A Mommy for Easter
Автор
Linda Goodnight
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Chapter One
She’d been warned.
Doors should be locked, especially at night, even in a friendly, quiet little town like Rosemary Ridge.
But Rachel Hamby sometimes forgot. In this safe, peaceful neighborhood, she always assumed the doors and windows were locked until discovering they weren’t. Last night, apparently, one of them wasn’t.
Therefore, she should not have been surprised on that early spring morning when she stumbled into the kitchen to find someone already there.
Asleep.
On the gray tile floor.
With a well-loved stuffed rabbit snuggled under her tiny chin, her purple-footed pajamas dotted with pink puppies.
A very little girl.
Rachel knew most of her neighbors and this child did not belong to any of them.
Where had she come from? What was she doing here?
Suddenly, Rachel no longer needed coffee. A jolt of adrenaline charged through her veins, enough to keep her running for days. Weeks, maybe.
The girl was a toddler, perhaps two or three. Delicate brown curls bunched at the base of her neck, her long lashes curved over smooth round cheeks. She sucked one ear of the toy gray rabbit.
Rachel’s chest squeezed with regret and loss.
At thirty-eight, she’d given up hope of ever having children, of ever finding Mr. Right. And definitely of ever having a child of her own fall asleep on the kitchen floor.
Quietly, she pulled a chair from the island and perched on the edge to watch the sleeping toddler.
“Where did you come from, baby girl?”
Her baby, had he lived, would have passed through this stage and looked just as adorable. Rachel was certain of it because hadn’t he been beautiful even at fifteen weeks’ gestation, when the nurse had handed his tiny body to her on a blue towel?
That was the first and last time she ever saw her baby. She still wondered what happened to those who died before full term. No one had given her an option. They simply whisked him away. Out of sight, out of mind, which was not true at all.
Not a day went by that she didn’t think about that tiny son and also about his father, about the awful mistakes they’d made in their inability to cope with the loss of a child they’d both wanted. Eventually, they’d fallen apart. She still blamed him, and she’d kept a painful secret that no one but her ever needed to know. Would he have cared? She didn’t think so.
Last she’d heard, he had remarried after leaving Rosemary Ridge to finish his education.
Learning that he had moved on with his life while she was stuck in her loss had been an excruciating blow. He hadn’t cared enough about their son to grieve for long. Or about her.
She wondered if he now had those children they’d once planned to have together.
Rachel gave her shoulders a shake. All of that was water under the bridge. Revisiting old hurts didn’t help this little lost toddler one bit. She was long past the self-pity stage, the recriminations, the questions. Life flowed onward. She was a busy woman with plenty of friends and extended family, including a mother and brother who depended on her to handle anything they didn’t want to. After all, she didn’t have a husband or children to look after. Her brother, Paul, did.
Most of the time she didn’t mind their requests. Or those of the church and town. She enjoyed being needed. Like now, for instance. Today she had a busy schedule, including a meeting with the Rosemary Ridge Easter Committee to decide when, where and how the town would welcome spring and honor Resurrection Sunday.
So much to do. But the small intruder on her kitchen tile came first.
The child stirred.
Long lashes fluttered up, then down and then up again.
Tugging the rabbit closer, she whimpered something unintelligible.
Rachel’s heart clutched like a fist in her chest. Poor precious. She must be frightened to wake in a strange place.
Leaving her chair, Rachel knelt beside the child and brushed the soft curls away from her forehead.
The action must have startled the child for she sat upright and blinked around the room in confusion.
Rachel’s hand fell away.
“Hello, sweetheart. Can you tell me your name?”
Wide eyes, the color of honey, grew glassy. “I want Daddy.”
“Who are your mama and daddy, honey? Where are they? I’ll help you find them.”
Going silent, the child pulled her bunny rabbit closer and stuck the tip of its ear in her mouth.
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
The brown curls bobbed in acquiescence.
Okay, that was a good start. What did she have that a toddler would eat?
Going to the refrigerator, Rachel looked inside. She didn’t cook much these days, but the peach yogurt looked promising. She took it out and carried the carton to the island.
“Do you like yogurt?”
The child didn’t answer but rose to her feet and toddled over in her footed, blanket pajamas.
March grew warmer with each passing day, but the nights could be cool or downright cold. Whoever this child belonged to had dressed her properly for the weather. She looked clean and well nourished. Loved.
