After what she'd been through with her mother, the last thing Diana Ladd expected to happen in the emergency room was for her to get queasy when the doctor started to put stitches in Davy's head. The doctor asked her if she'd be alright. she nodded that she would.
While she sat in the lobby head dangling between her knees feeling both foolish and helpless, Brandon Walker hurried into the emergency ROOM and held Davy Ladd's hand while the doctor sewed the little boy's scalp back together.
It didn't seem like that big a deal, really, but when Brandon Walker carried a wide-awake Davy back out of the emergency room and delivered him into his mother's waiting arms, Diana's tearful gratitude warmed his heart.
No matter what Louella said, maybe Brandon wasn't such a poor excuse for a human being after all.
He waited patiently while Davy proudly showed his mother the shaved spot on his head and the straight line of caterpillar-leg stitches that marched from his temple down one cheek.
'Ready?' Brandon asked at last.
'Yes,' Diana said. 'Would you mind carrying him again?
You're right. He really is too heavy.'
'I can walk all by myself,' Davy said. 'The doctor said I was real brave. I was, wasn't I?' He looked up at Brandon for confirmation.
'Yes, you were. You barely cried at all.'
They walked to the waiting Ford three-abreast, with the boy between them holding each of their hands.
'Can I sit in the front now?' Davy asked, while they waited for Brandon to unlock the door.
“You bet,' Brandon Walker replied. 'Any kid with twelve stitches in his head ought to get to ride in the front seat.'
In La Cantina, a dive of a bar in Rocky Point, Mexico' the driver of a red Grand Prix was sipping tequila and telling a buddy of his about the tough little boy he'd met earlier that day after a spectacular auto accident.
'That kid was something else,' the man was saying'Here he was with all kinds of blood pouring out of his head, but all he could think about was this poor old Indian broad who was still pinned in the truck. I was about to take off in the wrong direction to get help, but he wouldn't let me. He kept dragging on my leg and insisting there was an ambulance up on top of the mountain, for Damned if he wasn't right. If we hadn't gone up the mountain after it right then, I don't think she would have made it. Maybe she didn't, for that matter.'
'You say the woman was an Indian and the kid was an Anglo?'
'A regular towhead,,, the man answered. 'And cute as a button.'
'wonder if there isn't a story in this,' his buddy said.
'you know, human interest. I'll talk to my features editor about it when I go back tomorrow. Maybe it's something I can use next week.
Once it gets hot around here, feature stories are tough to come by.'
taking a patch of salt The speaker drained his shot glass, he wiped the excess from his hand with a napkin, and took a bite from the lime on the bar in front of him. 'Ready for another?'
'You tell me. Is the Pope Catholic?'
Chapter Seven
BRANDON WALKER STRETCHED out full length on Diana Ladd's long but sagging couch, and wasn't sure which of the two woke him-the boy or the -dog which lay by the coffee table.
When the detective Opened his eyes, a pajama clad Davy was munching on a rolled-up flour tortilla and sharing an occasional bite with a grateful, tail-thumping dog. Bone lay with his bristly, sPike-haired head resting comfortably on the child's knee. Both the boy and the dog were staring intently, watching Brandon Walker's every move.
'Did your mom let you sleep over?' Davy asked.
The question brought Brandon Walker fully awake and put a rueful smile on his lips. 'Not exactly.'
By now, his mother would have discovered her thirty-four-year-old son's overnight absence and would be absolutely ripped. Louella had never come to terms with the idea that her son was a fully grown man.
Brandon had returned to the family home as a temporary measure in the bleak financial aftermath of his divorce.
Because of his father's failing health, that stopgap measure had stretched into a more or less Permanent arrangement.
There was no longer any discussion about Brandon moving into his own place, and most of the time he didn't mind.
After all, his parents needed him-his physical presence as well as his regular financial contributions. The only major drawback was the fact that his mother continued to treat him like an errant teenager.
'If your mom didn't let you, how come you're here then?' Davy asked thoughtfully.
'Because of your Mom,' Walker answered. 'She was worried about you and asked me to stay.
Just then the tiny travel alarm clock Diana had placed on the coffee table beside him went off with a shrill jangle.
Brandon quickly silenced it, hoping not to waken Diana.
They'd both had very little sleep.
'What's the clock for?' Davy asked.
