Man of His Word

This Daniel could do. He smiled. “I was out here, minding my own business, and then this car comes roaring up, and I go to check it out...” He closed his eyes. The memory was still so sharp he could smell the charcoal. “And there you were, Marissa. Busy getting born, all on your own. You didn’t even wait for the EMTs, and they were inside.” He jabbed a finger over his shoulder to indicate the firehouse.

Again memories flooded him: the sweet weight of Marissa in his arms, the goofy feeling that swamped him as he held her.

The agony of having to turn her over to the child-welfare folks. At the hospital, he’d asked if he could keep her for a while, just in case Miriam changed her mind and came back for her daughter, but they said no, certainly not.

The “certainly not” had stuck in his craw. Miriam had trusted him. Why couldn’t they?

But there were laws and regulations and he knew that he really couldn’t raise Marissa on his own. So he’d made them promise that she would be placed in a good home.

Daniel had kissed the top of Marissa’s little red head and handed her over, and that was the last time he’d seen her.

Until now.

And the mom they’d picked out for Marissa did look like a pretty good mom. Kimberly was pretty, and seemed caring. He noticed the furrow in her brow as she fretted silently over Marissa. She was worried. But she wasn’t saying anything, just giving Marissa time to absorb what Daniel had told her.

“Really? You remember?” Marissa asked. Again, there was a tremor in her voice.

“As if it was yesterday.”

He tore his gaze away from the girl’s face, her expression so unreadable that he couldn’t be sure if what he was saying was helping or hurting. Daniel turned to look at Kimberly.

Now, she was an open book. Her eyes, that curious blue, were bright with unshed tears. Her throat was working, and he could tell she was moved by the moment.

Had to be hard, helping her adopted daughter revisit the day she came into the world. Did Kimberly envy that mother? Envy the chance to have given birth to Marissa herself? Or was she afraid that Marissa would leave her in search of her birth mom?

“I have a picture,” he said, his voice husky.

“A picture?” The words exploded from both Marissa and Kimberly. They stared at each other, their eyes wide with excitement.

“Can we see it?” Kimberly asked.

“Yeah. Sure. Come on. It’s in my office.”

Inside, Marissa glanced around the tiny office, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Kimberly was more patient, and he noticed how she laid a light hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Its fluttering movement seemed to comfort the clearly anxious Marissa.

He grabbed up the photo of him and Marissa and extended it to her. “See? I told you that you were tiny.”

She stared down. “Oh.” Disappointment was plain on her face. “I thought...I thought it would be of me and my birth mom.”

But Kimberly had taken the photo from Marissa and was staring down at it. She traced her finger over the image, her mouth softly parted. A tear snaked down her cheek, and Daniel liked the way she let it be.

She looked up at Daniel. “This is you. With Marissa.”

“Yeah. The guys took it. Right before I had to hand her over. DFCS said they’d find her a good home. Looks as if they did. I mean, I asked if I could keep you,” he blurted out to Marissa, “but I mean, who was I kidding. I was a twenty-five-year-old unmarried guy, a rookie firefighter. Who was gonna trust me with a kid, huh?”

Marissa’s eyebrows skyrocketed. “My mom was twenty-five when she adopted me. And she was single.”

Something about that twisted in him. He shot a questioning look toward Kimberly, and she nodded. “Yeah, but, Marissa, at first I was just a foster parent. Besides, I’d already gone through all the foster-care paperwork and the classes, and they’d done a home study. Plus...you were listed as a special-needs baby. They needed somebody who would take you, no questions asked.”

“Yeah. I forgot about all that.” She leaned over her mother’s shoulder and studied the photo. “Hey, I was kinda cute. I thought babies were ugly.”

“You were beautiful. Tiny. But beautiful. Except...” Daniel scratched his head as he recalled the bruises he’d left on her pale pink skin. Other bruises, that the EMTs shrugged off, had started popping up, as well. Part of the birthing process, they’d assured him.

Just then the “ennnh” of the fire alarm’s buzzer reverberated through the building, and the radio crackled to life. He listened, took in the bare facts: multicar accident on the interstate, gas-tank leak, trapped driver.

“Sorry,” he told Kimberly and Marissa. “This will have to wait.”

