Heart of the Family Page 16

The air in Hannah’s lungs seemed to evaporate with that last question. She’d tried to tell her mother over the phone, but her mom had ignored all of her follow-up calls after the disastrous conversation. “Jacob Hartman.”

  Karen dropped the shirt. “I thought he was just the doctor here. Nothing more.”

  “Mom, I know this is a shock, but you wouldn’t talk to me.” Hannah rushed forward and drew her mother to the sitting area across the room. “Please don’t say anything until you hear me out.”

  Karen pressed her lips together, surprise still registering on her face.

  “I didn’t realize Jacob was involved with Stone’s Refuge until after I accepted the job here. I couldn’t walk away. This is the perfect job for me.” Hannah’s heartbeat pounded like a kettledrum in a solemn procession. “Jacob is wonderful with the children. He’s kind, caring and is trying desperately to make up for what happened all those years ago.”

  “You’ve forgiven him for what he did to your brother?”

  The drumming beat of Hannah’s heart increased. “It’s the Christian thing to do, Mom. I know how you feel, but please give him a chance.”

  Karen shook her head slowly. “I don’t know if I can. I never imagined you were dating the man.” Again she shook her head. “Working with him is one thing, but getting involved romantically…”

  “Get to know him like I did, and you’ll see what a good man he is.”

  “Until you called a few weeks ago, I hadn’t thought about him in a long time. He consumed so much of my life for years that once I gave myself to Christ I just pushed memories of him away. I know how the Lord feels about forgiveness, but…” Tears shone in her mother’s eyes. “It’s so hard. Kevin is dead because of him.”

  “It was an accident, Mom.”

  “But he walked away from the wreck with few injuries.”

  “He may not have been injured much physically, but he was emotionally. His scars run deep.”

  “Will he be here tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “When is he coming?”

  With a glance at her watch, Hannah rose. “He should be here within the hour. He promised the kids he would bring pizza tonight when he goes to pick up Andy’s mother at the restaurant. She’s going with us to church later.”

  “Is that the woman you’ve been helping?”

  “Yes. I need to get back to the kitchen to help with the cookies.” Hannah put her hand on the door. “Are you coming?”

  Her mother pushed to her feet. “I’m really tired, honey. I’m going to rest for a while. You go on without me and don’t worry about me.”

  Out in the corridor Hannah stared at the closed bedroom door, her stomach in snarls. She was all her mother had in the way of family, and she was afraid her mom wouldn’t come out whenever Jacob was at the cottage.

  Lord, please help Mom forgive Jacob as You helped me. I love both of them.

  Hannah opened the back door to admit Jacob, who brought their dinner. “The kids were wondering where you were.”

  “Just the kids?” He waded his way through the mob of children, all wanting one of the pizza boxes.

  “Me, too. I’m starved.” She took several containers from him and began opening them. “Everyone, act civil. There’s plenty to go around.”

  Jacob stepped away as soon as he lifted the lids and brushed some snowflakes from his coat and hair. “What have you all been doing? They’ve worked up quite an appetite.”

  “Is it snowing bad?” Hannah glanced at the window, but the curtains were drawn.

  “No, not too much.” Jacob removed his overcoat and slung it over the back of a chair.

  While all the children were filling their plates with pizza, Andy stood off to the side, his gaze glued to the back door. “Where’s Mom?”

  Jacob looked around. “She isn’t here?”

  “No.” Alarm pricked Hannah. “She was supposed to ride out here with you.”

  “The guy behind the counter said she left earlier. I thought she hitched a ride here with someone else.” Jacob headed for the wall phone and punched in some numbers.

  Concern creased Andy’s forehead. “Where is she?”

  “She’s probably running late. Go on and get something to eat before there’s nothing left.” Hannah hoped she concealed her rising fear that all wasn’t right with Lisa. She didn’t want Andy to worry needlessly.

  Coming up next to Jacob, she heard him say, “Give us a call if she arrives there.”

