Kitabı oku: «Charlie's Angels», sayfa 2
“That’s just a story,” Starla told her. “It’s pretend. If I was an angel, what would I be doing driving a truck across Iowa in a snowstorm?”
Not to be dissuaded from her cause, Meredith ignored the denials and used five-year-old logic to explain, “Aunt Edna who lives at the nursey home said she was in a car crash once, and a beautiful angel in a white robe sat right on the seat beside her and kept her from going off a bridge.”
“Your aunt Edna is in a nursing home?”
“She’s not my aunt. That’s just her name. She’s prob’ly somebody’s aunt, though.”
“Well, as you can see,” Starla replied, gesturing to her cashmere V-neck sweater and jeans, “I don’t have a white robe.”
“Uh-huh.” Meredith nodded and pointed to where Starla’s white satin dressing gown and pajamas hung on a plastic hook.
“Those are my pajamas.” Starla shook her head in negation. Or was it confusion? “How did you get in here?”
“I watched when Miss Rumford carried dishes to the back. When you got your coat, I followed. I was behind the gas pumper and saw you take your papers from inside and walk around, looking at the tires and the lights and stuff. You left the door open.”
She certainly had. After all Dad’s warnings.
Meredith scooted toward the edge of the bed. “I have to go potty.”
Starla held her forehead in her hands, her mind thrown into overdrive. She would have to take this child back to her parents. To her father. To that café. She was going to lose…her gaze shot to her watch…nearly three hours, even if she made good time!
The child’s family would be frantic by now.
“Meredith,” she said suddenly. “We have to let somebody know that you’re okay.”
“Daddy’s going to be mad. Really mad.”
“I’m sure he’s more worried than mad.”
“I really have to go potty.”
Ten minutes later, after showing Meredith the camper-size toilet, digging a bag of popcorn from a supply cupboard, then buckling her into the seat belt on the passenger side, Starla asked. “Do you know your phone number?”
Meredith nodded and reeled off the number. Starla jotted it on the edge of a log sheet on her clipboard and unplugged her phone to dial. She got an answering machine. “He’s not there.”
Of course he wasn’t there. He was either at the café or at the sheriff’s department, reporting a missing child.
“He gots a cell phone, too,” Meredith told her.
“Oh! Do you know that number?”
Meredith shook her head.
“That’s okay. I’ll call information for the café. What’s it called?”
“Miss Rumford’s restaurant?”
“Yes, what’s the name of it.”
“Miss Rumford’s restaurant.”
“Of course.” Starla called long distance information and asked for the café in Elmwood, Iowa. She jotted another number down and called it.
“Waggin’ Tongue,” a male voice said.
“Oh, hi. Um, is there a man there who is looking for his daughter?”
“Charlie! It’s for you!”
At the man’s shout, Starla jerked the phone away from her ear, then returned it tentatively. “Hello?”
“Hello!” a man said into the phone. “This is Charlie McGraw.”
“I don’t quite know how to say this,” she began. “I have your daughter with me—”
“Oh God,” he said. “What do you want? Is she all right?”
“She’s fine, she’s just fine. I…I don’t want anything.”
“Please don’t hurt her. Let me talk to her!”
Starla held out the phone. “Meredith, tell your father that you’re all right.”
Meredith sank back against the seat and shook her head, her chin lowered to her chest.
“Just say you’re okay, so he knows. He’s worried about you.”
Meredith shook her head, and her lower lip protruded enough to park a truck on it.
“She’s afraid,” Starla began to explain, talking into the receiver.
“What’s wrong? What have you done with her? Where are you?”
“I haven’t done anything! She thinks you’re mad at her. We’re on I-80, almost to Rock Island. I just discovered her in my sleeper about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Discovered her? What do you mean?”
“Well, she’s a…a stowaway.”
“You’re telling me she got into your truck all by herself?”
“Apparently. She keeps calling me the angel lady and asking me to sprinkle you with miracle dust.”
An audible groan came from the other end of the line.
“I’ve tried to explain that I don’t have any special powers, but she’s convinced I can do something she wants me to do.”
“Put the phone to her ear, will you, please?”
Starla reached out and placed the phone to the little girl’s ear. “You’ve got her.”
Meredith’s wide blue eyes accused Starla for a moment, then she turned her gaze away while she listened. She gave a half nod, caught her lower lip between her teeth. A tear formed at the corner of her eye. “I love you with my whole heart, too, Daddy,” she said finally. “I will. Okay. I will.”