And then he was out the door, trying to focus on the fire call, the person trapped in the vehicle, that dry westerly breeze that could make fires on the interstate get out of hand with hair-raising speed.

But as he pulled on the last of his turnout gear and swung into the station’s extended cab pickup with his captain at the wheel, he caught sight of Kimberly and Marissa’s faces.

His gaze fixed on their expressions as Dave, his captain, peeled out behind the fire engine.

Marissa’s was typical tweenager, like his nieces and nephews, her eyes alive with curiosity and excitement.

Kimberly? Her fingers went to her mouth, her brow creased ever so slightly and her eyes were dark with worry as they locked with his. She knew the life. The risks. The fact that even with routine calls, there were never any guarantees.

He didn’t know how Kimberly knew, but her eyes held that same look that Ma’s had every time his dad had left the table to answer a call.

And he didn’t know how he felt about having someone he’d barely met worrying that much about him.

CHAPTER THREE

“YOU’RE SURE YOU don’t mind waiting?” Kimberly asked Marissa as they sat on the front bench in front of the fire station. They’d passed some of the time in the chief’s office, but the cramped confines had seemed to make Marissa more restless, so Kimberly had suggested a change of scene. “The secretary said that it could take a while.”

“I wish I could have gone with them!” Marissa enthused. “You know, see them cut the car up. Mrs. Karen—” she jabbed a finger back toward the station and the secretary’s office “—she said they had to use the Jaws of Life. Man, wouldn’t that be cool, Mom? To see them save somebody’s life?”

Kimberly shuddered. She’d already picked up enough of the garbled radio traffic to understand that the woman driver was in critical condition and that the extrication was taking longer than Daniel had anticipated.

No, when she thought about the accident, all Kimberly could picture was Marissa trapped in that car, critically injured, dying—it could have been them on that very interstate. She shook herself and purposefully focused her mind away from the grim vision and onto appreciating her good fortune.

Maybe they should leave and come back. Daniel would likely be tired and not in the mood for pesky questions when he returned. And wouldn’t he have loads of paperwork? She needed him to be as cooperative as possible so that she could pick up any facts that might lead her to Marissa’s birth mother. It was important.

No. She thought again about that woman trapped in the car. It was critical to find Marissa’s birth mother.

“Maybe I could be a firefighter, huh, Mom?” Beside her, Marissa bounced with excitement. “It’s a rush, don’t you think? I mean, you’re sitting here, or maybe washing the truck, and then, boom! You’ve got to fight a fire or get somebody out of a building—”

Kimberly didn’t say the first thing that popped into her mind as Marissa burbled on. She didn’t point out, not even gently, that there was no way a doctor would ever approve Marissa for a job as risky as a firefighter...or a police officer or a soldier or astronaut—any of the adrenaline-buzzing careers that Marissa gravitated toward. Maybe her daughter said she wanted to be those things because Kimberly had pointed out that they just weren’t possible—and not because she was a girl, but because...

The rumble of the fire engine around the curve tugged her thoughts back to Daniel.

He did look weary when he slid out of the cab of the truck. His face was smeared with soot, his turnout jacket loosened to reveal a grimy white T-shirt.

“You’re still here,” he observed as his boots hit the concrete driveway.

“Yeah, you said— We waited.” Now Kimberly was doubly uncertain about her decision. “But we can come back. I expect you’re tired and you—”

“Hey, Chief! Did you save her?” Marissa interjected. “Is she okay? The woman in the car?”

“They airlifted her to Macon. I think she’s got a good shot.” Daniel’s face brightened as he shifted to face Marissa.

“That is so cool! I wish I could have been there!”

“You sound like my niece. She’s determined to be a firefighter when she grows up. Gives my mother a heart attack every time she mentions it.”

Kimberly couldn’t help but admire the way Daniel was so patient and careful with Marissa. Maybe the fact that he had a niece explained it? Or maybe...maybe he still felt a connection with the baby girl he’d saved all those years ago?

“Should we come back?” Kimberly asked him, trying to gauge his willingness to talk with them.

He shook his head. “No. No, you’ve waited all this time. But can I have a few minutes to grab a shower? You wouldn’t want to be cooped up with me in my condition right now.”

