Time to Heal (Harlequin Heartwarming)

by Karen Young

  Rachel stared at her untasted salad. Her heart soared. She’d been working at a real job only a few weeks and here was proof that she could handle it, that she was good at it. That she was able to do more than just manage a house and cater to the whims of a husband. An unfaithful husband. “Well?”

  She looked up. “I’m flattered, Ron. Thank you. But I’m not so sure your confidence is warranted. I might not do as well in the business office of the hospital as I do in Emergency.”

  “Trust me, you’d be great. You’d be perfect. We’d make a dynamite team.”

  She laughed, shaking her head. “No, what I mean is that I like it in the emergency room. I like the…drama, I guess. We never know who’s going to come in. We never know what’s going to happen.” She shrugged.

  “I’d pay you big money.”

  “That’s not it.” Still smiling, she glanced beyond Ron to the entrance of the cafeteria. The crowd had doubled since they came in, and now the line reached almost to the exit. Her eyes traveled idly over those waiting and her heart gave a little jolt. Jake was standing there watching her. Ignoring the ebb and flow of the crowd, he seemed carved in stone. A few people spoke, but, grim-faced, he acknowledged no one. After another moment or two, he turned on his heel and left.

  RACHEL WORKED LATE. The insurance forms were finished and every patient waiting for treatment processed before she finally called it a day. It wasn’t her nature to allow paperwork to pile up, she told herself. So when the woman arrived to relieve her, she’d shifted to another workstation and used the opportunity to catch up.

  In the car, she glanced at the time and realized dinner would be late unless she picked up fast food. It took another thirty minutes to do that. The smell of fried chicken made her realize how hungry she was. At lunch, she’d barely swallowed six bites.

  Lunch. There was no reason for her to feel guilty, she told herself, pulling into traffic. She had been having lunch with a man, true, but it was business. Jake had overreacted.

  She turned into the driveway of her house a little too fast. The problem with Jake was that he overreacted a lot lately. She had been such a pansy most of their married life that now she was getting a life of her own he was clinging to old habits with a vengeance. She shivered, recalling the look in his eye as he’d stood in the doorway of the cafeteria. Jake had never looked at her quite like that.

  She caught up her purse and the box of chicken and opened the car door. Michael appeared instantly from the vicinity of the backyard, a stranger at his heels. Frowning, she closed the door and waited as they headed toward her.

  “Hi, Miss Rachel. Sorry about the mix-up in transportation today. Dad picked me up.” He glanced at his companion. “Us, I mean. This is Todd Stewart.”

  “Hi.”

  Michael and his friend were about the same age and size, but all similarity ended there. Todd Stewart wore a single earring, the proper accessory for his long punk-style hair, she assumed. His sneakers looked ludicrously oversize with his baggy pants. She blinked at the wild print—a dizzying pattern of black, neon orange and green on a white background. Compared with his pants, the black cutoff T-shirt—featuring a picture of Sid Vicious—was hardly out of the ordinary. Rachel tried to hide her dismay as he stuck out his hand.

  She took it. “Uh, hi, Todd.” His earring was actually a skull and crossbones!

  “I showed Todd the boat and everything,” Michael volunteered.

  “Wow, man. I mean, radical. It’s radical.”

  “Yes.” She cleared her throat. “You’re at THS, Todd?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I’ve been at a few other schools, but I’m at Tidewater right now.”

  She glanced quickly at Michael, then back to Todd. “A few other schools?” she echoed faintly.

  He shrugged. “State stuff, mostly.”

  He was a ward of the state. Until her job at the hospital, Rachel had known precious little about Florida’s methods of handling disadvantaged children. She looked again at Michael. She supposed his own predicament made him sympathetic to boys such as Todd. She was saved from having to make further small talk by the sound of the front door opening.

  “Hi, Dad.” Michael grinned at Jake, who was standing in the doorway. “We checked out the boat and I secured everything like you said.”

