Riverbend Reunion(65)



“It’s going to be all right,” Risa said. “We’re here to help you however we can. Don’t cry. There’s lots of single mothers out there in the world, and this baby is going to be loved and spoiled and—” She stopped and stared at the letter. “What is that? Is it what your mama wrote to you? Why are you dragging that out tonight?”

“Read it,” Haley said. “It’s from Frannie. She wrote it when I was three years old, the night before she left for college the next day. Why was it under the dresser? Did Mama leave it there, knowing that I would find it when she was gone?”

Risa picked the letter up, read it, and then hugged Haley again. “She loved you. Now you know that she didn’t just forget about you, but that she stayed away out of love. She wanted you to have the best life.”

“Do you think if she was still alive”—Haley reached over her shoulder and got a tissue from a box on the dresser—“she would be disappointed in me? Here I am, repeating her mistake.”

“No, I don’t.” Risa folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. “I believe she would be very proud of you, and who knows—maybe neither you nor this baby were mistakes. Until we are old and have time to look back, sometimes what looks like a mistake is really a blessing. You are smart and independent, and just remember that everything happens for a reason. We might not know what the reason is at first, but a few years on down the road we’ll understand. Want to go out to the kitchen and get a glass of milk and maybe some cookies?”

“Yes, I do.” Haley held on to the book with one hand and pushed herself up off the floor. “And I want to talk about the memory that popped into my head when I picked this book up. Frannie read it to me that last night before she left to go to California to college. I think she might have been crying when I kissed her good night.”

“That means she was sad to leave you.” Risa draped an arm around Haley’s shoulders and led her out to the kitchen. “Sit while I pour us some milk, and we’ll dip our peanut butter cookies in it. And tell me how you felt.”

“Thank God we all came back home,” Haley said with a long sigh. “Right now, I feel like you’re the counselor instead of me.”

“Good,” Risa said with a smile. “That means I get to pay you back just a little for all you’ve done for me and my girls.”





Chapter Fourteen


The air was heavy with anticipation, and the slight wind blew sand in Jessica’s face. She stood perfectly still between the two houses and held her breath as she waited for the signal from her commanding officer. A high-ranking enemy had been spotted going into a place across the road with several of his team. Her five-person team’s mission was to surveil, report back that the target was really in the house, and then quietly retreat after the house had been marked.

Things seldom went as planned, though, and suddenly, half a dozen men surrounded her, automatic rifles in their hands. Jessica’s heart pounded so loudly in her ears that she hardly heard the first shot, but when the second one ricocheted off the stone wall of the house right beside her, her training kicked in, and she defended herself. Bullets zinged past her head, and men fell to the ground. Seconds seemed like hours, and she prayed that those who were dead weren’t members of her team.

Her heart pounded in her chest. Her pulse raced. She tried to throw her gun to the ground, but it was glued to her steady hands. Her superior officer grabbed her by the arm and pointed toward three other shadows moving into the darkness. Light began to shine from windows out into the sandy yard, where no grass grew and where children played and chased each other during the daylight hours. Jessica’s ears rang so badly that she covered them with her hands, and she began to jog, but when she heard the screams of a child, she stopped and turned around. A little girl had come from one of the houses and was kneeling over a dead body.

“No! No!” Jessica dropped to her knees. Her heart pounded in her chest so hard that she couldn’t even hear her teammates yelling at her. Her hands were clammy and the rifle slipped away, landing on the dirt and sending a puff of sand into her teary eyes.

One of her teammates pulled her up, grabbed her rifle, and shoved her into a vehicle. They were all elated that they’d taken out a high-ranking enemy, but Jessica couldn’t blink away the sight of that little girl crying for her father or maybe even her older brother.

“That little girl lost a loved one,” she said.

“For the greater good.” A teammate patted her on the shoulder.

“Get over it, Callaway,” another one said. “You were doing your job. We rescued the hostage and took out a major player. This was a success.”

“Tell it to that child,” she said and turned away from the guys. When she got back to the post, she took a long lukewarm shower, but it did nothing to wash away the pain in her soul.

She awoke with a start, sat straight up in bed, and wiped the sweat from her face with the tail of her nightshirt. “It’s just another nightmare,” she told herself. She checked the clock and stretched out again.

This time the dream started after the gun battle, and the little girl who was lamenting had blonde hair. Jessica dropped her weapon on the ground and went to comfort the child, but when she got there, the man on the ground was Wade Granger. Jessica couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and her heart felt like a stone in her chest.

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