Healing the Boss’s Heart

by Valerie Hansen

  As she worked preparing the dining tables in the fellowship hall to accommodate the large numbers of evacuees they were expecting, Maya wondered how her boss was faring. The image of him, kneeling and hugging Tommy, kept popping into her mind. If she lived a hundred years she’d never forget that sight. The man had shocked her all the way to her toes.

  Overcome by a strong urge to see him again, to know he was all right, she checked with the others in the kitchen, was assured that there was nothing else that needed to be done, then picked up a spare plastic bottle of drinking water and excused herself to go seek him out.

  He wasn’t easy to locate. Dozens of men were laboring outside the church, making sure that no one was trapped in the collapsed structures nearby and clearing the streets for emergency vehicles as best they could with their bare hands. She finally spotted his blue shirt among the other workers and hurried to him.

  “Hey. How’s it going?”

  “Pretty good.” He straightened, wiped perspiration from his face with his shirtsleeve and quickly downed the bottle of water she’d handed him. “Thanks. Man, it’s so hot out here I’d almost welcome another rainstorm. But we didn’t find any victims here so that’s good news.”

  “I’ll say. Michael’s planning a short praise service tomorrow. Will you come?”

  “I suppose so,” he answered. “Don’t want to tarnish my bright and shiny do-gooder image when it’s so new.”

  She was about to offer a wry comment when she looked toward the river and saw a small boy near the water. “Is that Tommy?”

  Gregory frowned and shaded his eyes against the late afternoon glare. “Could be. I guess we should go see.”

  “I’ll go. You stay here and keep working.”

  “We’re about done. Even if that isn’t Tommy, I think we’d better see what the kid’s up to. He could get hurt down there.”

  When he wiped off his hands and held one out to her, Maya took it. She realized that letting her boss hold her hand like that was probably too bold, but under the circumstances she was going to do it. She needed to feel his firm yet gentle touch, to rely upon his strength just a little while longer. And if casual observers took it for more than it really was, well, too bad.

  Together they approached the river. The small boy had his hands cupped around his mouth and was trying to holler “Charlie” so loudly his thin voice squeaked.

  Maya stepped aside and approached on Tommy’s left. Gregory came at him from the other side. As soon as the child realized he wasn’t alone, he tried to bolt.

  Gregory snagged him by the neck of his striped T-shirt. “Whoa. Hold it, champ. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  “I ain’t goin’ home,” Tommy shouted. “I’m gonna find Charlie.”

  “It’s awfully dangerous, especially so close to the river,” Maya told him. “Did Mr. and Mrs. Otis give you permission to come out here?”

  His lack of response told her the answer. Lowering her voice and bending to look into his eyes, she spoke gently, reassuringly. “We have a little more time before dark. If you’ll promise to be good and stay with the people at the church, Mr. Garrison and I will keep looking for Charlie until the sun sets. How’s that?”

  “No. I’m gonna find him.”

  “Not if you fall in the river, you’re not,” Gregory interjected, still holding him fast. “Besides, our legs are longer. We can cover more ground faster than you can. Give us a chance. Let us help you.”

  Tommy folded his arms across his chest and shook his head firmly. “Nope. I’m gonna do it.”

  “Hate to disappoint you, kid, but that’s not going to happen, at least not until more of this mess is cleaned up, so let’s quit wasting valuable time arguing when we could be looking for your dog.”

  Certain that the boy would fight, Maya stood ready to assist, to reason with him. However, instead of beating on the man’s shoulders the way he had during the tornado, Tommy merely slipped one arm around Gregory’s neck and permitted himself to be carried.

  Flabbergasted, she fell into step behind them. The wonders of the day just kept getting stranger and stranger.

  They caught up with Reverend Michael and his fourteen-year-old niece, Avery, in the church office.

  Gregory knocked on the open door, then entered. “Got a job for you, cousin. My friend Tommy needs a place to wait while we go look for his pup. Can you oblige?”

