A Heartwarming Thanksgiving

by Amy Vastine

  2. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.

  3. Either stuff bird and let cook until bird is done, or put in a baking pan and bake until bread cubes are golden brown, about forty-five minutes.

  Heart of a Hero

  By Pamela Tracy

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Recipe: Sloppy Joes

  CHAPTER ONE

  The last time Nathan Williamson had enjoyed a home-style, sit-down Thanksgiving meal with family had been over a decade ago. The year before he married. His ex-wife hadn’t been the type to put together a traditional dinner, which after a few holidays spent at restaurants made it easy for Nate to work on Thanksgiving. Better to let an officer with a family enjoy the day. For the last few years, he’d been in prison. Nothing homestyle about Thanksgiving there.

  His last real and happy Thanksgiving feast had probably been in this long-neglected house—his grandfather’s. One thing for sure, Nathan Williamson had waited too long to return home. Maybe because about two years ago, his definition of exactly where his home was and who he was had changed.

  Had Arnold Herbert, the man Nathan called Grandpa, known that Nate really wasn’t his grandson?

  Too early to tell, Nate figured. He’d only been back in Gesippi, Arizona, since this morning, and while his grandpa’s place was a mess, Nate couldn’t tell if he should blame the mess on neglect or on a trespasser.

  His phone pinged, and he checked the screen: Lucille Salazar. The woman who’d given birth to him, but who, through no fault of her own, hadn’t raised him. She called about every other day now that he was out of jail. Mostly to invite him to dinner or just to tell him she loved him.

  Love was such a confusing word. He wasn’t sure he believed in it.

  “Lucille,” he said as soon as he’d swiped ON.

  “You made it to Gesippi all right?”

  “I did. A few hours ago.” He looked around his grandfather’s office again. He had his grandfather’s files spread across the couch. Nothing in the few photos and bits of paperwork—Nate’s school papers, Boy Scout awards, baptism certificate—indicated that Nate was anybody but a Williamson.

  “You sure you don’t want help?” she said softly.

  “No, I’m just getting started. I’ll let you know if there’s anything you can do.”

  “Good.” She’d spent the last two years not only getting counseling on how to deal with regaining a son after a forty year absence but also visiting him in prison—probably not what she’d expected to do after hearing the words, “Thanks to DNA testing, we’re very sure that Nathan Williamson is, in fact, your son Ramon Salazar, missing for forty-two years.”

  His full brother, Rafael, had visited, too, but Nathan wasn’t sure if Rafe were pleased at gaining a brother or if he just wanted to protect Lucille.

  “We’ve a few more family members coming for Thanksgiving,” Lucille said hesitantly. He knew she was afraid he’d disappear on her again. But he didn’t like being surrounded by people he’d never met, people who asked too many questions.

  When he’d been a cop, he’d often asking the same questions over and over hoping to discover something new, something incriminating. But Nate didn’t know who had taken him or why. Even the how was a bit murky. He was in Gesippi for answers, answers he needed before he could go on with life, accept his fate, find his place.

  “Sure, I’ll be there for Thanksgiving.” Nate switched the phone to his other ear and saw something gleaming beside the desk, just under the curtain. “I’m going to call you back. I’m in the middle of reorganizing my gran-, reorganizing Arnold Herbert’s office, trying to find any hints to the past.”

  “I understand. Talk to you later.”

  He tapped the END button and went to his hands and knees. He pushed aside the desk, knocking over a picture of Arnold and his only daughter Evelyn—who’d raised Nate—and reaching for whatever was glimmering.

  He should have known better. Two years without a badge had dulled his reflexes; two years of questioning who he was had created a risk taker.

  As the blade cut a half-inch scratch right across the pad of his thumb, he recognized his grandfather’s knife.

  His finger started to bleed and Nate decided it was time to be smart and seek medical attention.

