His Healing Touch

His words seemed to reassure her, for she sent him a small smile.

“True. Still, I’ve never been gone this long without telling them where I was. They’re probably thinking something terrible happened to me.”

“And maybe because they know you so well, they’re thinking you’re a feet-on-the-ground kind of gal who’s riding out the storm in a safe place.”

“You’re very sweet to say that.”

The warmth of her gaze lit a fire in his soul, and as much as he wanted to warm himself by it, it was a blaze Adam knew he had to tamp, immediately.

“So who’s this Aleesha person you mentioned?”

“She’s seventeen now, but I met her three years ago, when I volunteered for the Big Sister program in Baltimore. Her parents died in a house fire at just about the same time my dad was killed. She’d been bounced from foster family to foster family ever since. Poor little thing doesn’t even remember her folks, she was so small when she lost them.”

Kasey hadn’t said her father died, he noticed; she’d said he’d been killed. All the more reason not to stoke what he was beginning to feel for her, because sooner or later, she’d find out he was one of the killers.

“Aleesha and I hit it off, right from the get-go,” Kasey continued. “She’s the most wonderful, loving girl. She has some problems but we’re working around them.”

“Problems? What kind of problems?”

“Learning disabilities, for starters. Plus, she’s very myopic, and wears braces on her legs. I adopted her just over a year ago.”

“Legally?”

She gave one nod. “Legally.”

So the girl who’d grown up without a dad had learned enough about loving, about giving, to share her life—her self—with a needy child. “You’re something else, Kasey Delaney. Something else.”

She blushed, waved his compliment away. “Seemed the least I could do. I mean, God has been pretty good to me.”

God? Adam failed to see what God had to do with who and what Kasey had become. Seemed to him she was self-made, that she’d fought adversities of all kinds, and won—and Adam said so.

“No.” She said it emphatically, in a no-nonsense voice. “I am what I am, if you’ll pardon the Popeye quote, because God saw fit to give me my own little miracle.”

What kind of nonsense was she spouting? She’d seemed perfectly rational and reasonable, until that “miracle” business came out of her mouth. It was ridiculous enough to be laughable. “A miracle, huh?” he asked, hoping the sarcasm he felt didn’t show in his voice.

“Yup. In the form of a generous, anonymous benefactor.”

Adam’s heart beat harder. A generous, anonymous benefactor. So she did know about him! But how? He’d been so careful about his deliveries.

“For fifteen years now, once a month, someone has been leaving money in our mailbox.” She held up her hands. “I know, I know, it sounds like something out of a Dickens novel, but it’s true! He started small, just a few dollars at first, and worked his way up. Last envelope contained over a thousand dollars. Cash.”

Adam swallowed, hard.

“I have a pretty good idea who he is, too.”

He held his breath, grateful for the semidarkness that hid his blush. “But how…how do you know it’s a ‘he’?”

She grinned and tapped a fingertip to her temple. “Two and two, Dr. Thorne, usually equals four.”

“I—I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Well, we have this neighbor, see, and after Dad died, he began looking in on us. A lot. Never had two words to say to us before that night—unless you count boyhood pranks—and then suddenly, the day after Dad was killed, he came over to ask if Mom and I needed anything. Day after that, we found an envelope with ten dollars in it stuffed into the mailbox.

“A month or so later, he cut our grass—using his lawn mower and gas!—and we got fifteen bucks in the next envelope. Another time, he trimmed the hedges, and, yep, a couple days later, there was a twenty-dollar bill in the mailbox.”

“That was…nice of him.”

“Not was,” she corrected. “He’s still doing it!” Kasey laughed softly. “Not the chores, of course. He’s a big important businessman now, far too busy for that kind of stuff. But he’s still leaving envelopes full of money every month.”

Adam cleared his throat. “Very…uh, very generous man.”

“I’ll say. If it hadn’t been for him, I would never have been able to afford to go to college. When Mom was able, she’d take in ironing, decorate cakes, things that didn’t tax her delicate system too terribly….”

There was no mistaking the sarcasm in her voice. Kasey didn’t believe for a minute that her mother had a physical condition that prevented her from working. And yet, she’d taken care of the woman all these years. He had to wonder why a girl who’d suspect her own mother’s intentions had such complete faith in the do-gooder from across the street.

“I always managed to find steady work, and pretty much kept the wolf from the door, as they say. But college?” She shook her head. “No way that would have been possible without him.”

It gave Adam a good feeling, knowing his monthly contributions to the Delaney household had served the intended purpose: to make life easier for Kasey and her mom. Suddenly, it didn’t matter who got the credit.

“I say a little prayer for him, every morning. Say another one every night, before I turn in.”

Did she have any idea what she was doing to him, sitting there, pretty as a picture, telling him things like she’d been praying for his miserable soul? Looking into her innocent, trusting eyes, it made him ashamed. So ashamed that he would’ve stood up and walked right out of the room…if there had been anywhere else to go.

“I just wish I knew for sure that it was the man across the street.”

He leaned forward, drawn closer by the sincerity of her tone. “Why?”

Her eyes misted with tears and yet she smiled. “Because I’d like to tell him that, much as we appreciated everything he did for us, we don’t need his help anymore, that we’re doing fine on our own, thanks to him.”

“And this man across the street…what makes you think it might not be him?”

She shrugged one shoulder, wiped the tears from her eyes. “Well, he must know that I’ve guessed what he’s been up to all this time, and yet he seems to think it’ll buy him certain—” she frowned “—favors.” Kasey shrugged. “That just doesn’t quite jibe with the kind of man who’d leave regular payments.”

“What kind of favors?”

“Oh, nothing, really. Drops in last-minute for meals. Stops by unannounced with laundry, mending. Things like that.” She frowned and a huge sigh whispered from her. “He has enough money to buy and sell Mom and me ten times over. And his lifestyle, well, that’s another story altogether!”

“His lifestyle?”

“It’s…well, let’s just say it doesn’t fit the profile of—”

“—a generous benefactor,” they said together.

After a moment of friendly laughter, Kasey said, “I’ll bet you’ve heard of him. Buddy Mauvais?”

A punch to the gut couldn’t have knocked the wind out of him more effectively. Yeah, he’d heard of Buddy Mauvais, all right. Anybody who hadn’t been living in a cave these past ten years knew Buddy…as a two-bit con man. But Adam had a whole different reason to know the name that had appeared in countless newspapers, and been mentioned on local TV news stations every time a crooked stock deal or a get-rich-quick scheme scammed some poor fool. Somehow, Buddy always managed to slither through one legal loophole after another. Not that it surprised Adam; Buddy had been lying and conniving his way out of trouble since he was a boy.

Why hadn’t Adam made the connection earlier? He’d known all along that Buddy lived across the street from the Delaneys. That’s one reason he’d been so careful when dropping envelopes in their mailbox; he wouldn’t have put it past good old Buddy to steal the money, if he’d seen Adam delivering it!