Rescue Team (16 page)

She shivered as the late-afternoon breeze moved over her damp shirt. Evelyn Harkin had compared her to Sunni Sprague, whether she’d admit it or not. She’d cited Sunni’s special projects, like the hospital fellowship that Lauren now headed. Implying perhaps that faith was a missing puzzle piece, and if Kate found it, her staff would rally round and support her. She frowned. How many prayers had been breathed into that icy air from the decks of the
Titanic
? It still went down. Lost.

Very soon there would be a performance review. Then Kate’s application for a permanent position as department director would
be discussed by the hiring committee. Meanwhile, according to Barrett Lyon, it was entirely possible that Baby Doe’s mother would be found and the hospital embroiled in litigation. Kate squeezed her eyes shut, remembering what the attorney had suggested: to point blame at the baby’s mother or at Dana Connor.

Could Kate do that? Blame either or both of them to deflect liability from the hospital and protect her job? Could she make herself believe the desperate young woman she’d spoken with on that dark morning wasn’t pleading for help? And could she forget Dana Connor’s question:
“Have you ever made a mistake?”

Kate started off along the path again. She’d force herself to put one foot in front of the other despite how her muscles and lungs complained. No matter the struggle, it felt better than most things did these days. Running was something she knew well. And it was no secret to Barrett Lyon, apparently.
“Ten hospitals in six years? Seven different cities, three states?”

Kate clenched her jaw, pushed her speed. Smug as he was, Lyon didn’t know the half of it. Running away . . . and mistakes. But the point was that she’d left all that pain behind and wasn’t going to let anything or anyone make her relive it. Not the hospital attorney, the ghost of Sunni Sprague, well-intentioned inquiries by Lauren, a horrible woman waving a fake photo of a dead baby . . . not even the promise of comfort in Wes Tanner’s arms. Kate had to put the past behind and move on. It was the reason she’d ignored that text from her father today. She simply couldn’t risk . . .
going back.

Fifteen minutes later, when her feet were tired and her heart finally calmed, she walked up the tree-lined driveway. Then saw the car parked near her guesthouse.

“Kate.” Her father stepped down from the porch. “You’re back.”

“T
HANK YOU.”
Matt took the mug from Kate’s hands, reminding himself of what the hospital volunteer had told him.
“Encouragement from a father can make all the difference.”
He prayed it was true—but his daughter’s expression said otherwise. Still, he had to take this chance. It could be his last one. “Good coffee,” he said after taking a sip.

“Instant.” She wiped a dishrag at a nonexistent spot on the blue-tiled breakfast bar that separated them. It might as well have been the Grand Canyon. “We could have met at Austin Java.”

If you’d answered my text.

She hadn’t asked how Matt found her house. He didn’t offer the information. They both knew it would point out the obvious: she didn’t want to see him.

Matt rubbed a finger over the enameled daisy on the chipped
mug—from the set Juliana had found in Carmel long before Kate was born. Her favorites—she’d sipped herbal tea from one when she was in early labor with Kate. And much later, when she was sick and achy from chemotherapy. Kate had taken two of the three remaining daisy cups with her when she’d completed her GED and left for college. Eleven silent months after she returned home from . . .
where?
He still didn’t know how she’d spent that year of her life.

“You had a good visit in Fort Worth?” she asked, walking in stocking feet toward the small living room. He followed, choosing an ottoman across from where she settled on the couch. “With your college friend, Phil?”

“Yes. I got to see his granddaughter baptized.” Matt watched as an orange cat appeared from nowhere and jumped up onto the couch beside Kate. It had at best half of a tail.

“Cat versus ambulance,” she explained, stroking his whitewashed chin.

Matt hid his wince, hoping Kate wasn’t remembering how he’d run over her cat all those years ago. Angry, drunk. It was a reminder of why he was here.
Thank you, Lord. I hear you.

“I wanted you to know,” he began with his heart in his throat, “that I’ve been attending services at the church where the AA meetings are held. Good Shepherd. It’s been a help for me in a lot of ways. I’ve been sober for nearly eight months now—237 days as of this morning, to be exact.” He held his breath, watched his daughter’s eyes.

“I’m glad for you,” she said, clearly uncomfortable. “But you don’t need to tell me any of that.”

“I do.” Matt tightened his fingers around the solid warmth of the daisy mug. Reminded himself that by unexpected grace he
now had a father’s encouragement. All things were possible. “I do need to tell you, Katy. That’s why I came to Texas.”

“If this is part of that twelve-step make-things-right pledge, skip me. I don’t need to hear it. We’re good.”

Matt sighed, said the words that pierced his heart. “We’re not good, Katy. We’re strangers. It’s killing me that I caused it to happen.”

She closed her eyes, but he kept talking. Had to.

