Her Only Hero (19 page)

But he’d said nothing to indicate that he’d done it for any
other reason. Nothing had changed between them, except that now she owed him
her freedom.

“I—I have to get to the hospital.” Mandy. She had to see Mandy.

North was already striding toward his car. “I’ll meet you
downtown, Flanagan.”

Ryan squeezed her arm. “Sorry, but I have to go. The paramedics
will take you to the hospital, and I’ll stop by as soon as I can. All right?”

“You don’t have to.” She managed to smile. “Thank you, Ryan. For
everything.”

He nodded, already turning to go after North. He had his job to
do, and she couldn’t delay him. And she also couldn’t let him see that she
wanted anything more from him.

She certainly looked as if she’d been dragged through a knothole
backwards. Laura frowned at her reflection in the small mirror of the hospital
bathroom. Circles under her eyes, a bruise on her temple, her hair a tangled
mop—she’d had a rough night, and it showed.

She dragged a brush through her hair, trying to tame it. It
didn’t really matter how she looked. She wasn’t going to be seeing anyone but
Mandy, who didn’t care as long as she was here.

Mandy had awakened happy this morning, apparently not bothered
by the bruising and swelling on the side of her face that made Laura cringe in
sympathy. If Mandy wasn’t bothered by it, she couldn’t show her reaction.

Deciding she wasn’t going to look any better without a night’s
sleep, she went back into Mandy’s room. Mandy looked up from the silent
conversation she was apparently having with her old teddy, the stuffed puppy
Nolie had brought, and the firefighter bear. She had lined them up against the
bed’s railing.

“Do you want anything else from your breakfast tray?” Laura
signed.

Mandy wrinkled up her nose and shook her head. Laura found
herself smiling.

“I don’t blame you. When we go home later, you can have whatever
you feel like eating.”

She glanced at her watch. Dr. Phillips had said he’d stop by
later this morning, and if everything looked good, Mandy could go home.

Home. She didn’t want to think about the mess on the third
floor. How was she going to explain that? Maybe she ought to try and call Ms.
Jamison and put her off.

I need some guidance, Father. It’s my first
day back to relying on You, and already I need help. Please show me how to
handle this situation.

No immediate answer popped into her mind, but it didn’t need to.
The sense of peace she felt about it was enough to go on with.

Ryan hadn’t come by, and she hadn’t heard anything from him.
That was all right, wasn’t it? She’d made her peace with that, too.

Ryan wasn’t ready for a family yet. He’d made his feelings
clear. Someday he would be. She didn’t doubt that even if he did.

But not yet. Not her and Mandy.

It’s all right. Loving him has helped bring me
back to You. I can’t ask for more than that. I can’t ask for something Ryan
isn’t willing to give.

The door swished, and Ryan walked in. Her heart gave a leap at
the sight of him. She’d have to find a way of bringing that under control.

“Good morning.” She studied his face. “You look almost as bad as
I do. Didn’t you get any sleep at all?”

He grinned. “Not so you could notice.” He bent to kiss the top
of Mandy’s head. “Mandy’s got her own black circles. We make quite a trio,
don’t we?”

Mandy smiled up at him, and Laura’s heart gave another little
jump. He was so good for Mandy. She’d blossomed since he’d come into their
lives. If only—

No. I won’t pick that up again, Father. I’ll
be content with whatever You have for us.

“Were you at headquarters all night?”

“Most of it.” He shrugged, pulling a chair up and collapsing
into it. “Then I went and had a little talk with your defaulting contractor.”

“You did?” She hadn’t given the man a thought since the previous
night. “Why?”

“It occurred to me that Potter might have been behind his reluctance
to do the job, along with some of the other troubles you had with people like
the plasterers. So I thought it was worth a little talk.”

She still couldn’t quite get her mind around the fact of
Potter’s guilt. “Did the contractor admit it?”