  “Fine. Why don’t you and Todd go heat up the grill? We’ll have some barbecued chicken.”

  “No need,” Rachel said, holding up the box. “I stopped and got fried chicken.”

  “Is it enough for one extra?” Michael wanted to know.

  “There’s enough for an army. Grab paper plates and we’ll set up on the patio outside.”

  “Hey, all right! C’mon, Todd. I’m starved!”

  “GO AHEAD. Get it off your chest.” Rachel set the box of chicken down hard on the counter and tossed her purse in the vicinity of a chair. It missed and landed on the floor, but neither she nor Jake noticed.

  His expression tight, Jake looked out the window to the patio where Michael and Todd were setting the table as instructed. “It’ll wait.”

  “I don’t think so.” Rachel ripped the box open and dumped the contents into a huge plastic bowl. Turning, she almost bumped into Jake as he reached over her head for glasses. “Were you checking on me today?” she demanded.

  He lowered his arm slowly, holding her gaze. “We’ll talk later, Rachel,” he said, each word evenly spaced.

  “I refuse to be treated like a…a naughty teenager. How do you think I felt looking up and finding you blocking traffic at the cafeteria door and staring a hole through me like that?”

  “I give up, Rachel,” he said with heavy sarcasm. “How did you feel? Guilty? Caught in the act?”

  “In the act of what? Having lunch?”

  “Which you were too busy to have with me!”

  “Oh, this is so stupid! Every time—”

  The patio door flew open. Michael stuck his head in. “Dad, the table’s all set. Where’s the chicken?”

  “Coming, Mike.” Jake yanked open a drawer and began rooting around for something.

  “What are you looking for?” Rachel asked through clenched teeth, keeping her voice down.

  “Tongs,” he snapped, his tone low. Dangerously low.

  “Here they are.” She thrust them at him. He took them and kept on rooting through the drawer. “Now what?” she said. “Plastic forks.”

  “Right here.” She shoved them at him.

  “Things are never where they’re supposed to be around here anymore,” he complained.

  “Things are exactly where they’re supposed to be,” she countered instantly. “Besides, how would you know where they’re supposed to be? You’re hardly handy in the kitchen.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just that you’ve never bothered to familiarize yourself with the kitchen before.”

  “Oh, so now I’m a dyed-in-the-wool sexist, right?”

  “If the shoe fits…”

  He glared at her.

  “Anyway, we don’t need forks. I only bought chicken and corn on the cob.”

  “I made baked beans.”

  Her mouth fell open.

  “Michael had a guest. His first guest. Since you didn’t bother calling, I didn’t know whether or not you’d show up at all.”

  The patio door opened again and Michael yelled, “Hey, can we help? We’re about to starve out here.”

  “We’re on our way,” Jake told him, his gray eyes locked with Rachel’s stormy ones.

  Her hands went to her hips. “I have never, never neglected my responsibilities around here.”

  “Which means exactly nothing,” he answered angrily. “You’re doing a lot of things you’ve never done before.”

  “Well, failing to get dinner for my family isn’t one of them!”

  “I thought maybe you’d skip dinner since lunch was so divine.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You couldn’t tear yoursel
f away from your job to have lunch with me, but for Campbell suddenly you weren’t too busy. What was I supposed to think?”

  “I’ll tell you what you’re supposed to think. You’re not supposed to think lunch with my boss is anything except business as usual.”

  They had reached the door. As Rachel balanced the chicken in one hand and tried to open it, Jake stopped her. “Why not, Rachel? Have you given me any reason lately to think that you still care about our marriage? About me? Until Campbell offered you that job, you seemed only half-alive. How do you think it makes me feel to see you smiling at another man when you never smile at me?”

  Rachel stared wordlessly into his eyes. What could she say? A lot of what he said was true. Sometimes she wasn’t certain there was anything left between them worth saving.

  Movement behind the French door distracted them. Michael again. She sighed. “You’re right, Jake. Now is not the time to discuss this. Mike and his friend are starving. We’ll talk later.”

