Lucky Penny (56 page)

Brianna’s first instinct was to run to her daughter. David held her back. “Let me go first. She’s not near a light, and a canine’s eyesight isn’t that good. In this wind, Sam may not be able to catch our scent right away. If he’s going to bite somebody, I’d rather it be me.”

When David tried to approach the child, Sam lunged forward, teeth bared, acting as if he might rip out David’s throat.

“Well, now,” David said softly. “I’d say you’re all het up.”

To Brianna’s amazement, David sat down cross-legged right in the middle of the walkway. She stood well back, afraid of Sam for the first time. He had a crazed look in his eyes, and froth dripped from his jowls.

David held out his hand. “Sam, old man, it’s me. Sniff the air, buddy. Get my scent, you myopic mutt.”

Sam crouched, his body bunching to leap, but he also whined, the tone questioning. Brianna’s gaze was fixed on her daughter. Daphne looked so dejected. If the child heard David’s voice, she gave no sign of it. She sat with the small of her spine pressed against a building, her head resting on her knees. Brianna wanted so badly to run to her, but she held fast, waiting for David to calm the dog down first.

“Well, now, Sam,” David said, “ain’t this a hell of a note? I raised you from a puppy. Get your head out of your ass. I know it’s been a terrible night. But, hello, it’s me. Stop acting like an idiot.”

David thrust out his hand, and Sam dropped to his belly with a whine. Then he scooted closer, and then closer. Just as David was almost able to touch him, the dog scrambled back to Daphne, circled her, and barked joyously, wagging his nubbin of a tale until his whole rump quivered.

David pushed to his feet and moved forward. “Good
job, Sam. It’ll be fine cuts of beef for you for at least a month. Aren’t you something? I think I’ll hang a deputy badge on your chest. What a dog you are! The very best! You fought for her, didn’t you, and by God, you drew blood. You are amazing.”

Man and dog met in a collision of strong arms and fluffy fur. Sam was so agile that he was able to leap up and tag David’s jaw with glad kisses. David caught the squirming animal to his chest, released quickly, and then intercepted another joyous jump. Sam was clearly relieved to have reinforcements. Brianna, still standing back, felt tears slipping down her cheeks, and she knew she would adore that silly dog until he died.

But what held her gaze was her daughter. Daphne didn’t react to the glad reunion taking place in front of her. She looked like a child who had dissolved and become nothing but skin, clothing, and a flow of hair draping over her clenched arms.

Brianna knew—sensed, as she had once upon a time with Moira—all of the child’s feelings. Daphne was flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood, and heart of her heart. Sam, who now recognized Brianna, allowed her safe passage to her daughter. She sat down, drawing the folds of her burgundy gown close to her bent knees, not caring if her skirts were ruined.

Brianna tried to speak. Tears blinded her. Moira’s face floated in her mind. She had so many things she wanted to say, important things that Daphne needed to hear, but she’d lied to the child for so long that the truth was difficult, if not impossible, to express. All that she could say was, “Daphne, I love you.”

The child cringed away from her. “I
hate
you! Go away! I never want to see you again.”

It nearly broke Brianna’s heart to hear Daphne say that, but when she searched deep, she couldn’t really blame the child. This was her fault, all her fault. Along with all the stale bread and cheese, she’d fed Moira’s daughter lies. From the time Daphne had been old enough to understand the word
papa
, Brianna had spun grand stories, telling the child about her nonexistent father who was looking for
gold but loved her so much. Empty dreams, falsehoods. Daphne no longer had anything solid to believe in.

David finished praising Sam and came to sit at Daphne’s other side. The dog promptly lay in front of the child, as close to her toes as he could get. Brianna could think of nothing she might say to soothe the child’s pain. Regret stabbed her like a knife, and she wanted to weep, but she couldn’t allow herself that luxury. She needed to be calm right now and think. The problem was, her heart was breaking.

David sighed and crossed his legs at the ankle. The men beneath the nearby light posts tipped their hats to him and walked away. David waved good-bye to them. Then he settled back. Brianna wanted him to say something, but he remained silent, apparently waiting Daphne out. The child refused to look up. When the wind lifted her hair, Brianna saw that her small face was puffy from crying.

