The Place I Belong (32 page)

“Don’t put that idea into her head,” Paul said, unbuckling his seat belt. “It’s hard enough to have a bad-tempered stallion as her whisper horse.”

“Darkside? He’s just high-spirited.” Hannah reached for the door handle.

“You’re as crazy as my wife,” he said in a tone of affectionate exasperation. Hoisting himself out of the car, he headed for the trunk to grab her overnight bag.

He insisted on carrying the bag to her door, where once again she tried to express her gratitude.

“You should thank Adam,” Paul said. “He’s the one who started the ball rolling.”

Adam’s name sent a shock of sorrow through her, and she looked away. “I’ll make sure to do that.”

As Paul strode back down the sidewalk, Hannah unlocked her front door and was treated to a warm welcome from her three dogs. The cats even strolled out to claim their share of her attention as soon as the flurry of barking and licking had ca
lmed dow
n.

“You guys were always on Sophie’s side, weren’t you?” she said,
rubbing and scratching and smoothing all the different textures of fur. She blew out a sigh. “It feels good to be free of all that.” She looked down at the expectant faces and said, “Want to go out?”

Three dogs streaked to the back slider, where they stopped to look over their shoulders as Hannah followed more slowly. Gliding the door open, she let the dogs bolt through before she stepped outside onto the cement patio.

Shoving her hands into her coat pockets, she drew in a lungful of the sharp-edged mountain air and let her gaze drift over the gray-blue ridges rising in the distance. The kaleidoscope of the last couple of days stopped whirling, and the pieces settled into a pattern of welcome familiarity. This was home in a way Chicago hadn’t been. Maybe it was because she no longer had a need to defend herself and her actions, but she felt a soft wash of peacefulness flow through her as she inhaled another clean, chilly breath.

If only she didn’t ache with a constant undercurrent of misery about Adam and Matt. Was she still invited to their Thanksgiving celebration? She wanted to meet the O’Briens, but she hated the thought of watching Adam suffer as he pushed his son toward these strangers. He probably wouldn’t want her there to witness it either.

But he’d sent her chicken soup every day she’d been sick. Coconut curry chicken soup. Chicken and sweet corn soup. Chicken soup with polenta herb dumplings. Creamy potato leek and chicken soup. She and Lucy Porterfield had forged a budding friendship during the daily deliveries.

Didn’t that mean he wanted her to come for Thanksgiving?

A chill shuddered through her as the cold penetrated the dressy winter coat she’d worn for its style, not its warmth. She pivoted on the heel of her pumps and went back into the heated interior of her rental house. She looked around at the mish-mash of furniture she’d shoved into place. The house itself had no charm; she’d chosen it for the size and security of its f
enced yard.

“I need to buy a house. A home.”

The depth of her longing rattled her. She’d rented in Chicago and been happy with the arrangement. Now she wanted to put down roots in a town she’d once viewed as nothing more than a hiding place.

Chapter 27

S
ATCHMO LOOKS AMAZING
,” Hannah said to Matt, as she gave the pony a gentle pat on the rump. Tim had forbidden her to come into the office until Monday, saying she needed extra time to recover from her trip and her flu, but she couldn’t wait that long to check on Satchmo. However, she’d been cowardly enough to delay her visit until noon because she knew Adam would be so busy at The Aerie at lunchtime on a Saturday there would be no chance of running into him.

As it turned out, she had to track down Matt and Satchmo on one of the trails radiating out from Sharon’s farm. The boy had gotten Sharon’s permission to lead his convalescing whisper pony on leisurely walks, as long as he told her which trail he was taking and stuck to it. This path wound around the foot of a mountain and was edged by bare-limbed trees and rhododendron bushes with deep green, cold-curled leaves.

Matt ruffled Satchmo’s pale bush of mane. “His coat is even starting to shine, sort of like a penny. I brush him every day.”

