The Christmas Child. Линда Гуднайт

and an aide is watching my class, but Davey’s too fragile to go with another stranger right now.”

      If Rainmaker could resist that face and tone, he was a strong man.

      “Girl’s right,” Ida June announced with a slap to the desktop. Davey jumped, blue eyes blinking rapidly. Sophie placed a soothing hand on his knee. “We’ll take Davey to the clinic, me and my nephew here, and then home to clean up. I figure the little man is tuckered plum out. He can rest up for a few hours at my place, and then if you haven’t found his mama and daddy, you can call Howard Prichard.”

      Jesse rubbed the back of his neck. “Tell you what, Miss Ida June, I’ll give Howard a call and apprise him of the situation. If he agrees, it’s a deal.”

      Good luck with that, Kade thought.

      “Well, get to it.” Ida June crossed her arms over the front of her overalls. “Time wasted is gone forever and Lord knows, at my age, I can’t afford to lose any.”

      Mouth twitching, Jesse made the phone call. When the social worker agreed with Ida June’s plan, Kade was amazed. Small towns worked differently than the city where the letter of the law was followed, regardless. Here, apparently, human beings took precedence over protocol. Interesting.

      They prepared to load Davey and his book into Kade’s truck. Ida June had wanted him to ride with her, but Kade and Jesse both said, “No!” with such force that Ida June puffed up like an adder and stalked off. Kade didn’t ride with her. He sure wasn’t putting a child in the truck with her.

      “She cut across the street yesterday, slapped a U-turn as if there weren’t cars coming both ways, all because there was a parking spot on the other side.”

      Rainmaker nodded sagely. “I think she got her driver’s license out of a cereal box.”

      Kade arched an eyebrow. “She has one?”

      Both men chuckled.

      “Come on, Davey,” Kade said, taking the boy by the hand.

      Davey hopped obediently from the chair and reached for Sophie. Her face crumbled. “Oh, honey, I can’t go with you. I have to go to work.”

      Davey wrenched away from Kade to throw both arms around Sophie’s middle. With a helpless look toward Kade, she hugged Davey close against a long blue sweater. Kade got a funny kick in the gut and fought off the urge to join the hug fest.

      “You’ll come to the house after school.” His was a statement, not a question. He knew she’d come.

      She nodded, gray eyes distressed. “I’ll be there right after three.” She held Davey back from her a little, hands on his shoulders. “Do you hear me, Davey? Go with Kade to Miss Ida June’s house. They’ll take good care of you, and as soon as school is out, I’ll be there. We’ll read your book as many times as you want. Okay?”

      Looking from her to Kade and back as if he thought the pair of them went together, Davey thought over the proposition. Then, he retrieved the book he’d dropped, clasped Kade’s hand and followed him to the truck.

      Sophie’s school day started out shaky, but she, an eternal optimist, was certain things would get better. They didn’t.

      After rushing home for a quick clothing change, she arrived to find her class in chaos. Emily Baker had suffered a seizure and had to go to the hospital. Even though everyone knew about Emily’s disorder, witnessing a seizure frightened the class. Even Zoey Bowman, the vet’s daughter whose blindness only increased her compassion and wisdom, had not known how to react. She and best friend, blonde and bouncy Delaney Markham, huddled together holding hands, desks scooted close.

      By the time Sophie settled the group down with assurances that Emily was not going to die and a promise to get Mrs. Baker on the speakerphone in a few hours so they all could hear an update for themselves, lunchtime arrived.

      “Academics took a backseat this morning,” Carmen, the teacher’s aide, said as she slid her lunch tray onto the cafeteria table next to Sophie. A fortysomething bleached blonde with an extra twenty pounds, Carmen floated between classrooms doing whatever was needed.

      “Caring for people is more important sometimes,” Sophie said. She sniffed a forkful of mystery casserole, a combination of tomato and meat scent with sticky pasta in the mix. Or was that rice?

      “Don’t say that to Mr. Gruber.”

      “I already have.” Sophie jabbed a fork into the glob and took a bite. Not bad. Not good. She reached for the salt and pepper.

      “Only you could get away with talking like that to the principal.”

      “Oh, that’s not true. He’s fair to everyone. Here, try salt on that.” She offered the shakers to her seatmate.

      “Anything to hide the taste,” Carmen said with a wry grin.

      The clatter and din of kids in a cafeteria made talking tough, but Carmen had the kind of voice that could be heard by thirty rowdy kids in a noisy gym. “Come on, Sophie, everyone knows Mr. Gruber has a thing for you.”

      “Shh. Not so loud.” Sophie glanced around, hoping no one had heard. Carmen chuckled, the sound of a woman who enjoyed teasing and gossip, not necessarily in that order. Biff Gruber was a decent man and a good, if uptight, principal. Sophie respected his leadership.

      She scooped another bite of the bland casserole, eyeing it suspiciously. “What is this anyway?”

      Carmen laughed at the common refrain as the glass double doors swept open. Noise gushed in like a sudden wind. A flurry of overzealous teens, shuffling their feet and jockeying for position in line, pushed inside. Over the din, Carmen said, “There’s your dad.”

      Sophie glanced up. Amid the gangly teens, a graying man in white dress shirt and yellow cartoon tie grinned at something one of his students said.

      “Oh, good. I was hoping he’d stop for lunch today.” Her dad taught science in the high school. Many days he ate at his desk while tutoring kids. She raised a hand, flagged him over to join them.

      As his gray plastic tray scraped onto the table across from her and he greeted the other teachers with an easy smile, the familiar pang of fierce love stirred in Sophie’s chest. Mark Bartholomew had aged more than the five years since his divorce from Sophie’s mother, a divorce he’d never wanted. Worse, Meg Bartholomew had remarried almost immediately. The implication of an affair still stung, a bitter, unexpected betrayal. Sophie could only imagine how humiliated and hurt her father must have felt.

      “Hi, Dad. How’s your day?”

      “Better now that I see your smiling face. How is yours?” He spread a narrow paper napkin on his lap and tucked in his “mad scientist” tie.

      “Something crazy happened this morning.”

      Expression comical, he tilted his head, prematurely graying hair glossy beneath the fluorescent lights. “Crazier than usual? This is a school, remember? The holiday season always stirs up the troops.”

      Sophie and her father shared this love of teaching and the special hum of energy several hundred kids brought into a building. At Christmas, the energy skyrocketed.

      “We found a lost boy in the municipal Dumpster.”

      Her father lowered his fork, frowning, as she repeated the morning’s events. When she finished, he said, “That’s tragic, honey. Anything I can do?”

      “Pray for him. Pray for Chief Rainmaker to find his family.” She shrugged. “Just pray.”

      He patted the back of her hand. “You got it. Don’t get your heart broken.”

      “Dad,” she said gently.

      “I know you. You’ll get involved up to your ears. Sometimes your heart’s too big.”

      “I take after my dad.”

      The