home.”

“You? In trouble?” Greg grinned. “I can’t imagine that.”

“And I’d just as soon you didn’t try to,” Maya replied. “Suffice it to say that my parents had fits with both me and Clay. Jesse was the only good kid in our family.”

“He’ll be all right,” Greg assured her when his gaze met hers and he read her concern. “You’ll be able to phone him soon or we’ll get out that way tomorrow. I’ll see to it. I promise.”

“Like you promised we’d find Charlie?” She sighed and raked her bangs off her forehead with her fingers. “Some things are not within our capacity to control.”

“I thought you were trusting God?”

“I am. I do. That doesn’t mean I’m not worried about my brother and his family. Marie’s just out of the hospital and the triplets are still in the neonatal unit up in Manhattan.”

“Well, at least they’re safe.”

He was sorry he’d spoken so glibly when Maya frowned, shook her head and answered, “Only if this same storm didn’t hit up there, too.”

A
lthough Maya knew that her boss was doing his best to allay her worries about her brother, there was really nothing either of them could do for the present. They’d tried using cell phones repeatedly, with no result, so she figured they’d just have to wait for service to be restored. Even then, that was no guarantee her brother’s ranch would have any phone service.

Wading through puddles and avoiding piles of weeds and soggy refuse, they called for the missing dog as they wandered among the abandoned cabins that sat beneath a grove of ancient cottonwoods. Tufts of their feathery seeds drifted on the wind that still blew slightly, almost making it seem as if it were snowing. Right then, Maya would have gladly traded the sultry heat for a touch of winter.

“Watch for nails in these loose boards,” her com
panion said, indicating some warped, faded, grayish siding that lay on the ground. “They may not have come from this last storm but they’re still dangerous.”

“Yes, sir.” She stifled a giggle. She didn’t know why she seemed so prone to inane laughter, except that perhaps she was simply so overwrought that her senses were skewed.

“You don’t have to salute, okay?” he teased.

“I didn’t. But it is a good idea. You’ve been acting a lot like a drill sergeant.”

“I have not.”

“Okay. Have it your…” Startled, she broke off in mid-sentence and grabbed his forearm. “Shush. Quiet. Did you hear that?”

“What? Charlie?”

“No. I don’t think it was a dog.”

“Then what?”

“It almost sounded like a baby crying.”

“That’s impossible. Michael said there were only two people missing and they’re both adults.”

“Still, I thought…There. Hear it?”

“Maybe.” He started forward slowly and Maya followed, taking care to make as little noise as possible.

She froze. “Stop. Over that way. To the right of that last cottage—the one with the lopsided front steps. I think I see something moving through those trees.”

Though he turned and followed her directions, she could tell that he thought she was imagining
things. Maybe she was. Or maybe she’d been hearing the wind whistling through cracks in the old wooden buildings and had mistaken the sound for a human cry.

Maya bit her lower lip, mulling over that possibility.
No.
She was a mother. She knew what she was hearing. It was a little one in distress. It had to be.

Passing her boss and taking the lead, she hurried through the trees toward the source of the intermittent noise. She had to pause several times to listen, to get her bearings again, before she drew close enough to see a bit of pink knit cloth in the deeper shadows.

Afraid of what she might find, Maya tiptoed closer. As soon as she realized exactly what she was seeing, she called out, “Greg! Over here. It’s a little girl!”

Hurrying closer, Maya fell to her knees directly in front of the unsteady, weeping toddler and reached out to gently take her arm, to cup her muddy cheek. “Oh, sweetie.”

He was beside Maya in a heartbeat. “Is she okay?”

Gently brushing loose debris from a tiny, reddened face, Maya said, “I think so.” Sticky mud clung to the child’s eyes, apparently making it painful or difficult for her to open them, and she was rubbing them roughly with tight little fists.

Responding to Maya’s gentle touch, the toddler began to whimper and reach out to her, clasping one of Maya’s fingers and hanging on with surprising strength.

“Let’s get her out of the woods into better light and see for sure that she’s okay,” he said.

“We don’t have any water to wash her. We won’t be able to tell much until we get rid of all this dirt.”