  IF MICHAEL AND TODD noticed the strained silence between Rachel and Jake, they ignored it. Truthfully, mealtime under less-than-cheery conditions was probably nothing new to Todd. He kept them entertained with a string of vivid recollections of his many foster homes. Rachel was shocked by his treatment at the hands of the state of Florida. From the way he talked, he’d been shunted around like an unwanted puppy. He didn’t seem to have a particularly rebellious or incorrigible nature. Surely there could have been a more stable way to manage his case.

  She murmured something sympathetic.

  “It’s nobody’s fault, Miss Rachel,” he said, addressing her the same way Michael did. He hesitated, finishing up a piece of corn. “Well, I guess it is somebody’s fault. I’m just not sure whose. Every now and then my mother comes back, and when she does, I go live with her. She never stays more than a few months, though.”

  “Your mother? But where is she now?”

  He shrugged and reached for another drumstick. “I don’t know. Vegas, I think. She disappeared again about three months ago.”

  Rachel met Jake’s eyes briefly in confusion. “Does she write? Or call you?”

  Todd laughed. “Nah. I think she likes to forget about me while she’s on her trips.” The way he said “trips” did not conjure up scenes of luxury vacations. His mother’s neglect was more than shocking. It was criminal. Cruel. Why would a mother throw away a child? Was she an alcoholic or addicted to drugs? Rachel studied Todd’s outrageous haircut and bizarre earring and wondered at the psychological statement he was making. What kind of future would he have with so little parental nurturing?

  Her eyes strayed to Scotty’s swing set in the rear of the yard, standing empty and still in the waning light, and her heart twisted painfully.

  What kind of God gives an uncaring woman like that a child and then takes my child away?

  Inside the house, the telephone rang.

  “I’ll get it,” Rachel said, glad to escape.

  It was Jake’s office. She motioned to him through the French doors and went to the sink to make fresh coffee while he talked. She paid little attention until he mentioned the date in February that Scotty had disappeared. Her heart began to beat faster. She turned from the sink, the coffee forgotten.

  Jake’s questions were short and terse, unrevealing, she realized. Was this something she wasn’t supposed to hear?

  “Did they fax the picture?” He scribbled something on the scratch pad by the phone.

  “Are you sure?” He waited, listening intently.

  “What about eye color?” After a second’s hesitation, he tossed the pen aside. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he gazed at his feet. “Yeah.” Another wait. “Yeah, I know.” Another moment. “Right, right.”

  With a flurry of laughter and talk and good-natured scuffling, the doors opened, and Michael and Todd came inside, each carrying litter from the impromptu meal. “Hey, keep it down,” Michael said, realizing Jake was on the phone. “My dad’s talking. It’s probably police business.”

  With his gaze fixed on the floor, Jake was still listening. “Did Phoenix PD have anything else?”

  Michael, in the act of dumping paper plates in the trash, looked at Jake with an alert expression.

  “What’s up, man?” Todd asked, sensing the tension in the room. He looked from Jake to Michael to Rachel and back to Michael.

  “Nothing. Like I said, police business.” Michael gave him a playful shove toward the den. “It’s getting late, buddy. Remember curfew? You’d better be hittin’ the road.”

  “Right. I better split.” Todd, halfway through the den on his way to the front door, stopped suddenly. “Hey, thanks for the chicken and stuff, Miss Rachel. And nice meetin’ you.”

  “You’re welcome. Nice meeting you, too.” Rachel smiled and waved distractedly, aware that Jake had lowered his voice so that she could not overhear his conversation. She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had heard the word hospital. When she reached for a dish towel, her hands were shaking.

  With a grim expression, Jake replaced the receiver.

  “Was that about Scotty?” Rachel asked.

  Deep in thought, he missed her anxiety. “No.”

  “Then was it about another missing child?”

