* *
CARA COULDN’T STOP looking at him. The first time had been an accident. He’d turned a page; she’d looked up and caught his eye. Sort of. He hadn’t been focused on her, but she’d been in his line of vision. Usually a person would have fully focused, once caught out with that kind of sideways glance, right?
Without even a hint that he’d seen her, he looked out the window to the left of him. She’d waited for him to say something. Eventually he’d gone back to his reading.
And so had she.
She wouldn’t have expected that a woman so close to leaving the earth would care at all about broadening her mind, but the book she’d chosen—mostly because he’d been waiting for her to make a choice and it had been right in front of her—dealt with international espionage. Nothing she had any familiarity with whatsoever. The writing style was good. And the story was actually interesting enough to take her mind off the interminable wait.
Except for the break she took every ten minutes or so to look at him. Mostly, he was reading. Or staring out that window.
Maybe he saw something in the dry desert landscaping in the front yard that she was missing. Lots of sagebrush. Trees, because they were up on a mountain. But it was mostly rock and dirt with patches of weedy grass. Rough ground, all of it.
As she well knew. Cold ground, too, where it wasn’t exposed to direct sunlight.
He was doing it again. Turning his eyes enough that he had to see her watching him. Saying nothing.
He definitely had his secrets.
But that was fine. So did she.
Santa Raquel, California
LILA WAS IN her office, tending to a pile of paperwork—state compliance forms—early Friday evening. It had been two days since the near all-nighter she’d pulled pursuant to Edward’s call for help. She’d slept nearly twelve hours straight on Thursday after work, but she still didn’t feel rested.
Weariness had been slowly creeping up on her over the past few weeks, interspersed with bits of almost excitement-laced hours of energy. So unlike her. If things persisted, maybe she’d call her doctor.
The Stand was unusually busy. They’d added twenty more beds over the past year and still were almost filled to capacity. So much violence. So much pain.
It was no wonder she was tired.
And yet...with her right hand hovering over a signature line, she paused, took hold of her mouse in her left hand and opened a private folder on her computer. From day one she’d been saving pictures—taken with permission and for her personal use only—of recovered residents, survivors who were living happy, productive lives. Some of them for the first time.
As her gaze passed from one to another, she was filled again with the same sense of peace, knowing that she was not only where she was needed, but where she needed to be. Wanted to be.
Her gaze came to rest on the digital picture collages she’d made of the children who had come through the Stand—some with their mothers and a few alone. Looking at those smiles settled her entire being. She hadn’t been able to save her own little girl. But there was no doubt in Lila’s mind or heart that from her place in heaven, her own sweet girl watched over every single one of the TLS children. Lila and her baby girl were in partnership on this one.
People thought she lived alone. That, other than work, she spent her entire life alone. She knew some of her closest associates had concerns about her lack of outside life. She knew that, with loving hearts, they wondered about her. And every day, when she went out on the premises and offered smiles, when she brought calm to traumatic situations and gave peace to destroyed hearts, she also knew that she wasn’t alone. That she didn’t live alone. She and her baby girl, her precious daughter who’d only made it to the age of twelve, were in this together...
A knock sounded on her office door, and the pen she’d been holding over a form left a jagged mark on the signature line.
“Come in.” With her left hand still on the mouse, she quickly clicked out of the folder.
An impressive-looking suited man stepped halfway into her office. His short graying hair was impeccably in place, as was the silk tie inside his buttoned jacket. His features, while handsome, weren’t outwardly remarkable. Her stomach jolted anyway.
“Edward! I thought you’d gone. You have your dinner tonight...” Dr. Edward Mantle had been invited by a group of doctors he’d met at a recent hospital charity event to join them for their biweekly boys’ night out.
She’d thought he’d left without stopping in to say goodbye.
Not that he was required to do so. But he’d been in court that morning. She’d just kind of expected, since she’d been a rather major part of this journey with him and his family, that he’d fill her in.
She’d kind of expected him to let her know how lunch went with Joy, too. Instead of taking his new-to-him granddaughter overnight right away, they’d decided to try several more day outings first. Because he was from Florida, not familiar with Santa Raquel and staying in a hotel, Lila had been more involved with him than she might otherwise have been.
Most of her participation, however, had been exactly what she’d have done for any other child who’d just lost all of the family she’d ever known in a horrifically traumatic experience.
“I sent my regrets for this evening’s gathering,” Edward was saying. “You got a minute, or would you like me to catch up with you later?”
“Of course I have a minute.” Pushing aside the forms, Lila set down her pen and rose. “Have a seat.” She indicated the couch and took the armchair perpendicular to it. Her families always came first.
“I’ve just left Joy,” he said. Lila was not pleased by the rush of...lightness...at his remark. He’d come straight to her. As though they were somehow partners in the whole Mantle/Amos trauma.
In a sense they were, of course, partners. With boundaries. Professional boundaries.
Her only job was to facilitate as happy an outcome as she could. To be looking out for Joy’s well-being first and foremost.
She wasn’t faltering there. Joy came first. It was just...she cared, more than she felt comfortable with...about Joy’s grandfather’s feelings, too.
A widower whose only child was missing and presumed dead, the man was completely, utterly bereft.
Lila knew what that felt like. The loneliness. The burying of your own daughter. The loss of family. Of love.
And this wasn’t about her.
Edward wasn’t saying anything. He’d just left Joy. And was sitting in her office, on her couch, his elbows on his knees, rubbing his hands together.
The doctor who’d, overnight, left his practice in Florida to fly to California to find his daughter and take charge of his granddaughter, was clearly at a loss.
He’d come to her.
Her job was to comfort.
Leaning forward, Lila