  “Sure,” the pastor said. “Avery can watch him. She was wanting something useful to do, weren’t you, honey?”

  “Oh, sure.” The aloof-acting girl tossed her head, swinging her long braids over her shoulders as she stared at Tommy without cracking a smile.

  Maya’s gaze jumped from the rebellious teen to Tommy and the similar expressions she saw on both their faces made her smile. Avery was about to get a good lesson in what it was like to deal with a rebellious child. The experience might actually do the girl some good, not to mention Tommy.

  “We’ll head west, along the river,” Gregory said, passing Tommy to Avery while addressing Michael. “I don’t have a flashlight so we’ll have to be back here before dark.”

  “Fine. There are more rescue crews working in the residential neighborhoods now that they’ve finished checking most of the downtown businesses. Looks good, so far. Last I heard, they thought everyone was accounted for except Lexi and Chief Ridgeway.”

  “Maybe they’re together,” Greg suggested.

  Michael shook his head. “Unfortunately, I doubt that.”

  “Well, don’t worry about us. We’ll be back ASAP.”

  Michael shook his cousin’s hand as he considered Maya gravely. “Are you taking her along?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Be careful.”

  “We will.”

  She waited till they were outside and headed back through the park before she said, “You sure have a way with kids. Especially Tommy.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far but I do know he’s pretty scared,” Gregory answered. “He mostly needs a firm hand and fair rules to follow.”

  “Is that the way you were brought up?”

  He shook his head. “No. There wasn’t much that was fair or stable in the way I was raised.”

  Judging by his apparently grim mood and the way he’d averted his gaze as he spoke, she decided to refrain from commenting. The Garrisons had always had plenty of money. Evidently, that had not been nearly enough to ensure happiness.

  Greg wondered why he’d spoken so openly to Maya about his upbringing. It was no one’s business but his own and he seldom revealed even a glimmer of the way he’d felt back then. So why had he told her?

  Probably because of the severe stress they were all under, he concluded. That kind of trauma had to have a strong effect on everything, including a person’s emotional stability. Sure, he and the other men had laughed and joked as they’d worked on the cleanup around the old town hall and church, but truth to tell, the circumstances were still so unthinkable they were hard to fully comprehend. Greg figured it would be days, if not weeks, before the total extent of the damage was known.

  “Where do you think we should start looking?” he asked to take his mind off his personal reflections.

  “I suppose over toward the old Waters cottages,” Maya answered. “I think that was the way the dog was headed the last time we saw him. He could have holed up there.”

  “If he wasn’t picked up and blown into the river.”

  “If that’s the case he probably didn’t make it,” Maya added.

  “Yeah.” Greg knew she was right. He just wasn’t willing to accept defeat. Not yet anyway.

  As they proceeded along the sloping, grassy banks of the High Plains River, they had to detour around limbs, downed trees and fractured lumber and roofing from houses that had been ravaged. The farther west they went, however, the fewer signs of the storm’s depredation they encountered.

  “Michael had mentioned maybe using some of the old cabins over this way as temporary housing,” Greg s
aid. “And that plan looks workable. The biggest problem is finding Heather Waters and getting her permission to open them up. He’s lost track of her.”

  “I think she’s working for a Christian aid agency somewhere. Last I heard, she was heavily involved in that kind of philanthropy.”

  “Thanks. I’ll tell Michael.”

  Maya pointed toward the bank of small, quaint cottages that had once been part of the popular riverfront resort. “Will you look at that? The windows were boarded up so they couldn’t be blown out and the rest of the place looks almost untouched.”

  “Except for a little wind damage and needing a fresh coat of paint.” Greg pointed to some debris. “And that.”

  “I think that’s just normal camping trash, not from the storm. There haven’t been any renters out here for more years than I can remember. I’m pretty sure teenagers have used the area as a rendezvous.”

  When he arched an eyebrow and looked at her she blushed. “Not me, okay. I managed to get into plenty of trouble right around home.”

  “You? In trouble?” Greg grinned. “I can’t imagine that.”

