Little Girl Lost

“It’s getting close,” Hugh said, raising his eyes to the sky.

“I have a feeling the cold front is going to get here ahead of the weatherman’s prediction.” She handed the ladle back to him. “Please excuse me, Mr. Damon. I think I’d better batten down the hatches in the greenhouse.”

“I’ll help. And I think we’ve known each other long enough to drop the honorifics. My name’s Hugh.”

“Thank you, Hugh.” She liked the way his name sounded on her tongue. “And please, call me Faith.”

Addy grabbed her much chewed Frisbee in her teeth and trotted along at Hugh’s heels as they walked toward the greenhouse, obviously hoping for a game of catch. So Faith could add her faithful sheltie to the list of females at Painted Lady Farm who had fallen for her guest.

“I can manage,” she started to say, but he was already moving the remaining flats of bedding plants off the old farm wagon she used to display them. It had grown noticeably darker in the ten minutes they’d been standing in the yard. And the clouds were moving fast, roiling like water in a saucepan. The green cast to their undersides was more pronounced than ever, a sure sign of hail.

Faith deposited Caitlin at her table behind the counter and went to help Hugh. They were both soaked by the time all the bedding plants were inside. She struggled to close the wide panels that were usually folded back against the side of the greenhouse. Hugh reached a hand over her shoulder and unhooked the panel, then tugged them into place. He had just closed the final one when the hail came pelting down.

The roof of the greenhouse was made of the same industrial weight plastic as the sides and the hailstones, small ones thankfully, bounced off harmlessly. But the roof of the butterfly habitat was made of glass. It was reinforced and supposedly shatterproof, but so far it hadn’t been put to the test. Faith picked up Caitlin and hurried into the chrysalis room. The sound of hailstones on glass was deafening. She’d reached for the handle of the pressurized door when Hugh spoke from behind her.

“It might be better if we get back to the house in case there’s a tornado.”

“Oh, God, don’t say that.” Ohio wasn’t technically a part of Tornado Alley, but they still had their share of the deadly storms.

“Back in Texas this is the kind of weather that has us heading for the nearest storm cellar. You do have a cellar, don’t you?” His tone was ordinary, for Caitlin’s sake, Faith realized. There was even a tinge of laughter beneath the faint drawl, but his eyes were grim.

“Yes, there’s a cellar. Have you always lived in Texas?” Faith kept her tone as light as his. She was determined not to allow her own fear to be transmitted to Caitlin.

“From time to time,” Hugh said. He turned to go back into the greenhouse. “My dad was in the military. We lived in a lot of places, but Texas was where I went to high school and college. My mom and my half sister stayed on there after I left home. When I got back to the States last time it seemed as good a place as any to hang my hat.”

“Back to the States? You build malls overseas then?”

His laugh was short and held little amusement. “I’ve only been building malls the past couple of years. Before that I worked all over the world. Dams in China, bridges in South America. Never more than a year or two in one place, and most of them were pretty far off the beaten track.”

Faith wanted to ask him more about what sounded like a fascinating life, but a blinding flash of lightning and the earsplitting crack of thunder that accompanied it brought her back to the situation at hand. This was no time for conversation, fascinating or otherwise. She gave one more troubled glance through the chrysalis room window into the habitat. The insects were on their own now. She couldn’t risk injury to Caitlin staying where they were. But how was she going to get her daughter safely back into the house?

The hailstones weren’t that large but they were coming down so thickly she had to shout to be heard. And the wind was picking up, too. There would be blowing leaves and twigs, perhaps even falling tree branches to contend with between here and the house. She didn’t even dare to consider what damage the storm was doing to the crops in the fields. “I can’t take Caitlin out into the storm.” She indicated the sleeveless top and shorts her daughter was wearing. Caitlin had her face buried in Faith’s shoulder. She didn’t like thunder and lightning, but she wasn’t unduly afraid of them. That might change if she had to go out in it unprotected.

“No umbrella or raincoat in the greenhouse?”

