Loree Lough - His Healing Touch

“Well, you seem to have done pretty well for yourself. House that’s free and clear of bank attachments, a successful business… Did you go to college, Kasey?”

“Sure did. Graduated the University of Maryland with a BS in business administration.”

“Well, it’s not as expensive as Harvard, but the tuition sure ain’t free.”

Her frown deepened. “True.” Kasey perched on the arm of the sofa, wrapped both hands around her mug. “My tuition wasn’t paid with funds from my dad’s estate, if that’s what you’re implying. He was a good, hardworking man, but he wasn’t rich. Not by a long shot.”

She focused on some unknown spot behind him. “We had bills, lots of them. In fact, we found bills we didn’t even know we had until after he died.”

Clearing her throat, she stood, walked around to the front of the couch and sat down. “Which is why, first chance I got, I wrote a check to that mortgage company.”

“Sorry,” Adam said. “Didn’t mean to pry.”

She met his eyes and sent him a smile so warm, so sweet, it made his heart ache. Oh, to have a woman like this…so kind and nurturing, so resourceful and dedicated…for his very own!

“You’re not prying, exactly,” she said offhandedly.

“So you made it through college on scholarships, then?”

That made her laugh. “No. I did okay in the grades department, but not okay enough to earn scholarships.”

That surprised him, a fact that must have shown on his face.

“Oh, I think if I’d had the luxury of time to study, time to turn in detailed reports, if I’d had a dad at my elbow, making sure I’d dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s, I probably could have done better in school.”

Shame and remorse thudded in Adam’s chest.

“I had to work two, sometimes three, part-time jobs to help out. Mom did what she could, but she’s never been particularly healthy….”

There had never been any indication that Mrs. Delaney was anything but hale and hearty. “What’s wrong with her?”

Kasey shrugged. “Little of this, little of that. My grandmother always blamed it on self-pity. Me? I call it loneliness.”

Mortified, Adam scrubbed both hands over his face. If the woman was lonely, there could be but one reason.

“Lonely for what, I never quite figured out,” she tacked on.

He raked his fingers through his hair, waiting, hoping she’d explain.

“My folks didn’t have the most loving, romantic relationship in the world.” A harsh, nervous laugh punctuated the statement. “And if you had known them, you’d realize what an understatement that is!

“They rarely spoke, and when they did, it was only to insult one another. So it took me by surprise how hard my mom was hit by my father’s death.”

Kasey hugged her legs to her chest, rested her chin on her knees. “I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face when the grim-faced cop arrived on our front porch to deliver the news,” she whispered.

She met Adam’s eyes. “She looked so lost and alone—like a little girl. It frightened me so much.” She sighed. “Turned out she loved him in her own way, despite all their problems.”

Adam didn’t know what to say, and so he said nothing.

“I was a mess, crying and blubbering like a two-year-old. Mom was too distraught to provide much comfort. Things only got worse the next day, when the cop came back to tell us about the evidence the department had found all around the railroad tracks.”

“Evidence?” His heart thundered. What did she know…and could she connect him to that night? He recalled the article in The Baltimore Sun and the other papers. “Evidence of what?”

“Cigarette butts, footprints and pieces of a pumpkin, of all things, in the cemetery near the tracks.”

Holding his breath, Adam waited for her to hit him, square between the eyes, with the accusation.

“The police found what was left of a scarecrow-type dummy, just down the tracks from the graveyard. They figured it was just a silly Halloween prank—kids probably, who were curious to see how far the train would carry their ingenious little creation. At the time, the cops decided the shock of thinking it had been a real person in front of his engine scared my dad so badly, he had a heart attack.”

What did she mean “at the time”? Adam stiffened, waiting for further explanation.

But she shook her shoulders, instead, as if casting off the dour turn the conversation had taken. “Enough about me,” she said in a deliberately brighter voice. “Tell me how you got interested in medicine. Were you a fan of Marcus Welby, M.D. reruns?”

He’d seen the television show a time or two and had enjoyed it, but he hadn’t made a career choice because of it. He hadn’t gone the route of most students interested in medicine, who, after interning in pediatrics or obstetrics or geriatrics, changed their specialty until they found one that “fit.” Adam had known almost from the morning after that life-changing night which field he’d choose.

But how could he explain that to Kasey?

Just then, the oven timer began chiming.

“Oh, my,” Kasey said, dashing into the kitchen to turn it off. “I must have pushed the wrong button when I was looking for the overhead light.”

Saved by the bell, Adam thought. With any luck, when Kasey came back to her perch on the couch, she wouldn’t pick up where she’d left off.

“I wish there was some way to call home. They’ll be so worried.”

“They?”

Nodding, she snuggled back into her corner of the sofa. “My mom and Aleesha. Who knows what they’re thinking, what with this storm and all. And it’s the night before Halloween.”

The night before Halloween. Fifteen years ago tonight, Adam, Luke, Wade and Travis were huddled in Buddy’s basement, making plans for “the great prank,” each agreeing to bring one element vital to its success….

“Well, you know how it is in Maryland,” he said. “Chances are fair to middlin’ it isn’t even raining in Ellicott City.”

His words seemed to reassure her, for she sent him a small smile.

“True. Still, I’ve never been gone this long without telling them where I was. They’re probably thinking something terrible happened to me.”

“And maybe because they know you so well, they’re thinking you’re a feet-on-the-ground kind of gal who’s riding out the storm in a safe place.”

“You’re very sweet to say that.”

The warmth of her gaze lit a fire in his soul, and as much as he wanted to warm himself by it, it was a blaze Adam knew he had to tamp, immediately.

“So who’s this Aleesha person you mentioned?”

“She’s seventeen now, but I met her three years ago, when I volunteered for the Big Sister program in Baltimore. Her parents died in a house fire at just about the same time my dad was killed. She’d been bounced from foster family to foster family ever since. Poor little thing doesn’t even remember her folks, she was so small when she lost them.”

Kasey hadn’t said her father died, he noticed; she’d said he’d been killed. All the more reason not to stoke what he was beginning to feel for her, because sooner or later, she’d find out he was one of the killers.

“Aleesha and I hit it off, right from the get-go,” Kasey continued. “She’s the most wonderful, loving girl. She has some problems but we’re working around them.”

“Problems? What kind of problems?”

“Learning disabilities, for starters. Plus, she’s very myopic, and wears braces on her legs. I adopted her just over a year ago.”

“Legally?”

She gave one nod. “Legally.”

So the girl who’d grown up without a dad had learned enough about loving, about giving, to share her life—her self—with a needy child. “You’re something else, Kasey Delaney. Something else.”