“No Level Ones within three hours, ma’am. We’ve got a Level Two in Wenatchee.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Three hours?”
“More, actually.”
There was no way this man should be in transport for an extended period of time, but the reality of being three hours away from the best care shocked her. She’d been raised near first-class medicine all her life, so the thought of having it unavailable seemed absurd. “Let’s get him to Wenatchee. If he stabilizes, he should be moved to Level One.”
“You mean if he lives.”
Mrs. Calloway’s voice cut right to the chase. Sarah nodded. “He’s in serious danger, I’m afraid.”
The medics had cinched Roy in. They began trundling the gurney.
Gina left Lorenzo’s side and grabbed one of Sarah’s hands in a fleeting touch. “God put you in our living room at just the right time, Sarah Brown, and you’ve given him a chance. What more can I ask?” Then she hurried away after the medics.
Another man appeared. He looked like a blonder version of Lorenzo and had those same blue eyes. Their father’s eyes. “I’ll take Mom. You’re okay here?”
“Yes. I’ll watch the girls.”
“They’re scared.” He hadn’t looked her way. Then he did.
His face went pale. Sarah saved him by speaking up.
“I’m Sarah Brown, a doctor from Seattle, and Jenn was my sister.”
He seemed to accept her minimized explanation as he rushed out the door. The mass exodus of people and equipment left a gap. The cozy front room felt suddenly empty. Lorenzo crossed the braided carpet and turned to her. “Thank you.”
She started to speak, but he raised a hand. “Whatever happens, whatever is planned, it’s all for another day, Sarah. Tonight is all about him.” He indicated the ambulance with a thrust of his chin. “And them. So let’s give those beautiful children a semblance of normal. Okay?”
When he said her name in that slightly Western tone, the timbre of his voice made it sound special. All her life she’d been special. She knew that. Smart. Focused. Wise beyond her years, with an affinity for learning that set her apart.
But she hadn’t come here in peace, and that reality cut deep right now.
“Come back to the family room. Let’s have you meet the girls properly. Our only job tonight, yours and mine, is to get their minds on something else, but they love my dad, so it won’t be easy.”
She followed him to the back of the house where a broad, bright kitchen flowed into a living and dining area, flooded with light.
Three little girls huddled together on a biscuit-colored leather sofa. Three tear-streaked faces stared up at them as they entered the room. Then one girl wearing lime-green pajamas rushed forward, hurling herself into the detective’s arms. “I promised Kyle I’d be brave,” she whispered. “But I’m not even a little brave, Renzo. And I don’t want to be.”
He sank to the floor, and the other girls raced to pile on him.
They love him.
And he clearly loved them. The image of him on the floor, surrounded by three beautiful girls amazed her, and for just a moment it seemed right. So right.
Then reality swept in.
She’d been loved, too. All her life. But she’d also been separated from her only sister, and she’d never had the chance to meet her.
It was clear that Chloe, Kristi and Naomi loved this family and her goal wasn’t to break their hearts, but to establish family roots for them to reach out and excel.
She’d lived a good life. This wasn’t about adoption. Being adopted had been a blessing to her.
But a complete stranger had changed two children’s lives irreparably.
She would never see Jenn. Talk to her. Get to know her. Laugh with her. Argue with her. Love her.
Her precious nieces wouldn’t have to face a lifetime of wondering who they were. Who they might be related to. Or even who they resembled, because somehow their aunt was going to be part of their lives from this moment on.
Chapter Three
Renzo realized that the incredibly beautiful and smart Sarah Brown had come to Golden Grove to turn their lives upside down.
But the good Lord had beat her to it.
In the meantime, Renzo was in charge and the three little girls he’d helped raise needed him.
He’d dropped to the floor like he often did at story time.
Would Sarah join him there?
She didn’t. She took a seat on the edge of the lounger as if she wanted to complete their circle, but couldn’t quite do it.
