Think About Love (34 page)

She drank part of a cup of warm milk, then poured the rest into a dish for Marmalade. Somewhere near dawn, she managed to sleep for half an hour.

She'd been a single mother since Paul's death three years ago. Chris had always been an adventurous child, and she'd spent other nights worrying. She knew the images of storms and marauding bears playing out in her mind were probably just fantasies.

She remembered another night when Chris hadn't come home, hadn't called. He'd driven into the mountains with Sherry Adamson for an afternoon's skiing. Sherry's mother had been certain they'd crashed the car, and Emma hadn't slept, either, because Chris was always so good about calling when he was late.

Morning had come, and at ten Chris phoned to say that he and Sherry had driven down a side road on the way home, exploring a frozen creek. Afterward, they couldn't get the car started and had wisely decided to camp in the car until they could walk out in the daylight.

Emma got up at six, showered and forced herself to eat two pieces of toast and drink a glass of orange juice. She had patients, surgery this morning. No matter how worried she was, she must be alert and steady in the operating room.

She called the Coast Guard again.

"They're probably just behind schedule," a young serviceman said. "There's a lot of coastline in British Columbia, with villages few and far between. It's remote country with very few telephones. Don't worry, we'll keep the notice to mariners on. If they don't turn up soon, we'll start a full search."

She got out the map on which she'd marked Chris's planned route. Miles of coastline and so few settlements. She needed to
do
something, but she didn't know the coastline, knew nothing about boats and wilderness. That had been Graham MacKenzie's world, and oddly, it was also the world her son loved.

It never had been and never would be Emma's world.

She set her answering machine, picked up her medical bag, and went to the hospital for morning rounds. Timmy Jones complained of pain, but his blood pressure and color were good, so she left instructions for physical therapy to get him up on crutches later in the day. This was Thursday, one of her O.R. days, so after she'd seen her other children, she scrubbed for a fractured femur on a ten-year-old boy.

When Chris still hadn't called at noon, she spent ten minutes on the phone with the Coast Guard and learned Chris and Jordy had been seen on the weekend in southern Grenville Channel.

"No one's seen them since? Something must have happened there."

"Not necessarily," the voice explained in the calming tones she herself used when speaking to worried parents. "Southern Grenville Channel is narrow. Any boat passing a couple of kayaks would be bound to notice them. Further north, the channel widens and it would be easy to miss a couple of kayakers. They'd be paddling close to shore because there's been a north wind. They'd get some lee near the shore, and when the current's running against them, they'd want to catch the backwash."

Emma knew about reducing fractures and repairing deformed bones. She knew nothing about currents and prevailing winds. She'd never been comfortable with the idea of wilderness, but she'd encouraged Chris when he showed interest. She wished now she'd learned more herself. It was years since she'd felt inept because of her sheltered city upbringing—not since the last time she saw Gray MacKenzie.

Today, she'd give anything to know exactly what Chris was facing out there.

Over lunch with Alex in the hospital cafeteria, she told him about the notice to mariners, about Chris and Jordy being spotted in Grenville Channel.

"There must be something I can do," she said, fighting her growing fear.

"You're used to being in control, Emma, but you can't control this. You need to accept that all you can do is wait, phone the Coast Guard, and meanwhile keep yourself busy and try not to worry too much."

It wasn't bad advice, but she had no patience for it.

On the way back to her office, she walked into the newsstand and stood staring at a variety of newspapers. What did she think she would find here? News about Chris? Boats went overdue every day, and two seventeen-year-old boys were close enough to being men that there was nothing newsworthy about one of them having failed to call his mother by midnight on the twelfth of August.

If Chris had broken his leg, she'd know what questions to ask the doctors, and she'd make sure he got the best care available. If he'd failed an exam, she'd talk with him, sympathize with him, and help him learn the material for next time.

There must be
something
she could do.
 

If this were a medical case beyond her skills, she'd call in another specialist. That's what she needed, a specialist. Someone with a boat, perhaps, for searching the coast. Someone with intimate knowledge of the coastline from southern Grenville Channel to Prince Rupert. A guide.