Someone must surely be looking for this baby.
“And probably scared out of their wits.”
Rachel fished in her robe pocket for her cell phone, found the number and called.
“Rosemary Ridge Police Department. What is your emergency?”
“Alice, this is Rachel Hamby.” In a town this size, it wasn’t surprising that she and the day dispatcher knew each other.
“Hi, Rachel, is anything wrong?”
“Not really but kind of. Is Chief Ambruster in?”
“Sure. Hold on.”
She heard Alice’s megaphone voice yell, “Chief, it’s Rachel Hamby.”
After several beeps, the chief came on. Rachel advised him of the situation.
“Asleep on your kitchen floor, you say? That’s a call I don’t take too often. Is she hurt?”
“She looks fine to me, still in her pajamas, with a stuffed animal in hand.”
“Huh. Okay. That’s good. She must have wandered away from a nearby home somehow. Kids do that. The other officers are out on calls, but I’ll be over shortly. Keep her there until I arrive.”
Keep her here? What else would she do with a toddler? Set her out in the street with a cardboard lost-and-found sign?
All she said was, “Thanks, Chief.”
As she hung up, a small someone tugged on her robe. “I need go potty.”
Oh. Of course, she did. Which made Rachel wonder how long she’d had been asleep on the kitchen tile.
Taking the small hand, she led the toddler to the bathroom. The little girl stood inside, door open, staring back at Rachel.
Didn’t she know what to do from here?
When the child kept waiting, Rachel asked, “Do you need help?”
One bob of the head was her answer.
No problem. She taught a children’s Sunday school class and volunteered in Wednesday night nursery. She understood little kids.
Except none of them came dressed in footie pajamas.
“Here you go, precious. I’ll help.”
She took care of the girl’s needs and then lifted her up to wash her hands.
The child felt as light as a poodle puppy. Soft and sweet scented like baby lotion, she triggered a range of emotions in Rachel.
Before she realized what she was doing, Rachel pressed her face against the soft spot at the back of the tiny neck and breathed her in. She wondered if she’d ever stop longing to enjoy that sweet scent on a child of her own.
Some things weren’t meant to be. Hadn’t her mother told her that a hundred times? She’d wrestled that adage until she was worn thin, but the fact remained, she’d never remarried or had the family she wanted. Mom—and that tired old saying—must be right.
Before she could tumble into an abyss of self-pity and allow her mind to replay the awful days of pregnancy loss, she carried the girl back to the kitchen. The island was too high for a toddler. She might fall, so Rachel moved her to the living room coffee table with peach yogurt and a cup of water.
Sitting on the couch with the child on the floor on her knees, Rachel kept up a running chatter about the stuffed bunny, upcoming Easter and anything else she could think of to keep the child happy until help arrived. Bunny rabbit lay on the carpet beside the little girl.
By the time the yogurt was gone, a car door slammed outside the town house.
“A nice policeman is here, honey. He’ll help you find your mama.” Rachel led the child to the door and opened it to reveal Chief Ambruster coming up the sidewalk.
Unlike the stereotypical police chief, the head of Rosemary Ridge’s police department might be on the far north side of fifty but he was lean and fit. A close friend and sometimes golf partner of her dad, Rachel knew him well. Clint Ambruster exemplified the Protect and Serve motto emblazoned on his SUV.
Police gear rattled and a shoulder radio squawked as he approached the door.
“Cute little thing, isn’t she? Do you recognize her?” he asked.
“No. I was hoping you would.”
“I don’t, so I’ll have to put in a call to child services over in the county seat. A social worker will come get her while we put out the lost-child alert.”
“That could take hours. What do we do with her in the meantime?”
“I’ll take her down to the station. Alice will ply her with doughnuts and let her play games on her phone. Chances are, someone will wake up this morning, realize she’s gone and call the police before the social worker gets here.”
Although Rachel knew Chief was right, she still said, “I wouldn’t mind keeping her with me, but what you say is true. No one would come looking for her here at my house.”
Chief, who was a grandfather to several, went to one bended knee. “What’s your name, sugar pea?”
“Dawey.” The word was whispered in such a small voice, Rachel strained to understand.
Chief looked to Rachel for interpretation.
“I think she said Terri.”
“Okay, Terri—” the chief held out a big hand “—come with Chief Pawpaw and we’ll find your mama and daddy.”