Marissa spoke up again. “Can I help your firefighters some way? I mean, you’ve got to get things cleaned or organized or...something, right?”

Daniel chuckled, and Kimberly tried not to roll her eyes. This was the same girl who thought unloading the dishwasher every morning was equivalent to torture.

“Sure.” He called over his shoulder to a firefighter—a woman, Kimberly noted. “Bobbi, show this probie how to check the hoses.”

“You got it, Chief,” Bobbi told him.

Then he turned to Kimberly. “Five minutes? You can wait in my office if you’d like.”

It was more like ten minutes when he joined Kimberly. His hair was damp and curling, a droplet of water still clinging to the lock that brushed his forehead, but he looked less tired and more refreshed.

“Now, where were we? Oh, yeah, the picture.” He picked up the photo, which Kimberly had placed on his desk after his hasty departure.

“Can I—can I get a copy of this?” Kimberly asked him. “It’s a gorgeous photo. I’d love to have one, that is, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure.” He nodded, and the droplet of water on his dark hair flew off. “I can scan it and email it to you, or I can go over to Walmart and get a copy made. How long are you going to be in town?”

“Er...that depends. We’re trying to track down Marissa’s birth mother. So if we can find her and talk with her, then we’ll probably be leaving fairly soon.”

“Oh, no. You...” Daniel worked his mouth, as if he was choosing his words carefully.

“I mean, you can tell us, right? Where to find her?” Kimberly scooted to the edge of the hard plastic chair, her stomach full of fluttering anxiety.

“She’s been in touch with you?” Daniel asked instead of giving her the positive answer she had been hoping for.

“No. We knew about this place...and you...” She swept a hand to encompass the fire station. “And it was the only real clue we had, so we started here.”

“I’m afraid this is a dead end, then,” Daniel told her. “I can’t tell you any more than I already have. I did tell you that I didn’t know your daughter’s birth mother. Didn’t I?”

“You said that, but... I mean, if you thought back, you could remember details. And surely she mentioned her name.” Kimberly hated the way her voice went up a half octave, that she was practically begging.

Daniel did a double take. His next words were loaded with patient forbearance that somehow managed to irk Kimberly even more than if he’d snapped at her. “Look, I know you’ve come all this way—I guess it’s a long way?”

“Atlanta. We live in Sandy Springs, actually.”

“Yeah, that’s, what? Two and a half, three hours?” At her nod, he went on, “Yeah, a bit of a road trip. Like I was saying, you’ve come all this way, but I don’t think I can help you. I’ve pretty much told you what I can.”

“No. No, I’m sure there’s more,” Kimberly insisted. “Like what she looked like, or how you remembered what sort of car she was driving, and maybe she told you something that would help us locate her? And her parents? I mean, she was sixteen, she had to have parents—” Kimberly’s throat, thick with emotion, closed up on her and she couldn’t go on.

Daniel rubbed his mouth. He fingered the photo of him and Marissa as an infant. Kimberly could see him weigh a decision in his mind.

“Kimberly—may I call you Kimberly?” When she nodded, he continued, “I realize the not knowing is probably tough on the both of you. But have you really thought through whether this is a good idea?”

Now Kimberly’s alarm turned to anger. “A good idea? My daughter desperately needs to find out about her birth mother—and anything she can about her medical history. She has a—a—” Again she choked on her words. She worked through her emotions, trying not to be the stereotypical hysterical female that would be all too easy for Daniel to dismiss.

Daniel sat back in his chair, his eyes focused on her with unwavering attention. Sounds of the firefighters working to restore equipment filtered into his office, but he said nothing while he waited on her to compose herself. She appreciated that. He didn’t rush her. She was sure he had loads to do, and this was his day off, after all, but she could sense no impatience on his part.

“So...I take it,” he said finally, “this isn’t just idle curiosity, this reason you’re searching for Marissa’s birth mother? Because, I have to tell you, state law says her birth mother should remain anonymous. That’s the deal—healthy baby surrendered in a safe and approved way in exchange for anonymity and no child-endangerment charges.”

Kimberly let out a breath. Did he need a good reason to give her the information? Well, she had a jam-up one.

