Bethany Campbell - Wild Horses

“Her? She’s a baby, Carolyn,” Vern reasoned. “She won’t even be able to see it.”

But Carolyn wouldn’t be budged. “I want to make Beverly laugh when she sees us deplane. It’s the cutest panda in the world. It’ll tickle her to pieces.”

“It won’t fit in the overhead.”

“I’ll hold it on my lap,” Carolyn replied. “It’s only a thousand miles or so.”

Vern rolled his eyes heavenward in mock despair. But when he let his gaze rest again on Carolyn, he couldn’t disguise his affection for her or his pleasure at her excitement.

Carolyn was thinking out loud. “But if I’m going to carry a pink panda, I can’t wear the red suit. I’ll wear the new pink one. But the shoes haven’t come yet. Mickey, will you call the store? I ordered them three weeks ago. What’s so hard about dying shoes pink?”

“Should be easy,” Mickey agreed and wrote,

Call airline about panda.

Call about pink shoes.

Carolyn laid her finger against her chin thoughtfully. “I should make an appointment at Curly Sue’s just before we go. This new tint she put on my hair isn’t holding. I want my old brand. I don’t want to go to Denver half blond and half gray….”

“I’ll call her for you,” Mickey promised, adding Curly Sue—old tint, to her list.

“You’d be gorgeous if your hair was green,” Vern said and kissed his wife’s forehead. “Settle down, honey. The baby isn’t due for three weeks.”

“Don’t pay any attention to me,” Carolyn said cheerfully. “I’m losing my mind, that’s all.”

“You need reality therapy,” Vern said. “Go change into your jeans. Maybe we’ll have time to take a little canter before this Duran fella comes.”

“But—” Carolyn started to protest.

“Go change,” Vern said firmly. “It’ll do you good. I’m going to get a glass of tea.” He ambled toward the kitchen.

Just as Carolyn headed for the master bedroom, the telephone jingled. Mickey reached for it, but Carolyn, brightening again, said, “I’ll get it. Maybe the locket’s ready.”

But when she picked up the phone and listened to the voice at the other end, her expression changed, and her body tensed as if she’d been physically struck.

Mickey had been on her way to her office, but the transformation in Carolyn alarmed her. She halted, staring in concern.

Carolyn sank onto the sofa as if her knees no longer had strength to support her. Her shoulders sagged, and her hands shook so hard she had to use both to hold the receiver. Her face turned ashen, and suddenly she looked every one of her fifty-six years.

She hardly spoke. From time to time she stammered out a question. But mostly she listened. And listened. Tears welled in her eyes.

Mickey’s heart went cold and clenched up like a fist. She had a sickening certainty: only one thing could hit Carolyn this hard. Something’s happened to Beverly. Or to the baby. Or to both.

When Carolyn hung up, her hands shook worse, and tears streaked her cheeks. Mickey, frightened, hurried toward her just as Vern stepped back into the room.

“Sometimes Bridget puts too much sugar in that stuff,” Vern grumbled, “Doesn’t even taste like tea anymore. Tastes like—”

He stopped when he saw Carolyn’s face. “Caro?” He went to her side and put his arm around her. “What’s wrong, honey?”

Carolyn could hardly speak. She struggled to keep her chin from quivering, but her lips moved jerkily, and she had to choke out the news.

The caller had been Beverly’s husband, Sonny. He’d had to rush Beverly to the emergency ward that morning just before dawn. Doctors had performed an emergency caesarian.

The baby was undersized, and her skin had a bluish cast. Her heart had a serious defect.

Carolyn started to cry harder, but forced herself to tell the rest. Sonny said that little Carrie had an obstruction of the right ventricle. She’d been put in a special neonatal unit. She needed open-heart surgery as soon as possible. Without surgery, she could not survive.

Then Carolyn lost control, and Vern drew her into his arms, holding her tightly.

Mickey, stunned and feeling helpless, put her hand on Carolyn’s shoulder. Never before had she seen Carolyn break down completely. Never.

“They’ll try to operate tomorrow,” Carolyn sobbed. “But she’s—she’s so tiny. And Beverly doesn’t know yet. They haven’t told her how serious it is. Oh, Vern, I want to go to them now.”

“Then we’ll go.” Vern held her tighter.

As he stroked her hair and rubbed her back, his troubled brown eyes settled on Mickey. “Mick, call the airport, will you? Get us on the first flight out of here.”

“I want to get to Beverly,” Carolyn said. “And my grandbaby. I’ve got to.”

Mickey’s mind raced, searching for the best way to meet this crisis. “What if I call J.T.? Maybe he could fly you.”

J.T., Carolyn’s brother-in-law, was a pilot, with his own small jet.

Vern looked at her gratefully. “Bless you, Mick. I didn’t even think of J.T.”

“I’ll phone him,” Mickey said. “Then I’ll pack for you.”

J.T. NOT ONLY AGREED to fly Caro and Vern to Denver; he insisted on it. He would be ready to take off in an hour, and urged Mickey to just get them to his place. And so Mickey packed only two suitcases instead of the dozens Carolyn had so painstakingly planned.

Carolyn refused, superstitiously, to take any of the presents, especially the baby gifts. If the worst happened, it would be too unbearable to have them there, each like a pulsing wound.

Mickey drove Carolyn and Vern to J.T.’s ranch. As Carolyn climbed into the plane, she looked dazed. She wasn’t wearing her pink suit or pink shoes or carrying the big pink panda designed to make Beverly laugh.

Mickey noticed, sadly, that Carolyn had been right. Her hair was half gray and half blond. She had planned to get off the plane in Denver looking glamorous and confident, ready to buck up Beverly’s spirits. Instead, she would arrive wan, disheveled and shaken.

Mickey brooded on the unfairness of it all the way back to the Circle T. Carolyn, Vern, Beverly and Sonny were good people, kind and generous. Carolyn had been like a second mother to Mickey—no, in truth, she’d treated Mickey far better than Mickey’s own mother had. She had been Mickey’s salvation. And so had Vern.

As for Sonny, he was himself a doctor, easing suffering and saving lives. Beverly was a hospital administrator. She, too, had worked to serve and heal people. Why was their child stricken? Life wasn’t simply unjust, it was random and cruel.

Lost in these gloomy thoughts, it wasn’t until late afternoon that Mickey realized she’d forgotten something. Worry and sorrow had driven all else from her mind.

She was puzzled when she heard an unfamiliar-sounding car come up the drive and stop. Its door slammed, and someone mounted the front porch steps. The doorbell rang, buzzing like an impatient wasp.

Mickey stifled a swearword. Oh, no, she thought. Adam Duran. Who needed him at a time like this? And Carolyn had invited him to stay.

The last thing Mickey wanted at this point was to guest-sit a stranger and pretend to be hospitable. She stamped to the entrance foyer, feeling anything but welcoming. But Carolyn would want her to be gracious, so she tried to hide her irritation as she swung open the door.

She saw the man standing there, and she blinked in amazement.

Good grief, he’s gorgeous, she thought in confusion. This can’t be him.

But it was. “I’m Adam Duran,” he said. He had a low voice, slightly husky. “I’m here to see Carolyn Trent.”

He held out his hand. She grasped it. It was warm and seemed to vibrate in hers, as if his gave off an electrical charge.