She looked at Meredith. “He wants to talk to you.”
“I’m really sorry about this,” the man said to her. “And I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’ve been out of my head with worry.”
“I can imagine.”
“Look, I can come get her.”
Starla glanced at the clock on the dash. “No, I’ll bring her back. I’d rather do that than sit here and wait. We’ll be there in an hour and a half or so.”
“The weather’s getting worse,” he said. “Take your time.”
“I’ll drive carefully. I have to find a place to turn around.” It was easy for him to tell her to take her time. She was the one losing precious hours needed to deliver her load on schedule. They exchanged cell phone numbers and he told her to let Meredith call him if she wanted and he’d pay for the charges.
Starla buckled in, pulled out onto the pavement and watched for an Exit sign.
“Can we listen to your music some more?” Meredith asked.
Starla flipped on the CD player, and music filled the cab.
“Is this angel music?”
“Nope. It’s a soundtrack.”
“Oh. Some angels don’t have wings that show, isn’t that right?”
The windshield wipers cleared two arcs and Starla peered into the driving snow and spotted the green sign indicating an exit. “I wouldn’t really know about that.”
Within minutes they were headed back the other direction.
“Do you know my mommy?”
Starla kept her attention on the white blur of road and sky. “I don’t think so. I don’t know anyone in Elmwood.”
“No, my mommy’s in heaven. She’s a angel, too.”
She absorbed that information with equal measures of understanding and sympathy. “Meredith, I’m not an angel. I’m just a person. I was a baby once and I went to school, just like you.”
The child straightened in her seat, settled the book squarely on her lap and opened it. “This is the mommy and daddy,” she explained, pointing to an artist’s rendition of a couple in a house with a roaring fireplace. “The daddy has lots of work to do, and he goes to his job with his beefcase.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“He comes home too late at night and the mommy and the little kids are sad, ’cause they miss him.” She turned a page. “See they make cookies, but the daddy isn’t there. And they decorate the tree, but the daddy isn’t there.”
Starla was listening, but her concentration was on her driving.
“Then, the beautiful angel on the top of the Christmas tree hears how sad they are and she comes to life. See, she looks just like you.”
Starla glanced over at the white-robed apparition. Pale blond hair would be a comparison, she supposed.
“She sprinkles miracle dust on the mommy and daddy. The daddy comes home and kisses the mommy under the mistletoe, and then he stays home and opens presents with the kids. Isn’t that a nice story?”
“Very nice. What do you like the most about the story?”
“That there’s a mommy and a daddy. Two of them.”
The yearning in the child’s voice was plain. “Sometimes a daddy is enough,” Starla said. “Especially if he loves you as much as a mommy and daddy put together. That’s how much my dad loves me.”
Meredith picked up on that right away. “Is your mommy a angel, too?”
“She died when I was twelve. I was older than you, but I still had only a dad for a lot of years. He taught me to drive a truck.”
“He did? What else?”
“He taught me how to load and fire a weapon. He made me go to a martial arts school.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s where they teach you to protect yourself.”
“Oh. Can you flip guys and stuff, like the Power Puff Girls?”
“Nothing that fancy,” she replied.
“But you’re a angel, can’t you just zap bad people?”
“Meredith, I’m not an angel. How am I going to convince you?”
Meredith shrugged.
The questions continued until Starla asked Meredith to read the book to her again. The child tired and fell asleep for about half an hour, then woke groggy. “Where are we?”
“We’re almost there.”
“Can I call my daddy?”
Starla punched the numbers and handed her the phone. “Tell him we’re on the highway, not far away now.”
“Hi, Daddy…he wants to talk to you.”
“Hello,” Starla said into the phone.
“They’re closing the highway and the interstate,” he told her.
Her heart sank. She would be trapped. “Great.”
Ice was pelting the windshield and freezing now. She had slowed to a crawl and could barely see. The sun had set long ago, and the darkness was lit by the snow and her two beams of headlights that were growing dimmer by the minute. “Sleet must be freezing to my headlights. I can barely see in front of the hood.”
“Can you make out any landmarks?”
“Not really. Wait, there’s a sign up ahead. It’s covered with snow, I can’t tell. I think it’s the Elmwood sign.”
“You’re only a quarter mile from my place if it is,” he told her.
“Okay, I’m watching. It’s slow going.”
“That’s okay. You’ll see a grove of trees on your left.”
“I’m passing them now.”
“Look up ahead to the right now. Go slow around the curve.”
