right at the house. No point in walking across the lawn in the dark.”
“You don’t need...” Deidre stopped, staring.
He followed the direction of her gaze, and his nerves went on alert. The front door of her house stood open. That couldn’t be normal.
Deidre grabbed for the door handle, and his hand shot across to arrest the movement.
“Stay here. Call the police. I’ll check it out.” He slid out of the car, not looking back to see if she’d obeyed him. Something was wrong, and there was a defenseless child in that house.
It took him seconds to reach the porch. Deidre was right behind him, and he didn’t waste his breath telling her to stay back. They hit the doorway at the same time, and he grabbed her arm, stopping her from plunging inside.
His gut clenched. A woman lay on the area rug in front of a sofa, blood from a head wound soaking into the fibers. Dixie, he supposed. The child—
Deidre gave an anguished cry that sounded barely human. She yanked free of his restraining hand, running toward the stairway at the back of the room. Then he saw what she had. That small bundle on the bottom step, tangled in a blanket, had to be her son.
* * *
DEIDRE STUMBLED TO her knees next to Kevin, reaching for him. Some rational part of her mind shouted for her to be careful, not to move him suddenly.
She had to hold him—had to know he was breathing. Sliding her arms around him, she managed to cradle him against her. His lips were slightly parted, and a gentle breath moved against her cheek. Relief flooded through her.
Please, God. Please, God, let him be all right...
Deidre’s fingers found a fluttering pulse. But he was pale...so pale that the faint blue shadows under his eyes looked like bruises.
“Kevin, baby, can you hear me?”
Nothing, but she could see the vein pulsing at his temple.
Someone knelt beside her, and she realized it was Jason. “Careful. Don’t move him.”
“No. His head...”
Jason bent over her son, seeming to trace the swelling behind Kevin’s ear with his gaze. “EMTs are on the way. They’ll be here soon. Two ambulances, I told them.”
“Dixie...” She hadn’t been able to take her eyes off Kevin long enough to look. And now, when she tried, Jason’s solid body blocked her view.
“Head injury,” he said briefly. “It looks...bad.”
Deidre’s sluggish wits started to move again at that moment. Kevin must have fallen, but Dixie... How could she have gotten a head injury sitting on the sofa?
“What...what happened to her?” Ridiculous to think that he would know any more than she did.
“Someone hit her. She couldn’t have done that much damage falling.”
Amazing that he could sound so calm. Dixie had been attacked. How could that be true? That meant that someone had come into her house and done this.
Jason had turned, surveying the room. Looking for evidence? Deidre cradled Kevin closer, trying to control the trembling that had seized her. She had to be strong. She had to be there for Kevin. She couldn’t fall apart now. Frank was gone, and she was all Kevin had.
Jason’s hand came down on her shoulder, his firm grip steadying her. “It’ll be all right.”
He didn’t sound as if he believed the words. She didn’t. How could anything be all right again when the unthinkable had happened?
Sirens wailed. Jason stood up. “I’ll go signal them. Hold on.”
Deidre managed to nod. She’d hold on because she had to. She couldn’t lose Kevin.
In what seemed a moment, her small living room was filled with people. They’d obviously called out both of Echo Falls’s paramedic teams. One surrounded Dixie while the other moved swiftly into place around Kevin.
“You’ll need to move back just a little.” It was a female voice. “I’m just going to slide your arms out from under him, okay? You don’t need to worry. Joe has him.”
She must have made some sound as hands pulled her away, because the woman patted her. “Just ease back a bit. You can put your hand on his foot, okay? That way he’ll know you’re still here.”
Her throat was too tight to allow for speech. All she could do was close her fingers around Kev’s bare foot, sticking out of the blanket. The superhero pajamas he’d insisted on wearing were getting too small for him. She should get him a new pair. Clinging to the thought was holding her to normalcy for a moment. She held on to a world in which the biggest threat to a small boy was outgrowing his favorite pj’s.
The paramedics talked to each other in low tones, and then the woman put her arm around Deidre. “We’re going to transport Kevin to the hospital in the ambulance. You can ride with him, okay?”
Deidre nodded, unable to think beyond the moment and the clasp of her hand around Kevin’s foot. Voices murmured in the background, people giving orders, asking questions, making arrangements. All she could do was move when they told her to, watch Kevin being lifted onto a stretcher and maintain a tenuous hold on the feeling that assured her he was still alive.
As they made their way toward the door, someone moved in front of her. A police officer, saying something she couldn’t take in, focused as she was on Kevin. Then Jason was deflecting him, drawing him away.
“I was with Mrs. Morris. I’ll answer your questions.”
Good, because she wasn’t going to stop, wasn’t going to let anything or anyone separate her from her son.
Lights flashed in the dark outside, turning the trees odd colors. Someone helped her into the back of the ambulance. She slid to a position as close to Kevin as she could get, all her attention focused on him, shutting out everything else. The paramedics murmured to each other, but her mind couldn’t seem to sort out the words.
They slid out of the driveway, making the turn toward town and the hospital. The siren wailed, and they sped along. People would be looking out windows, wondering who and what.
Kneeling in the ambulance next to Kevin, Deidre was barely aware of the journey until they came to a smooth stop. She glanced up to see the lights of the emergency room, and then they blurred in a flow of smooth, controlled activity as the doors opened and the ER staff moved to join the paramedics. Kevin was so small—there hardly seemed to be enough space for everyone to work on him.
In seconds they were out on the pavement. As Deidre followed the gurney carrying Kevin inside, another ambulance wailed into the drive behind her. Dixie. She breathed a silent prayer. But Dixie of all people would understand that she had to stay with Kevin.
* * *
HALF AN HOUR LATER, she stood alone in the small room set aside for families waiting for news of their loved ones. With its neutral-toned upholstered furniture and muted landscape prints, it had been designed to convey a balance between hope and comfort. She should know—she’d been on the hospital auxiliary committee that decorated it. A discreet plaque on the wall informed anyone who noticed that the lounge had been given through the generosity of Franklin and Sylvia Morris.
She clenched her hands, trying not to give way to fear, to panic. The door opened, and her breath caught. But it wasn’t one of the doctors. It was Judith Yoder, her neighbor, her friend. Deidre’s control broke, and she stumbled into Judith’s outstretched arms.
“Hush, hush.” Judith patted her as if Deidre were one of her children. “Don’t cry. You must be strong for Kevin. You can be, I know. Let the gut Lord help you.”
Judith’s Amish faith might seem simple to an outsider, but it was bedrock strong and would carry her through anything. It seemed to bolster Deidre’s own