“No, it’s not just idle curiosity. Not at all,” she said. “Marissa has a life-threatening bleeding disorder, and her hem/onc—her hematologist-oncologist team in Atlanta—need to know everything they can. So please, please, any scrap you could give us, any way that we could track down her birth mother... It could mean the difference between life or death for Marissa.”

CHAPTER FOUR

DANIEL SUPPRESSED AN inward groan at Kimberly’s revelation. For a moment, he looked past her out the half pane of glass in his office door to the open back door and the yard beyond.

There was Marissa, wrangling fire hoses with Bobbi. She looked strong and healthy and practically glowed with enthusiasm and energy.

This kid’s sick?

“You don’t mean... Like what? Leukemia or something?” he asked.

Kimberly shook her head. “No, not a blood disorder. A bleeding disorder. Her blood doesn’t clot properly. Well, it doesn’t stay clotted properly.”

He tried to work out what she was saying. “But I thought—call me a doofus—but I thought only boys could get hemophilia.”

Kimberly rewarded him with a patient smile. “No, not at all. I mean—not to get too technical, but there’s more than one sort of bleeding disorder. Girls can get certain kinds, too. And Marissa is one of the unlucky ones.”

He leaned back in his chair, considering this new information and how it impacted his promise to Miriam.

Miriam.

He was flooded with an image of her little finger winding around his over the white sheet of her hospital bed, after he’d refused to bust her out of the hospital so she could run away...

“Daniel, you’ve got to promise,” she’d said. “Pinkie promise. You can’t tell anybody here who I am. Not anybody, because then he’ll find her, and he...he can’t.” The girl’s eyes had flooded with tears. “He just can’t. I want her safe, and away from him, and the only way is if they don’t know who I am. So...pinkie promise?”

At the time, he’d thought it a sad testimony that a girl who’d given birth was still young enough to use the phrase pinkie promise and believe in its power. He’d been inclined to not make that promise...until she’d blurted out the whole story, and until he’d clapped eyes on Uriel Hostetler.

And then he’d promised. Not a pinkie promise. A solemn oath...

“Are you listening to a word I’m saying? You look as though you’re a million miles away!”

Kimberly’s accusation hit the nail on the head. “I’m sorry. I was just... She looks so healthy.”

Kimberly craned her head around in the direction he’d been staring and caught sight of Marissa. Her anger at him crumpled—he could see it in the way her eyes welled up with tears, which she blinked back.

“She does, doesn’t she?” Kimberly whispered. “You’ve got to help us.”

Daniel stood, stared out his office window at the cars going past. Listened for a moment to the cheerful ribbing between the firefighters.

It was that ribbing that made him decide. All that protected those men was their training and their promises to each other. After all was said and done, that was what a man was: his promise.

Daniel turned back to face her. She deserved that, at least. “Look...I want to.”

“I hear a but.”

He nodded. “You hear right. I’m in a jam. Legally, I can’t. Like I said, it’s a violation of the law for me to tell you anything that could identify her. Not just the laws that protect patient privacy—but the safe-haven law, too. The birth mother has to waive that right.”

Whatever softness had been in Kimberly’s face hardened with frustration. “But that’s the point! I’m sure she would if she knew we needed her help. I’m not asking for anything else, only her medical history.”

But so fast that he almost missed it, he saw Kimberly slide her middle finger across her index finger. He gave her a pointed look. “Really? Because somehow I don’t believe that.”

Kimberly’s face pinked. He found himself liking the way she found it difficult to lie. “It’s all I want. I can’t say the same for Marissa. I’m not sure what she would want to know about her birth mother.”

Daniel rubbed his jaw. The weariness of the day was catching up with him. Tomorrow he’d be back on schedule, back to figuring out exactly what being chief meant after his sudden promotion. He didn’t think he had the energy to sort out the ethical conundrum of Kimberly’s request. He’d made a promise, and besides that, the law said he couldn’t give her the answers she wanted.

“Isn’t there some other way to find out the information that you need? I mean, this is the age of genetic testing, where they can do anything in the lab. What could her family history tell you that the tests can’t?”

