Lynn Bulock - Looking for Miracles

“No. Yes. Let’s just say I’m not used to this much, uh, male company.”

“So don’t think of me as male company. Think of me as a computer tutor.”

“That will take some doing,” Lori muttered. He hadn’t moved any farther away, and it was all she could do to think, period.

“Where was I?” He leaned even closer to her, and she could feel the warmth of him along her back as he studied the screen with her.

His voice rumbled in her ear. “I think it was your interest. I mean, interest in figures. No, I mean the interest figures. On the spreadsheet.” He leaned his forehead down to her shoulder. It felt so good to have him there, leaning on her. “Am I making much sense?”

“Not much. But I don’t mind.…”

LYNN BULOCK

lives near St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband, two sons, a dog and a cat. She has been telling stories since she could talk and writing them down since fourth grade. She is the author of nine contemporary romance novels.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

I can do all things in Christ who gives me strength.

—Philippians 4:13

To Joe, always

and

To CJB, who never ceases to amaze me.

Dear Reader,

Friedens, Missouri, is not a real place. At least, you won’t find it on any map. I’ve gotten quite familiar with it in the course of the past six months, though. So familiar that I didn’t want to leave it behind as I have most of my fictional places. Friedens (which is German for “peace,” in honor of the German settlers like my ancestors who built most of the towns in eastern Missouri) is a combination of a dozen of my favorite real Missouri towns. They’re those places that still have a county courthouse, a real town square and a solid brick-and-stone library.

The town square has turned into antique shops and craft stores and restaurants to keep the town café company. And I had Friedens reflect this. Maybe knowing so much about all those places made me reluctant to leave the town behind.

In any case, Steeple Hill has been kind enough to let me stay on in Friedens. Look for Carrie’s story, and those of her two older sisters, all set in my favorite town.

I love hearing from readers, especially those who share my love of small towns that make the heartland of America what it is. You can contact me at: P.O. Box 514, St. Peters, Missouri 63376.

Yours in Christ,

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Lori Harper needed a miracle. It didn’t have to be a big, showy miracle. Not like the time she and Tyler were down to peanut butter, crackers and half a bag of flour in the whole house and Tyler had reached his hand between the couch cushions and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat.

She pushed her shoulder-length blond hair out of her face and shifted her unwieldy body on the edge of the bed. It didn’t even have to be a medium-size miracle. There had been plenty of those in her life, and she was thankful for them. Of course there were times when even miracles didn’t help, or she wouldn’t be in the fix she was in.

She still didn’t understand why Gary had to go and run the car off the road last August or why he didn’t get out before the car sunk in the lake. There had been no miracles that day, unless it was the kind crew from the county fire-and-rescue team that had broken the horrible news.

The young woman, especially, had been wonderful. Carrie had helped Lori face all the awful arrangements. She’d even bullied Gary’s boss, Clyde Hughes, into giving them a replacement car, even though Gary had no insurance, and no paycheck coming except from the week he died. Carrie had stood her ground and argued toe-to-toe with the prominent businessman in a way that Lori couldn’t imagine doing.

That was a minor miracle, even though Gary hadn’t left any others in his wake. He did the best he could as a father and husband until the day he died. Lori wished he could have lived long enough to be here today. Even more, Lori wished she’d told Carrie about this baby. She hadn’t been showing noticeably in August, and didn’t feel like seeming even more pathetic than she did already in this awful place with only her son Tyler for company.

Lori arched her back. The only thing moving did was remind her that her swollen belly dwarfed the rest of her slender body. It didn’t ease her discomfort. Still, she considered herself fortunate. Even if it was out here with no neighbors, at least they had a roof over their heads, and it was warm and dry and there weren’t any crawly things in it, like that one apartment in Kansas City.

A sharp wave of pain across her belly brought Lori back to the present. Yes, this time a little miracle would do just fine. Like the time the lady from the next farm over, where they had a telephone, stopped by the way she did that once before Gary told her to leave them alone. Right now she’d even take Gary’s old boss coming out to ask his aggravating, enigmatic questions.

“Anybody,” Lori said aloud through dry lips. “Anybody at all would be a miracle.” And she needed that miracle soon. Because this time Lori Harper had to admit something to herself. Unlike the time with the peanut butter, when she and Tyler would have been hungry and uncomfortable, she was in real trouble now.

This time it looked as though she was going to give birth in a trailer with no phone, miles from anyone except her five-year-old son. It hadn’t been an easy pregnancy, and if she was reading the signs right, she had maybe an hour until the baby arrived. This time, Lori admitted, if she didn’t get her miracle she could very well die.

“I hate my job.” Mike Martin didn’t answer his friend Carrie Collins because he knew she wasn’t talking to him. She was talking to Dogg, who took up most of the bench seat of the pickup between them. The big black-and-tan shepherd thumped his tail and moaned softly at the attention from Carrie. “I hate my job, I hate my life, I hate…”

“Aw, knock it off, Carrie,” Mike told her. “You don’t hate your job. You’re one of the best fire-and-rescue officers in the county, maybe even in the state of Missouri. You only hate the fact that it’s winter, it’s cold and you’ve got to go out in the middle of nowhere and remind some woman she’s a widow.”

“Like it’s going to surprise her, I’ll bet,” Carrie said glumly, still holding Dogg’s massive tawny head in her hands. “But still, why do I have to do this?”

“Because it’s your job,” Mike reminded her, looking over at the slim redhead. “And despite saying you hate it, you’re very good at it. Besides, you took the original call on this one. And you insisted that Ms. Harper be the one that the department took up their collection for. And let’s add the fact that the captain knew that being a woman, you’d give this part of the job the right kind of sympathy.” What Mike didn’t add was that nobody else wanted to touch the assignment with a ten-foot pole, so naturally it fell to the junior member of the team.