“The river,” he said as he cautiously scooped the child up in his arms, unmindful of the mud.

Maya stayed right beside him, cooing to the toddler and speaking as if she were her mother. “It’s okay, sweetheart. We’re here. You’ll be fine. Don’t cry.”

He proceeded as far as the top edge of the slippery riverbank, then gently placed the young child on the grass and stripped down to his white T-shirt. “I’ll go get my shirt wet and we can use it to wash her off a little before we carry her back to town. I don’t want to move her any farther if she’s actually badly injured.”

Concerned, Maya was crouching over the curly-haired blond toddler. “I don’t think she’s hurt much at all. She’s moving her arms and legs and rubbing her eyes. The mud seems to be what’s bothering her the most.”

In seconds, he’d returned with the dripping dress shirt and began to bathe the child’s face, starting with her eyes. When she finally opened them and looked at Maya, she immediately puckered up and began to wail.

“Guess she knows I’m not her mother,” Maya said. “I wish I were. She’s beautiful, even under all that dirt.”

“There’s a cut on her forehead and her knee’s a little scraped but I think she’s okay otherwise. I could leave you here with her and go fetch paramedics from town but that could take a lot longer, especially since we don’t know if there’s a unit available. I think the best thing to do is carry her in before it gets dark and we’re all stuck out here.”

“I agree. If we can’t find anybody to treat her at the church, we can clean her up there and take her on over to E.R. ourselves if we need to.”

He tenderly, cautiously, lifted the child again and cradled her in spite of her kicking and sobbing. “Keep squeezing water and rinsing her eyes so they don’t get scratched any worse than they already are,” he said.

“Are you going to be able to manage her?”

That made him laugh. “I trained on Tommy. After that, I think I could carry a wildcat.”

“Uh-oh. Tommy. I totally forgot to keep looking for his dog.”

“If it had been nearby when all this squalling started I imagine it would have come on the run.”

“You’re probably right. I just wish we’d found Charlie, too.”

“One marvel at a time, okay?” he said. “In case you haven’t thought of it, the only reason we stumbled across this poor baby is because we were out here looking for that dog.”

“I know,” Maya said soberly.

“It has been quite an afternoon, hasn’t it?”

She nodded. “And the day’s not over. Work is going to continue all night, I’m sure.”

“Probably. Last I heard, all the gas station pumps were down due to a lack of electricity and the authorities were trying to figure out how to apportion fuel for the rescue equipment, let alone the nonessentials.”

“If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” Maya observed. She smiled at the child in his arms. It had quieted some and was now mostly sniffling with an occasional catch like a muted sob.

“Well, this is one fortunate kid and that’s a fact,” he said, picking up the pace as they approached the church grounds.

Maya was blinking back tears of relief and joy as she looked up at the white bell tower with the cross atop it and whispered a heartfelt, soul-deep “Amen. Thank You, Jesus.”

“There’s a triage area set up in a tent on the east lawn,” Michael told Greg as soon as he saw what he was carrying. “Where did you find her?”

“Out by the old Waters cottages. I thought nobody was using them.”

“They’re not supposed to be,” the pastor answered, falling into step beside the others. “I guess there could have been squatters out there. Those cabins are far enough from town that trespassers
probably wouldn’t have been noticed for quite a while.”

“That was my first thought but I doubt it,” Greg said. “Maya and I were hollering for Tommy’s dog and we’d checked out the whole area. Nobody made a peep. Except for this little girl, that is.”

Maya nodded. “I heard her crying.”

“Praise the Lord you did,” Michael said. “I’ll tell the incident commander what’s going on and let him send a properly prepared search-and-rescue unit out there. No sense having civilians stumbling around in the dark and getting hurt when we have plenty of trained people to do the job right.”

“I thought you said only adults were unaccounted for,” Maya remarked, trotting to keep pace with the men. “Who do you think this little girl is? Does she look familiar?”

Michael glanced at the child’s scratched, dingy face as he gently stroked her hair. “No. I don’t place her. We have lots of toddlers in our congregation but this one is a stranger to me.”