“That’s just it—that genetic testing.” Kimberly scooched up to the edge of the chair, eager to plead her case. “This bleeding disorder is a mystery. It’s so rare, Daniel. The doctors don’t know for sure what it is. They’ve run almost every test there is out there, and there’s...well, nothing. Apart from one other test—one level of her blood. It’s called a PAI-1 test—”

“Pie? Like an apple pie?” He couldn’t stop the chuckle that sprang to his lips. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh—”

She grinned back at him, and Daniel realized how much sunshine her smile brought into the room. It was a beautiful smile.

“No, I said the exact same thing when I first heard it. It stands for plasminogen activator inhibitor—P-A-I. It’s a... Well, okay—” Now Kimberly stood, too, her body restless as she began to pace in front of his desk. “Your blood is like a jigsaw puzzle. It’s got lots of different pieces that have to fall into place if it’s going to clot—and stay clotted. If one of those pieces is missing or doesn’t work right, well...”

“And Marissa is missing this PAI-1?”

“They don’t know. Her hem/onc says the test isn’t conclusive, but it’s his best guess. The only way that they can conclusively diagnose it is through a DNA test or through a family history.”

“So you can do a DNA test, then.” A huge wave of relief swept over Daniel. He had an out.

“Oh, we could.” Kimberly’s mouth twisted. “But the only labs that can do the DNA testing are in Europe...and our insurance won’t cover it. I’ve begged them...and they refuse.”

The relief turned sour in his stomach. “That’s...that’s too bad.”

“Besides that, her doctors say that inherited bleeding disorders are variable. Some are severe, some not so much. But if there’s a family history...well, you can predict the course of it better. You know, like how she’d respond to surgery or trauma. I— Her doctors don’t know.”

She was fighting like all get-out not to cry, and he was impressed by that. Her grief and worry skewered Daniel, much as his mother’s had in the days following his father’s injury and death. And he understood then how Kimberly had known to worry about that car accident on the interstate. She’d imagined the worst a thousand times already.

But he’d given away his promise. And it had been for a very good reason, or at least he’d thought so at the time.

He walked around the desk and let himself be bold enough to give her the briefest touch on her upper arm. The contact felt more intimate than he’d meant it to, maybe because the warm silkiness of her skin tempted his fingertips to linger.

But she didn’t protest. She stared up at him, her lips parted in an unspoken plea.

“I am sorry,” Daniel told her. “I can’t.”

Kimberly whirled away from him and was halfway to the door before she accused over her shoulder, “You mean, you won’t.”

With that, she yanked open the door, intent on leaving.

Then she paused. Took a deep breath that he could see move through her slim body. Stared at him with those pleading eyes again.

“We’re staying at the La Quinta near the interstate. Room 209. If you change your mind.”

Then she was out the door and across the firehouse to retrieve Marissa.

Marissa, the baby he’d already said goodbye to once before.

Daniel collapsed into the office chair in front of his desk and picked up the photo of him and Marissa. In his mind’s eye, he could see the bruises flowering against her pale baby skin, and he knew those memories gave credence to what Kimberly had told him.

With fingers that shook ever so slightly, he slid the photo out of the frame and watched as a slip of paper fluttered onto his lap.

The handwriting in the ballpoint ink was shaky, but still held a sixteen-year-old’s flourishes, the hearts over the i’s, the loopy M.

Miriam Graber—born on September 19, 1986.

She’d added a phone number and an address, but Daniel had discovered that both were bogus when he’d called to check on her. So maybe the birth date was, too.

Still.

A quick online search would probably turn up a short list of possible Miriams. And if she’d gone back to her family—who’d been bent on returning to the Indiana Amish community where they’d come from—it couldn’t be that hard to find her. There had to be some roll or register or paperwork somewhere. Census records, maybe? And now that she was an adult, maybe even voter registration lists?

He could do it.

Daniel stared from the paper to his computer. Considered.

Then he folded the paper and put it back behind the photo and the photo back in the frame.

Because there was nothing that said he had to do it right now.

CHAPTER FIVE

KIMBERLY’S HEAD ACHED as the hotel room’s television blared out canned laughter from cartoon reruns that Marissa had watched a thousand times before. Yeah, it would be great if our problems could be solved in a half hour minus commercials.