by Lisa Carter
Please, God. Help me. Don’t let Jake die.
Jerking open the drawers of his nightstand, she dumped the contents on top of the bedspread. Rooting around, she spotted the familiar yellow EpiPen 2-Pak box. She ran down the stairs.
Thank You, God.
But suppose she was already too late?
Callie bit off the low moan rising in the back of her throat and hurled herself through the kitchen and onto the porch. No one had moved.
Her father was hunkered over Jake’s prostrate form. With suppressed sobs, Maisie’s chest rose and fell rapidly. Even to Callie’s untrained eye, she could see Jake’s breathing had diminished in her short absence. Had she gotten here in time?
She waved the yellow box. “Dad!”
Her father’s gaze snapped to hers. “We don’t have much time.”
After ripping into the package, she fell to the floor beside Jake. She snapped off the orange cap and plunged the auto-injector into his thigh. Flinching from the pain of the needle, Jake groaned.
Was it enough?
Her father gulped. “I called 911, but as far out in the valley as we are...”
The EMTs probably wouldn’t get here in time if the EpiPen didn’t work.
“Wait five minutes.” Her father squeezed her hand. “Then use the second one.” He gave her a solemn look. “Even if we had more, I’d be afraid to give him another injection without medical supervision.”
Tears ran down her cheeks. She swiped them away with the back of her hand. How had this beautiful autumn day dissolved so quickly into tragedy?
“We should raise his feet higher than his head.” She sprang up, eager to do something, anything, while her father kept an eye on the clock.
Her father took Jake’s pulse again. “His blood pressure has probably fallen already.”
She grabbed a stack of cushions from the outdoor recliner and tucked them under Jake’s legs. It hurt her to look at Jake with his eyes swollen shut.
“An antihistamine.” She jumped up again, unable to sit by and do nothing while Jake was struggling for life.
“Good idea,” her father encouraged.
She ran into the kitchen and ransacked the cabinet above the coffee maker for their medicine stash. Finding what she was looking for, she unscrewed the tablet and, with her father’s help, placed the powder under Jake’s misshapen tongue to dissolve faster.
“It’s time again, Callie.”
She administered the second dose of epinephrine. In the distance came the whirring of a siren.
“They’re here.” Rising up, her father’s joints creaked. “I’ll bring them around.” He dashed out the door.
“Don’t you leave us, Jake.” She stroked his arm. “I won’t leave you. I promise. You’re going to be all right.” Her vision swam as tears misted her eyes.
“You better be all right,” she whispered. “You have to be. Don’t leave me.”
* * *
The emergency room doors whooshed open as Callie’s father, with Maisie and BooWoo in tow, rushed inside the hospital. Callie rose from the hard plastic chair.
“How is he, Callie?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. As soon as they wheeled him in, they took him beyond the doors. Lorena wouldn’t let me go any farther.”
Callie had ridden in the ambulance to the Truelove Medical Center. She’d held Jake’s hand the entire way.
“I couldn’t leave Maisie at the store.” Callie’s dad took a steadying breath. “They’re jam-packed with customers.”
Callie held out her arms to the little girl. Maisie was so quiet and pale.
She cupped Maisie’s cheek, looking deep into her eyes. “Any signs of an allergic reaction, Dad? Do you think she’s in shock?”
“I checked her over. I washed the two stinger sites with soap and water. She’ll be right as rain soon as she sees her daddy is fine. She’s just scared.”
Maisie burrowed into Callie.
Her eyes welled. “Maisie’s daddy saved her. He knew he was severely allergic, yet he ran to her without hesitation.”
Callie’s father touched the top of Maisie’s silken head. “Of course he did. It’s what a good father does. Doesn’t think of himself. Only his child. Anything to save his child.”
“But Jake might...” Callie wasn’t sure how much Maisie understood about the word, die. “He might not make it, Daddy.”
