A Holiday Prayer

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Tears streamed from her eyes, though she fought to keep them back. “God, please,” she whispered quietly and ferverently. “Please. Don’t take Nicky, too.”

She didn’t even realize that she spoke aloud until Rory looked back, his brow furrowed. “He won’t,” he ground out through clenched teeth. “He can’t.”

“No?” she yelled, her body quivering with rage. She didn’t care that she was making a scene, that others were staring at the couple racing helter-skelter through the zoo. Fury threatened to overwhelm her, and she focused on the anger. It gave her strength. It was easier to be angry than afraid. “Why not? He took Peter.”

“Maddie, don’t.”

Rory’s voice was laced with pain, as if her words had been directed toward him. She wasn’t angry with him. Rory had distracted her, but only because she let him.

She was mad at herself. And at God.

But most of all at Neil March. It was all his fault that she was alone. Neil March was responsible for everything bad that had happened to her—even Nicky’s disappearance. If Peter was still alive…

But it wasn’t Neil March that she was hurting with her cutting words. It was Rory. Dear, kind Rory, who appeared just as upset by Nicky’s disappearance as she was.

She didn’t know why it should matter to him, why she should matter to him. But somehow she knew that Rory’s affection for her and Nicky was real. Her anger subsided, leaving her shoulders in tight knots and her stomach unnervingly empty.

Rory stopped as they reached the pavilion and pulled her to him, his breath coming in short gasps that clouded in the crisp air.

Suddenly his embraced tightened. “Maddie, look. There!”

Chapter Six (#ulink_f7c15003-79cc-5e28-9e23-10ee25c0cdb5)

A chuckle erupted from Rory’s throat.

Maddie looked to where he pointed, then sagged against him in relief. If he hadn’t been holding her so tightly, she was certain her legs would have folded beneath her.

Nicky was hanging from the guardrail, leaning as far as his gangly body would let him, straining to touch a friendly elephant’s trunk. He was talking animatedly to the beast, and didn’t even seem to notice that he’d left his mother far behind.

He’s growing up, Maddie thought, the realization pinching her heart. But she knew that Nicky would indeed have panicked once he lost interest in the elephants and realized that he was alone.

Just as she and every other child, at some point in their young lives, had done. She remembered the shocking revelation in her own life—that she was nothing more than a tiny dot on the huge map of civilization. And that she was totally and completely alone.

She’d been shopping in a department store with her father, and begging to be able to stop and look at a colorful rack of books. Her father, thinking he’d give his daughter a moment to browse, had stepped two aisles over to look at hand tools—well within earshot, but completely out of Maddie’s sight.

How she’d screamed, her little heart frantic. She’d been completely terrified.

And had felt utterly alone.

It had happened again when Peter died, and then again for this brief period when she thought she’d lost Nicky. Fortunately, she’d found him before he’d suffered any trauma over the incident. In fact, she was relatively positive he didn’t even know there had been an incident.

If only her own heart was so strong.

“Thank God we found him,” Rory said, echoing the silent prayer in her own thoughts.

He marched up to the boy and picked him off the rail by the waist. Nicky yelled and squirmed, but Rory held him tightly until he’d calmed.

“You little scamp!” he chastised gently but firmly. “You gave your mother and me a healthy scare.”

Nicky started to protest, then looked at Maddie. She knew she couldn’t hide her tear-streaked face, and a fresh wave of tears already threatened to engulf her.

“Young man!” she said in her best mother’s voice. “Don’t you ever wander off on me again. Is that understood?”

Nicky’s bottom lip quivered endearingly. Maddie gave him a moment, then opened her arms to him. He dashed to her, and she held him tight, squeezing her eyes tight against the tears. Her dear little man. And he was safe. Thank you, God, she silently prayed. Forgive me for my anger. I know I should have trusted you.

“I’m okay, Mom,” Nicky assured, wiggling out of her embrace. “I got kinda lost, but an old lady helped me find the elephants. She told me to stay here till you got here. And she helped me feed that big guy in the middle!”

Maddie touched his shoulder, reassuring herself once again that he was here. He was safe.

“I think we could all use a nice hot cup of cocoa,” Rory said, lightly embracing both Maddie and her son. “What do you say we head up to the front gate? There’s a restaurant where we can get in out of the cold for a bit.” He ruffled Nicky’s hair. “I think it’s called Elephant something.”

“Cool!” Nicky exclaimed, undaunted by his neartrauma.

Smiling at her son’s enthusiasm, Maddie agreed, and moments later the three of them were settled in a cozy corner booth with steaming mugs of whippedcream-topped cocoa.

Neil stared at Maddie, trying to memorize every line and plane of her delicately beautiful face. He was living a precious dream, just being with her, but he knew the night would soon end.

And though it tore him inside to acknowledge it, there wouldn’t be any more nights with Maddie. There couldn’t be. He was her worst nightmare come to life, worse by far than the Phantom he’d been when he first met her.

If only she knew.

Maddie picked up her mug and toasted. “To happy endings.”

Neil’s breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t speak. Instead, he lifted his own mug and nodded.

She took a tentative sip of the cocoa, then licked at the whipped cream on top, not realizing that a small dollop of cream dotted her nose.

Neil smiled and leaned toward her, wiping off the cream with the tip of his finger. The brief contact was electric. Their eyes met and held.