The girls instantly snuggled into him, only this time was different. This wasn’t the time to jump right into funny books about a mischievous kindergartener or the nonsensical rhymes they loved so well. Tonight it was God, first. “Let’s start with a prayer for Papa. Okay?”
Three worried heads nodded. They all clasped hands, then Naomi seemed to realize they’d left Sarah out, so she reached up and clasped her aunt’s hand, then jutted her chin toward Kristi. “Now you can hold her hand, and we’re a big circle. Okay?”
Naomi’s gesture startled her aunt. The surprise softened her affect. She took Naomi’s hand, then Kristi’s, then turned his way. The fact that it seemed right smacked him upside the head. Was it because she looked so much like Jenn? Or because she matched the girls in appearance and he didn’t?
That was a conversation for a different time. He squeezed Naomi’s hand lightly, then Chloe’s. And then he prayed. He kept the words simple. “Dear God, we ask you to bless Papa. To give his heart and his head strength and healing.”
He opened his eyes.
Three faces gazed up at him. Three faces filled with fear and worry, and he was pretty sure his wasn’t much better.
“We thank you for Aunt Sarah’s help, for putting her in exactly the right place at the right time, and for the grace of healing hands on our doorstep.”
It was a good prayer. But it was overwhelmed by the continual bawling and bleating of the angry cows on two sides of the house, and there was nothing he could do about that.
“Will Papa die?”
Kristi uttered what all three girls were probably thinking. He started to shake his head, but he’d promised them honesty from the time they were babies. That meant he couldn’t shade the truth now. “I don’t know, Kristi. I hope not because I don’t want him to. We don’t know what God’s got planned. So we’ll pray for him to heal, okay?”
She nodded. So did Naomi.
Not Chloe. She let go of his hand, folded her arms in a really tight clench and shrieked, “I don’t want him to die! Why does everything always have to go so bad in this dumb world?”
He hauled her in closer. “Hey, it’s okay to be angry, but not to scream, all right? Papa can’t have people screaming right now, so let’s practice our inside voices for when he comes back home.”
“There shouldn’t ever be screaming,” scolded Naomi. “I think we should all be so very nice and pray that way, too. And not yell about every little thing.”
Kristi didn’t buy into Naomi’s polite reasoning. She put a protective arm around Chloe. “Well, I want to scream, too. Ever since I hit my head in the bathtub upstairs when I was climbing out, all I wanted to do was scream and now Papa’s sick and my head doesn’t even really hurt anymore but I still want to scream. Only I won’t.”
“I’m sorry you hit your head, darling.” Renzo leaned down and kissed the side of her forehead. He hadn’t noticed the small bump before. “I’m sorry for all of this. But sometimes things don’t go our way and God wants us to do our best to be big and brave and bold.”
“Well, I’m almost this many.” Kristi held up four fingers. “And I’m not big, but I am very brave and very bold. I think.”
“You are.” He smiled down at her, the baby who’d been hospitalized much longer than h
er sisters. “You hung on through some tough times when you were tiny, and we knew you were a born fighter, Tough Stuff.”
The nickname made her grin and she flexed her biceps to demonstrate just how fierce she was.
“Why did Mama Gina have to go, too?” demanded Chloe. “Who will put us to bed? And take us to pre-k? And make us food? And wash stuff?”
Renzo sent her a look of exaggerated surprise. “Um, duh. Me, of course.”
He made a face that had them giggling for just a moment, then when they remembered what had happened, they stopped.
“I’ll be here,” he assured them. “I’ll take some vacation time I’ve been storing up, and we’ll take care of things together. Three big girls like you and a big guy like me, we’ve got all we need to handle things around here. You help me and I’ll help you. Now, I want you to really meet your Aunt Sarah.” He motioned toward her. “She came a long way to see you. She’s very excited to get to know you, but she got a little busy helping Papa.”