“Nothing like that.” The radio on the counter began to vibrate with the sirenlike alert that signaled a weather update. A disembodied voice announced a funnel cloud had been spotted about ten miles west of Bartonsville. It was moving northeast at thirty miles an hour. Everyone in the area was to take immediate cover.

“If it stays on course it will probably miss us but we need to get into the cellar,” Hugh said. She didn’t for a moment question the accuracy of his pronouncement. It had taken Faith weeks to orient herself to the land around Bartonsville after she’d moved to the farm, but it appeared Hugh had had no such difficulty.

She racked her brain for something to use to cover Caitlin. “I suppose we could wrap her up in one of the those nylon garden flags. They’re heavy enough to give her some protection.”

“It’s better than nothing.” Hugh reached out to slide the nearest off its pole, a springlike design of pink and yellow tulips on a green background. Faith’s eyes flicked past the display to the shelf of hummingbird and butterfly statues.

“Wait a minute. I have a better idea.” Faith darted around the counter. She pulled out a roll of packing material. “Bubble wrap! I keep it around to pack the figurines. We can wrap her in it.”

She was rewarded with one of his heart-stopping grins. “Great idea. Here, give her to me.”

Faith didn’t let herself hesitate. She couldn’t hold on to Caitlin and wrap her head and shoulders at the same time. Hugh held out his arms and Caitlin tumbled into his embrace. “Bubbles,” she giggled. “Poke the bubbles.”

“You can poke all the bubbles you want in the house, Kitty Cat,” Faith promised. “Just hold still now like a good girl.” Thirty seconds later Caitlin grinned out at her from a cocoon of packing material.

“Hey, you’re Cocoon Girl now,” Hugh said admiringly.

Faith laughed despite the anxiety that made her hands shake and her throat close. “Not Cocoon Girl. She…she needs to be Chrysalis Girl. We don’t want to take the chance that she’ll hatch into a plain old moth. We want her to be a beautiful butterfly, don’t we, sweetie?” She leaned forward and touched noses with her daughter. The spontaneous movement brought her close enough to feel the heat of Hugh’s body and the evocative smell of his soap and aftershave. She straightened quickly, taking a step back.

Hugh didn’t seem to notice her awkward movement. “Okay, Chrysalis Girl it is. Up, up and away!”

Faith tugged open the main door, the swirling wind working just as hard to keep it closed. Addy started barking, backing away, stiff-legged, as hailstones clattered on the paving stones just inside the door. “C’mon, dog. Move,” Faith ordered, but Addy was too excited and too frightened of the storm to be her usual tractable self. Faith made a dive for the sheltie but Addy bounced out of range. “Addy! Come. Or you’re going to get blown to Oz.” This time Addy obeyed the stern command and Faith lifted the little dog into her arms.

Hugh motioned her through the open door first and then pulled it shut with one hard jerk. The sting of hailstones against her cheek and head made Faith gasp. She took off across the gravel parking lot at a run, the dog squirming and whimpering in her arms. Hugh’s Blazer was parked under the big maple that shaded the back yard. Faith hoped a limb didn’t come down on it. Thank heaven, her own dependable Caravan was parked in the barn.

The ground was an inch deep with marble-sized hailstones. The footing was treacherous, almost as bad as it had been the day Caitlin was born. What a terrifying trip home that had been, the tiny newborn clutched tight to her chest, nothing to protect her from the sleet and wind but the sweatshirt she was wrapped in.

Faith didn’t dare look back to see how her daughter was faring in Hugh’s arms for fear of turning an ankle and ending up on her bottom with an armload of indignant sheltie. She shoved open the wrought-iron gate to the yard and went directly to the house. Inside the kitchen she motioned Hugh to follow her down the steep, narrow cellar steps. The big whitewashed room contained her washer and dryer, the hot water heater and a huge old boiler that she was hoping would provide heat for one more winter before it died. Otherwise, the low-ceilinged, stone-floored room was empty except for some of Caitlin’s toys, an old castoff sofa and a small TV and VCR. She often brought Caitlin down here to run around and let off steam on rainy days. Faith hit the light switch inside the door. Thankfully the two overhead lights came on.

