The Bride Wore Red Boots (4 page)

“You didn't report that to the staff,” Mia said. “There's no notation of his allergy in his chart.”

“I didn't? Oh, dear. I guess it slipped my mind in the panic.”

Mia sighed. “Regardless. There were no nuts in the recipe at all? Even the frosting?”

“No. None of the kids like nuts.”

“No nut oils? Peanut oil or even olive oil—”

“Peanut oil?”

“Yes . . . ”

“My boyfriend, Matt, bought peanut oil last night because the gas station convenience store was out of regular cooking oil. I know, who bakes with peanut oil? But I had no time to get anything else. Besides, it's oil. I never even thought about that being an issue.”

Are you serious?

“You didn't know peanut oil was made from peanuts?”

“It's processed.”

“Ma'am, are you aware that people with severe allergies to nuts
can
react just by kissing someone who's eaten them? Any nut product is dangerous.”

“I . . . Kissing? For real?”

That was her reaction? “Yes. Something you maybe should have known or looked up when you knew you had a child with allergies in your home.”

“I am sorry. I've fostered lots of kids over the past few years and never dealt with this. We have a busy household, and somebody from the state should have warned me how dangerous this could be. Matt didn't know about the oil either.”

Her contrition would have been more palatable if not for the web of defensiveness she wound around the apology.

“I'm not sure if Matt is part of the original application for approval as a foster care home or not,” Mia said. “If not, then it isn't his responsibility, it's yours. Regardless, you made the food. Mothers are responsible for their children, whether they're biological or fostered.”

Shawna Murray looked like she might haul back and slug her. Mia stood her ground. She had dealt with social services enough to know the dire responsibility fostering children in crisis situations entailed. In her opinion, this woman's clueless attitude was entirely too flippant and self-centered. Not that Mia expected hysterics or tears, but some regret might have been appropriate. Maybe a hug for the boy?

“You can rest assured there will be no more peanut oil in any food in the house,” Shawna said at last, her voice tight. “And you'll know what to look for now, too, right Rory?”

“I guess.”

“And we'll train Matt.” She smiled.

Rory frowned and turned his head slowly away. One little fist clenched against the white sheets. “Don't think that'll help.”

“He and Matt are still getting to know each other,” Shawna said.

“How long has your Matt been in the picture?” Mia asked.

“Oh? Six months.”

“And you're sure he's safe with the children?”

Shawna stood again. “Excuse me? What are you insinuating?”

“I'm only asking questions any county inspection worker would ask. I'm not insinuating anything.”

“For your information, he's a great guy who loves people. He's a body builder and personal trainer at the gym where we both work. He's in great shape and can do all kinds of great healthy, physical fitness things with the kids.”

Sounded like Matt was simply a
great
person all around. Awesome. Two gym rats caring for kids. Thinking of them as such was unfair and a gross generalization, Mia knew, but with every sentence, Shawna Murray sounded more and more like Workout Barbie.

“Big deal. He can bench press Lisa.” Rory still didn't look at them.

“Bench press?”

“Lisa is my daughter. She's six. She thinks it's funny that Matt can lift her up like a barbell. It's very cute.”

It probably was. What had Brooke said? Loving and nice, but ditzy? So far, so accurate.

“Ms. Murray,” she said, calming her voice, trying to follow Brooke's earlier advice and channel some of the patience she had with Rory. “Now that we know the source of Rory's trouble today, you can probably use some information. I think if you go out to the nurse's station and tell them I sent you, they'll have pamphlets you can take home that will help you know how to prevent this from occurring again in the future. I have a couple of questions for Rory about how he's feeling, so I can stay with him until you come back. Is that all right?”

She deserved a medal for that sweet performance.

Shawna relaxed in place, seemingly accepting the apology at face value. “That's a good idea. I'd like the information to read over. Who knew allergies could cause such issues?”

Mia shook her head and turned back to Rory when his foster mom had gone. “Okay, you. How
are
you feeling?”