  “I’m sorry, Rachel. I shouldn’t have taken the call in here. It’s nothing to concern you.”

  “Stop it! Just don’t do that to me.”

  He finally sensed her agitation. “What? Do what?”

  “Don’t patronize me, Jake. Don’t treat me like a little girl who can’t be told the ugly truth. I know that wasn’t a routine call. It had something to do with Scotty. I know it did. I want the truth.”

  He drew in a weary breath. “It wasn’t about Scotty. At least, not in the way you imagine. Today we got a missing-child bulletin on the wire from the police department in Phoenix, Arizona. The physical description of the boy matched with Scotty’s. I’ve been waiting to hear from my people whether or not it could possibly be him.”

  “Dear God,” she whispered, sitting down gently.

  “Rachel, Rachel… I’m sorry, it wasn’t Scotty.” Jake pulled out a chair and sat in front of her, catching both her hands in his. She was as cold as marble. “He was too old, about eight. It was a parental custody thing. The father had been denied custody and had taken him in California. He was headed east when they were apprehended.”

  She was shaking her head. “No. I heard something about a hospital. ‘Touch and go,’ you said. Is the boy hurt?”

  He brought her hands to his chest and chafed them gently, trying to infuse some of his warmth into her. “Not hurt, exactly, but he’s a diabetic, and apparently the father neglected the boy’s medication. He’s in a hospital but expected to recover.”

  “Oh.”

  “So this is one with a happy ending,” Jake said.

  Yes. Lucky, lucky mother. Despair, disappointment, renewed grief, all washed through her. She began to cry, silent, soul-deep tears that bathed her cheeks.

  Jake watched helplessly, feeling her pain as though it was his own. It was his own. In this one thing, the loss of their child, they were united. With a groan, he stood up and, pulling her close, wrapped his arms around her.

  With her hands curled in despair against Jake’s chest, Rachel sobbed bitterly. She cursed fate and the circumstances that had put Scotty in the path of a madman. With her face buried in his shirtfront, she mourned the little boy she adored, railed against the injustice of having him torn from her.

  In her ear, Jake whispered endearments, reassurance, desperately searching for anything that might take away some of her pain. Forgotten by both were the angry words they’d hurled at each other only minutes before. Rachel clung to him, let herself lean on his rock-solid strength. It seemed like forever since she’d felt supported by Jake’s warmth and tough-tender masculinity.

  “I’m okay now,” she said, making no effort to move, her head still nestled beneath his chin.

  Jake
stroked her back slowly, lazily. “Sure?”

  She sniffed and nodded, but still stayed put.

  One of his hands found its way into her hair, tangling at her nape. “This feels good, doesn’t it? You and me close, the way it ought to be.”

  It did. It was. Where had they gone astray? She rubbed her cheek against his shirt. He smelled like soap and warm male. “I’m sorry I fell apart. I was just so disappointed. It was the first time we’d even had a hint of a lead and…”

  He was so still she felt every beat of his heart. “Jake?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was the first lead, wasn’t it?”

  “It wasn’t a lead, Rachel. It was a routine bulletin.”

  She pushed away from him. “It was enough for your office to call you when they knew for certain it wasn’t Scotty. You must have left that order. You must have thought it could possibly be important.”

  He released a long breath. “Rachel—”

  “How many other times has this happened, Jake?”

  “Never. Nothing has ever surfaced that I considered strong enough to—”

  “I don’t care how strong a lead you get, Jake!” Her hands curled at her sides. “I want to know the smallest hint of a lead that might affect my son. You have no right to withhold anything from me that pertains to Scotty.”

  “I’m not withholding anything, Rachel. I just want to protect you from unnecessary pain. Look how upset you became just now.”

  Neither Jake nor Rachel had noticed Michael’s return to the kitchen. “The lead from Phoenix didn’t pan out, huh, Dad?”

  “No, Mike.”

  Rachel looked startled. Even Michael knew more than she.

  “Was the little kid somebody?”