Her gaze focused on a rack of magazines above the newspapers—wilderness magazines designed for people who wanted to plan wilderness trips. There'd be advertisements in a magazine like that. Perhaps the expert she needed would be right here in this newsstand, advertising services.

She bought copies of
Field and Stream, Pacific Yachting,
and
Beautiful BC.
She rolled the magazines and stuffed them in her handbag, then hurried across the street to the medical center. In her office, with ten minutes before her first patient, she shut the door and checked her answering machine at home, then called the Coast Guard again. This time she was referred to the Rescue Coordination Center. The official search for her son had begun, but after five minutes on the phone with the rescue center, she still felt worried, and sick to death of hearing the words "It's a big coastline."

Vanda rang through to tell her Cindy Harrington had arrived.

Young Cindy was shy and slowly getting over a terror of people dressed in white, so Emma slipped off the lab coat she'd been wearing and replaced it with her gray jacket before she went out to the waiting room.

"Hi, Cindy. Come on in."

When Emma stepped back to let Cindy go ahead, her gaze caught the magazine on Vanda's desk, the man on the cover so vibrant he could have been right here in her office. Emma approached the magazine as if it were alive. The photographer had caught the tough wildness of the man so vividly that for a second Emma thought his blazing blue eyes were staring at her.

Gray MacKenzie.

"Vanda, can I borrow this magazine?"

"Sure, but hey, Emma, how come I never meet men like that hunk on the cover?"

What would Vanda think if she knew that Emma Garrett, specialist in pediatric orthopedics, had once been Gray MacKenzie's girl?

After Cindy was gone, Emma opened the magazine and found more pictures of Gray. His hair was still that rich shade of copper, still unruly and filled with deep slow waves. His face had changed the most. The lines of character had deepened from looking into the sun and from the harsh wind and the outdoors.

She read the article carefully. Prominent wildlife photographer. Details of his career Emma already knew. A picture of the man and his life, but not a lot of personal data. It was written by a woman and Emma suspected the journalist had fallen a little in love with Gray herself, but Gray hadn't revealed much more than the public information.

He lived on a wilderness island on the Canadian west coast. That's where he'd gone when he left her, somewhere just a few miles south of Alaska. He'd been there for years. She'd bought every one of his books, but hadn't known where he lived until now.

The only family mentioned in the article was a dog named Chico. Gray had always said he would have a dog when he got away from the city.

Emma pulled out the map she'd brought to work with her that morning. She searched for a long time before she found Stephens Island. When she found it, she knew what she was going to do.

The article said Gray owned his own seaplane. He would know the coast intimately. Of course he would. The critics attacked Gray for the chances he took to get breathless pictures of grizzly bears and mountain lions, but they all admitted no one could capture the essence of the wilderness like Gray. It was his place, his home.

Searching for kayaks and missing boys, a seaplane would be ideal.

About the Author

Vanessa Grant

Vanessa Grant’s love affair with writing fiction began during a protracted illness at the age of twelve when she decided to write a novel of her own, sitting up in bed and using the typewriter she’d been given for her birthday. Not a computer, not an electric typewriter, but a then state-of-the-art manual typewriter. The story ground to a halt on page 50 but Vanessa never forgot the excitement of bringing her own characters to life. In her twenties, she wrote three unpublished novels, developing her skills as a writer while living in a remote lighthouse, during what she thinks of as her baby-making, basket-weaving, beach-walking days.

She now has over ten million books sold and has been translated into fifteen languages. She has also written what one critic has described as, “by far the best writing book I’ve ever read.”
Writing Romance
, published by Self Counsel Press, won the Under the Covers Best Writing Book award, and is currently in its third edition.

Vanessa lives with her husband and their two Australian shepherds on an island in the Pacific Northwest. Connect with Vanessa online:

For other books by Vanessa Grant, visit Vanessa’s website at
www.vanessagrant.com

Vanessa is also on Twitter as @vanessa_grant, and on Facebook at
http://facebook.com/vanessagrantauthor