Hannah ran her hand down the pony’s shoulder. Matt was right about the burgeoning gloss of his coat. “I consulted with Sharon, and we agreed you should be able to start riding Satch in a few days. Slowly, of course, until he gets his strength back.”

Her heart squeezed as Matt gave her a delighted grin. He looked so much like a younger, carefree version of his father. “You hear that, Satch. You get to start teaching me to ride again,” he said into the pony’s ear before turning back to Hannah. “Hey, you were really good on television. I think that senator is a major jerk, even if he’s being all about animal-rights now. I’m glad you made him apologize where everyone could see it.”

“Sometimes it’s necessary to stand up for yourself,” Hannah said, thinking it was a lesson Matt might need in the future. “The senator was hurting more people than just me. It was damaging Dr. Arbuckle’s practice, and my former partners. That’s why I decided to make it public.”

“It got me out of school for the morning, so I was okay with it,” Matt said.

Hannah resisted the urge to rumple his hair the way he’d
done Satch’s. She didn’t think a thirteen-year-old would appreci
ate the gesture. “You go ahead and get Satchmo back in shape,” she said, stepping off the trail so Matt could lead the pony
past her.

She stood and watched the boy and pony amble up the slight slope of the wooded trail, Satchmo’s tail gently swishing behind him. The bond between them was evident in the way Matt kept his free hand resting on Satchmo’s neck, and the pony occasionally bumped his shoulder against the boy’s side.

“It makes you believe in whisper horses.”

Hannah jumped and spun around to find Adam standing in the middle of the path, his hands shoved into the pockets of a long, black coat hanging open over his working uniform of black suit, shirt, and tie. The late-autumn breeze ruffled his dark hair and sent the coat flapping around his long legs.

Her body seemed to catch fire, the heat licking along her skin. She yanked the zipper of her barn jacket down and let it blow open. “Why aren’t you at The Aerie? It’s lunchtime.”

“I bribed one of the stable hands to call me if you showed up here,” he said.

For a moment hope blossomed, but it withered again as she studied his unyielding stance. He didn’t look like a man who’d come to admit he’d made a mistake. She copied his rigid pose by shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. “I see.”

“Congratulations on getting the long-overdue apology from Sawyer,” he said. “We watched it in the waiting room of the animal hospital. You managed it like a pro.”

Hannah had heard about Tim’s arrangements on her behalf, including Adam’s donation of food. She remembered another reason she owed him gratitude. “Thanks for all the soup. It was delicious.”

He nodded. They stood looking at each other for a long moment, the air between them crackling with tension. As she scanned his face, her heart twisted. There were shadows under his eyes, as though he hadn’t slept well for some time, and the angles of his jaw looked sharp and tense.

He shifted slightly. “I hope you’ll still come to Thanksgiving dinner. For Matt’s sake.”

She had to make her decision. The image of Matt’s happy
grin flashed through her
mind. “I’ll be there,” she said. “For
Matt’s sake.”

He flinched at her last words. “I’m sorry.” His voice was so low she barely heard him.

“For what?”

“That you’re not coming for my sake.”

A flash of anger tempered her spine into steel. “You made that choice.”

He dropped his gaze. “It was the right one.”

Overwhelming sadness undercut the flare of anger. Pulling one hand out of her pocket, she waved it in a gesture of frustration. “But you still have the chance to make a different choice
for Ma
tt.”

He shook his head. “We’re going to Disney World the day after Thanksgiving.”

She felt a flutter of hope, for Matt this time. Then she understood. This was Adam’s farewell gift to his son. One long weekend of togetherness before he sent him away to the O’Briens. “I’m sorry for both of you,” she said, grief slicing through her. “And what about Satchmo?”

“I’m still trying to work that out.”

She tried one more time. “You’re a better man than this.”

A spasm of pain contorted his features for a moment. He took one hand out of his pocket and shoved it through his hair before he met her gaze straight on. “I came to say thank you. For saving Matt’s whisper pony. For giving me a relationship with my son. For—,” he took in a deep, shuddering breath. “For the time we had together.”