As trusting as could be, Terri placed her teensy hand in the policeman’s big one.
Rachel walked along on the other side, one hand resting gently against the child’s back.
Chief asked, “You going to the Easter meeting this afternoon?”
“Yes. We’re setting up subcommittees today but still looking for better ideas. You got any?”
“Me?” He chuckled. “Nope. Sarah’s the smart one in my family. I leave all that business up to her. I just show up with traffic control and security.”
Rachel patted his arm. “We couldn’t do this without you, Chief, or without Sarah.” The chief’s wife was chair of all things Easter and as such, wrangled business people and town volunteers like Rachel into working long, unpaid hours “for the good of the town and the glory of God.”
“Seventy-fifth anniversary of a big event is somethin’ to celebrate, all right.” He turned loose of Terri’s hand and reached for the back door of the vehicle. “All right, little Miss Terri, let’s give you a ride in Chief Pawpaw’s big car.”
Just as he was opening the SUV door, a man’s voice came from somewhere to their left.
“Daley! Daley!”
Chief paused, one hand on the child’s shoulder and the other on the handle.
Rachel spun toward the sound.
All she saw was a big furry dog charging toward her at full speed. She braced for impact.
Before Rachel could decide if the dog was friend or foe, Terri squealed, the lab skidded to a stop in front of her, and the child threw both arms around the animal’s neck.
“Moose. Moose.”
“I think she knows this dog,” Rachel said.
“Seems like the dog sure knows her,” Chief said in his easygoing drawl. “And I figure that fella yellin’ his lungs out down the street just might know her too.”
Jake Colter thought he might lose his mind or maybe go into cardiac arrest as he raced frantically down the street in the still-sleeping neighborhood, screaming Daley’s name.
He’d lost her.
How on earth had he lost his daughter in the middle of the night in a town as strange to her as Timbuktu?
A chill ran through him as the worst-case scenario intruded.
The back patio door had been standing wide open.
Had someone abducted her?
Too many terrifying cases of exactly such a thing made the news these days. The world was a frightening place, especially for a man raising a little girl in a new town.
He’d been gone too long to be comfortable in the reassurance that nothing bad ever happened in Rosemary Ridge. That was back then. This was now.
The world had changed, and definitely not for the better, in the many years since he’d moved away. No doubt Rosemary Ridge had changed with it.
Since becoming a dad, nothing scared him more than the thought of a child predator.
Pausing briefly, hands on his knees, to suck air into his oxygen-deprived lungs, Jake murmured, “Not my baby, Lord. Please, keep her safe. She’s all I have.”
He prayed a half dozen jumbled prayers, all of them pleas for mercy and help and safety. Daley was so small, so innocent.
Oblivious to the chilly spring morning, the charming tree-blossomed neighborhood and the colorful tulips and daffodils waving from flower beds and around trees, he kicked into a sprint again, his heart pounding with every rapid footfall.
“Where is she, Jesus? Help me. Show me. Bring her back safely.”
Other parents of lost children must have prayed these same desperate prayers. He didn’t like thinking that some of them went unanswered.
He knew how painful unanswered prayers could be.
Huffing, puffing, sick to his stomach with fear, his hastily donned athletic shoes came untied. This time, he didn’t pause. He let them flop. One short rest was all he needed. Adrenaline stoked by fear fueled him.
He, who easily and with confident assurance, calmed the panicked owners of sick or injured dogs and cats, was about to come apart at the seams.
As he rounded a car parked in a driveway that blocked his sight line, he spotted what appeared to be a police vehicle, complete with gigantic, waving antenna on either side of the back end.
Police. Why hadn’t he thought to call them?
Panic-fried brain, muddled thinking.
Now that he saw a police car, he aimed toward it. When the policeman stepped back from the vehicle, Jake spotted Moose, his dark red retriever.
Hanging on to the dog with a death grip was a child. In purple footies.
A bedraggled stuffed rabbit was slung across Moose’s back.
Thank You, Jesus!
“Daley. Daley!”
Suddenly, a child’s wail rose in the air. His child’s. He’d know that cry anywhere.
Panting like one of his overheated canine patients, Jake fell to his knees beside the dog and child. In one quick, breathless grab, he clutched Daley against his pounding heart.
Eyes closed, he said a silent prayer of thanksgiving and praise. God had heard his plea.
This time, He had answered in Jake’s favor.
