His Touch (6 page)

*

Kara stared at
the obnoxious paramedic’s back as he strode away, dozens of retorts and insults playing on her lips. Nadia squeaked and Kara felt every ounce of temper pour out of her body. She was tired. Oh, God! She was tired.

“Gah,” the baby said, pulling at the phone Reid Bennett had just slapped back into Kara’s hand. Absently, she let the baby have it and lowered her head to the bronze plaque that bordered the fountain, tracing her mother’s name.

For the first time since she’d gotten there, Kara noticed the dozens of other visitors and mourners milling around the Memorial and felt her face burn. How many had seen that exchange with the paramedic? How many had seen Nadia escape her stroller and shaken their heads at what a terrible mother she was? She’d just needed to buy a present. One present!

“Mom. Oh, God, Mom, I miss you so much. I brought her here because it’s your birthday and—and—”

She shut her eyes as the horrifying moment of shock at seeing that empty stroller replayed in her mind. Nausea. Crippling fear. Guilt so profound, it amazed her she was still vertical. All had converged in that one moment of time and she’d fallen to her knees.

Nadia sneezed and Kara found a tissue to wipe her tiny nose. She tossed the tissue in a trash bin. It hit her then. A sudden vicious kick to the forehead. She’d never have more babies. This was it. A family of two.

And she couldn’t even handle that much.

She shook her head, tucked the phone in her bag, and turned Nadia’s stroller for home. She never noticed Reid Bennett standing nearby, hands shoved in his pockets, watching.

‡

R
eid watched Kara
Larsen leave the Memorial, baby Nadia safely facing her mother in her navy blue stroller. He hadn’t heard what she’d said to the name engraved on the north pool. But he’d seen her body language. And that confirmed he was the biggest kind of ass there was.

He watched her back until she disappeared and then he slowly walked to the edge.

Marie Elise Larsen

Her mother.

How did he know that? He had no damn idea. He just did.

A muscle twitched in his jaw and only then did he realize he’d been clenching it.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!
That single word echoed inside his head. This was all so wrong, so freakin’ ironic, he could hear Alanis Morissette singing it.

His daughter. His brother. He was barely thirty-three years old and already had lost so many, it frequently surprised him when he remembered there were countless others who had suffered tragic losses of their own. He wondered what Marie Larsen had been like. He imagined her—blond hair like Kara’s, reading bedtime stories to the baby. Nadia would have called her
Nana
, like Erin had called his mother. She’d have bought frilly dresses and hair ribbons and enough stuffed animals to fill an entire apartment.

Help her.

His brother’s command sent a chill skating down his back and he went still. A picture formed in his mind, a picture so clear, it almost took him to his knees. A woman he didn’t know and had never seen, holding Erin on her lap, reading
The Velveteen Rabbit,
her favorite story.

“Jesus, Kyle, what are you doing to me?” Tears burned the back of his eyes but he wouldn’t cry. He
couldn’t
. He never had. It was like he just…switched off or something since the day he’d lost Erin. He’d never visited her grave. He’d never looked at her picture. He couldn’t bear it.

Showing you.

“Well, stop. I
can’t
.”

You won’t.

The image faded and took with it his brother’s comforting presence. His lips trembled but he put his sunglasses on and left the park.

*

Late that night,
Kara prowled her apartment, cell phone pressed to her face. “Laney, it was like losing Mom all over again…only
worse
. Impossibly worse. I’m supposed to protect her and I—”

“Stop, honey. Nadia’s fine and worrying about all the what-ifs will make you crazy.”

“I can’t!” Kara stood in the hall where the wall was scarred from the toy Nadia had thrown, and peeked in on her sleeping daughter for what had to have been the hundredth time, staring at the steady rise and fall of her tiny chest. Her breathing was noisy and Kara’s stomach dropped. As if today hadn’t been eventful enough.

“Kara, you’re a wonderful mother—”

“I’m not, Laney!” Kara flopped on the living room sofa. “I never saw her leave that stroller…God!” A sob cracked her voice. “And now she’s coming down with something.”

With a bone-deep yearning, Kara wished her mother were there. Mom had been so accurate it was scary. Kara had been nineteen years old, away at college, when her mom had called her the day after she’d lost her virginity. Kara would have blamed Elena for squealing to their mother except she’d never told her sister. Mom had just known.

“How is she now?”

Kara wiped away tears. “Asleep but her breathing is loud. She’s almost snoring.”

“I’m coming over.”

Through the phone, Kara heard Lucas, her sister’s husband, murmur something. “No, no, Laney, we’re fine. Stay with Luke.”