Her father pulled her into a hug. “I don’t think the good Lord is finished with what He wants to do for our Jake. Nor with us, either, Callie Girl. We need to keep our faith.”
“And pray,” she whispered.
Her dad nodded. “Always take the deepest concerns of your heart to your loving Father.”
She hugged him back.
Her father smiled. “After all, what kind of father isn’t eager to hear what his precious daughter has to say—”
“Anytime. Every time,” she finished one of his favorite sayings for him.
Her dad released her as the ER doctor pushed into the waiting room. “Jake McAbee’s family? Anybody belong with Jake McAbee?”
“We’re here.” She stepped forward. “He belongs to me... I mean...”
The doctor didn’t notice her discomfiture. “I want to monitor him overnight to make sure there are no further adverse reactions.”
Her father scrubbed his hand over his face in unaccustomed emotion.
Balancing Maisie on her hip, Callie sagged with relief. “He’s going to be okay? He can come home tomorrow? I was so afraid...”
“He’s a fighter.” The fiftysomething doctor patted Maisie’s jean-clad leg. “That’s a pretty little girl you and your husband—”
Red-hot heat ballooned across her cheeks. “We... She... I’m...”
“You did everything right. Saved his life. Bought him the time he needed to get here.” The doctor gave her a faint smile. “You have a beautiful family, ma’am. Jake McAbee is a blessed man.”
Callie opened her mouth. And closed it.
Her father grinned. “As are we to have him in our lives.”
That, at least, was the truth. As to the rest, she swallowed. That was not how it was with her and Jake. It wasn’t how it could ever be between her and Jake. Not after Tiff... Not after the secret she was still keeping for Tiff.
At what point, though, did her feelings—and she wasn’t ready to put a name to what she felt for Jake—begin to outweigh what she felt increasingly certain was a misplaced loyalty to Tiff?
“When can we see him?” she whispered.
The doctor made a sweeping gesture. “The nurses have him settled. He’s groggy, but I’m sure he can’t wait to see both of his pretty ladies.”
She blushed, but it seemed more awkward to correct his misunderstanding than to just let it go.
“Here’s my card if you or your husband have further questions. Please don’t hesitate to call if you need anything.”
She tucked the card in her jeans pocket as they followed the doctor down a maze of hospital corridors. Was Jake really okay?
Her heart caught in her throat at the sight of Jake against the white sheets. The swelling was gone. His features were normal again, but eyes closed, he looked so vulnerable in the hospital bed.
Usually, he was larger than life. Soldier tough. The gruff exterior and the high walls hid his loneliness from everyone.
Everyone but her. She saw right through to his heart. Jake McAbee was a good, trustworthy man. And he wasn’t alone. For better or worse, Jake had them now.
“I don’t want him to wake up alone.” She headed toward a chair. “He’ll be disoriented when he awakes.”
“Right you are.” Her father rotated his neck, trying to get the kinks out. “Quite a scare he gave us. I could use some coffee. How about you?”
She shook her head. “
I’m staying right here.”
He smiled. “’Course you are. Didn’t figure you’d want to be anyplace else.” He held out his hand to Maisie. “Want to go with Pop-Pop to the cafeteria?”
Yellow curls flying, Maisie gave a fierce shake of her head.
Callie’s father swung open the door. “Our little girl needs some Callie time. It’s been a frightening and confusing afternoon for all of us.”
Later, her dad managed to coax Maisie out of the room briefly for a soft-serve ice-cream cone. Through the bed rail, Callie was clutching Jake’s hand when he opened his eyes.
“Callie?” he rasped.
“I’m here. I told you I wouldn’t leave you.”
“Maisie...” He struggled to keep his eyes open.
“She’s fine, thanks to you. My hero.”
His eyelids fluttered. “No hero...”
She pressed his hand. “You scared me so bad, Jake McAbee.” Her voice trembled. “Don’t you ever do that again to me, you hear?”