  “And I’d just as soon you didn’t try to,” Maya replied. “Suffice it to say that my parents had fits with both me and Clay. Jesse was the only good kid in our family.”

  “He’ll be all right,” Greg assured her when his gaze met hers and he read her concern. “You’ll be able to phone him soon or we’ll get out that way tomorrow. I’ll see to it. I promise.”

  “Like you promised we’d find Charlie?” She sighed and raked her bangs off her forehead with her fingers. “Some things are not within our capacity to control.”

  “I thought you were trusting God?”

  “I am. I do. That doesn’t mean I’m not worried about my brother and his family. Marie’s just out of the hospital and the triplets are still in the neonatal unit up in Manhattan.”

  “Well, at least they’re safe.”

  He was sorry he’d spoken so glibly when Maya frowned, shook her head and answered, “Only if this same storm didn’t hit up there, too.”

  Chapter Six

  Although Maya knew that her boss was doing his best to allay her worries about her brother, there was really nothing either of them could do for the present. They’d tried using cell phones repeatedly, with no result, so she figured they’d just have to wait for service to be restored. Even then, that was no guarantee her brother’s ranch would have any phone service.

  Wading through puddles and avoiding piles of weeds and soggy refuse, they called for the missing dog as they wandered among the abandoned cabins that sat beneath a grove of ancient cottonwoods. Tufts of their feathery seeds drifted on the wind that still blew slightly, almost making it seem as if it were snowing. Right then, Maya would have gladly traded the sultry heat for a touch of winter.

  “Watch for nails in these loose boards,” her companion said, indicating some warped, faded, grayish siding that lay on the ground. “They may not have come from this last storm but they’re still dangerous.”

  “Yes, sir.” She stifled a giggle. She didn’t know why she seemed so prone to inane laughter, except that perhaps she was simply so overwrought that her senses were skewed.

  “You don’t have to salute, okay?” he teased.

  “I didn’t. But it is a good idea. You’ve been acting a lot like a drill sergeant.”

  “I have not.”

  “Okay. Have it your…” Startled, she broke off in mid-sentence and grabbed his forearm. “Shush. Quiet. Did you hear that?”

  “What? Charlie?”

  “No. I don’t think it was a dog.”

  “Then what?”

  “It almost sounded like a baby crying.”

  “That’s impossible. Michael said there were only two people missing and they’re both adults.”

  “Still, I thought…There. Hear it?”

  “Maybe.” He started forward slowly and Maya followed, taking care to make as little noise as possible.

  She froze. “Stop. Over that way. To the right of that last cottage—the one with the lopsided front steps. I think I see something moving through those trees.”

  Though he turned and followed her directions, she could tell that he thought she was imagining things. Maybe she was. Or maybe she’d been hearing the wind whistling through cracks in the old wooden buildings and had mistaken the sound for a human cry.

  Maya bit her lower lip, mulling over that possibility. No. She was a mother. She knew what she was hearing. It was a little one in distress. It had to be.

  Passing her boss and taking the lead, she hurried through the trees toward the source of the intermittent noise. She had to pause several times to listen, to get her bearings again, before she drew close enough to see a bit of pink knit cloth in the deeper shadows.

  Afraid of what she might find, Maya tiptoed closer. As soon as she realized exactly what she was seeing, she called out, “Greg! Over here. It’s a little girl!”

  Hurrying closer, Maya fell to her knees directly in front of the unsteady, weeping toddler and reached out to gently take her arm, to cup her muddy cheek. “Oh, sweetie.”

  He was beside Maya in a heartbeat. “Is she okay?”

  Gently brushing loose debris from a tiny, reddened face, Maya said, “I think so.” Sticky mud clung to the child’s eyes, apparently making it painful or difficult for her to open them, and she was rubbing them roughly with tight little fists.

  Responding to Maya’s gentle touch, the toddler began to whimper and reach out to her, clasping one of Maya’s fingers and hanging on with surprising strength.