“You sure? I can be there in twenty minutes or so.”

“Yes. I’m sure. It’s almost midnight. I don’t want you riding the PATH train at this hour.”

“Okay. Call if you need us.”

Kara tossed her cell phone to the coffee table in front of her sofa and sighed. She’d thought she could do this. She’d really believed she could be a good mother, just like her own mother had been. When Steve bailed after she’d told him she was pregnant, she’d naively thought she could love their baby enough for both of them. But nobody told her that babies came pre-installed with their own little personalities. Even Bree, whose own daughter was now twelve years old, never mentioned how mind-blowing, stomach-churning
hard
motherhood could be.

Mom had made it look so easy. She’d worked outside the house, had four children, kept the house and filled their lives with all sorts of enrichment opportunities. Kara had fond memories of dance classes and music lessons, museum trips and scouts. Mom had never lost Elena or one of the boys in a busy department store.

God, she missed her mother. She stared at her phone and on a whim, tapped the contact still stored but of course, Mom’s number had long since been disconnected or reassigned or retired or whatever the wireless companies did with dead numbers.

Dead
. The word almost choked her. She was about to toss the phone down, when the list of alerts caught her attention. She scrolled through the reminders and cursed out loud.

She’d forgotten all about Ronald T. Saxon. He’d called earlier.

Twice.

“Oh, Mom,” she said on a sob. Kara covered her face and let the tears fall.

She must have dozed. She jolted back to awareness, found herself curled on one end of the sofa, heart pounding and head full. Something had awakened her. She listened, heard only the hum of the building. She shifted, deciding her bed was more comfortable than the sofa. She took one more peek at her daughter and heard it. A bark. Her baby was gasping for air, every breath whistling in the quiet night.

Kara grabbed her from the crib, strode to the bathroom, and ran the shower hot. Steam was good. That was what all the books had taught her. Nadia stirred, tried to breathe, but launched into a coughing fit that jerked her entire body, every cough sounding like the bark of a baby seal.

“Oh, God,” Kara gasped when she saw the baby’s hands.

They were blue.

She ran for the cell, still on the sofa where she’d tossed it, and dialed 911.

*

Minutes ticked by,
longer than hours. Finally, the buzzer sounded and Kara left Nadia in the middle of the living room floor, flung open the door, waited anxiously for the elevator to arrive on the fourth floor. She left the door open, went back to Nadia. Her feet and her hands were blue and her breath rattled in her tiny chest. Kara sat on the floor beside her, stroking the curls away from her face. She didn’t understand this. Nadia wasn’t sick until a few hours ago! She’d had a runny nose—that was all. She had a little cough and a runny nose. What happened? What the hell happened?

“Paramedics! Hello?”

“In here!”

Two men carrying canvas bags hurried in. Kara looked up, right into the scowling face of Reid Bennett.

“You,” he snarled.

It was him, the same paramedic who’d taught the CPR class. The same paramedic who’d rescued Nadia in the store. Kara could only shake her head. She didn’t care how much he hated her, how much she annoyed him. He had to help her little girl. He just
had
to.

“Mr. Bennett. Her hands. They’re blue. Please. Help her.”

He frowned, bent to the floor and did his job. “Patient is lethargic.” He whipped out a stethoscope and inserted it in his ears. He lifted the baby’s shirt, listened to her heart and lungs. “No signs of rash. No fever. Inspiratory and expiratory stridor.” He tilted the baby’s head back, flashed his pen light into her mouth. “Airway’s clear but tissues are swollen.”

“Heart rate’s high,” his partner, Jacob Stewart, muttered. “How much does she weigh, ma’am?”

“Um. Twenty-two pounds.”

“And how old is she?”

“She’ll be eighteen months old on the twenty-first.”

“Has she been sick?”

Kara spread her hands. “No! She was fine all day, until dinner. Then she started coughing and had a runny nose and acted strange. I gave her some cold medicine before bed.”

“Strange, how?”

“She didn’t want me to put her down. She’s not usually a cuddler.”

“When did the breathing issues begin?”

“She woke up about twenty minutes ago, barking like a little seal. I ran the shower but the steam didn’t help. When I saw her hands go blue, I called 911.”

“You did the right thing, ma’am,” the paramedic reassured her. He unzipped his bag, pulled out a pediatric oxygen ball valve mask and handed it to Reid.

Reid gently placed the mask over Nadia’s nose and mouth and began rapidly squeezing the ball. The baby made a small protest and that started another coughing fit.