He gave her a sweet, sleepy smile. “Yes, ma’am.” He turned on his side and fell asleep again. Sleep was good for him. The medicine was giving his body time to heal.
Eventually, her dad left her at the hospital, promising to return and take Maisie home soon. There were chores to attend to on the farm. Hunkered alongside Callie, Maisie pressed her face against the cold steel of the bed rail. Her small face pensive, she peered at the sleeping Jake like a prisoner in a jail cell.
Maisie was still too quiet for Callie’s liking. She couldn’t imagine how frightening the swarming wasps must have been to a two-year-old. Then seeing Jake unconscious on the floor. The loud noises of the arriving ambulance. The pungent, nose-wrinkling antiseptic smell of the hospital.
Callie was torn between watching over Jake and being there for Maisie when she went to bed tonight.
Somewhere across the hall, a monitor beeped, rousing Callie from her reverie. Glancing down, she realized that Jake was awake, his eyes fixed on Maisie.
“M-Maisie?” He moistened his lips. “Are you okay, sweetheart?” He reached through the bars for her.
But Maisie shrank away. Anguish flashed across his features. However, he quickly shuttered his face, clamping his emotions down into the place where he kept his feelings.
Suddenly, the need to comfort him, to soothe away the stark pain in his eyes, became overwhelming. She rested her hand on his head. His hair scraped pleasingly against her palm.
“It’s going to be all right, Jake.”
He didn’t open his eyes. “It isn’t.”
“Don’t give up. I know somehow everything will be okay.”
“You can’t know that.”
She didn’t. But, please, God, somehow fix things between Jake and Maisie. Because the prospect of Maisie losing her father, and Callie never seeing Jake again, was unacceptable.
Everything had to get better.
It just had to.
Chapter Nine
A week since the wasp attack, nothing had improved between Jake and his daughter. And every single day, Callie’s heart broke a little more at the hurt in his eyes.
Maisie refused to acknowledge Jake’s presence, much less smile or even talk to him. Continually shying away from something as simple as Jake handing her a sippy cup. It was excruciating to watch.
He’d recovered from the wasp stings. Healing from the sting of his child’s rejection? Maybe never.
Tension practically vibrated between father and daughter. Jake decided Maisie needed a break from him. This morning he’d packed for a return trip to the base to finish some paperwork in Fayetteville.
Callie missed him already.
In the family room, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Tell your daddy bye-bye, Maisie.”
Squatting on the heels of her brown leather Mary Janes, Maisie ran the green toy tractor in circles around BooWoo. “No.”
Jake’s blue eyes clouded. “Maybe it’s better that I go. Neither of us can go on this way.”
Maisie didn’t look up, but she was listening.
Callie’s heart twisted. Jake wasn’t only talking about a few days. He was thinking about leaving for good, what she’d wanted from the beginning. Only now she wasn’t sure she wanted him to go.
For Maisie’s sake, of course.
If only she knew how to get through to Maisie. If only she could help him break through the barricades to Maisie’s heart.
She sighed. “Daddy’s leaving, Maisie.”
No response.
He crouched beside his daughter on the rug. “Goodbye, Maisie.” He cleared his throat. “Goodbye, BooWoo.”
Maisie’s lashes flickered, but she said nothing.
Slowly, he rose. “This is goodbye, then.” He slung the strap of the duffel bag over his shoulder.
Callie followed him into the hall.
“I’ll be back.” He paused at the front door. “A day...” He shrugged. “No more than two.”
Her throat constricted. His leave-taking felt so final, and she experienced an irrational urge to throw her arms around him.
She was being ridiculous. He’d just told her he’d be back. But somehow, without her realizing it, Jake McAbee had become an integral part of Apple Valley Farm. Her life, too.
Callie clamped her lips together. Better get used to it. The clock was ticking. He’d be gone in another few weeks anyway, and she had a feeling once he left Apple Valley Farm she’d never see him again.
“It’s a long drive.” She touched his arm. “Take care of yourself.”