  When he hung up, she motioned with a nod for them to go into the hallway where Andy wouldn’t overhear what they said. “Did you call the halfway house?”

  “Yes, and they haven’t seen her since she left for work this morning.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? We need to do something.”

  Jacob frowned. “What do you suggest?”

  “I don’t know. Go look for her.”

  “Where?”

  Hannah shrugged, helplessness seizing her.

  Andy poked his head around the kitchen door. “Something’s wrong with Mom, isn’t it?”

  Hannah knelt in front of the boy and clasped his arms. “We don’t know, hon.”

  Tears crowded his eyes. “Please find her.”

  Hannah glanced over her shoulder at Jacob, who nodded once. “Do you know anywhere she liked to go? A favorite place?”

  Sniffling, Andy studied the floor by his feet. Finally he shook his head. “When she was gone, I never knew where she went.”

  Hannah rose. “I think Jacob and I have time to go to the halfway house and check with them before we go to church.”

  Andy’s eyes brightened. “Maybe she went back to the old neighborhood.”

  “We’ll go there, too.” Jacob came forward. “Now, will you do me a favor, Andy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go eat some dinner and make sure everyone is ready to go to church on time.”

  “Sure.” Andy straightened his slumped shoulders.

  After the boy disappeared into the kitchen, Hannah asked, “Do you think she went back to her boyfriend?”

  “Possibly. We’ve got a couple of hours to find her. Let’s go.”

  “Will you tell Meg where we’re going and if we aren’t back in time to get Peter and Laura to take the children to church? I’ll need to get my purse. Meet you back here in a few minutes.”

  Without waiting for an answer, Hannah hurried toward her bedroom. This wasn’t the time for her mother to come out in case she had changed her mind. She needed to tell Jacob about her mom’s surprise visit. In the quiet of his car would be the best place.

  In her bedroom, she put a blanket over her mother who slept on top of her coverlet, then grabbed her purse and quickly left. Two minutes later she sat next to Jacob as he pulled away from the cottage.

  “Everything okay in the kitchen?” Hannah fidgeted with the leather handle of her purse.

  “Yeah. There’s not much pizza left. I should have bought another one. You won’t have anything to eat when we get back.”

  She pressed her hand over her constricted stomach. “I couldn’t eat even if pizza was my favorite food.”

  “It isn’t?” Mock outrage sounded in his voice. “Don’t tell Noah.”

  “It’ll be our secret.” She paused. “Speaking of secrets. Well, this isn’t exactly a secret. More of a surprise.”

  He slid a look toward her as he turned onto the highway. “What?”

  “My mother came to visit this afternoon for a few days. She wanted to spend Christmas with me, and her employer gave her the time off at the last minute.”

  His harsh intake of air was followed by silence.

  “This is just like Mom. When the mood strikes, she gets up and goes somewhere. She doesn’t like staying still for long in any one place. There were many times while I was growing up that I left my things in boxes rather than unpack. It was easier that way.” She heard her nervous chattering and wished she co
uld see Jacob’s face but the dark hid it.

  “Does she know about me being involved in Stone’s Refuge?”

  “Yes.”

  “Before or after she came.”

  “Before.”

  “I’m sure that made her day. Why is she really here?”

  “That’s a good question. One I don’t have an answer to.”

  Silence ate into her composure. She rubbed her thumb into her palm and tried to think of a way to make everything all right. Lord, what do I do? How do I fix this?

  “Hannah, I’m sorry you had to tell your mother. I imagine that wasn’t a nice reunion for you two.”

  “I told my mother that I had forgiven you for what happened with Kevin, that I cared about you.” That I want to be more than friends with you, she wanted to add but realized at the moment Jacob wouldn’t want to hear that.

  His derisive laugh taunted her words. “She was thrilled, no doubt.”

  “I love my mother, but we don’t always see eye to eye on things. This will just be another item added to the bottom of a long list.”