She’d been wrong about the daily soup, and the food for Tim’s party, and the invitation to Thanksgiving. They weren’t an apology; they were a good-bye.

The wind pierced the cotton fabric of her polo shirt, making her shiver. With slow, deliberate motions she slotted the zipper back into its tab and pulled it upward until her jacket was closed all the way up to her chin.

He half-turned as though to go, and her body started to tremble with the churn of emotions. “I don’t want to leave you here alone,” he said.

“You’ve already done that.” She curled her hands into fists in her pockets, digging the nails into her palms, willing him to go before she fell apart.

“Hannah, I…” He stopped with a huff of frustration before he pivoted and strode away, his coat billowing behind him.

Hannah held herself still until his silhouette vanished around a bend in the trail. Then she dropped to her knees on the frozen earth.

Chapter 28

I
APPRECIATE YOU
coming to my home, Dr. Linden,” Louise Crickenberger said, as she opened her front door. “You’ve done so much for Ferdie, but now I think it’s time to let him go.” The elderly woman’s voice cracked on the last words.

Hannah’s grip tightened on the handles of her medical bag. She’d thought her Monday couldn’t get any more miserable until Estelle caught her on her way out the office door at the end of the day, saying there was an urgent phone call.

“He could barely get up to do his business this morning.” The elderly lady blotted her red-rimmed eyes with the tissue she was carrying. “Now his breathing sounds like it’s hurting him something terrible.”

“Let’s make sure there’s nothing we can do for him before we make the final decision,” Hannah said, following her down the hall toward the back of the house.

By unspoken agreement, Tim had handled all euthanizing since Hannah came to Sanctuary, but this afternoon he was out delivering twin foals. Sawyer’s ghost might have been banished, but Sophie’s still haunted her.

Mrs. Crickenberger led her into a small den and gestured toward an upholstered chair. Ferdie lay stretched out on top of a tattered and stained yellow blanket, his eyes closed, his side rising and falling while his breath rattled in his throat. The small, brindled dog, with his floppy ears and long body, was a mix of so many breeds Hannah couldn’t even guess at the dominant one.

She knelt beside the chair and pulled out her stethoscope, already knowing what she was going to hear. After listening to Ferdie’s lungs and his heart, she took the earpieces out of her ears and turned to the older woman. “I’m very sorry, but his lungs are full of fluid and his heart is laboring. The best thing is to help him go without any further struggle.”

Mrs. Crickenberger gave a sob as the tears streamed down her face, but she nodded. “I knew it was his time.”

Hannah stood and put her arm around the woman. “Would you rather not be in the room when he goes? It will be very quick, and I’ll hold him myself, I promise.”

“No, I’ll stay. I held my Tommy when he passed, so I’ll be here for Ferdie too.”

“You’re very brave,” Hannah said, meaning it. She moved her
bag out of Mrs. Crickenberger’s sight as she pulled out the syringe
and calculated the proper dosage for Ferdie’s body weight. Her hands shook slightly as she drew the liquid into the glass cylinder. She took a breath and counted to ten before letting it out. When she turned back to the woman, she held the syringe behind her back, both out of consideration for Mrs. Crickenberger and to conceal any nervous tremors.

The woman had gathered Ferdie up from the chair and sat down with the dog and his blanket on her lap. She stroked him and told him what a beautiful dog he was and what a wonderful companion he’d been to her, especially after her Tommy died. The dog’s tail moved a fraction of an inch in an attempt to wag.

The knot of anxiety in Hannah’s chest unraveled. This was what she had wished for Sophie’s last days: being in her own home with someone she loved. Peace flowed through Hannah
at th
e knowledge she was giving Ferdie this gift.

“If you want more time with him, I can wait in the other room,” Hannah said. “There’s no rush.”

