A Child to Heal Their Hearts

by Drake, Dianne

  The problem was the fiery tree above it had spread the flames to the next tree over, then the one after that, and that’s when Keera realized that every last one of the guest cabins in that row would fall victim.

  After that she looked around, saw Reid still beating out the small ground fires, which were overtaking him now. Saw that the next structure to go, after the guest cabins, would be the dorm, where the children stayed. And the one after that the dining hall.

  “We can’t save it,” she said, wiping sooty sweat from her brow. It was a realization she hated with everything in her. But it was a fact. The fire had encroached enough that everything on the outer sides of the compound would go up. The dorms, Reid’s cabin. Maybe not the clinic, though, which sat in the open and isolated from everything else. “Reid,” she yelled. “All of this.” She shook her head. “We can’t save it. But your clinic...”

  “No! This time we’ve got to get out of here for real,” he shouted back. “It doesn’t make a difference now.”

  “But it does, if we can save that one thing.”

  “We’ve got to leave,” he said, running up to her. “Before we get trapped.”

  “But the clinic!”

  “Keera, it’s only a building. A stupid, damned building.” He grabbed the hose away from her, turned off the nozzle, and dropped it to the ground. “It doesn’t matter any more. It’s all...done.”

  “But the clinic, that’s where you can start over, if we save it. And I want to try, Reid. Please, let me try.”

  He grabbed hold of her to tug her away from the compound but she resisted and pulled back. “You don’t understand,” she cried. “You have to fight for the things you love, the things you want in your life. If you don’t...”

  “I’m fighting for you, Keera, not for the clinic. It’s time to go.”

  She shook her head. Bent down and picked up the hose. “No,” she choked, as sooty tears rolled down her cheeks. “We have to try.”

  “Is this because if I lose everything I won’t adopt Megan as I’ll be too involved in trying to start over?”

  “Wh-what? How could you even think that?”

  “What am I supposed to think? That you’ve had a change of heart, fallen in love with me, even though I have kids? That you want to do this because you want to build a life around me, my children, and even this?”

  “Reid, that’s not fair!”

  “Isn’t it? I’m about to lose a large part of my dream, and here you are, fighting harder than I am to hang onto it. Which doesn’t make any sense. So why wouldn’t I think you’re doing this because it’s about you? You’ve never shown me anything that would make me think otherwise!”

  This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be saying these things to her. “You don’t mean it,” she said. “You’re talking crazy because the camp is burning down.”

  “It’s not crazy talk, Keera. It’s what I think.”

  “Then you think wrong.” She turned and started to walk away. Then spun back to face him. “To hell with you, Reid Adams. To hell with this camp, to hell with your life.” They were words that broke her heart because all she’d wanted to do was save a little piece of his dream for him—his starting point for rebuilding that dream.

  “Oh, and if you’re afraid that now’s when I walk away and abandon Megan with you, to hell with you on that one, too.”

  Keera didn’t turn round again. Not to see the expression on his face, not to watch him follow her. No, she went straight to her car, got in and didn’t look back. Not when she fetched Megan in Marston Springs and dropped off the camp belongings with Betsy, not when she headed for the highway that took her home. And not even when she had to pull off the highway and have the hardest cry of her life.

  “What have I done?” she asked herself in the mirror as muddy tears streaked down her cheek.

  The toddler sleeping in her car seat didn’t answer. Neither did the reflection in the mirror. Only her heart did, and it wasn’t telling her what she wanted to hear.

  * * *

  “OK, let’s get you ready to go to daycare,” Keera said, as she looked at the mess of toys spread from one wall to the other. Her guest room, now a temporary nursery, looked like a tornado had hit it. So maybe she wasn’t the tidiest temporary mom. Her once-weekly housekeeper picked up every Friday, which gave Keera and Megan a fresh start on a new week of messiness. Four weeks in a row now had turned it into a workable routine. Scatter for six days, pick up on the seventh.

  And thank heavens for the hospital daycare center. That alleviated her problems in ways she’d never anticipated. They were open seven days, twenty-four hours, and the care was excellent. She knew, because that’s where she took her breaks now, instead of hiding away in her office to review a patient history or grab a thirty-minute nap. Now her breaks were spent coloring or finger-painting or sharing graham crackers and milk with Megan. Something she actually enjoyed.

  What she didn’t enjoy, though, was being alone, having no one there to tell her if she was doing the mothering thing the right or wrong way. She had no instinct for it, but common sense seemed to be working out pretty well. And social services were still looking for an adoptive family. Although Keera wasn’t pressing them now.

  In fact, she’d told the social worker she’d like to keep Megan for a while longer, and she’d even gone to the effort of starting to legalize her guardianship. Why? For Megan’s security, above all. Megan needed this time to adjust. She knew her real mommy and daddy weren’t coming back, and she’d become so clingy with Keera that Keera didn’t have the heart to send her away until she was more ready than she was now.

  But also Reid had been right. She’d thought about his words, over and over, and had eventually come to realize how she’d spent a lifetime trying to prove she wasn’t her mother, trying to do exactly the opposite of what her mother had done. Yet in her own heart she’d never truly discovered what she would do without that motivation.