  “Don’t you mean, added to the top?”

  Before she could answer him, her cell phone blared with a drumroll. She fumbled for it in her purse and flipped it open. “Hello.”

  “Hannah?” A voice, barely audible, came through.

  “Yes, who is this?”

  “I’m in trouble.”

  Hannah sat up straight. “Lisa, where are you?”

  “I’m near my old apartment. He’s so angry.”

  “Who?”

  “My ex-boyfriend,” Lisa said in a raspy whisper.

  “Jacob and I are on our way. We’ll be—” The connection went dead.

  Hannah snapped her cell closed. “Please hurry. Lisa’s near her boyfriend’s apartment. Something’s wrong. She sounds…” She searched for a word to describe what she heard in the woman’s voice beside fear.

  “High?”

  “Likely.”

  Jacob pressed down on the accelerator. He remembered the times he found his mother stoned. The memories, one after another, left him chilled in the car’s heated air. That last night before the state took him away from her, the paramedics had said she’d been a few minutes away from death. If he hadn’t come home…He shuddered and increased his speed even more.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Oh, great! It’s snowing even harder now. Normally I love to see it on Christmas Eve. Not this year.” Hannah gripped the door handle, prepared to jump from the car the second Jacob parked.

  “Why did she go with her ex?”

  “Some women have a hard time breaking ties with men who’ve been in their life, even ones who have abused them.”

  Jacob took a corner too fast, and the car fishtailed on a slick area. The color leached from his face as he struggled to control his vehicle.

  She gasped. For a few seconds her brother’s wreck flittered across Hannah’s mind as a telephone pole loomed ahead.

  Steering into the skid, he slowed his speed. Finally he managed to right the car, missing the curb and pole by a couple of feet. “Sorry,” he bit out between clenched teeth, his white-knuckle grasp on the wheel tightening.

  “It’s okay. We need to get to Lisa before her boyfriend finds her.”

  “It’s not okay!” Although the words came out in a harsh whisper, the power behind them hung in the air, reinforcing the barrier that he had erected between them. “I could have…”

  His unfinished sentence lingered. She touched his arm.

  He swallowed hard. “I know better. I couldn’t live with myself if I caused something to happen to you, too.” He retreated into stony silence as he negotiated the city streets.

  “I forgave you, Jacob. There were no strings attached to that forgiveness.”

  “How could you?”

  She felt as though she was fighting for the most important thing in her life. “Because I love you. Love yourself.”

  He shook off her arm, his jaw set in a grim line. His scowl told of the war of emotions raging inside him. She wanted so much to comfort him but knew he would reject it—reject her. All she could do now was pray and turn it over to the Lord.

  When the apartment building came into view, Hannah bent forward, scouring the area around it for any sign of Lisa. Jacob brought the car to a stop in front. Hannah leaped from the vehicle and raced toward the entrance.

  Jacob halted her progress. “What do you think you’re doing?” His hand immediately fell away as if touching her was distasteful.

  Snowflakes caught on her eyelashes. She blinked and looked up into his fierce expression. “Going inside to see if Lisa is with him.”

  “Let’s check outside first. That’s where she was when she called.”

  “Okay, I’ll look down this side. You go over there.” She waved toward the area across the street.

  “No, we go together in case the boyfriend is looking for her, too.”

  “But it will go faster if—”

  “I don’t want you meeting up with him alone.” His determination, a tangible force, brooked no argument.

  “Fine. Then let’s get moving. We’re wasting time.” Frustrated, worried, she stalked down the street.

  Passing an alley, Hannah walked down its length, inspecting every place someone could hide. Nothing. Back out on the sidewalk, she continued, stopping at the quick market on the corner, the only place open on Christmas Eve.

  “Let’s check inside. Maybe she’s hiding in here since it’s cold and snowing,” she said as she entered the store.

  While she went up and down the aisles, Jacob questioned the clerk at the counter. When she finished her search, she came back to his side.