  * * *

  “Ouch!” The word came out a little louder than Nathan Williamson intended. Still, he didn’t appreciate the Don’t-be-such-a-baby look the too pretty doctor sent him. He opened his mouth to defend himself, but another “Ouch!” came out instead. He almost snatched his finger back, but the doctor had soft hands and a firm grip.

  “Flesh wound,” Nathan grumbled.

  “One that’s requiring five stitches. How did you cut it?”

  “I was cleaning my grandfather’s office, saw something shiny on the floor and stupidly reached for it. It was a knife.”

  Dr. Shainey Fitzsimmons turned, took a few steps over to the counter and washed her hands. Nathan had a good view of her backside and he felt his mouth go dry.

  “What happened to Doc Thomas?” he asked.

  “He’s gone fishing.”

  Santa Claus lookalike Doc Thomas had opened the small clinic in Gesippi almost a decade ago, filling a need for a small town doctor. But this woman definitely wasn’t an elf from the North Pole, helping out, unless Santa’s elves were tall, slender, black-haired, brown-eyed beauties.

  “And you took over his practice?” Nathan couldn’t keep the wonder out of his voice. She couldn’t be more than thirty, the world at her fingertips, why would she be here in Gesippi, Arizona, population nothing?

  “Just for a few months. It was perfect timing. I needed to be in Gesippi, he needed to go fishing.”

  She walked back over to him and his eyes strayed to the identification badge. “Fitzsimmons? Sounds familiar.”

  “You probably know my aunt.” She snipped something with a pair of tiny scissors and Nathan got his first look at his red, swollen palm, now with black thread criss-crossing it.

  “That’s all,” she said. “No amputation today.”

  He shot her a ha-ha look before hopping down from the exam table and asking, “Is your aunt Agatha?”

  “Yes, she was the librarian here for years. I’m staying with her.”

  Nathan nodded. He was familiar with Agatha. Back when he was a cop in nearby Adobe Hills he’d occasionally called her for information. She knew everyone.

  Maybe she knew how he’d come to grow up in Adobe Hills.

  How he’d wound up the son of Robert and Evelyn Williamson.

  He had no one else left to ask. His grandfather and both his parents were now deceased, so he couldn’t ask them how they’d come in possession of a stolen baby.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Shainey watched as Nathan Williamson strode from the clinic and out to an old black truck.She’d been here for six months, and he was absolutely the most interesting man to cross the clinic’s threshold. Most of her patients wanted to talk, convinced that whatever they suffered from was life threatening, or convinced she needed every detail of why they’d come to see her so she’d not judge them frivolous.

  Not Nathan Williamson, he’d merely told her he’d been cut, had stoically—except for a tendency to say OUCH—held still for the stitches—right on the tender pad of this thumb—paid in cash, and seemed more than interested in her aunt Agatha.

  He’d listed a local address on his form. Maybe he was related to somebody she knew. Heading to the front, she typed the address he’d given into the computer. When she located the house, she was more than annoyed. It was on Third Street, two spots down from the courthouse. Every time she drove by the two-story, fading, brown historic home with a dilapidated wrap-around porch, she’d been annoyed. How could anyone let such a bea
utiful home fall to ruin? If it were her property, she’d restore it to its natural beauty and fill it with a family.

  So far, that dream wasn’t working out too well for her.She wondered if he’d inherited the property. He had, after all, mentioned a grandfather. If he’d inherited the house and now was hoping to sell it, she doubted he’d get out of it what money he put into fixing it. Very few people moved to Gesippi. But that wasn’t her concern. She tried to put Nathan Williamson out of her head.

  * * *

  The rest of the day, she dealt with a little boy with a ruptured eardrum and a visit from Loretta Snapp, who was in her eighties and came all the way from a neighboring town. Shainey got the idea the visits were more recreational than medicinal. A little comical, too, since Mrs. Snapp kept forgetting that Doc Thomas was on extended vacation.

  As Shainey locked up the medicine cabinet and closed the clinic, she shook her head, imagining Doc Thomas and Loretta Snapp together. They’d be Burns and Gracie, Seinfeld and Elaine, perfect together.