  “Let’s get her out of the woods into better light and see for sure that she’s okay,” he said.

  “We don’t have any water to wash her. We won’t be able to tell much until we get rid of all this dirt.”

  “The river,” he said as he cautiously scooped the child up in his arms, unmindful of the mud.

  Maya stayed right beside him, cooing to the toddler and speaking as if she were her mother. “It’s okay, sweetheart. We’re here. You’ll be fine. Don’t cry.”

  He proceeded as far as the top edge of the slippery riverbank, then gently placed the young child on the grass and stripped down to his white T-shirt. “I’ll go get my shirt wet and we can use it to wash her off a little before we carry her back to town. I don’t want to move her any farther if she’s actually badly injured.”

  Concerned, Maya was crouching over the curly-haired blond toddler. “I don’t think she’s hurt much at all. She’s moving her arms and legs and rubbing her eyes. The mud seems to be what’s bothering her the most.”

  In seconds, he’d returned with the dripping dress shirt and began to bathe the child’s face, starting with her eyes. When she finally opened them and looked at Maya, she immediately puckered up and began to wail.

  “Guess she knows I’m not her mother,” Maya said. “I wish I were. She’s beautiful, even under all that dirt.”

  “There’s a cut on her forehead and her knee’s a little scraped but I think she’s okay otherwise. I could leave you here with her and go fetch paramedics from town but that could take a lot longer, especially since we don’t know if there’s a unit available. I think the best thing to do is carry her in before it gets dark and we’re all stuck out here.”

  “I agree. If we can’t find anybody to treat her at the church, we can clean her up there and take her on over to E.R. ourselves if we need to.”

  He tenderly, cautiously, lifted the child again and cradled her in spite of her kicking and sobbing. “Keep squeezing water and rinsing her eyes so they don’t get scratched any worse than they already are,” he said.

  “Are you going to be able to manage her?”

  That made him laugh. “I trained on Tommy. After that, I think I could carry a wildcat.”

  “Uh-oh. Tommy. I totally forgot to keep looking for his dog.”

  “If it had been nearby when all this squalling started I imagine it would have come on the run.�
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  “You’re probably right. I just wish we’d found Charlie, too.”

  “One marvel at a time, okay?” he said. “In case you haven’t thought of it, the only reason we stumbled across this poor baby is because we were out here looking for that dog.”

  “I know,” Maya said soberly.

  “It has been quite an afternoon, hasn’t it?”

  She nodded. “And the day’s not over. Work is going to continue all night, I’m sure.”

  “Probably. Last I heard, all the gas station pumps were down due to a lack of electricity and the authorities were trying to figure out how to apportion fuel for the rescue equipment, let alone the nonessentials.”

  “If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” Maya observed. She smiled at the child in his arms. It had quieted some and was now mostly sniffling with an occasional catch like a muted sob.

  “Well, this is one fortunate kid and that’s a fact,” he said, picking up the pace as they approached the church grounds.

  Maya was blinking back tears of relief and joy as she looked up at the white bell tower with the cross atop it and whispered a heartfelt, soul-deep “Amen. Thank You, Jesus.”

  “There’s a triage area set up in a tent on the east lawn,” Michael told Greg as soon as he saw what he was carrying. “Where did you find her?”

  “Out by the old Waters cottages. I thought nobody was using them.”

  “They’re not supposed to be,” the pastor answered, falling into step beside the others. “I guess there could have been squatters out there. Those cabins are far enough from town that trespassers probably wouldn’t have been noticed for quite a while.”

  “That was my first thought but I doubt it,” Greg said. “Maya and I were hollering for Tommy’s dog and we’d checked out the whole area. Nobody made a peep. Except for this little girl, that is.”

  Maya nodded. “I heard her crying.”

  “Praise the Lord you did,” Michael said. “I’ll tell the incident commander what’s going on and let him send a properly prepared search-and-rescue unit out there. No sense having civilians stumbling around in the dark and getting hurt when we have plenty of trained people to do the job right.”