  What she would do, though, was love taking care of Megan. Which she did. And which was why, while she still wanted the best adoptive situation for her, there wasn’t such an urgency about it now. At some point the time would come to give her up. Keera knew that, rationalized it every single day. Even dreaded it. And when that time came Keera knew her heart would break.

  But this was all about Megan now, and what was best for her. Still, for now, every day was a new and better step. And who knew what would happen in the future? For sure, she didn’t.

  So even though everything was up in the air, Keera was happier than she could remember being. But she missed Reid. Missed him desperately. Unfortunately, that was a bridge that had burned down with his camp.

  The newspaper and Internet had carried accounts of the camp’s destruction. Nothing specific, only that it was closed down now and that the owner was making no comment about its future. No injuries had been reported from the camp, none from the forest fire either. It had started with a campfire in an unauthorized area. One single, lousy campfire and she’d lost countless hours sleep because she missed Reid, missed the camp, missed his daughters, missed all the things she hadn’t known she’d wanted until it was too late.

  “After work, we’re going to go do some shopping, maybe buy a pizza for dinner,” she told Megan. She was surprised a child so young would love pizza the way Megan did, but the child begged for it practically every day. “And tomorrow, when I’m not working—” and blessedly not on call “—we’ll go to the zoo. You’ll get to see lions and elephants and zebras. Do you know what a zebra is, Megan?”

  “No,” the girl said.

  “Then after you’re dressed, how about we find a picture on the Internet?”

  “Is it purple?” she asked. Like she’d discovered Megan’s favorite food was pizza, she’d also discovered her favorite color, and had even had a decorator come in and redo the
guest room in little-girl decor, predominantly purple.

  “No, sweetie. It’s black and white, with crazy stripes.”

  “Crazy stripes,” Megan parroted.

  “A whole bunch of them.” She helped Megan put on her own socks then put on her shoes and tied them. Purple shoes, pink socks. Pink was a definite concession in a purple girl’s life. The thing was it was amazing to see how many opinions Megan had. Until she’d brought her home, Keera had had no clue a child so young had preferences and opinions, and, boy, had she been wrong about that.

  Little Miss Megan, once she became comfortable in her new surroundings, was all opinion and preference. So much so that in an adult it might have been annoying. But in a two-year-old it was as cute as could be. Which officially put her in the category of moms prejudiced by the cuteness of their children—to the point of near-blindness.

  But that was OK. This new life was agreeing with her.

  What wasn’t agreeing with her, though, were her feelings for Reid. They hadn’t talked since that day, which was kind of surprising. In fact, for the first week she’d answered her phone with lightning speed, expecting him to call. The second week—not so much. And now, unless it was work related she didn’t bother picking up because another call that wasn’t him only punctuated how much she missed him. “I’d have thought he would have called to see if we made it home safely.”

  The timeline for that call was well past now. And she knew it, felt it in her heart and in the pit of her stomach. She’d made her impression, the one she’d intended to make, and was now suffering the consequences. Her fault entirely, and she didn’t blame him for that. Only she wished she’d had time to change his mind.

  Now he was back in his practice and picking up what was left over from his dream, and she wasn’t part of that. And she couldn’t be because he didn’t want her. Had declined her phone calls the first few days after their break-up.

  Break-up? From what? One night together and a whole bunch of conflicting feelings? How could they have broken up when they’d had nothing to break up from?

  “Then after the zoo, maybe we’ll go to the bookstore as you don’t have enough books, and all little girls need lots and lots of books and bedtime stories.” To tell the truth, Keera was looking forward to the bedtime stories maybe even more than Megan was. That’s what surprised her. As she settled in with the child, it was like she was experiencing childhood again, a better childhood. The childhood she would have liked for herself.

  And somewhere, an hour away, Reid was doing the same with his daughters. In a way it was comforting, knowing they were sharing the same experience under the same sky. But in an even bigger way it was heartbreaking because she’d gone and done the one thing she’d vowed never to do. She’d fallen in love. Only not the way she’d fallen in love the first time. This time it was different. Real. Everything. And everything she couldn’t have.

  * * *

  “These are the clothes you’re going to have to wear. I’m sorry you lost everything you bought with Keera, but I left them behind and saved the computers instead.” He knew, for sure, that he couldn’t duplicate Keera’s effort, not in clothes, not in the girls’ sentiments, and he felt bad about that.

  Felt bad about a lot of things, like how Emmie and Allie had begged for weeks to have her take them shopping again. Once he’d almost given in and called her. But one call and he’d lose his resolve. And Keera Murphy wasn’t the kind of woman he wanted around his daughters because they got attached, and Keera was incapable of attaching back.

  Sadly, he’d gotten himself pretty attached as well. And while there was a part of him that wanted to believe her efforts to save his camp had been genuine, how could he truly believe that when she’d expressed her sentiment clearly, over and over? She didn’t want children, and she did want him to adopt the one she had.

  “But for now you’re going to have to make do.”

