Heart Echoes (5 page)

Chapter 9

CEDAR POINTE, OREGON

Lacey Janski froze behind the counter, a blackberry pie in her hands. She looked out at the customers in her coffee shop and zeroed in on a white-haired icon of retired local fishermen. “Andy, what did you say?”

The man moved from the table where he had stopped on his way in to greet friends and crossed the room. “Big earthquake down in Los Angeles this morning.”

That was what she thought she had heard him say. “Where exactly?”

“I don't know.”

“When?”

“Ten o'clock or so.”

“How big?”

“Six point—oh, man.” His deep voice rumbled. The lines of his weathered face creased into a frown. “I forgot. That's where your sister lives.” He stretched across the counter, took the pie from her, and set it down. “You hadn't heard?”

“No.” She turned on her heel and strode to the back-room doorway. “Will!” She called out to her husband. “Will!”

He was seated in the far corner at the desk, phone to his ear, speaking softly.

Lacey froze again. How often in recent months had she walked in on Will, phone to his ear, speaking softly?

Softly . . . or furtively?

But it was his business to talk on the phone. They owned the Happy Grounds Coffee and Gift Shop, a small, popular place on the Oregon coast. Ordering coffee and gifts had been a part of their life for twelve years. She hated the telephone. She loved baking. It was an easy division of two major responsibilities. They shared all the others.

“Will!”

He glanced over his shoulder and held up a finger. “That's fine,” he spoke into the phone, his tone normal. “I'll get back to you. Good-bye.” He hung up. “What's wrong?”

Her heart melted. The question that negated her other one about his phone calls was, how often had she clung to him in recent months like a scared child? He was her rock.

In a flash his arms were around her. “Lacey?”

“There was an earthquake in Los Angeles.” Engulfed in his arms, her face against his denim shirt, she savored the clean scents of laundry detergent and his soap. The weight of his chin atop her head reassured her that he was there. He was there.

Sometimes visitors to the shop were surprised to learn that Lacey and Will were married. At first she thought it was because they were physically mismatched. He was model material for men's underwear ads. Tall, slender with wide shoulders, dark blond, and hazel-eyed, he was—as her mother said—a looker. She, on the other hand, was average in every way, except that she was all nose and mouth and had a coarse, dark-brown horse mane for hair that worked best in a braid when it was long enough.

Her good friend Holly clued her in on what others were saying. “Lacey, you're nuts. People assume you're not married because you and Will are such obviously good friends. Most couples aren't, you know. No way could most of us work together 24-7 like you do. I can't imagine teaching in the same school as my ex.”

Lacey did not totally buy into the explanation. If couples weren't friends, why did they bother staying together?

Will kissed the top of her head. “Call her. I'll cover for you.”

She nodded and watched him walk into the shop.

It was August, a busy time of year. Two summer employees worked in the gift section, an area that covered the front half of the shop. A waist-high wall separated it from the coffee bar at the back, where there was seating for twenty-two. At three in the afternoon, Will and the college girls could take care of the light traffic.

Teal had not seen the shop since long before Will and Lacey took it over from his parents. Lacey was proud of their homey renovations. She wondered if Teal would think the place more inviting than it had been when they were growing up.

Probably not. It wasn't Teal's style to compliment anything about Cedar Pointe.

Lacey sat down at the desk, picked up the phone, and dialed her sister's cell phone number. Although she seldom called it, she had committed it to memory.

Before it rang, the connection went straight to voice mail.

“Teal, are you all okay? Call me as soon as you can.”

She dialed the house number, also at the tip of her fingers. Again voice mail answered and she left a message. She called Teal's office number. There was no answer.

Lacey whimpered, squeezed her eyes shut, and shook her hands like dust rags. “I can't do this. I can't do this.”

Life had become simply too hard in recent months. There was no available nerve ending on which to hang this new stress.

Exactly. She had no place to put this, but others did. And they knew the secret of binding up the stress so that it did not weigh too heavily on their own nerves.

She pulled out the keyboard shelf and moved the mouse. The monitor woke up, and she saw that the computer was connected to the Internet.

She also saw news headlines.

Massive Quake Hits Los Angeles.

She aimed the cursor over the link and hesitated.

Lacey did not need details. She needed help.

She went to her e-mail, composed a short note, and sent it to the addresses of everyone who had ever said to her, “I'm praying for you.”

Chapter 10

LOS ANGELES

When Teal returned to River's hallway, she saw someone with a bloodied head bandage lying on the bed.

Her breath caught, but as she neared the figure, she realized it was not River. Where was he?

With effort she waited calmly at the nurses' station until one of them got off the phone. Her effort to remain calm went out the window.

As did the distraught nurse's composure. She informed Teal that River had gone for a CT scan, and no, she was not allowed to follow, and no, she had no guess how long it would take. She also said Teal had no business standing there. The waiting room was the place to wait.

Her heart raced as she made her way back to the pay phone area and stood at the end of the line that now wrapped around chairs and out the door.

Like an unbelievable line for a stupid Disneyland ride.

But maybe it was for the best. Telling River what she had learned from Shauna about Maiya would not exactly comfort him. Reaming him out about that boy Jake would most definitely not comfort him. All of those things could wait until he felt better and she cooled down.