“I’m going slow.”
“I’m in a Cherokee at the end of my drive with my headlights on. Can you see anything?”
She couldn’t. “No…no…wait, we’re sliding!” Starla dropped the phone to grab the wheel with both hands and guide the rig around the curve. She felt the trailer slide, jackknifing toward her. Momentum and treacherous ice jerked the wheel out of her control, sending the cab toward the ditch.
Grabbing Meredith’s pink coat, she flung it over the child’s head and held it there to protect her as the truck slid sideways. An enormous jerk knocked her against the door, and pain wracked the side of her head. Starla’s vision faded to blackness.
Chapter Three
Through the falling snow and the darkness, Charlie made out the headlights as they veered abruptly. He held the phone to his ear and shouted: “Hello! Hello!”
His daughter’s crying could be heard, a sound that terrified and assured him at the same time. “Meredith?”
He threw the Jeep into low gear and guided it slowly and carefully onto what he hoped was the pavement. The four-wheel drive pulled the vehicle through the buildup of snow, but would do precious little if he hit a patch of ice like that truck had, so he crept forward slowly. He couldn’t see where the road was supposed to be, and the phone poles on the other side of the ditch gave him pathetic guidance. As long as he didn’t get too close to those, he should stay on the road.
“Daddy?”
“Meredith, are you all right?”
“Da-addy!”
Her sobs tore at his already overworked heart.
“Meredith, talk to Daddy. Are you all right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And the lady? Is she all right?”
“She covered my head with my coat, so I couldn’t see nothing. I’m scared!”
“I’m on my way, baby. I’m almost there.”
“Hurry, Daddy!”
“It’s okay, sweetie. Can you see the lady?”
“Uh-huh.”
Charlie was afraid to ask anything more. How would Meredith know if the woman was alive or dead, and what difference could she make in either case?
“She gots blood on her head,” she volunteered finally, then whimpered.
Oh, Lord. “Okay, I’m almost there.”
He could see the headlights clearly now. The semi had slid from the road and was in the shallow ditch, right side up, thank goodness. Charlie parked on what he hoped was the side of the road and got out, plunging into snow halfway up his calves to make his way down the bank to the cab. The truck engine thrummed, loud in the snow-silent night.
He got to the door and found it locked. He pounded on the metal. “Meredith! You have to unlock the door!”
A moment later a sound indicated she’d found a power lock. He yanked open the door to hear her terrified cries. Unfastening the seat belt, and pulling himself up, he scooped her into his embrace and comforted her, running his hands over her head and limbs. She seemed perfectly unharmed.
The driver, however—the beautiful young woman with the silver mane of hair, sat slumped toward them, her seat belt fastened across her breasts, a crimson rivulet streaming from a gash on her forehead, down her temple, a stain spreading on the shoulder of her pink sweater.
“Meredith, I’m going to take you to the Jeep and come back for her.” Hurriedly, he shoved the child’s arms into her pink coat, carried her up the incline and deposited her in the back seat. “Put your seat belt on. I’ll be right back.”
Wide-eyed and hiccuping from her recent near-hysterical crying, the child nodded her acquiescence.
Charlie opened the rear of the Jeep, took out an old plaid blanket, and plowed his way back down the bank. He paused to scoop a gloveful of snow, then, once inside the cab, he turned off the engine and dabbed the snow on the woman’s forehead. She had a cut about an inch long that looked fairly deep. He stuffed the keys in his pocket and unbuckled her. After wrapping the blanket around her, he slid her out of the cab as gently as he could and struggled up the bank with her held in his arms. He slipped to his knees twice, but retained his hold on her.
He was sweating by the time he got her into the back of the Jeep, covered her wound with a fresh blob of snow, tied it with his wool scarf and closed up the back.
Fearful of backing off the edge of the road if he tried to turn around, he carefully backed the Jeep along on the highway until he was certain the access area he reached was wide enough to back into and head out going forward. Perspiration cooled his forehead as he got the vehicle turned around and drove toward home. He would never make it to the town’s clinic in this weather without another accident. He couldn’t see the road. Meredith was uncharacteristically silent, a blessing, because the hazardous trip took all his concentration.
He had no idea how badly the woman was hurt, or if he’d done her more damage by moving her, but he didn’t think so. She’d been wearing her seat belt; her head had probably hit the steering wheel or the side window.
Grabbing his phone, he called the sheriff’s office. Sharon, the dispatcher answered. “I have Meredith,” he said. “She seems fine. But the truck the woman was driving slid off the road and the driver’s unconscious. She has a pretty bad cut on her forehead. I have her with me, but I can’t make it to town.”