  Shainey’d not found her soulmate, though she’d been tricked once into believing she had. She’d met Jared during their third year of medical school. They’d gotten engaged before her residency started. They’d set the wedding date the day she’d hired on at a multi-specialty group. But he’d not liked the first place he worked and quit, saying he needed a break after the intensive hours of school and work.

  Sliding behind the steering wheel of her Chevy Spark, she was still proud that she’d been smart enough to suggest they delay the wedding. She wasn’t sure if it had been gut instinct or good business sense.

  She possessed both; Jared possessed neither.

  Three months later, he’d hired on at a two-physician practice. Four months later, she’d opened the door to their apartment and invited his office receptionist inside.

  His pregnant receptionist.

  She’d kicked Jared out that night. Funny, but after the door shut behind him, Shainey realized how little he’d contributed to their existence. She’d picked out and paid for the furniture. She did most of the grocery shopping. She cleaned and took out the trash. She’d been so busy building a life that she hadn’t realized she was doing it alone.

  For the next six months she worked and slept, licking a wound that didn’t heal, didn’t go away, but didn’t hurt quite as much as she thought it should.

  Then, Doc Thomas had called to say that Aunt Agatha was slipping, suffering from a malady fairly typical in the over ninety set: loss of memory and increased forgetfulness.

  Shainey didn’t think twice before quitting her job and moving here. She’d always loved Gesippi with its single grocery store, one restaurant, and majestic old courthouse guarding the town. In Phoenix, she was used to chaos. The six months she’d been here had been in Gesippi, well, had been calm—until this morning.

  Something about Nathan Williamson gave her pause. There was a certain rugged appeal to him but also a sense of mystery. Why was he just returning to town now?

  It took all of five minutes for her to stop at the grocery store, grab the makings of a salad, and head to the Victorian house she shared with her Aunt Agatha.

  An old black truck was parked by the curb.

  She hurried inside, set the groceries on the table, and stepped into the living room just in time to hear Agatha say, “Yes, of course, Nathan, I remember you. And I knew your mother. Happiest day of her life was when she had you.”

  Agatha and Nathan were sitting on the hand-carved mahogany antique French sofa. On a good day it wasn’t comfortable. It was, however, small, allowing Agatha to pat Nathan on the knee.

  He didn’t look quite so mysterious now.

  He shook his head. “Agatha, Evelyn Williamson didn’t give birth to me. You see, right before I went to prison, I needed blood—”

  “You’d been shot,” Agatha said, remembering.

  Prison? Shainey had been right to think him mysterious.

  Nathan nodded. “The sheriff in Scorpion Ridge, Rafael Salazar, donated blood for me and the doctors discovered fifty percent of our genetic material was identical. That means we could only be—”

  “Brothers,” Shainey finished, stepping into the room.

  Nate looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Then, he nodded.

  * * *

  Agatha sat straight up, clutching the arms of the chair. “Salazar? As in Ramon Salazar? The baby taken from the old hospital all those years ago?”

  Nathan nodded. “That was me.”

  Agatha sat back, putting a hand over her mouth and going a little pale.

  Shainey hurried into the room, “Aunt Agatha, should I get one of your pills or—”

  “Just water.”

  Shainey fetched the water and returned to find her aunt once again patting Nathan Williamson’s knee. After taking a few sips, Agatha set the glass on the side table next to the couch.

  “I remember when you were taken.” Agatha’s hand stilled. “And, over the years, I’m afraid you weren’t the only one.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Only one what, Aunt Agatha?” Shainey asked.

  “I’m saying that Nathan here wasn’t the only baby that didn’t stay with the mother who loved him,” Agatha said simply. Then, before either he or the doctor could react, tears started dripping down her cheeks.

  Nathan wasn’t sure what to do: stand, sit, leave? In a short time, he’d managed to upset the one person he’d hoped could help him.

  Shainey’s voice wavered a bit as she asked, “Aunt Agatha, are you thinking about the Garcias?”