“You maybe saved his life,” noted Chloe, not all that softly because the girl rarely did anything quietly. “I heard Mama Gina say that, and I can’t even believe that I have such a beautiful auntie and you save lives and my friend Nathan will be so surprised because he doesn’t have an aunt or an uncle,” she explained in her typical quick-speak way. “Renzo pretends to be his uncle, but he’s not for real, and Nathan will be so surprised that I have one. He won’t even really believe it, maybe. So I’ll have to show him, okay?”
Sarah had been watching their back and forth quietly. Now she sank to the carpeted floor, between the girls. Coming down to their level didn’t just make her seem less formidable. It made her fit in. Beautifully. Perfectly. As if she was made to be part of their family because she was part of their family. Unfortunately, there was the tiny problem of custody.
Would Sarah launch her quest after seeing the close-knit family they’d become?
Sarah offered Chloe a gentle smile. “I will enjoy meeting your friend, Chloe. But not as much as I enjoy meeting my three nieces. Three beautiful girls who remind me of myself when I was a little girl.”
“We have hair like you. Like the same color, almost,” noted Kristi. “And like our mom,” she finished matter-of-factly.
“And brownish eyes,” explained Naomi. “Kind of greeny-brown,” she added. “I think it’s weird to all have the same eyes, don’t you?” She reached out to touch Sarah’s pants. She seemed intrigued by the smoothness of the silky weave. “But Mama Gina has dark brown eyes and Renzo and Papa and Kyle have blue eyes, and Mama Gina says that way the girls win because we have more brown eyes than blue ones but old Callie-cat has yellow eyes, and no one else in the family has yellow eyes, so she’s never going to win. Do your mom and dad have brown eyes? Or blue ones? And do you have a cat or a dog or like anything?” Naomi posed the question with a mix of childlike innocence and the instincts of an investigative reporter.
Renzo waited for Sarah to answer. And when she did, she didn’t disappoint them, which somehow made the horrific evening a little bit better.
* * *
“One cat at my parents’ house,” Sarah explained. “And one kind of spoiled dog. I always said that when my life calms down, I want a big old dog that loves people. I don’t want him to protect me. I can do that myself.” She shared a confident smile with the girls. “But a big old dog that just wants to be loved. Maybe a little goofy, too.”
“Like Dreamer.”
Sarah had to think about which child this was. “Who’s Dreamer, Chloe?”
“I’m Kristi,” the girl corrected her. “But that’s okay, everybody mixes us up sometimes. It’s all right. Dreamer is our friend’s dog.”
Was it all right? To have people constantly confusing your identity? Sarah had no idea.
Chloe went on. “Except mostly it’s so much fun to fool people and we can do it so good! I’m mostly like Kristi, until we talk, and then Kristi is more like Nomi, but if I’m really careful and slow down and don’t get so bossy, then I can almost be like their voices, too.”
“You like fooling people?” Sarah asked, lifting her brow.
“Love it!” declared Chloe, arching her brow just like Sarah did. Same one, too. The left one. “Mama Gina says it’s okay once in a while, but—” she hopped up and planted her hands on her hips, then tilted her head “—don’t do it too often, missy, or folks won’t trust you. And it’s good to have folks trust you.”
“She does a solid imitation of my mother.” Renzo smiled at the little girl as she flopped back onto the carpet, and tucked herself back into the curve of his left arm.
“Well, mostly ’cause I love Mama Gina so much!” Chloe exclaimed. “She makes us so many good things, like cake and pie and sometimes grilled cheese with no burned spots!” She quickly turned her head back toward Sarah. “Can you make those things, too?”
“I can manage the grilled cheese, but I do sometimes have to scrape off the burned edges,” Sarah admitted. The admission pained her, as if she was falling short because she couldn’t make a perfect grilled cheese sandwich.
“Renzo makes really good grilled cheese,” Naomi assured her. “He can teach you! Okay?”
“Happy to oblige, Doctor.”
