Searching for Cate

“Problem?”

Cate recognized the raspy voice behind her immediately, even before she turned around. It belonged to Dr. Edgar Moore.

Doc Ed.

Tall, with a full head of thick silver hair that added to the impression of a lion patrolling his terrain, Doc Ed had been her family’s primary physician long before the term had taken on its present meaning. It was Doc Ed who had held her and comforted her when she’d found out about her father’s death. And it was Doc Ed who had called her at the field office to tell her to come home, that her mother needed her even if Julia Kowalski was too stubborn to get on the phone and place the call herself.

Cate had gotten herself reassigned to the San Francisco field office, where she’d initially started her career. That allowed her to see to her mother’s care. It didn’t help. Her mother’s condition was worsening by the week. By the day. Time was slipping away from her and there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

On the verge of feeling overwhelmed, Cate sighed with relief. Reinforcements had arrived. Doc Ed would put this irritating person in his place.

She refrained from hugging the doctor, even though she felt the urge. Instead, fighting for control over her frayed emotions, banking down the scared feeling growing like an overwatered weed, Cate brushed aside a strand of straight blond hair that had fallen into her face.

“Doc Ed, could you please tell this man that his infallible lab has made a mistake.”

The doctor’s warm gray eyes looked from the annoyed technician to the young woman he’d known since her first bout of colic. “How’s that?”

Cate took a breath and collected herself. She hadn’t realized that her temper was so close to snapping. The restraint she’d always valued so highly was in short supply.

She gestured toward the technician and stopped to read his name tag. “Bob here is telling me that I can’t donate blood to my mother. That our blood types are incompatible.” The laugh that punctuated her statement was short and mirthless. And nervous. “We both know that can’t be true.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, they tasted bitter. Like bile. Instincts honed on the job pushed their way into her private life. Once again whispering that something was wrong. Very, very wrong. That the twisting feeling in her gut was there for a reason. There were no planes flying into buildings, no bullets firing, no cells mutating and turning cancerous, but something was still wrong. She could feel it vibrating throughout her whole body.

Because Doc Ed’s affable face had taken on a look of concern.

Cate suddenly felt like throwing up. Like running down the hall with her hands over her ears so she couldn’t hear anything, anything that would further shake up her already shaken world.

She did neither. But it was all she could do to hang on. She’d spent a good part of her life trying to be tough, trying to live up to Big Ted’s reputation. He’d had no sons and she felt she owed it to him, because in her eyes, he’d been the greatest father to ever walk the earth.

But she wasn’t sure just how much more of life’s sucker punches she could take and still remain standing, remain functioning.

“Can’t be true, right?” Cate heard herself asking quietly. Holding her breath.

Doc Ed sighed. “Cate, maybe it’s time that you and your mother talked.”

Every bone in her body stiffened, braced for an assault. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing up.

“We talk all the time, Doc.” Her voice was hollow to her ear.

Behind her, Bob, the lab technician, took his opportunity to hurry away. She heard the rattle of the vials as he escaped down the hall. But her mind wasn’t on the other man. It was centered on the expression on Doc Ed’s face, which did nothing to give her hope.

She wasn’t going to like whatever it was that she was going to hear. She was willing to bet a year’s salary on it, and she had never been a betting person.

“At least,” she added, “I thought we talked. But I guess I thought wrong.”

Doc Ed made no answer. Instead, he lightly cupped her elbow and guided her back into the room she’d vacated several minutes ago when she’d seen the technician making his rounds. Her mother had been dozing off.

Cate had waylaid the lab tech in the hallway, once again stating her impatience. She wanted to begin donating blood, the first of what she intended to be several pints. Frustration had assaulted her even before he’d opened his mouth to tell her the bad news.

Ever since she’d learned that her mother had leukemia, Cate had felt completely frustrated. There was nothing she could do to change the course of events. When her bone marrow turned out not to be a match, it had just fed her impatience, making her that much more determined to be able to help somehow. She’d immediately taken it upon herself to spearhead a search amid the San Francisco bureau personnel and their families for a donor. So far, there had been none who matched.

More frustration.

And now, this, whatever “this” was.

“Julia.” Doc Ed’s gravelly voice was as soft as Cate had ever heard it as he addressed her mother.

The pale woman in the bed stirred and then turned her head in their direction. The look on Julia Kowalski’s face told Cate that her mother was braced for more bad news. Resigned to it.

Don’t be resigned, Mama. Fight it. Fight it!

Cate found herself blinking back tears as she approached her mother’s bed and took the small, weak hand into hers.

She could almost feel time slipping through her fingers. Her soul ached.

Julia tried to force her lips into a smile as she looked at her daughter. “Yes?” The single word came out in a whisper.

“Cate just found out that her blood doesn’t match yours.” Moving over to the bed, Doc Ed took his patient’s other hand and held it for a long moment. “Julia, it’s time.”

“Time?” Cate echoed. A shaft of panic descended, spearing her. She fought to push it away without success. Her heart hammering, she looked at the man who, over the years, she’d regarded as her surrogate grandfather. “Time for what?”

“Something that you should have been told a long time ago.” His words were addressed to her, but Doc Ed was looking at the woman in the bed as he said them. “I’ll leave the two of you alone now.” Releasing Julia’s hand and placing it gently on top of the blanket, Doc Ed made his way to the door. Pausing to look at them for a moment longer, he added, “I’ll be by later to look in on you, Julia. And Dr. Conner will be by shortly.”

Cate was vaguely aware of the reference to her mother’s oncologist as she watched the door close behind him.

Sealing her in with her mother and whatever secret the woman had kept from her all this time.

Chapter 2

Juanita Graywolf was nursing a cup of the black tar she liked to call coffee when her son, Dr. Christian Graywolf, entered the small house in Arizona where he’d grown up. Hearing the soft creak of the front door, Juanita Graywolf barely stirred in her seat. Instead, she looked at the reflection in the kitchen window directly opposite her. The window faced the garden, and west. Dawn was still making up its mind as to just how large an entrance it was going to make this morning. Darkness remained with its face pressed against the pane, helping to define her son’s image in the glass.

He was such a handsome boy, she thought. He looked like his father. Tom Graywolf had turned out rotten to the core, but he had been a handsome devil, there was no denying that. Christian was twenty-nine years old now, but he was still her boy. And once, he had been her golden child.

Until she had stolen his smile from him. His smile and his soul.

Her face gave away none of her thoughts as she took another sip of coffee. Juanita smiled at the reflection instead of at her second born. “You’re up early this morning, Christian.”

It was Monday morning and she’d risen early to have a little time with him before he returned to Bedford, California, which he and his brother now called home. But Christian’s bed was empty when she’d knocked and looked into the room. And she’d known where he had gone.

“So are you,” Christian Graywolf pointed out.

She sat up straight, like a young girl, he thought. People seeing them together mistook them for siblings, not mother and son. He was proud of her for taking care of herself. Proud of her for never giving up the way so many here did. She had always been the source of strength to him. She and Uncle Henry.

“I have a flight to catch,” he reminded her.

The flight had nothing to do with where she knew her son had been. For a moment longer, Juanita held her peace, even as her mother’s heart ached.

“And I have a schoolhouse full of students to prepare for,” she said. Turning around now to face him, she nodded toward the old-fashioned stove. It was the same one that had occupied that space when she was growing up in this same house. “Coffee’s hot.”