“Go away!” Daphne finally screamed. “Just go away! Both of you! I hate you! I don’t want you here! You’re not my parents!” She sent Brianna a fiery look. “You aren’t my mama. You’re only my aunt!” To David she cried, “I don’t have any of your blood. You said you were my papa, but you’re not! You’re both liars.”

Still David offered no response. At his silence, Daphne rushed on. “I don’t have a real mama and papa, only fake ones! I’m going to run far, far away, and neither of you will ever,
ever
see me again.”

Brianna just sat there, feeling as if her heart were shattering into a thousand pieces.

“Well, now,” David finally said, “you’ve got one thing in your life that’s not fake, Daphne, a dog that loves you so much he’d die for you.”

Brianna wiped tears from her cheeks and sent David an exasperated look. This wasn’t about the dog.

David ignored her visual warning. “Good old Sam,” he said, ruffling the dog’s fur. “He’s loyal to a fault.”

Daphne stifled a sob and rubbed her eyes. “He’s my only real friend. When I got hungry, he brought me a bone he found behind a restaurant. I couldn’t eat it, and it made Sam sad. Then that awful man came, and Sam bit him. He’s my friend for always.”

“Yep,” David agreed. “He sure does love you, doesn’t he?” He went silent for a moment. “That’s kind of strange because, unless I missed something, you don’t have any of Sam’s blood. But he loves you anyway.”

Daphne buried her face against her bent knees.

David let her cry for several seconds. Then, in a soft, velvety voice, he said, “Love has nothing to do with sharing blood, Daphne. It’s a magical thing that happens in the heart.” When Daphne refused to look up, David went on. “A long time ago, two baby girls who looked exactly alike were left on an orphanage doorstep in Boston. One girl’s name was Brianna, and the other little girl’s name was Moira.”

“I don’t want to hear a stupid story!” Daphne yelled, her small body shaking. “Just go away and leave me alone!”

David ignored her. “Those two girls were what people call identical twins. There’s something very special between identical twins. Lots of times, it’s as if they are one person in two separate bodies. Brianna and Moira were like that. They sensed each other’s feelings, they were absolutely devoted to each other, and they shared everything. Sometimes they even pretended to be each other to fool the nuns at the orphanage. Then one sad day after they grew up, Moira died, and as she took her last breath, she asked her sister Brianna to raise her baby girl as her very own. That was an easy thing for Brianna to do because, way deep down, Moira had always been a part of her, and she’d always been a part of Moira. Does that make any sense?”

Brianna felt Daphne lean closer to her. She was almost afraid to breathe for fear of breaking the spell David was weaving.
Keep talking. Don’t stop. You’re getting through to her.

“Anyhow,” David went on, “Brianna loved Moira so much that she did exactly as her sister asked and raised Moira’s little girl as her very own. When she reported the baby’s birth, she listed herself as the mother, and from that moment forward, she
was
the baby’s mother. She was loyal to Moira for always, just like Sam is to you.

“It wasn’t always easy for Brianna to be a good mother.” David stopped to stare up at the strip of sky that showed
between the buildings. “But I don’t have to tell you that, Daphne, because you’re the baby girl she raised. Nobody knows better than you how hard Brianna worked to keep her sister’s baby safe. And nobody knows better than you how much she loved you, through thick and thin, sometimes going without food herself so you could eat.”

“Stop!” Daphne demanded in a thin, quivery voice.

David sighed. “I can’t stop. This is one story you have to hear, pumpkin. It’s the most important tale I’ll ever tell you, barring none. No matter how bad things got, Brianna never broke her promise to Moira. She just kept on, trying her hardest to be a good mama, always putting you first, until somewhere along the way, she started to feel that you really were her little girl, at least in every way that counted. Do you remember all those times?”

“Yes,” Daphne admitted.

“Do you remember writing letters to your papa, asking him to come for you? A man named David Paxton?”

“Yes,” Daphne pushed out again.

“Well, one day all those letters, a huge canvas bag of them, were delivered to me in No Name. After I read them, I had no choice but to journey to Glory Ridge to see if that little girl, Daphne, might be my daughter. Remember how we met on the street when both of us bent over to pick up the same penny?”

“We almost bumped heads.”