Mrs. Crickenberger looked up as two tears trickled down her cheeks. “That’s kind of you, dear, but it won’t change what needs to be done. You go ahead.”

Hannah knelt again and gave the dog the injection as unob
trusively as she could. She rested her hand on his side, and it didn’t
take long before she felt his body go slack.
Mrs. Crickenberge
r felt it too. She bent over her longtime
companion
and wept
quietly
.

Hannah slipped her stethoscope into her ears again and checked for a heartbeat. There was none.

She gave the little creature’s fur one last stroke before she laid her hand on the woman’s forearm. “I’m going to leave you with Ferdie for a little while. Then I’ll take his body to the hospital.”

Hannah retreated into a kitchen that hadn’t been redone since the fifties, where she allowed herself to slump against the orange Formica countertop. Putting a dog to sleep always drained her emotionally, but she was relieved she’d finally gotten past the ghost of Sophie.

To distract herself, she drew her phone out of the medical bag to check for messages. She’d silenced it when she’d pulled up in front of Mrs. Crickenberger’s house.

Five missed calls showed in the notifications bar, but no one had left a voicemail. When she swiped it down to look at the details, Adam’s phone number came up for all of them.

“Why would he call me so many—?” A thought struck her. “Oh no, something’s happened to Satchmo!”

She froze for a moment, torn between her sympathy for M
rs. Cricken
berger’s grief and her anxiety over Adam’s repeated calls. Shoving the phone in her back pocket and slinging her medical kit over her shoulder, she tiptoed down the hall and peeked into the den. The elderly woman still sat in the chair, but she was carefully wrapping Ferdie’s body in the blanket. She finished and looked up as Hannah stepped through the doorway. “I’ve said my good-byes. He’s gone to heaven now, and it’s time to let his body go back to the earth.”

Hannah crossed the room to lift the little bundle from
Mrs. Crickenberge
r’s lap, cradling it against her chest. “I’ll bring his ashes back to you tomorrow.”

The woman gripped the arms of the chair and slowly pushed herself to her feet. She looked around the room as though she didn’t recognize it before turning back to Hannah. “I hope it doesn’t sound cold-hearted to you, but if you hear of another small dog who needs a good home, let me know.”

“It’s the opposite of cold-hearted,” Hannah said. “It’s warm and generous and perfect.” She didn’t want to rush her farewell, but the phone seemed heavy in her pocket. She started for the door. “I’ll stop by tomorrow to see how you’re doing.”

“That’ll give me a good reason to bake up a batch of snic
ker
doodles.”

“Please don’t go to any trouble for me.” Hannah contained her impatience as she matched her steps to the slower pace of the elderly woman.

“No trouble at all. Baking will take my mind off Ferdie.”

Hannah finally got out the front door with her burden and
practically jogged to her Subaru. She placed Ferdie
tenderly
in the container she’d brought along, the blanket flecked
with melting snowflakes. Then she leapt into the driver’s seat
and drove around the corner to park, so her car was out of
Mrs. Crickenbe
rger’s sight.

It took her two tries and several swear words before she got the call to go through on the weak cell signal.

“Hannah!” Adam’s voice sounded far away but his agitation came through the receiver clearly.

“Is it Satchmo?” Hannah braced herself.

“It’s Matt. And Satchmo. They’re gone.”

“Gone! What do you mean ‘gone’?”

There was a moment of silence before he spoke more calmly. “Matt took Satchmo out for a walk on the trail. He was supposed to be back half an hour ago. He’s not answering his cell phone, and it’s getting dark.” Another silence before Adam spoke again. “I’m afraid he’s run away.”

Hannah stared through the windshield into the gathering gloom of the late-November afternoon. It had been spitting snow on and off all day, although none had accumulated on the ground yet. She didn’t want to think about the boy and the pony wandering lost in the frigid darkness. “Sharon must know which trail he was taking. He always tells her.”

“She’s sent riders out on all the trails. No one’s found them yet.” She heard him draw in a ragged breath. “Please come.”