“I'm all right.”

“It's good Mrs. Murray finally came, isn't it?”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

“Rory, listen. You don't have to tell me anything, but I'm a friend and if you want to talk, I won't repeat anything you don't want me to. How is life with the Murrays?”

“It's okay. It's boring. Mrs. Murray, Shawna, she's mostly in love with her kids. She's nice to me, but I think I'm there because she gets extra money from the county when I am. Lisa is six, and she talks a lot just like her mom. Cameron is only one. He don't talk at all.”

“Who takes care of them when she works?”

“Matt. I don't like Matt.”

“Can you tell me why?” She braced for an answer she really didn't want to hear.

“He's loud and he doesn't do much. Like, he hates to change diapers, so he makes me do it.”

“Makes you?”

“Sometimes he gives me a quarter. But that ain't worth it. If I say that, though, he says he'll tell Shawna I was mouthy, and I'll have to do even more work.”

“So, he threatens you?”

“He never does nothin', but he's kinda loud and scares the other kids when he yells. He says it's one of my jobs around there, but nobody told me that before. And it's a gross job. But I just think, before I was there did Cam sit around in poopy diapers all day? So I do it.”

Mia wasn't sure what to think. She'd never really seen forced diaper changing listed as a charge for child abuse.

“Do you feel safe when Matt's there alone?”

He shrugged. “Yeah. He spanks Lisa once in a while, but not hard or anything. And sometimes he plays catch with me. Mostly he watches TV and waits for Shawna to come home. Then he goes to work.”

“And how is it then?”

“Fine. I go to school, so I'm not there most of the time. It's just kinda like eating vanilla ice cream. It's not very exciting.”

Mia laughed at the adult-sounding comparison. “How'd you learn a smart thing like that to say?”

“Buster used to say it all the time when he got bored.”

“Ahhh. So, how old was Buster?”

“I asked him once. He's the same age as my mom, twenty-nine.”

That stopped her questions momentarily. She'd been expecting to hear he was an older man, wise and grandfatherly. What was a young man like that doing homeless?

She chastised herself. This was New York. There was no single demographic for the homeless population, she knew that.

“He's a young man,” she said at last. “How did you meet him?”

“He used to come and help Mom with little jobs, like washing a window or scrubbing a floor, and she'd pay him with lunch. He's funny. He said it was a kind of justice having a poor white man work for a black lady. But Mama said that was silly, and anyway it was just people helping one another.”

Mia listened, rapt, to his animated storytelling. The child was a wonder—he had true gifts of personality and understanding, and yet he seemed so vulnerable, as if he knew his situation but didn't really think beyond passing through it.

“And you ended up with Buster? How did that happen?”

His story tightened up then. “Mama got sick, and Buster tried to tell her to get help. But she went and found more medicines she wasn't supposed to have instead. When they took her to the police station, Buster told everyone he was my dad, so they wouldn't take me away, too. My mama ended up in jail, and when they tried to take me away, me and Buster just ran off.”

“But they found you.”

“After one month! We were doin' fine, but they wouldn't let me stay with him.”

It had been several months since Mia had visited with Monique. She hadn't heard these details.

They both looked up to see Shawna standing in the doorway. Her shiny figure suddenly made Mia feel like a dusty ranch hand—which she had been once upon a time.

Rory halted in his story, which told Mia he'd chosen her to be his only confidant and wasn't going to waver.

“Look, Rory,” Shawna said. “I got all kinds of information about allergies. How about when I go home tonight, I leave some of it with you, and we can both learn?”

Rory shot his foster mother a pained look.

“Tell you what,” Mia said. “I'll round him up a set of his own. I might even be able to find some that are geared toward his age. You go ahead and take those with you.”

She was rewarded with a smile from Rory, who pulled up his blanket to cover his mouth. She was about to tease him when her cell phone rang from her lab coat pocket. She pulled it out, and saw the same unknown number as earlier. This time her stomach twisted in concern.