She’d been looking at the girls. She lifted her gaze when he spoke. Locked eyes with him. And when she did, she didn’t want to unlock eyes with him. The compassion in his gaze drew her, but she’d seen the firm side of him earlier. He wasn’t going to let this go without a fight. She was ready, but it had to be a genteel fight. Looking at Renzo Calloway, there wasn’t a whole lot one would call genteel about the big cop. As if to confirm that impression, the bawling of the cows increased in volume before ebbing slightly again.
“Are they always this noisy?” she asked, frowning. “The cows, I mean.”
“Because we’re almost never, ever too noisy,” Naomi told her sincerely. “Most of us, anyway.” She darted a quick look toward Chloe, but Kristi interrupted before Chloe could take the bait.
“I love your fancy polish so much.” Kristi put her chin into her hands and gazed longingly at Sarah’s nails. “They’re so bee-you-tiful.”
“I can only do fancy when I’m not working,” Sarah told her, “so I thought I’d get them pretty before I came here on vacation.” There was a world globe sitting on the nearby end table. She pointed to a dot alongside the word Seattle. “This is where I live.” She had to take a deep breath before she said this next part. “Your mom was adopted by a family in Wenatchee, and I was adopted by a family in Seattle.”
“Because nobody wants two kids,” declared Chloe in a knowing voice. Her statement made Sarah flinch because her parents would have taken both girls in a heartbeat if they’d been told. But they weren’t, and that meant Sarah had gone one way and Jenn another. If it wasn’t for the rise of DNA testing, she might have never known that she had a sister.
“I think there are lots of people who would love more than one child,” Sarah began, but Chloe cut her off.
“I heard Miss Samson tell Mama Gina that she was real glad our mama took care of things because most folks only want one kid.” She raised her shoulders in a very expressive shrug. “Mama Gina said God sent three of us, so why would people only want one? That’s so silly!”
“It’s very silly, dear. You’re smart to realize that,” Sarah replied.
“Which is why all three girls are here with us,” the good-looking cop reminded her. “We had the room and the family and the love for all three. Jenn was my friend and neighbor. I grew up with her.” His eyes darkened slightly. “When she lost her mother, they went through a real hard time, but we went through it together, like we always did. Because she mattered to us. Her mother was my mother’s best friend.” He didn’t get emotional as he spoke, but he didn’t have to. She saw it in his face. His expressive blue eyes, the kind of eyes that could melt a woman
’s heart. She’d have to be careful around this man. His strength. His charisma. And those beautiful eyes.
“When the girls’ grandfather wasn’t able to take custody of them, we considered it an honor to step in and that’s how it’s been,” he told her. “Although the diaper thing was out of control for a while, but we’re beyond that now, and I can’t say I miss it.” He winked at the girls and they giggled. “My mother and Jubilee Samson would never have let the girls be split up. Maybe things are different now, Sarah.”
“As they should be,” she said softly. She wouldn’t argue. She rarely argued. It was much better to bring facts to the table that made argument useless. “So, girls, your mother was raised here and I was raised not far from the Puget Sound, a beautiful body of water that separates Seattle from the ocean.”
“We have lakes,” Naomi told her.
“And Renzo takes us to the rivers,” added Chloe.
“And I got all bit up by skeeters at the creek and Renzo forgot to put my bug spray on and he was real sorry,” Kristi explained. “But I told him it only itched for a while.”
“Mosquitoes rarely bother Naomi and Chloe, but they love Kristi. They like to think of her as a delicious lunch,” he teased. “Who would expect that from three girls who share the same DNA?”
Sarah was already marveling at the differences between the girls, despite their identical genetics.
“So you live really far away from us?” asked Chloe, and it wasn’t easy to see where her mind was trending, but Sarah was pretty sure there was a reason for the question.
“Not so far,” she replied. “It’s about three hours from here to my parents’ home on Mercer Island, and a little less than that to my apartment in the city. I like to live close to where I work so I can get there in a hurry if they need me,” she explained.
“Because you’re important?” Naomi’s winsome look made Sarah want to be special in these girls’ eyes. She wondered for a moment what that said about her before she answered the question.
Finding Her Christmas Family Page 3