“Me, too,” Maya said. “I haven’t seen any little girls like her in Layla’s preschool or day care, either. I suppose she could have been visiting the area with some tourists. It is summer and we did find her near the river.”

“First things first,” Greg said flatly. “We don’t need to know her name in order to get treatment for
her. Not in an emergency situation like this.” He led the way into the open-sided tent and went straight to a doctor clad in a formerly white coat that had begun to look a lot like the spotted, torn clothing everyone else was wearing.

“She seems okay to us,” Greg told the middle-aged man, “but we have no idea how she got so far out of town or who her parents are.”

The doctor put his stethoscope to the child’s chest and listened while Greg continued to cradle her. “Sounds okay. I don’t want to touch her eyes without sterile solution to flush them out. Best thing to do is have her transported to the hospital.”

As he spoke he was feeling the toddler’s arms and legs and flexing the joints. “No pain in her limbs and just one little bump on her head. I’d say she’s fine, considering. Still, the hospital is the right place for her.” He glanced toward the back of the tent. “Unfortunately, we don’t have an ambulance available.”

“Would it be all right if I carried her over?” Greg asked.

The doctor nodded. “I don’t see why not. You got her this far. The sooner we put her into a controlled medical environment, the better.”

Greg looked to Maya. “Are you coming or do you want to stay here with your daughter?”

“Layla’s in good hands. I’ll go with you. You might need me.”

He wasn’t about to argue. Yes, he could care for the abandoned child himself, yet it was somehow comforting to have Maya by his side. Although that was an unusual response for him, he wasn’t too surprised by it. They had all been through a terrible trauma and everyone’s emotions were bound to be on edge. Even his.

He shouldered through the crowd and started off toward the local hospital, taking extra care to watch his step so he wouldn’t trip and fall while carrying the little girl.

“Funny. I’m kind of glad there was no ambulance,” he said, once he and Maya were in the clear. “It seems wrong to turn her over to strangers when no one even knows who she is.”

“I’m sure they’ll find out. If not tonight, then soon. She must have parents nearby.” Her voice became a whisper as she added, “I just hope and pray they survived.”

All Greg could say was, “Yeah. Me, too.”

Leaving their foundling at the chaotic hospital was harder for both of them than Maya had thought it would be. She almost wept as a nurse accepted the child, made a few notes on a chart, then hurried away with her, headed for the pediatric ward.

Gregory thrust his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “Well, mission accomplished. What now?”

“I suppose we should go back to the church. I
haven’t had anything to eat since lunch and you probably haven’t, either, have you?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You have to eat. We’re going to need all the energy we can get in the next few days.” Looking into his eyes she saw more than intelligence; she saw empathy. And pathos. They might have laughed together over trifles mere hours before, but that didn’t mean he didn’t comprehend the weight of what others were going through.

“All right,” he finally said. “We’ll go eat. I just hope we don’t run into Tommy and have to tell him we came back without his dog.”

“I don’t suppose he’d be the least bit impressed to hear that we rescued a child instead.”

“I seriously doubt it. He told me that mutt was his only friend.”

“I was afraid of that. What’re we going to do?”

“Hope the dog finds its way home, I guess.”

Little else was said as they made their way back to the busy church grounds. Gregory held the door for Maya and followed her into the noisy, crowded fellowship hall.

She was astounded by the number of survivors gathered there—and more were arriving by the minute, far more than they’d seen over by the new town hall. These folks were mostly women and children, Maya noted. That figured. Lots of men were probably still working, still digging, still part of the initial efforts to restore order.

“I’m going to grab a sandwich and coffee and head out again,” Gregory said. “No sense just sitting here when I can make myself useful.”

“Okay. The food’s over there and you can wash your hands in the kitchen.”

She led the way to the dwindling stack of sandwiches and handed him a paper plate after he’d dried his hands. “I feel the same way about not wanting to stand around, but I have no idea what else I can do.”

“Probably nothing tonight,” he said as he took several half sandwiches and a handful of chips. “By tomorrow I’m sure things will be better organized. They might even have the power restored so they can pump enough water to reach the rest of the town.” He looked around. “Are you going to sleep here or go back to the apartment?”