“I’m already in my car. I’m going to put you on speaker.” She hit the wireless connection and slotted the phone into its dashboard holder before putting the car in gear. “Have you called
the poli
ce?”

“Not yet. I don’t know if I should.”

It spoke volumes about his state of mind that he couldn’t decide. She hesitated for a moment as she turned onto the highway. “It wouldn’t hurt. They could start looking on the roads.”

“I don’t want to scare him into hiding.” Adam’s voice was laced with anguish.

“Ask them to be subtle about it. No sirens. Talk to Robbie McGraw. He’ll handle it the way you want.”

“I’ll call you back.”

Hannah disconnected and hit the accelerator. She concentrated on steering her car through the sharp mountain curves so her mind wouldn’t keep conjuring up images of Satchmo suffering the agony of a broken leg or Matt lying still at the bottom of a ravine. Or both.

One of Adam’s comments nagged at her. Why would he think Matt had run away? They were going to Disney World. Surely the boy was looking forward to that.

Then she remembered. Today was the Monday before
Thanksgiving, and Matt’s newly discovered relatives would be arriving in two days. Had Adam said something to his son about going to live with them?

The car skidded on a turn, and she eased her pressure on the accelerator. Her headlights lit the thickening snowfall, and she swore at the weather as anxiety began to tighten her throat.

At last she turned through the brick gateposts marking Healing Springs Stables. The barns were ablaze with lights when she parked in the lot. She was relieved to see a police car pulled up in front of the big stable door. Robbie must have been close by when Adam called.

Grabbing her medical bag and dashing across the whitening gravel, she collided with Sharon as she ran through the barn door. “Whoa there, doc,” the other woman said, grabbing Hannah’s arm to steady her. “We don’t need
you
gettin’ hurt.”

Hannah froze. “Did you find them? Is someone hurt?”

“No, no sign of them yet,” Sharon said with a shake of h
er hea
d.

Her spike of fear eased. “Where’s Adam?”

Sharon nodded toward the barn’s central corridor. Hannah pivoted and saw Adam talking to a police officer whose back was to her. “What’s happening now?” she asked Sharon.

The woman’s face went grim. “I just called in all my riders. It’s too dark to risk the horses out there any longer. If they haven’t found them by now, they’re not on any of the trails.”

Hannah fought back her panic as she walked toward Adam, who was too engrossed in his conversation to notice her. He wore his standard casual attire of black jeans and a black leather jacket.

How could she still feel that gut-deep thrill at the sight of him when he’d been so brutal about ending things between them?

Then she saw his face, and compassion swamped every other emotion. His eyes were haunted, and the lines around his mouth were so sharp they appeared to be carved into his skin. He looked like a man who’d lost everything.

His gaze shifted from the policeman to her, and for a moment his eyes lit with relief and welcome. “Hannah!” He said something to the officer and strode forward to meet her, his hands outstretched with the palms up. She saw the exact moment when he realized he no longer could expect her to greet him with the same warmth.

But this was not the time to deny him whatever comfort she could give. She took his hands in hers, feeling the heat and strength of his touch. “I—” he began before shaking his head, the momentary light extinguished from his gaze.

“I have an idea,” she said, leaping past the awkwardness. “You said Trace was trained as a police dog. I think you should bring him here, along with a piece of Matt’s clothing. Maybe he can help us find Matt and Satch.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” His grip tightened on her hands as hope flickered across his face. “I’ll call my housekeeper, Sarah. Trace will get in the car with her, I’m sure.” He released one of her hands to brush his fingertips down her cheek. “I knew you would help.” He let go of her other hand and pulled out his cell phone, walking away to make the call.

Hannah shivered as his touch seemed to ricochet through her. Scrubbing at her cheek to erase the sensation, she hurried to join Sharon and Robbie McGraw, the police officer. They were discussing where the trails intersected the local roads and highways while the policeman took notes.