“I hope you'll excuse me,” she said. “I need to take this and then finish work. But I'll stop by again in the morning, okay? Maybe I'll hear that you get to go home.”

She gave Rory a little wink, and he tugged at her sleeve as she turned. “You're still going to look for Jack?”

“I'm going to ask some questions about him,” she said evasively.

“Now, Rory, we've discussed this,” Shawna said. “Jack is better off finding a different home . . . ”

Mia edged out of the room feeling vaguely guilty. Both she and Shawna had dismissed Rory's feelings. And yet, it really was just a cat. She answered her phone, hoping to catch the caller before he hung up.

“Amelia Crockett.”

“Hello, Mia?” A deep male voice took her by surprise.

For a moment she didn't reply while she tried to place the person on the other end of the phone who knew her familiar name—

And then she knew. Her heart beat straight up into her throat. “Lieutenant Harrison?”

An indecipherable grunt—annoyance? humor?—rumbled across the connection. “Good memory, Doc. But, please, call me Gabriel. I'm a civilian these days.”

She hadn't corresponded with the man in two weeks, and today he'd not only crossed her mind, but he was now inescapably live on her phone.

“My goodness,
Mr
. Harrison.” She amended her greeting pleasantly, ignoring his request for first names. “I have to go with the cliché here and say, this is certainly unexpected.”

“And a pleasure? That would finish off the cliché if I'm not mistaken.”

Oh, it was Gabriel Harrison, all right. He not only thought he was handsome but funny as well. “How could it possibly be anything other than a pleasure? Is there a problem?”

“Am I catching you at a bad time?”

“I assume the nonanswer means you aren't calling with an emergency.”

“Your sister took a minor fall in her room today trying to get up by herself. She's absolutely fine so, no, not an emergency. Just some news.”

“A fall? How did they let that happen?”

“She decided on her own to get up. She's not restrained, of course, and they took her for an immediate MRI. She's asleep and asked me to call you if she hadn't heard from you by now. She left a message for you about forty-five minutes ago, but she expected you'd be busy.”

Mia grimaced. “I'm so sorry. I didn't recognize this number and was heading for a patient, so I let it go to voice mail. It's been a crazy day, and I'm afraid I haven't checked the messages even yet.”

“Hey, it's not a problem. She called from a clinic phone and I'm doing the same—you probably saw the general clinic-wide number.”

Mia lowered her prickly guard slightly. He was less abrasive on the phone than in person or curt e-mails. So far, she didn't even want to choke him. “So what's going on now? She's really all right?”

“After the MRI, Joely met with an orthopedic surgeon specializing in spinal cord injuries. The upshot is that there's some experimental surgery he'd like her to consider. It's somewhat risky and it would, as you know, be Joely's third surgery since the accident, so I think the idea of this one makes her nervous. She'd like to see if there's any way for you to be here at the next consultation with this doctor. In other words, she wants a second opinion, and she very much wants it to be yours.”

A hundred questions blossomed after Harrison finished. What was the surgery? Why were they discussing it? What were the alternatives? What had they said that would make stubborn-minded Joely nervous? What did their other sisters think?

The question that came out was none of those. “Why did she have you call and not one of the family?” She rubbed her eyes and immediately blew out an apologetic sigh. “Sorry, that has no bearing on anything medical.”

“It's all right. Kelly went back to Denver; Harper is in Chicago for three days. Grace is taking your mother shopping, I understand. Your grandmother is at home. I'm the only one left.”

He'd definitely listed all her normally available sisters, and her mother.

“All right, so you're the messenger. Can you tell me any more of the details?”

“I was only authorized to tell you about the appointment and pass on her question so you could call her. I can't discuss anything else.”

Of
course
he couldn't. Mia's irritation with him surfaced again. Mr. Harrison's sense of what was appropriate to share seemed to have been formed in his ancient basic training days—where only the drill sergeant could tell others what to do.