One Summer’s Knight

nurse, and I pay her to take care of…someone…for me.” He paused and looked away, but she saw his throat move and suddenly knew how he was aching. And her throat, her chest, every part of her ached for him. “That someone,” he said harshly, “is my mother.”

Though she’d already guessed by then, she made a tiny, involuntary cry. She would have gone to him, but he held her back with a look. “You asked me if my mother was alive, and if I ever saw her, and I told you yes. What I didn’t tell you was that she has no idea who I am.”

“Alzheimer’s?” Summer whispered.

There was no humor whatsoever in his smile. “Among other things-in recent years, anyway. The alcohol had done its work long before that.”

Once again she whispered, “I’m sorry.” But he had already risen and turned away with a shrug, his face cold.

“She’s happiest on the marshes with Brasher and Modeen, and she’ll stay there as long as they can care for her. Sometimes she gets hard to manage-when she’s upset…scared. I’ve got to go and help get her moved, settled down in a strange place-”

“I understand,” Summer murmured. “Don’t worry about us-we’ll be fine.”

In the doorway he paused and looked down at her for a long, silent moment, then enfolded her in his arms and held her the way he’d held and comforted her when they’d discovered Helen in the tree. Only this time she knew beyond any doubt that it was he who drew comfort from her.

And when he had gone, she went on standing there hugging herself and aching inside, thinking, My God, Riley-what’s wrong? What else is it that you’re not telling me?

Because what she’d seen in the depths of his eyes and felt in the tremors deep within him was as unmistakble as it was bewildering. Why should so strong and capable a man know fear?

Mirabella was frustrated. And when she finally succeeded in getting through to Special Agent Redfield on the telephone number he’d given her, he sounded just as frustrated as she was, maybe more so.

“I’ve been trying to reach you all day,” she said accusingly. “The circuits have been busy.”

“It’s this damned hurricane,” Redfield growled, then apologized for his language with a sigh. “First they had us ready to evacuate, then they changed their minds, said it looks like it’s gonna miss Savannah, after all. It’s complete chaos around here…” All of a sudden it seemed to occur to him who he was talking to, and Mirabella could almost feel the electricity coming through the line. “What’ve you got? You’ve heard?”

“Well, I think so…” But in spite of her caution, she couldn’t keep a thrill of excitement out of her voice. “He said he was from Summer’s class reunion committee. His voice was kind of muffled-you know, like he was talking through cloth? But it was Hal-I know it.”

“And you gave him the address?”

“Of course,” Mirabella said impatiently, “I did exactly what you told me.”

“Okay… okay…” It was an exhalation, almost a sigh. Then, brisk once more, he said, “Okay, thanks very much, Mrs. Starr. Let me know if you hear from anyone else-same procedure, okay? We’ll be in touch.”

And he broke the connection before Mirabella could tell him she hadn’t had any luck getting through to Summer’s number, either. As a result, she felt more frustrated than ever. And more afraid.

“She be fine now.” Brasher’s fingers, gnarled as twigs, briefly touched the lined and haggard face of the woman asleep in the hotel bed. Her sallow skin hung loose over the bones of her skull; gray hair with touches of rusty gold, like tarnish, lay sparse on her blue-veined temples; a snore issued from between thin lips sunken over empty gums, the teeth for which were on the nightstand beside her, submerged in a hotel water glass. “Let her sleep…”

Modeen, who was sitting on the bed taking her patient’s pulse, looked up at Riley and nodded. “It’s just a mild sedative. She’ll sleep now, tomorrow probably be a little bit more disoriented than usual, but once she gets back in her own place, she’ll be okay.” She stood up, coiled the blood-pressure cuff that had been lying across her lap and put it in the medical bag on the other bed, closed it, then went into the bathroom and closed the door.

“She was beautiful once,” said Brasher softly. Tender and sad, his eyes rested on the woman’s gaunt face. “When she was a girl. You know, she had so many dreams.”

Riley said nothing. He felt no connection to the woman in the bed at all. He felt nothing. His heart was like stone. “Well,” he said, “I guess I’d better be getting back.”

Brasher nodded. “You go on home now. Your mama be fine. Best you go now, take care of your woman…those nice kids.”

Riley made an involuntary movement of denial that involved his whole body. “She’s not my woman,” he said on an exhalation as he twirled his windbreaker over one shoulder. “Wish she could be, but…” He shook his head and walked to the door. “It’s never gonna happen.” He took a deeper breath trying to make room for his heart-still a stone, but too big now for his chest.

“Boy, what you mean by that?” Brasher threw a look toward the bathroom door, then came over and caught Riley by the wrist.

Riley shrugged and looked past him, looking for escape. “Oh, you know…she’s got the children-”

“That’s what’s holdin’ you back? What’s the matter with you, boy? Those kids, they need you-you tell me you don’t see that? That boy, his eyes, they follow you ever’ where you go, ’bout eat you alive. That little girl, she just want a daddy to love her, you can tell that by lookin’.”

“They need a father. They don’t need me.” Now Riley’s face felt like stone, and his voice sounded like it. He opened the door, but Brasher followed him through it and into the deserted hotel hallway.

“Boy,” the older man said in a wondering tone, “I know what you’re thinkin’. You thinkin’ you gonna be like her?” He jerked his head toward the room they’d just left. “Like your daddy was?”

Riley flinched. He said harshly, “I can’t risk that possibility.”

For a few moments Brasher didn’t say anything, just gazed at the floor, his hands hooked in the straps of his overalls. And for some reason, instead of walking off and leaving him there, Riley found himself waiting, while tension hummed behind his eyeballs and through his molars and vibrated in the pit of his belly. Finally, the old man lifted his head and looked not at turn, but dreamily into the distance beyond his shoulder.

“Remember,” he said softly, “that time the big storm come through-you were a little boy, ’bout ten-an’ afterward we went out to the island-”

Riley nodded. He caught a sharp, edgy breath. “And we found the osprey on the beach. I remember. It had been injured in the storm and couldn’t fly.”

“No, boy-he only thought he was injured. He only thought he couldn’t fly.” Brasher chuckled low in his chest. “Poor old osprey so battered and beat-up in the storm, he too scared to fly. He just sittin’ there on the beach, too scared to move.”

“I walked right up to him,” Riley said slowly. “I was going to put my jacket over him so we could take him home…fix him up. But before I could, he started to flap his wings and hop, trying to get away. And then he just… flew away.”

Brasher shook his head, his body jerking with silent laughter. “Just needed a strong-enough incentive to make him try. Found out he wasn’t as banged up as he thought he was. Fact is, he was fine.” He stopped chuckling and gave Riley a sideways look. “That woman, you know, she got the healer’s touch.”

Riley gave a laugh of surprise. “How’d you know that?”

Brasher shrugged. “See it in her eyes…her hands, too. Oh, yeah, she got the touch.” His smile broadened. “Maybe she’s meant, boy-” he pointed toward the ceiling “-you ever think ’bout that? Maybe she meant to heal you.”

Riley laughed again, this time with a growing sense of lightness and hope. He said with a smile of irony, “I told her once I was the doctor that was going to take care of her.”

It was then that his beeper went off.

Summer had never liked wind. She’d grown up in the desert where the winds blew so incessantly they molded the trees and shrubs to their will. She’d lived in a part of the Los Angeles Basin where the Santa Ana winds blew down the valleys and through the passes with enough force to toss tractor-trailer rigs like toys, hot and dry enough to suck every last drop of moisture from plants and people alike. She didn’t mind rain, even in torrents, and actually