“Where are you?”
“I’ll be at my place in a few minutes.”
“Okay. I’ll let Bryce know and I’ll call Dr. Kline. He can use Sheigh Addison’s snowmobile and come out to your place.”
“I’m almost there.” Charlie hung up and focused on getting the Jeep onto his property. Once he hit his drive, there were no more drainage ditches to fear. He found the path and drove along the length of gravel, clear to the front of his garage where he used the remote to open the door. He pulled into the safe dry garage and breathed a sigh of relief.
After getting Meredith out of the back seat and placing her inside the house, Charlie went back for the young woman. He carried her through the mudroom, across the kitchen and into the great room where he laid her on the leather sofa. After hurriedly running back and hitting the button to close the garage door, he turned on indoor lights and checked her head.
The snow had helped to slow the flow of blood from the wound. He grabbed clean kitchen towels and applied pressure to the cut. Meredith stood nearby, her eyes wide with fright, her dark hair curling wildly around her stricken face.
Charlie reached for her with one arm, and she flung herself against him. He sat on the floor beside the sofa to hold his baby and keep pressure on the woman’s cut.
He’d never been so frightened in his entire life. Almost losing this child had been a gruesome experience. He hugged her warm little body close, felt her trembling and inhaled the wonderful child scent he so loved. His heart couldn’t contain his gratitude at having her safe in his embrace. His eyes stung.
“Are you so, so mad, Daddy?” she asked in a tiny voice.
“We’ll talk about that later. Not right now.” He kissed her hair, her soft cheeks. Closed his eyes and thanked God with his whole being.
They were still sitting like that when he saw a headlight flicker across the lawn and heard the rumble of the snowmobile’s engine cut. “Why don’t you go to your room and rest on your bed for a little while?” he said to his daughter.
Obediently she got up and headed for the hallway.
Charlie let Garreth Kline in. “She’s right here.” He led the young doctor to the sofa.
“What’s her name?” the tall dark-haired man asked.
Charlie realized he didn’t know and told him so.
Garreth took a penlight and raised one of the woman’s eyelids at a time. “Her pupils are equal and reactive.” He removed the cloth to examine the cut. “This needs a couple of stitches. Miss? Can you hear me? Miss?”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Knocked out, I’d say. Took a good whack on the head there.”
“Are those medical terms?”
Garreth ignored him and rubbed his knuckles against her sternum. “Can you wake up and look at me?”
Her eyelids fluttered open.
“Hi. I’m a doctor. Do you know your name?”
She frowned, but she said softly, “Starla.”
“Good. Starla, you have a cut on your head. I’m going to numb the area first, and then I’ll suture it.”
She nodded and closed her eyes.
The doctor tugged on latex gloves and prepared a syringe. Charlie washed his hands in case Garreth needed his help, but then just stood by as Garreth neatly closed the wound, tied a knot and clipped the thread. “She’s going to have a whopping headache,” the doc said, removing the gloves and placing supplies back in his bag. “Do you have any Tylenol?”
Charlie found a bottle.
“She should rest, in case she has a concussion. If she falls asleep and isn’t responsive, or if she vomits, call me.”
“What am I going to do with her?” Charlie asked.
“Just keep her comfortable. And don’t let her drive.”
Charlie shook his head. “Funny.”
Garreth shrugged. “Seriously. Looks like you’ve got yourself a house guest for the duration of the storm.”
Charlie studied the woman on his sofa, then looked at Garreth, whose eyes held a twinkle.
“The situation doesn’t look all that bad, Charlie.”
“I just had one of the worst scares of my life. I need some time to recover.”
“Meredith’s okay? Should I have a look at her?”
“I’d appreciate that, thanks.” He led the way to his daughter’s room. “Look, honey, Dr. Kline is here.”
Meredith sat up on her bed, a worn blue bunny hugged to her chest. “Is the angel lady okay?”
“She’s fine,” Garreth told her. “She just got a bump on the head and a cut. How about you? Did you bump your head?”
Meredith said no. “The angel lady covered my head up with my coat. I was scared.”
“She was protecting you, you know that, right?”
Meredith nodded. “That’s what angels do. That’s what Aunt Edna’s angel did. Protected her from a car crash.”