“When your mother got sick, I couldn’t handle it. She was the strong one, the one with faith. The heart of our family. I didn’t trust myself to fill that void.” Matt set his coffee down and leaned forward, hands clasped. “It’s no excuse. Worse than that, it was deeply wrong—because of you. I checked out and left you to deal with it. Sixteen years old and forced to be the adult because I wouldn’t step up.”

Matt saw Kate hug her knees, eyes downcast. Curled up like a lost child. His vision blurred with tears. “And afterward, when you needed me most, I drank myself numb. I was selfish, heartless, and undeserving.” He swallowed, realized his hands were trembling. “I’m sorry, Katy. It’s no wonder you ran away.”

Her chin lifted—a lost child finding strength in familiar defiance. “I can’t talk about that. I won’t.”

“I’m only trying to say that I understand—”

“You can’t possibly.” Her defiant expression twisted with pain.

“I . . .” Matt scrambled for words.
Please, help . . .
“I only meant that I’m sorry I caused it to happen. And I regret not telling you that after you came back.” His voice choked. “I searched for you, Katy. I drove every street in Sunnyvale and then streets in every town within a hundred miles. I knocked on doors, made calls. Posted flyers. Hounded the police. And when you finally called to say you were fine and not to look for you, I checked the
number and flew to Las Vegas. Searched there. You’re my only child. My
baby
. I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving you alone somewhere—”

“I can’t do this.” Kate stood, her face drained of color. “I
can’t
.”

“Kate . . .” Matt rose, walked toward her. “I love you, honey. I want a chance to be part of your life. I want to be there for you if you need—”

“No.” She raised her palms. “Don’t. I’m sorry, but this isn’t going to happen.” Kate’s eyes met his, the raw misery in them ripping at his heart. “It’s good that you’re better, Dad. That you’re sober and you’ve found . . . God. It’s good, I guess. But it’s too late for this. I don’t need anything from you now. Can’t you see that? I don’t need anybody.”

-  +  -

“Yes, ma’am,” Wes told Amelia Braxton, hoping his finger wasn’t permanently stuck in the handle of the dainty flowered cup. “Best tea I’ve ever had.”

The elderly woman’s barely visible brows rose, and he hurried to amend his compliment. He turned to Nancy Rae, sitting on the porch swing, wearing a cherry-print dress and something that looked like an old Pilgrim hat. Only faint scratches gave evidence to her near miss with the business end of a shotgun. “Thank you, too, Miss Nancy,” Wes said, fairly sure that Hershey, wriggling beside him in hopes of a cookie, would laugh out loud if he could. “It was very nice of you to invite me to tea.”

Amelia giggled. “She thinks you have beautiful eyes. So do I. And good manners.” She peered at Wes through lenses finely dusted with powdered sugar. “Your mother did a fine job of raising you up. Manners, Sunday school, music lessons. Yes indeed. . . .
But we hardly see Lee Ann these days. You must tell her to come by for tea. We miss her.”

“I’ll do that,” Wes promised, wondering if anyone really did miss his mother. Twenty-seven years was a long time.

Framed photographs of his mother had been gradually stored away at the Tanner home. They were replaced by images of Miranda and Paul, Wes with his adopted brother and sister, the grandbaby, countless snapshots of foster children—and horses, of course. But there were still some remnants of Lee Ann. A redbud tree she planted when they were laying the house’s foundation, and the
Bless this Home
stencil she’d sponged over the kitchen sink. Miranda had carefully taped it off and brushed around it the times they repainted the walls. After all these years, there wasn’t much of anything left. Except the questions in Wes’s heart.

“Excuse me, Mr. Tanner.” The newly hired caregiver smiled at him from the screen door. The scent of cookies wafted onto the porch. “Mrs. Braxton and Miss Lily have doctors’ appointments at two thirty—” she glanced at Amelia—“and Nancy Rae wants to stop by the grocery.”

“Of course.” Wes twisted his finger in the cup handle, freed it. “I promised I’d have a look around the grove to see that things are cleaned up. I’ll make sure the horse trailer isn’t blocking your car, and—”

“‘Mary Had a Little Lamb.’” Amelia raised a finger. “That’s what you played for your mother at the recital. She sang along to help you when you forgot that last verse. ‘Why does the lamb love Mary so?’” Amelia sang, her voice thin, quavery. “‘Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know.’” She sighed, shaking her head. “It made her cry.”

Wes stared down at his fingers, heart in his throat. He’d forgotten.

-  +  -

Kate ran her fingers through her damp hair, stubbornly wayward after a shampoo, and then frowned at her image in the foggy mirror. Even scrubbed clean, she looked like someone who’d just sent her father packing. After he’d poured out his heart, saying what she’d yearned to hear for so many years.
“I searched for you, Katy.”