  “If she comes back in, tell her Jacob and Hannah are looking for her and to wait here.” Jacob took her elbow and led the way to the door. “She was here about fifteen minutes ago, using the phone in the back. When a man came in that fits the description of her boyfriend, she must have fled. The clerk didn’t see her leave, but he thinks she went out the back way.”

  “Then he may not have found her.”

  “The clerk told the man she was on the phone in the back.”

  “No! How could he?”

  “He was scared. He knows who Carl is and doesn’t want to have any trouble with him.”

  “Did he call the police?”

  “No.”

  Lord, please put Your protective shield around Lisa.

  “We’ve got to find her first.” Hannah rounded the corner of the store, making her way to the back where Lisa would have come out.

  Footsteps in the continually falling snow led away from the door, heading toward an alley nearby. Another set had joined the first.

  “She’s running.” Jacob pointed at the long stride between each print.

  “He isn’t, as if he’s stalking her and knows he’ll catch her.”

  “With this snow, it’ll be hard for her to hide from him.”

  “But we can track her, too.” Hannah hurried her pace.

  The darkness of the alley obscured part of the footprints, but the occasional light from a window showed them the way—as well as Carl. At one place Lisa must have tried to go into a building, but the door was locked.

  Jacob slowed, putting his arm out to halt Hannah. “Call 9-1-1.”

  She squinted into the dimness and glimpsed what he’d seen. A still body curled into a ball in the snow, a fine layer of the white stuff covering the person. She dug into her pocket and pulled out her cell, making the call while Jacob stooped and brushed the snow off the body, revealing Lisa.

  After talking to the 9-1-1 operator, Hannah knelt next to Jacob. “Is she alive?”

  “Yes.” Removing a penlight from his pocket, he began to check out Lisa’s injuries. “She’s got a lump on the back of her head.”

  A snow-covered pipe lay a few feet away, a stream of light from the building illuminating it.

  A moan escaped Lisa’s lips. “No, don’t.” She raised her a
rm as though she were fending off a blow. Her eyes bolted open. She saw Jacob, and her arm fell to the pavement. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Tears streamed down her cheeks and blended with the melted snow on her face.

  Hannah leaned close. “Lisa, I’m going to wait for the police and ambulance at the end of the alley. You’re going to be all right. Jacob will take care of you.”

  Jacob paced the waiting room, wearing a path in front of Hannah’s chair. “We should have heard something by now.”

  “Carl beat her up pretty badly. Thankfully Lisa was conscious enough to tell us what drug she took before she passed out again.”

  Jacob paused before her. “Let’s hope the police have brought him in by now.”

  “One less drug dealer on the streets.”

  “But for how long?”

  “Do you think Lisa will testify against him?”

  “No.” He pivoted and started pacing again. “She’s afraid of him and rightly so.”

  “We’ve got to be there for her. Maybe then she will.”

  “Maybe.” But skepticism drenched his voice.

  An emergency-room doctor appeared in the doorway. “Jacob, I heard you found the woman. Does she have any kin?”

  “A son staying at Stone’s Refuge. Otherwise, I don’t think so. How is she?”

  “A concussion, two cracked ribs and some cuts and bruises. I think the man had a ring on that left his mark as he was pounding on her.”

  Chilled, Hannah stood and clasped her arms, running her hands up and down to warm herself. “May we see her now?”

  “They’re taking her upstairs to a room. Give them fifteen minutes to get her settled in, then you can see her. I want to keep her overnight for observation. If she does okay, she can go home tomorrow.”

  After the doctor left, Hannah sighed. “We need to get Andy. I promised him we would.”

  Jacob glanced at his watch. “He should be at the church with the others right now. I’ll go pick him up and bring him back to see his mother while you go talk to her.”

  “She’ll want to see you and thank you, Jacob.”

  “I don’t know if that would be a good idea.”

  “Because she had a relapse?”

  “Some things never change.”