“No, he wouldn’t go that far. But oddly enough, the news that
Bradley Potter was in jail completely changed his work schedule. His crew is at
your place right now. By the time you get home, the third floor will look as
good as new.”

“That’s wonderful.” It was yet another thing she could hardly
believe. And yet another thing she owed to Ryan. “Thank you. You’ve done so
much for us that thanks don’t seem enough.”

His eyebrows lifted. “You’re not mad at me for interfering?”

“No.” The woman who’d used her independence as a weapon to keep
people away was gone for good. “I’m just grateful. Not only did you rescue me,
but you solved one of my biggest problems.”

Ryan actually flushed. “It’s nothing,” he mumbled. “Anyway,
that’s not really why I came. I wanted to talk to you—”

“About the case, I suppose. How on earth did you get on to
Potter, anyway?”

He blinked, as if he’d missed a step. “Oh, that. It sort of fell
into our laps.”

“That’s not what North said. He said I owed it all to you.”

“Actually to my stubbornness, I think he said. Funny, he was
ready to fire me for that, but now I’m the golden boy of the arson squad.”

She caught the message under his joking tone. “You risked your
job to prove I didn’t do it?”

He shrugged, as if embarrassed to admit it. “Well, I knew you
hadn’t done it. North wouldn’t accept my instinct as proof, so I went back over
the whole thing again. I think he wasn’t really satisfied either, partly
because of those anonymous calls we kept getting, as if someone was trying to
lead us right to you.”

Maybe it was better not to look too closely into Ryan’s motives
for risking his job. She didn’t want to start hoping again.

“But how did you find out Potter was the one?”

He leaned back in the black vinyl chair. “I decided to interview
the neighbors all over again, hoping someone had seen something. Nobody had,
but someone did mention their landlord. Bradley Potter. And I remembered seeing
him coming out of the building next to yours.”

She remembered that day, too. “That surely wasn’t enough to make
you suspicious of him.”

“It wasn’t really what you’d call a suspicion—just an annoying
little something that I wanted explained. When we looked, we found out he’d
bought or had an option to buy all the buildings on that half block. Except
yours.” He shrugged. “Once we knew that, it wasn’t hard to find out the rest.”

“I still don’t understand why he’d risk going to jail.” A
shudder went down her spine at the thought that it might have been her, if not
for Ryan.

“Money. He wanted back what his father had lost, and he didn’t
care what he did to get it. He’d invested everything he had in this project,
and without your property, he risked losing it all.”

“He told you that?”

“No, he’s still saying nothing without his lawyer. But I know.”
He moved restlessly in the chair. “I know what a guy will do to live up to his
father’s dreams.”

“You found your own dream,” she said quietly.

He shrugged. “Anyway, that wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you
about. I—”

The door swung open again. This time it was Siobhan and Brendan.
Ryan glared at them.

“What are you doing here this early? I thought you were going to
wait until later.”

“Change in plans,” Brendan said, his smile breaking through.
“Nolie’s in labor.”

“She is?” Laura’s heart leaped. “Is everything all right?”

“Just fine.” Siobhan was reassuring. She hugged Mandy and handed
her a glossy new book. “It’ll be awhile, so we decided to come up and see how
Mandy is doing.”

“Mandy’s doing fine.” Ryan looked harassed. “I’m trying to talk
to Laura, and I could do with a little less company.”

Brendan pulled the door open, but he didn’t go out. “I noticed
the lounge is empty. You can go in there. We’ll stay with Mandy.”

“I don’t—” Laura began.

Ryan interrupted her unceremoniously. He grabbed her hand and
pulled her out of the chair.

“Come on.” He tugged her toward the door. “Let’s get out of here
before any more of them show up.”

Her heart was beating somewhere up in her throat as he pulled
her across the hall and into the lounge. He shut the door firmly.

“I feel as if I should bar the door. Anything to get through
this without being interrupted.”

“Through what?” She managed to get the words out, but she
couldn’t kid herself that she sounded normal.

