Tami Hoag - Heart of Gold

“God, please don’t let her die,” he mumbled, stroking her damp curls back from her cool, pale cheek. A horrible, empty ache filled his chest as he sucked in a breath. “Please don’t let her die.”

With gentle, trembling fingers he lifted the delicate heart pendant she wore and pressed a kiss to it. Then he simply held her and sobbed as the spotlight of a coast guard helicopter cut through the gloom and fell on the deck of the Brutus.

“WELL, WHAT’S THE verdict, doctor?”

Pulling the ear tips of her plastic stethoscope down to hang around her neck, Lindy stepped back from her mother’s bed. She pursed her lips and planted her chubby hands on her hips. “You’re gonna be okay, but I think you prob’ly need lots of ice cream, and you have to take naps when I say so.”

The love that shown in Faith’s eyes as she smiled at her daughter was absolute and unrestricted. She couldn’t begin to describe how it had felt to see Lindy again after the ordeal she’d been through. The thought had crossed her mind more than once when Strauss had held a gun to her head that she would never see Lindy again, that she would be robbed of the joy of watching her daughter grow up.

On returning home from the hospital the first thing she’d wanted to do was take her baby in her arms and hold her for hours on end, but the sling binding her left arm to her body had prevented her. It would be a week or two before she could give Lindy a proper hug. For the time being she contented herself with running her right hand over her daughter’s soft curls.

“I’d say that’s very sound medical advice, young lady.”

Lindy beamed a smile up at Dr. Moore. The pudgy, bespectacled doctor slipped her a lollipop from the pocket of his tweed jacket and winked at her.

Anastasia’s general practitioner of two decades had insisted on seeing Faith settled in at home. He had advised a longer stay in the hospital, but two days had been more than enough for Faith. She had been driven by the need to go home to Keepsake, to surround herself with familiar things and familiar faces-Lindy’s chief among them. Having survived a nightmare, Faith had felt compelled to return to the house that had been her dream.

Now the good doctor gave her a very paternal look, his bushy gray eyebrows drawing together over twinkling green eyes. “I want you to get plenty of rest. You’re darn lucky that b-u-l-l-e-t didn’t do any major damage,” he said, spelling the word out so as not to upset Lindy. “As it is, you’ll be a few days getting your strength back. Just lie back and let your friends wait on you hand and foot.”

“Sounds good to me,” Faith murmured obediently, though the idea of having people wait on her had never set very well with her. She had always done for herself. As weak as she felt, though, she figured she could stand having Jayne and Alaina turned loose in her kitchen for a few days, despite their decided lack of domestic skills. The two of them together couldn’t boil water.

“I’ll check in on you again tomorrow, honey,” Dr. Moore said, moving toward the door, black bag in hand. “Call me if you need me.”

Faith thanked him, tucking her smile into the corners of her mouth. Dr. Moore had let the women’s movement bypass him entirely. He still doled out casual endearments as easily as he did lollipops. Faith knew he didn’t mean to be condescending or disrespectful in any way. He was just a nice, fatherly old gentleman who treated all his patients as if they were his own children. It was that kind of friendly warmth that had drawn her to Anastasia in the first place.

Jayne and Alaina stuck their heads in the door as soon as the doctor was through it.

“Feeling up to having visitors?” Alaina asked.

“For a little while,” Faith answered, wondering if one of her visitors would be Shane. She hadn’t had a minute alone with him since the ordeal. In fact, she thought, with a little shiver of fear, it almost seemed as though he had been avoiding her.

She remembered none of what had happened on the boat after Strauss had shot her. Her memory held fragments of the emergency room-the bright lights, the metallic sounds and antiseptic scents, the sense of urgency as people rushed around. There was no doubt in her mind that Shane had held her-the sense of safety she recalled was unique to being in his arms. But in the hours since he had kept his distance.

“Honey, if you’re too tired, we can come back later.”

Faith jerked herself out of her musings, looking almost startled to see her friends. Jayne had pulled a chair up beside the bed, and Lindy had immediately scrambled up onto her lap. Alaina, holding herself a little apart as she always did, was leaning against the foot post, a worried frown tugging down her lush mouth.

“No, no, I’m fine,” Faith assured them.

Alaina’s frown only deepened. “I don’t think many people would agree with you, considering what happened.”

“It could have been worse.” Faith forced a bright smile, needing desperately to lighten the mood. The last thing she wanted was to relive the horror of what had happened. As it was, she knew the black memory would haunt her for the rest of her life. “Like they say in the movies-it’s just a flesh wound.”

Jayne rolled her eyes, readily taking Faith’s cue. “How cliché.”

“What’s that mean?” Lindy asked, twisting around on Jayne’s lap.

“It’s what writers in Hollywood get paid for, sweetheart,” Jayne replied with a saccharine sweetness that was lost on Lindy. She hugged the little girl and shot Faith a teasing look. “Look on the bright side. When this is all over, I can write your story into a screenplay, Alaina can negotiate the deal, and we’ll make a million selling it to TV for a miniseries. Mr. Callan can play himself and become a star.”

“Pass,” Faith said, shaking her head against the pillows that had been plumped up behind her. “I think I’ve had about all the notoriety I can stand.”

Jayne pouted prettily, tucking a strand of her wild auburn hair behind her ear. “There goes my big break.”

“I thought you were all through with Tinsel Town,” Alaina remarked dryly.

“I am. It never hurts to have connections, though. What if one of my llamas is destined to become the next Mr. Ed?”

Alaina sniffed. “Sounds like a good argument for owning a library card.” She pushed herself away from the bedpost and reached out to tousle Lindy’s hair. “Speaking of breaks, I think we’d better give Faith one.”

Faith didn’t argue the suggestion. The medication Dr. Moore had given her was kicking in, making her feel numb and fuzzy-headed. She managed a smile for her friends, wondering what she would have done without them. “Thanks again for staying with me, you guys. I really appreciate it.”

Alaina took hold of Faith’s good hand and gave it a squeeze that revealed more of her feelings than she would ever verbalize. “What are friends for if not to trash your house and eat everything in your freezer while you’re laid up?”

On her way out Alaina stopped in her tracks and whirled around. “I almost forgot!” she exclaimed, digging a perfectly manicured hand into the deep pocket of the loose-fitting raw silk jacket she wore. “This came for you in today’s mail. It’s from Bryan. I thought you’d want to open it right away.”

It was uncanny how Bryan’s little gifts always seemed to turn up when his friends were most in need of a spiritual lift. But Faith had learned not to question it. Bryan didn’t seem to think it unusual at all. His only explanation of the phenomenon had been a shrug and a smile.

She examined the small brown package, Christmas-like excitement momentarily overriding the other complex mix of emotions she had been experiencing. The return address on the box was a castle in Ireland. That sounded like a good place for ghost hunting. Faith could only wonder what else Bryan had found there to catch his fancy.