His gaze flitted toward the living room. “Maisie won’t miss me.”
She sensed he wasn’t in the mood for more platitudes about how Maisie would eventually come around. She ached to make things right between father and daughter, but she didn’t know how to get Maisie to open up to him.
“I’ll miss you, Jake.”
He blinked, his gaze returning to hers.
She flushed. “I—I mean, the orchard won’t be the same without you, Jake.”
“That’s sweet of you to say, Callie.”
At the husky note in his voice, she looked at him. They watched each other for what seemed an impossibly long span of time.
Breaking eye contact, Jake ran his hand over his head. Her fingers twitched with the remembered feel of his hair against her skin.
“I guess I should be on my way.” But he didn’t seem in any hurry.
She hung on the door. “Would you let us know you arrived safely? Maybe a text.” She lifted her face.
“I’d rather call.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Will you answer?”
She tilted her head. “I’ll answer.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled, the lines fanning out. Whistling a tune, he strolled out to his truck. She felt a little like singing, too.
Midday, her dad came inside for lunch. Maisie hunkered in her booster seat, BooWoo clutched under her arm.
“How are my girls this fine October day?”
Callie watched Maisie push the food around on her plate with her finger. “Good.” Better than good. She hid a smile, anticipating talking to Jake later.
“I sure miss having Jake here.” Her father cocked his head. “I’m guessing I’m not the only one.”
She could feel the red creeping up her neck. “Maisie, what’s wrong with your lunch? You love grilled cheese sandwiches.”
Maisie scowled. “No.”
And here Callie had believed they had the perfect child who’d completely bypassed the terrible twos. They would not be left unscathed. Was it the twos that made Maisie so contrary with Jake?
“Maisie, if you don’t eat your lunch you will not get a snack after nap time.” She arched her eyebrow at her father. “And no sneaking her treats, Dad.”
He patted Maisie’s s
houlder. “What’s the matter, Daisy Maisie?”
Maisie hugged BooWoo to her chest. “No hungwy.”
Since when? Maisie McAbee was a good eater. She racked her brain to remember what parenting books advised when a child suddenly refused to eat. Had Maisie decided to test Callie’s authority?
“Now, don’t get yourself all het up, Callie Girl. She ate a good breakfast this morning, didn’t she?” Her father shrugged. “Maybe she’s just not hungry.” He patted his still-lean belly. “A lesson I’d do well to learn. Don’t eat if you’re not hungry.”
“The books say not to make a battle of food...”
He rubbed his chin. “If she gets hungry enough, she’ll eat.”
Perhaps he was right. He’d raised a child—her—after all.
But Callie didn’t want to reward defiance. “Maisie, you may not want to eat, but you will sit at the table with your family until we are finished.”
Maisie didn’t look up once during the entire meal.
Soon her father returned to the orchard. While Callie set the kitchen to rights, Maisie went back to her toys.
At the unnatural quiet, Callie headed around the counter. The rug was empty. Her pulse quickened. “Maisie?”
She found the little girl in the front room. Thumb stuck in her mouth, Maisie peered out the window, her face pressed against the glass. BooWoo dangled from her hand. Callie frowned.
The thumb hadn’t been an issue for more than a year. What was with this sudden regression into infantile behavior? Maybe Maisie was tired.
“I think BooWoo needs a nap, Maisie.”
Removing her cheek from the windowpane, without protest Maisie trudged upstairs, dragging the stuffed cat with her. Callie lifted Maisie into her crib.
Her head on the mattress, Maisie tucked BooWoo under her chin. “Big-gull bed,” she whispered, and closed her eyes.
Oddly reassured, Callie smoothed a stray lock of hair out of Maisie’s face. “One day soon, I promise, Maisie.”
When harvest was over and life became quieter again. But a life without Jake. Her stomach knotted.
Edging out of the room, she closed the door softly behind her. He’d become far, far too important to her. Perhaps a few barricades around her own heart were in order.