She turned away, sick of what she saw reflected in her own eyes. Sick at heart . . .
of who I am.

She zipped her jeans and reached for her thermal tee with guilt hissing in her head. How could she let her father talk about newfound faith and family—
“You’re my only child. My
baby
.”
—after what she’d done? He’d searched Las Vegas for her. Kate’s stomach twisted. What if he’d seen her that desperate day she was seven months pregnant and snatched a half-eaten cheeseburger off a casino’s smoky bar? No father could love a daughter like that.

He said he wanted to be part of her life. What if he knew . . .
I walked away from my baby
?

She pulled on her boots, grabbed a quilted vest, then yanked her purse from the vanity, avoiding her reflection.

She couldn’t stay in this house whether Roady was here or not. Right now his company wasn’t enough. There were two daisy coffee mugs on the counter and a cross hidden in the closet. Oil and water. Honesty and lies. They didn’t mix. And Kate couldn’t stand the way they made her feel.

She opened the door, car keys in hand. She’d gone AWOL from work and it was well past lunchtime. Chuy’s, Shady Grove, veggie empanadas at Flipnotics? Her Austin neighborhood promised an endless supply of food . . . to fill a hole in her heart?

Not everything was possible. But she was going. She’d slid into
the Hyundai when her phone buzzed in her purse. She wouldn’t talk to her father. But she’d told the hospital to call if there was an emergency. She pulled the phone out and her eyes widened.

“Barrett?”

“Hi,” he said, somehow making a two-letter word stretch to a syrupy drawl. “I hear you escaped from the workaday world.”

“Appointment,” she fibbed.

“I thought maybe we should have dinner tonight.”

Her heart froze. “Did they find Ava Smith?”

“No.” His careless laugh made her skin crawl. “Nothing like that, Kate. You’re far too serious.”

Too serious? An abandoned baby was too serious? A threat to her job was something to be taken lightly? Her fingers clenched the phone. “Then why should we meet?”

“Because I like you.”

She pulled the phone away, grimaced.

“Kate?”

“I’m here,” she managed despite a troubling memory of that ill-fated date in San Antonio. With a man currently wearing a jailhouse jumpsuit.

“Officially I make it a rule not to become personally involved with anyone even remotely connected to a case. But—” the unnerving chortle repeated—“you are far too tempting, Kate Callison. I’m betting that you feel the connection too. We should pursue this.”

Pursue?
“No. I don’t think . . .” She flailed, wanting to stomp him like a scorpion but terrified by what he could do to her career—and her flimsy hope for a new beginning. “I’m not feeling well,” she said finally. Truer than anything today. Other than in Las Vegas, she’d never felt more ill. “I can’t go to dinner.”

“Ah, I’m wounded. Rain check, then.”

Kate sighed. The continuing Texas drought gave further proof that God had no mercy for her.

When she finally put the car in gear and pulled out onto the road, her appetite was gone but not her need to run away. Kate had no clue where she was going. Or what she needed. She only knew that going back—even to a house that had begun to feel like home—wasn’t something she could do right now. She needed comfort beyond what food could offer; she needed to feel that she wasn’t the woman Barrett Lyon thought she was. She wanted to feel . . .
“Smart, tough when you have to be . . . funny, caring . . . beautiful.”
The words came back, washing over her like a balm.

She pulled to the curb. Then lifted her cell phone from her purse and scrolled to the number.

“Kate?” Wes’s voice sounded more than a little surprised.

“I took the day off,” she told him as if that were reason enough for calling.

There was a pause. “Did your father find you?”

She’d guessed it, of course. “Yes.”

“I meddled.”

“Yes.” Kate heard him sigh. “Look . . . I get that your sense of family would have to be skewed. You’re all so close-woven, this fuzzy-warm blanket that’s, like, generations thick. I’m not angry that you gave my father the address. Since he didn’t have it, you can guess that it’s not a Hallmark movie on our side. But you were probably still hoping for that.”

“I—”

“Admit it,” she pressed. “You were. You were hoping for a scene where he shows up and I fling my arms around him and cry. And then he calls me ‘baby girl’ and I call him ‘Daddy’ . . .” She
swallowed past a sudden lump. “And all is forgiven and we start making Thanksgiving plans.”

“What did happen?”

“I gave him instant coffee and told him to drive safely. And I told you I don’t cry.” Kate watched the cars pass by for a moment. “I’m not like you, Wes. Or Sunni Sprague.”

“I don’t expect that. Hey, don’t you remember, that night at the lake . . .” His voice lowered and he sounded so close she expected to feel the warmth of his breath. “When I said that I think you’re amazing and—”

“Where are you?”

“At the Braxton ranch. Why?”

“I was going for a drive.” Kate’s heartbeat began to thud in her ears. “I thought maybe I’d come out your way. If it’s okay, I mean.”