  “But, Daddy,” Emmie whined.

  He shook his head. “You know what I told you. That for a little while we’ve got to watch our money. I’ve got a lot of expenses ahead, and I can’t afford...”

  Who was he kidding? What he couldn’t afford was to have his heart ripped all the way through. It was hanging in tatters as it was. Seeing Keera again would only finish the job. “Work with me here, OK? As soon as I get some of the mess at Camp Hope sorted out, we’ll have a shopping day and you can buy whatever you want. But that’s going to have to wait for a few weeks.” Until he had more time, more energy, more hope.

  It was hard hanging on, not just for him but for the girls. Especially when all he owned was some charred acreage and a few remains of buildings. And who would have known there was so much to do in the aftermath of a disaster? Insurance claims, getting the unsafe structures leveled, permits for the work, planners and architects for the camp’s future.

  During the day, when he was busy, he was optimistic. But the nights were what got to him, when memories of that one perfect night with Keera crept back in spite of his best efforts to keep them out. Then from there, the losses. Too much, too many. He couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t let the girls see how much he was struggling because they depended on him to be strong. To be Daddy.

  “How about a date tomorrow? We’ll have ice cream, maybe go to the park or see a movie? How does that sound?”

  “OK,” Emmie said, her voice definitely lacking enthusiasm.

  “OK,” Allie mimicked, in the same voice.

  One thing was sure, next time a woman walked into his life he wasn’t going to bring her around the girls for any reason until everything in the relationship was sorted out and there was a future involved. Because the girls missed Keera, talked about her every day, begged him to get her back.

  Something he couldn’t do. But something he would if he could. And wanted to so badly.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “LAST NIGHT, DADDY,” Allie said, her eyes filling with tears. “She didn’t want me to tell you. Made me promise, cross my heart.”

  Reid placed his hand on Emmie’s forehead. She was burning up. Practically incoherent. Pale. Sweating. He’d seen this before, last time... Except she was having associated abdominal pain now. So maybe it wasn’t another flare-up of leukemia. “That’s OK, sweetheart. You’re not in trouble.”

  “Is Emmie sick again?” Allie’s bottom lip trembled. “Like last time?”

  “She’s sick, but not like last time,” he said, trying to sound upbeat for both his girls’ sakes. Truth was, he didn’t know. He hoped, and his objectivity as a doctor told him the symptoms didn’t quite match. But as a father, all his worst fears were pummeling him.

  “Is it back, Daddy?” Emmie managed to ask. “Did my leukemia come back again?”

  “It might be something you ate, as your belly hurts.” Or appendicitis. Yes, that’s what it was. Appendicitis, which opened up a whole new set of worries, because a quick appendectomy was complicated in the aftermath of leukemia. “I think, though, we’re going to have to take you to the hospital and have some tests run to see what it is.”

  He turned to Beau Alexander, who was already on the phone to the hospital. “If you don’t mind, I’d like Joey to fly me. Don’t want to waste time in the car.”

  “He’s already fueling up the chopper,” Beau said, squeezing his partner on the shoulder.

  “Oh, and I have a surgeon on standby, just in case. She’s not a general surgeon, but she’s agreed to step in and offer an opinion, and she’s getting the best general surgeon she knows rounded up, in case we need to go that route.”

  “Which hospital?”

  “Not Mercy. And before you argue with me that you’d feel more comfortable taking Emmie where she’s gone before, let me say that you’ve been moping around here for the past month, and all I’ve heard is how great Keera is, what a good doctor, good surgeon she is. So I cal
led her, and she’s taking care of getting everything ready to receive Emmie at Central Valley. By air, it’s only fifteen minutes longer, and I think that right now you’re going to need her support.”

  “And we’ll watch Allie, of course. For as long as this takes,” Deanna, his wife volunteered.

  “I’ll step up, too,” Brax Alexander, the patriarch of the Alexander family, said. “Can’t claim to be a pediatrician but I have my way with the kiddies, so I’ll take on your cases until you’re ready to get back to work. So there’s nothing to worry about here, son. We’ve got you covered.”

  Reid let out a huge sigh of relief. He hadn’t only become part of a medical practice here in Sugar Creek. He’d become part of a family. “I really appreciate everything.”

  “You just get that little girl all better and get her back to us as fast as you can,” Brax said.

  “And patch it up with Keera,” Beau said, sliding his arm around his wife’s waist. “It’s time for you to be happy.”

  But with Keera? “We’ll see,” he said as he gave Allie a kiss, then scooped Emmie into his arms and headed to the front door. Truth was, there wasn’t much to be happy about and he wasn’t sure he could even fake it, not now that Emmie was sick. If it was leukemia again he’d have to find a way to be strong. If it was appendicitis then maybe having Keera there, making the arrangements, would help. He didn’t know. Just didn’t know.

  * * *

  The trip was far faster than he’d expected, and he never set Emmie down the whole way. No, he held on to her for dear life, and when Joey landed the helicopter on the hospital’s helipad, and when an army of medics rushed and took Emmie away from him, he couldn’t think of a time when he’d felt more desolate.