She kept a powerful flashlight and some candles and a lighter on a shelf by the stairs for an emergency such as this, but she hoped they didn’t have to use them. She turned on the TV, and muted the sound so that Caitlin wouldn’t become alarmed by storm bulletins. A map of the county filled the screen, and a dark red blotch, the indication of the strongest storm cell, was superimposed over Bartonsville, but it had begun to move off to the east. “I think the worst of the storm’s passed, thank goodness.” She glanced out one of the small windows, placed high in the thick, stone walls of the cellar. The hail had stopped; now it was only raindrops hitting the wavy glass.

She turned back to find that Hugh had set Caitlin on her feet and hunkered down beside her to unwind the bubble wrap cocoon.

As soon as she was free Caitlin bolted for the stairs. “Need Barbie.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Hugh’s long arm shot out and his fingers curled around the child’s wrist. Faith’s heart leapt to her throat. Caitlin was such a tiny thing, her bones so delicate he could easily hurt her and not even realize it. She almost cried out, but she needn’t have worried. His grip on Caitlin’s wrist was so light it scarcely touched her skin.

“I think I see Barbie over there.” He pointed to the seat of the old couch and let Caitlin go skipping off to retrieve the doll.

“She’s smart and fearless, isn’t she?” he said with a note of wonder—and love?—in his voice that sent shivers through Faith.

“She was born in the middle of a terrible ice storm.” Faith hadn’t meant to let that slip. She had perfected her story of Caitlin’s birth, but she never volunteered details. His actions had thrown her off balance, and it was too late to take back the words.

“Tell me about it,” he said, standing up, towering over her it seemed, although there was no more than three or four inches difference in their heights. The tone of his voice didn’t change, nor the look in his eyes, but Faith felt compelled to answer as though bidden by some unspoken command.

Suddenly she was afraid, completely and unreasoningly afraid, and the fear had nothing to do with the storm, but was caused by the man before her. She felt for a moment that he could see right through her and that he knew what she would say next was a lie. Her throat closed and the litany of carefully constructed half truths and fabrications that was her fortress, as well as her prison, wouldn’t come.

CHAPTER FOUR

FAITH OPENED HER MOUTH but no sound came out. She was suddenly thrust into the midst of her worst nightmare. In it, she was standing in a huge echoing chamber. Stern, shadowy figures sat in judgment of her, demanding to know why she had taken another woman’s baby. No matter how eloquently she tried to explain her actions, her motivations, no matter how she many tears she shed, slowly, inexorably, one of the shadowy figures would pluck Caitlin from her arms and melt away, leaving her alone. She would wake in terror, tears running down her cheeks and only a trip to Caitlin’s room and the warmth of her baby’s skin could dispel the dread.

It was the middle of a late May day, and she was wide-awake. This was not her dream. This was reality, and she had told the story many times before. Today would be no different, unless she allowed it to be. “There was no one to help me when Caitlin was born,” she said as lightly as she could manage. “My husband had died six months earlier. I…I was here alone.”

Raindrops glistened in Hugh’s dark-blond hair, the harsh light catching steaks of lighter gold that she hadn’t noticed before. He didn’t seem menacing anymore, although his dark gaze held hers. “You must have been very frightened.”

“It was terrifying.” The words were heartfelt. She had woven as much of the truth into her story as possible. She had become a very good liar, but she did it only when necessary.

“Did you try to contact the emergency squad? Bartonsville has one, I imagine.”

“There wasn’t time.” She forced herself to keep eye contact. She was back in stride now, back on script. “Contrary to conventional wisdom about first babies, labor went very quickly. The ice storm hit and a broken tree limb brought down the phone line. Thank God, the electricity stayed on.” That was true, too, but it had happened after she made her nightmarish trek across the ice-slick fields to the house, with the tiny infant barely clinging to life in her arms.

Faith couldn’t help herself, her eyes sought her daughter across the room. She was seated in front of the old TV, oblivious to their conversation and the dying storm, engrossed in an episode of Rugrats. “We were cut off from the outside world for the first three days of Caitlin’s life.”