Charlie exchanged a look with the young doctor. Janet Carter’s aunt would tell the story of the angel in the car to anyone who would listen, and anyone who’d ever met her had heard the tale. What that old lady’s story and his daughter’s experience today had in common, he couldn’t imagine, but Meredith had found a comparison. Confirmation of her theory, apparently.
With his penlight, Garreth checked Meredith’s pupils. He felt her arms and legs and pushed lightly on her chest and her stomach. She seemed to have no pain anywhere. “Looks like you came through without a scratch,” he said to her.
She nodded gravely. “But my daddy’s mad.”
“I’m sure he’s more glad to see you safe than he is mad.”
She gave her father the resigned look of a condemned prisoner. “We’re gonna talk ’bout it later.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to that,” Garreth said, straightening and heading into the other room.
Charlie followed him. “Thanks for coming.”
“Your lady vet’s snowmobile has come in handy more than once.”
“I had dinner with her once, she’s hardly my lady vet.”
Garreth only shrugged. He made his way back to the patient. “I’m leaving now, Starla. Charlie is going to watch out for you. You’re in good hands. If you need anything, he’ll call me.”
She opened her eyes and nodded.
Garreth pulled on his coat and gloves. “Call if you need me.”
Charlie closed the door behind him. Slowly he made his way back to the exquisite woman on his sofa. She was here because of his daughter. Had been injured returning his precious Meredith. “I’m really sorry about this,” he said.
Her lids raised and she focused those unusual blue eyes on him. Something in his chest fluttered. “That’s okay.”
“Do you have a headache?” he asked.
She licked her lips. “Either that or there’s a little guy with a jackhammer inside my skull.”
“The doc said you could have some Tylenol. I’ll get it for you.”
“Thanks.”
He went for water, shook a couple of capsules out of the bottle and secured the childproof lid.
“How’s Meredith?” she asked.
“She’s just fine.”
“She didn’t get any bumps?”
“No.”
“What about the truck?” Her eyes held grave concern.
“In the ditch. Snow up to the wheel wells. It’s not going anywhere.”
“I was afraid of that. Was it still running?”
“Yes, I shut it off and took the keys?”
“Did you lock it?”
“I don’t think so. It’s not going anywhere, and the roads are closed. Nobody’s going to be on that highway.”
She tried to sit up. “Oh, boy, I’m dizzy.”
Charlie knelt beside her and reached an arm behind her back to help her sit. He had to help her hold the glass, too, because her hand was shaky. She smelled like a blend of powder and spice, exotic and feminine, and her fingers beneath his were slender and soft. He experienced the same trouble breathing that he had in the restaurant when he’d first seen her.
He lowered her back to a lying position. “I’ll get you some pillows and covers,” he told her. When he returned, he went to the end of the sofa. “Can I take your boots off?”
She raised one foot.
He reached inside her pant leg and unzipped, then tugged and the black leather boot came off, revealing a slender foot in an ordinary white sock. The sight gave him a hard-on so quickly, he almost turned away. Instead he unzipped and removed the other boot, opened the blanket and covered up the sight of her feet and her legs and her hips in those low-cut jeans and…
The shoulder of her pink sweater was soaked with blood. “I’m going to get you a clean shirt. I’ll bring a pan of water and a cloth. You can clean up and change. Can you do that?”
She glanced down at her sweater. “Sure. I didn’t get blood on your furniture or carpet or anything, did I?”
“No. You may have some inside the cab of your truck, though. I don’t really remember. I was in a hurry to get you both out.”
He found the smallest sweatshirt he owned, which happened to be a faded gray and emblazoned with Iowa Hawkeyes, filled a pan with warm water and suds and handed her a washcloth. “I’ll be in the other room. Call if you need me.”
He helped her sit up and left.
Meredith would be getting hungry. He should think about finding something to eat. He opened a cupboard and listened to the sound of water splashing behind him.
“I don’t know if this stain will come out,” she called. “Would you mind soaking it?”
“I’ll give it a shot. Looks like a nice sweater.”
“My dad gave it to me. He likes me in pink.”
He doubted there was a color of the rainbow she didn’t look good wearing. She was probably even more appealing in nothing at all.
Closing the cupboard, he opened the refrigerator and stared inside. Why had he thought that? He was going to be cooped up with her for the time being; he’d better control his thoughts—and his hormones.
“Your name’s Charlie?” she called.
“Yeah.”
“Charlie, I’m finished.”
He went to get the sweater, warm from her body, and the pan of sudsy water. She swam in his gray sweatshirt, and had pushed the sleeves up to reveal slender forearms.