On a normal day she would have chatted with others in line. Today she bit her fingernails and checked her cell phone. Over and over and over.

At last it was her turn to use a pay phone again.

“Hello?”

At the sound of her daughter's fearful voice answering her cell phone, Teal clutched the partition to keep herself upright. “Maiya! Are you all right?”

“Oh, Mommy! Mommy!”

“Shh, hon. We're okay. Where are you?”

“I'm so scared!” Her voice was not lowering from screech level. “I couldn't reach you!”

“I know, but we're talking now. Where are you?”

“I'm coming home, but the traffic is so insane!”

“Mai, exactly
where are you
?”

“Um. Um. I don't know. El Camino and something. At a gas station by that strip mall with Ralphs and Rite Aid.” Maiya named an area in the community east of them, typically a thirty-minute drive.

Teal gave up waiting for her daughter to confess. She also gave up aiming for a neutral tone. “Are you on the back of Jake's bike?”

“Oh, Mommy.” Things were really bad. Maiya hadn't called her Mommy since she broke her trumpet in the eighth grade. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

“Not as sorry as you're going to be, Maiya Marie.”
Stupid.
“Honey, I didn't mean that. This is just so awful.” She burst into tears.

Then Maiya wailed.

Behind Teal came the loud clearing of a throat. “Hey, lady.”

She whipped around and blubbered out, “Hold your horses, mister. I've only been on for two minutes.”

So much for disaster bringing out humanity's best.

“Mom! Where are you?”

“At the hospital.” Teal glared and turned back around. “River has some broken ribs.”

“Oh no!”

“They're doing scans now to make sure nothing else is damaged inside.”

“What happened?”

“The Leaning Tower of Bins fell on him.” She took a shaky breath. “Are you wearing a helmet?”

“Y-yes.”

“Then just get your rear end home ASAP. Shauna and the Yoshidas are waiting there for you.”

“Jake will stay with me—”

“I don't want to see Jake Ford or hear about Jake Ford for a long, long, very long time. He is not welcome in our home. Is that understood?”

“Mom, he's a good guy.”

“Maiya Marie, I asked you a question.”

“Yeah. I understand, Counselor.”

From Mommy to Counselor in less than sixty seconds.

What was going on with her daughter?

Teal sensed that the quake had just exposed a fault line she did not know existed.

Teal found River back in the hallway on a chair, trying to button the filthy short-sleeved white shirt he must have worn to the hospital. His brows went up in a question.

“She's fine.”

“Thank God. Is she home?”

“On her way.” She knelt beside him, pushed aside his fumbling fingers, and buttoned his shirt for him. “What did they say?”

“I'm good to go.”

She tilted her head.

He smiled. “Three cracked. No internal damage. If I do something that increases the pain, I should stop doing it. Doc gave me a prescription for pain relievers. The regular stuff helped, though.”

“Meaning we'll bypass the pharmacy and go straight home.”

“Mm-hmm.”

There was no argument to change his mind, so she didn't even try.

She held his gaze for a long moment. His eyes shimmered in a reflection of her own tears.

They were all safe. Nothing else mattered at that moment.
Thank You, God.

The drive home through empty, dark streets felt eerie. Houses and storefronts appeared intact, but people normally would have still been out and about; shops would have been open.

Teal deflected River's questions about Maiya and told him about her own crazy day. “So now I have BFFs from Dubuque, Iowa, and we have an open invitation to visit them anytime we have a hankering to visit Field of Dreams or spit in the Mississippi.”

“Seriously?”

She caught his little-boy grin. “Uh-oh. I didn't mean to say that part out loud.”

“Oh, man.” His raspy voice was excited. “Baseball and a phenomenal river I've never seen.”

“We'll put it on the bucket list.” She slowed and flicked the turn signal as their alley came into sight.

“The garage is full, love.”

She glanced at him. “You mean you didn't bother to pick up the plastic tubs?”

His chuckle slid into a groan. “Ouch. Don't make me laugh.”

No worries about that once I get hold of Maiya.

The garage opened directly onto the alley. If there was no space inside it, they would have to park on the street out front. Teal drove past the alley entrance and continued on the palm-tree-lined block to their street.

The problem with street parking was that every neighbor had the same kind of old-fashioned, single-car garage and owned at least two vehicles. Car after car after car was parked bumper to bumper along both curbs. She spotted a motorcycle and gripped the steering wheel. If that thing belonged to Jake . . .

“Forget it,” she said. “This day just got too long. One way or another, I will make the car fit inside the garage.”

“That's my Xena.”

“I will not be undone by an earthquake. How lame is that?”

“Attagirl.”

A few moments later she reached the garage and tapped the automatic opener. The door rattled up. “Hallelujah, the power is on. Whoa.” The headlights illumined empty space. “Do you see what I see?”

“Are we at the wrong garage? Ours never looked this neat.”

A few blue plastic bins sat in two short stacks. Elsewhere along a different wall were orderly piles of books and file folders.

They exchanged a glance and said in unison, “Charlie.”

Teal blinked her vision clear and drove onto a spic-and-span concrete floor. Her heart felt swept clean as well, free at last of the day's anxiety and anger. They were all okay.

Maybe she would ground Maiya for only half of her life.