He crossed the space between them and took both her hands in
his. The warmth of his touch robbed her of whatever breath she had left.

“I have to tell you this.” His voice roughened and deepened on
the words. “I saw pain in your eyes when you looked at me yesterday. It made me
realize nothing was worth that—certainly not my job. It pushed me to do
something I didn’t think I had in me to do.”

She couldn’t have spoken if her life depended on it. She could
only look at him, knowing he must be able to read her love for him.

“Thanks to you, I found out I didn’t have to rely on sheer
recklessness to rescue someone.” He reached up to brush a strand of hair back
from her face, and his fingers trembled against her skin. “When you called last
night—when I saw you trapped and alone—” His voice broke.

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. Seeing him let down all
his defenses was enough to rip her heart open.

“Laura, I love you. I think I’ve loved you since the moment you
came back into my life. I’m ready to stop running. I’ve found all I want in you
and Mandy. Please tell me it’s not too late.”

She waited for all her doubts and her defensiveness to surface,
keeping her from happiness. It didn’t happen. She was free of them. Being right
with God had made everything else in her life line up as well.

She reached up to stroke his cheek, loving the tenderness that
shone in his eyes. “I was trapped by more than that beam until you came. Now—”
The joy seemed to bubble up inside her. “Now I’m ready to share my life. I love
you, Ryan Flanagan. Don’t you dare walk out of my life again.”

The joy dawned on Ryan’s face. He drew her against him, his arms
folding her close. “Never,” he breathed against her hair. “Never.”

M
andy sat on
the high table in Dr. Phillips’s office. Laura stood next to her, trying to
keep any hint of apprehension from her face as they waited for the doctor to
activate Mandy’s implant. Ryan’s hand pressed down on her shoulder, reassuring
her, and she turned her head to smile at him.

The past month had gone by so swiftly it was hard to believe
that so much in their lives had changed. Thanks to the quick work Ryan had
ensured from the contractor, the building had been ready to show. The buyer had
loved it and they’d closed quickly, enabling her to pay off the implant and
have money left for a new start.

It was a start they’d made right here in Suffolk. Ryan would
never want to move away from his family, and now that they were becoming her
family and Mandy’s family, she wouldn’t part with them either.

Mandy touched her hand. I love you, Mommy.

“I love you, too, Mandy. I loved you before you were born, and I
will always love you, whether you can hear or not.” The words had become a
ritual between them as they’d waited out the results of the implant.

“What about me?” Ryan signed. “You love me, don’t you?”

Mandy’s face crinkled in a smile. I love you, too. And baby
Siobhan, and Grammy, and Grandpa, and my cousins and my puppy.

“At least I’m at the head of that list,” he said, and dropped a
kiss on her head.

Dr. Phillips stopped tinkering with the receiver. “I think we’re
ready,” he said. “Let’s give it a try.” He switched it on and nodded at Laura.

“Mandy,” she said, hardly daring to breathe.

Mandy’s head jerked up instantly, her eyes wide with shock. Then
a smile blossomed on her face, and she nodded.

Ryan’s arms went around her, and his cheek was wet as he pressed
it against hers. “She can hear. Our little girl can hear.”

Thank You, Father.
Her heart
seemed to overflow with joy.
Thank You.

*****

has written
everything from Sunday school curriculum to travel articles to magazine stories
in twenty years of writing, but she feels she’s found her home in the stories
she writes for Love Inspired.

Marta lives
in rural Pennsylvania, but she and her husband spend part of each year at their
second home in South Carolina. When she’s not writing, she’s probably visiting
her children and her beautiful grandchildren, traveling or relaxing with a good
book.

Marta loves
hearing from readers and she’ll write back with a signed bookplate or bookmark.
Write to her c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY
10279, e-mail her at [email protected] or visit her on the Web at
www.martaperry.com.

ISBN: 978-1-4592-0353-2

HER ONLY HERO

Copyright © 2005 by Martha Johnson

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