Back in the kitchen, Charlie used the same pan to fill with cold water and soak her sweater. First he rinsed the soft fabric under the faucet until the water stopped running pink, then he plunged it down in the water.
“Add a little salt,” she called.
“Salt?”
“It’s supposed to help take out blood stains. I read that somewhere.”
“Okay.” He poured a teaspoon in and swished it around. Martha Stewart, he wasn’t.
Meredith appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Can I talk to the angel lady now?”
“Her name is Starla. Can you call her that, please? And while you’re at it, maybe you should tell her you’re sorry for making her come back here in a snowstorm.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
He dried his hands and stepped to the doorway. Meredith crossed the living room and paused beside the sofa.
Starla’s blond head moved as she turned to look at the little girl. “Hi,” Starla said. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. Did the doctor do that to you?” Meredith pointed to Starla’s forehead.
“Yes. Does it look pretty bad?”
Meredith nodded. “Does it hurt?”
“No, he gave me a shot of novocaine before he stitched it. Do you think I’ll be able to play the violin after they take out the stitches?”
Meredith eyes widened. “I don’t know. Daddy?”
Charlie chuckled and joined them, sitting on a chair. “It’s an old joke, honey. I’ll bet Starla didn’t play the violin before she hit her head.”
“Were you tricking me?” Meredith asked.
“Yes, I was.” Starla turned her attention to Charlie. “You didn’t happen to grab my phone, did you?”
He shook his head.
“I need to call my dad. He’s expecting to hear from me, and he’ll be worried, especially if he calls and my phone just rings and rings.”
“No problem.” Charlie grabbed the cordless phone from the counter between the kitchen and living room and handed it to her. “Use mine.”
“It’s long distance,” she warned.
“And you’re here because of me,” he replied in the same tone.
She took the phone and punched in numbers.
“Come on, Meredith, I’ll fix a snack.”
“But I didn’t getta say it yet.”
“Say it after she makes her call.”
She followed him to the kitchen.
For once when he would have welcomed Meredith’s chatter to cover the conversation in the other room, the child remained silent. Bits of Starla’s side of the conversation floated to them as she explained what happened. “I swear, I’m all right… I know…well, I don’t know…how long it will be before they can get here to pull it up… The highway’s closed, anyway… I’m so sorry…make it up some other way. Maybe if I call… I know what this meant to you… Yes, I’m perfectly fine…yes, it’s just a truck…some other way… Daddy….”
Charlie got the impression that something more than a few days’ travel was at stake. Was she in some kind of trouble?
He put together grilled cheese sandwiches and mugs of hot tomato soup, and carried a tray into the other room.
Starla sat up, but she only took a few bites. She sipped the cup of tea he brought her, then nestled back down into the covers.
“Starla?” Meredith said timidly.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry I got in your truck and made you get in a accident.”
“The accident wasn’t your fault, honey. They call them accidents because they’re nobody’s fault.”
Meredith didn’t seem reassured by those words, but Charlie stayed out of the dialogue.
“It’s okay,” Starla said, somehow understanding the child needed forgiveness. “I’m not mad at you.”
Meredith nodded. “Okay.”
Meredith picked at her food and Starla drifted into sleep. After cleaning up their dishes, Charlie held his daughter on his lap.
“It’s time to talk now,” he told her.
She nodded gravely and raised innocent wide eyes that immediately filled with tears. “I did a naughty thing, huh, Daddy?”
“Yes, you did. It was a dangerous thing. There are rules about strangers and about going anywhere by yourself, and the rules are to keep you safe. Do you understand?”
She nodded. To her credit, she didn’t use an excuse. “I’m very, very sorry.”
“What do you think is a fair punishment?”
They’d had similar conversations in the past, so she understood the concept. “I shouldn’t get to play with something I really like for a whole year.”
Time was a concept she had a problem with, however. “I think a week will do. What should that favorite thing be?”
She glanced aside, then up at him. “My angel book.”
She loved that book, so not having it for a week would be stern punishment. “I think that’s fair.”
“I must have left it in the angel lady’s truck.”
“We’ll get it tomorrow.” She nestled her head against his chest and he rocked her. “I love you with my whole heart.”
“I love you with my whole heart, too, Daddy.”
He picked up a book and read it to her, then just held her until she fell asleep. Eventually he carried her to her bed and tucked her in, pausing to touch his face to her cheek and smooth her dark hair.
He wouldn’t have been able to go on living if anything had happened to his Meredith.