David chuckled and nodded. “Yep, and then I got a good look at you. It took the wind out of my sails, I can tell you that, because you were the spitting image of my mother, and you even had what I thought was the Paxton birthmark on the side of your neck, a mark almost exactly like mine. From that instant forward, I believed with all my heart that I was your daddy.” He continued with a modified version of all that had taken place between him and Brianna ever since. “I didn’t learn I wasn’t your papa until just a few days ago.”

Daphne had definitely pressed closer to Brianna during the story. Now she lifted her blond head to peer through the shadows at David, apparently captivated by what he was saying.

“It came as a huge shock to me,” he went on. “And the
news came way too late because I already loved you and your mama way too much to give you up.”

“She
isn’t
my mama, only my aunt.” Daphne hid her face against Brianna’s sleeve and said in a muffled voice, “I want a
real
mama and papa, not pretend ones.”

“Ah,” David replied softly. “So is Sam your
real
friend, or is he only your pretend friend?”

Daphne straightened to shoot him an indignant glare. “Sam is my
real
friend.”

“But how can that be?” David retorted. “You have none of Sam’s blood, and he has none of yours, but the friendship between you is real?”

Daphne nodded emphatically.

“So,” David mused aloud, “why can’t it be the same with people and love? Brianna isn’t truly your mama, but she loves you as if she were. I’m not really your papa, but I love you as if I were. Why can’t the three of us decide that love is more special than blood and go on from here? I’ll be your papa, and your aunt Brianna will be your mama, and you’ll be our little girl, for always.”

“Because we can’t!” Daphne cried.

David nudged back his hat to hold her gaze. “I think we can. All we have to do is believe in it hard enough.” He touched the front of her frock. “Do you still have our lucky penny, or were you so mad at me that you threw it away?”

Daphne planted a hand over her waist. “I still have it.”

David smiled. “Remember when I told you we should only make wishes on it for truly important things? I think our being a real family is one of the most important things in the world. Maybe if we wish for it to be true on our lucky penny, God will reach down and help us to make it happen. What do you think?”

Daphne tugged on the chain to pull the penny from under her frock. In the dim glow from the lampposts, the coin shimmered on her palm.

“See there? It’s winking at us,” David told the child. “I think there’s still enough magic in it to make one great big wish come true. And then we’ll just go home and pretend we never heard that ugly lady with the wart on her nose saying all those awful things. What do you say?”

Daphne sniffed and smiled faintly. “Miss Wright doesn’t have warts.”

“I’m certain I saw warts,” David insisted. “You willing to place a wager on it? I’ll put up a golden eagle and an ice cream at Roxie’s that Miss Wright has a huge, ugly wart right on the end of her honker.”

“I’d win,” Daphne said. “There’s no wart on the end of Miss Wright’s nose.”

David tousled the child’s hair. “You can never collect on the bet if you won’t come home with me and your mama to take another look at her.”

Daphne stared down at the coin on her palm. Then she flicked imploring glances at both David and Brianna. “If we all three wished really,
really
hard on the lucky penny, do you think we could be a real family?”

Brianna locked gazes with David. She remembered that day when she’d railed at him about the penny and how he’d popped back, saying she was right, that people should turn to God, not objects, for help. But then he’d added that it never hurt to have special reinforcements.

Perhaps for Daphne, a little magic was needed tonight.

Fighting to find her voice, Brianna said, “I think all three of us should wish on the penny so we can be a
real
family.”

David seconded the motion. Daphne stared at the coin for a long while and then clenched her fist around it. David and Brianna enfolded her small hand in theirs, and together, there on that grimy, dimly lighted walkway in a dangerous part of town, the three of them wished aloud that God would make them a family.

Sam seemed to understand. He whined and licked Daphne’s face as if encouraging her to go home.

Daphne’s eyes filled with tears again. “I don’t feel any different. I don’t think it worked. I want a
real
mama and papa, a
real
family.”

It was all Brianna could do not to burst into tears when she saw the longing in Daphne’s eyes. It was like going back in time. So often Moira had looked pleadingly at her and said the same thing. From Brianna’s earliest memory, her sister had always yearned aloud for a real mama and papa. It was a wish Brianna had been powerless to grant to
her sister, and now it was a wish she couldn’t grant her niece.