  Agatha shook her head.

  “Who are the Garcias?” Nathan asked. The name was vaguely familiar, but he’d not written it down as a lead. Garcia? Garcia?

  Agatha coughed, then wheezed a bit. Her thin, frail fingers seemed to dig into the edge of the couch.

  Shainey swirled around, talking as she hurried out of the room. “I’m getting your medicine.”

  “I’m sorry I disturbed you.” Nathan needed information, but not at the expense of a too pale, too emotional nonagenarian. He started to rise, but settled again when Agatha went back to patting his knee, not saying anything.

  Nathan wished the doctor would hurry. The walls were starting to close in. This living room shouted female—a breed he’d never had much luck with. Every corner was occupied with frills. It also shouted family. There were photos everywhere, smiling people, happy vacations, lots of kids.

  Shainey came back into the room, gave her aunt a pill and the glass of water. Once Agatha finished, Shainey held out her hand, clearly expecting her aunt to obey and get to her feet.

  Nathan had the upmost respect for the medical profession. As a cop, he’d taken as many suspects to the ER as he had to jail. Should this woman hold out her hand to him, expecting him to obey, he’d do it.

  “Ahem.”

  Shainey’s interjection helped him shake off his reverie. He took the water glass from Agatha’s hand, wincing as it came in contact with his thumb, and helped guide her up by the elbow and then down the hall.

  “I can come again tomorrow,” he said. “I still have questions.

  Agatha glanced at Shainey. “It wasn’t like it is today, you know. In the sixties and seventies, lots of young girls got in trouble and gave up their babies, some unwillingly.”

  Nathan noted the pained look Shainey sent his way even as she kept Agatha slowly moving.

  “I was stolen,” Nathan reminded her. “My birth mother was married. Both she and my father were thrilled about having a baby.”

  “Yes, yes,” Agatha said, her feet coming to a stop. “You were the exception. Usually, it was just the young, poor and naive.”

  Shainey looked so surprised that she forgot to encourage her aunt to keep walking. “Exception? Aunt Agatha, do you know someone who signed away their baby because they were tricked or forced?”

  Agatha nodded. “More than one. Most just young girls, like me.”

  Shainey’s mouth gape
d and she sputtered, “Aunt Agatha, you had a baby?”

  “I did. Seventy-eight years ago. I was fifteen.”

  “And you’re just now telling me?”

  “Maybe it’s important now. Over the years, I wondered where the baby went. Adoption was so secretive in those days. Then there were the two that were simply taken.”

  “Are you talking about Deidra?” Shainey asked.

  Nathan remembered now. Deidra Garcia had gone missing a few years before Nate. But Nate had seen the files, read the newspaper accounts, local law enforcement and even a private detected had all concluded that she’d been taken by a family member.

  Apparently not.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Shainey didn’t leave Agatha until she was in a restless slumber.

  It made no sense. For all Shainey’s life, Agatha had been a rock, a no-nonsense wealth of information, which she always delivered in a straightforward manner.

  All this time, she’d held a secret. One that somehow knocked up against the mysteries of Nathan Williamson and Debby Garcia, Shainey’s childhood friend.

  Why hadn’t Agatha spoken up sooner?

  Hurrying from the room, Shainey headed for the living room: empty. The front porch was also vacant and the black truck was missing from the street. If not for Agatha, Shainey would have jumped in her Spark and chased Nathan down. She had a dozen questions and not just about what had happened to him, but about another baby that went missing from a neighboring town. Deidra Garcia was her friend Debby’s big sister. She would have been a bit older than Nathan.

  But there was no way Shainey was leaving her aunt home alone tonight.

  Back inside, Shainey set up her laptop on the kitchen table and ate her salad while she perused Gesippi’s history. When the mine closed in the late thirties, the population dwindled. All but three businesses closed. Then in the sixties, hippies moved in, among them Shainey’s mother who’d stayed a hippie a lot longer than most. In the seventies the mine reopened for a while, and the community refurbished the hospital.