The Troublesome Angel

“Oh, sure. Hang this on me.” Judy bent, patted the eager dogs to stall for time, then straightened with a sigh. “Tell you what. Why don’t we all go over to the van and let you see for yourself?”

Stacy was getting exasperated. “Look, is there a little girl lost in the woods, or not?”

“Oh, there is, all right,” Angela grumbled.

“Then what are we standing around talking for? Every minute counts.” Stacy slung her pack over one shoulder. “Give me a hand with the dogs’ crates, will you?”

The other two women were already lifting the cages by themselves. “We’ll get these,” Judy insisted. “You go on ahead.”

“Okay. Just hurry up.” Leading the way to the van, Stacy had no trouble attributing most of her old friends’ obvious nervousness to the distressing situation of having a helpless child lost from their campground. Thank goodness the local authorities had had the good sense to call in a team of search dogs before the situation deteriorated.

She was barely twenty feet from the beige van when its sliding side door opened and a tall man stepped out. A baseball cap and sunglasses shaded most of his face. The rest of him was dressed far too formally for a trek in the woods, let alone camping. His suit was neatly pressed, his shoes obviously expensive. Something about his bearing reminded her of someone. Who?

The man raised his head. Dark glasses still masked his eyes, and yet… That strong chin! That arrogant mouth! That cynical expression!

Stacy’s breath caught. Her stomach knotted. Her eyes widened. Graydon Payne, of all people! No wonder Angela and Judy hadn’t wanted to tell her!

“Oh, dear God,” she whispered. “What have I done to deserve this?”

Sensing her sudden apprehension, Lewis bristled and growled at the man. Clark, however, seemed oblivious to anything but the exciting chance to meet a new person.

Stacy expertly controlled both dogs as she approached.

The imposing man frowned. “What are you doing here?”

“I’ll be coordinating the search efforts for a missing little girl.” She squared her shoulders proudly beneath her insulated jacket. “It’s what I do now.”

“For a living?” He sounded incredulous.

“Part-time, yes,” Stacy said. “I suppose that surprises you, doesn’t it?”

“It floors me.”

“Good.” She dropped her pack at his feet. “Stow that carefully, then help Judy and Angela load the dog crates in the back, will you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Stacy couldn’t help smiling. It had been years since pompous, arrogant Graydon Payne had done his best to ruin her life. She’d thought she’d never see him again. Now, here he was, apparently in need of her services, and it was a joy to be able to turn the tables and order him around for a change.

She pointed to the wire cages. “Those fold up. Lay them flat behind the back seat and let’s get going. We don’t want to waste precious time.”

That statement seemed to jar him into action. He strode to the rear of the van and helped Judy and Angela with the cages. Stacking them as Stacy had instructed, he slammed the rear doors and quickly followed the others around to the front of the vehicle.

To his chagrin, Stacy and her rescue dogs had climbed in ahead of him and were taking up most of the available bench seat in the center. The campground owners had already hopped into the two front bucket seats, leaving Graydon no choice but to sit by the panting canines. And Stacy Lucas.

Enjoying his obvious discomfiture, Stacy didn’t try to control Clark’s exuberance as much as she might have under other circumstances. The golden retriever-lab crossbreed wiggled happily at Graydon’s feet for a few seconds, then rose up and plopped his big paws into the man’s lap as he lunged to lick his face.

Graydon’s candid, “Oof!” almost made Stacy giggle. She knew this mission was a serious one—they all were—but humor often relieved the terrible tension associated with looking for missing people. And if ever there was a good reason to laugh in the midst of a potentially perilous situation, this had to be it. Pretentious Graydon Payne, the man who had once told her to leave his brother, Mark, alone because her kind didn’t belong in their elevated social circles, was getting his face thoroughly licked by a dog!

“I think he likes you,” Stacy wisecracked. “Although I can’t for the life of me see why. I thought he was smarter than that.”

“Very funny. I wish he wasn’t quite so affectionate. Call him off, will you?”

“Oh, okay. Clark. Down.” The dog obeyed immediately.

“Thanks.” Graydon dusted off his hands, then brushed at his dark slacks. “He’s shedding.”

“Probably. You’ll be glad to hear we haven’t been crashing through any patches of poison ivy lately, though.”

“Oh, good.” His tone was cynical.

Stacy got down to business. “So, the missing child is your niece?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“That sounds like typical Payne reasoning. Is she, or isn’t she?”

“She will be. She’s being adopted into the family.”

It took Stacy only an instant to remember that Graydon’s sister, Rosalie, already had children. Which probably meant the missing little girl was to be Mark’s new daughter. Therefore, Mark must have married. That assumption lay like a stone on her heart…until she thought about what had happened and clearly saw the Lord’s hand in shaping her life.

Graydon watched her, assessing her reactions. It was hard to believe this was the same Stacy Lucas he’d once known. That girl had been an under-achiever. All she’d had on her mind was marrying his brother and gaining the security that came with the Payne money and their good name. He’d have sworn there wasn’t an altruistic bone in her body. And now look at her.

He cast her a sidelong glance. In many ways she was the same, with long, golden-brown hair and eyes the color of a summer sky. But her attitude and bearing were totally different from what he remembered. She’d been shy and unassuming when Mark had brought her home to meet the family. This Stacy Lucas was self-assured, poised and evidently well thought of in her profession. He just hoped she didn’t hold a grudge when it came to doing what she and her dogs were trained for.

“Listen, Stacy, I’m sorry if…”

She waved her hand to dismiss his unfinished sentence, turned away and stared out the window. “There’s no need to apologize, Mr. Payne. You and I have had our differences but that’s all in the past. Actually, Mark did me a favor.”

“He did?”

“Yes. If we’d married back then, as I’d hoped, I might never have followed my heart and become involved with search and rescue. I’ve wanted to do this job ever since I was a kid. In a roundabout way, I guess you could say I owe you and your family for my rewarding career.”

Closing her eyes for an instant she had a fleeting flashback to the plane crash that had made her an orphan when she was barely ten years old.

Unconsciously, she rubbed the top of her thigh through her jeans. Nowadays, hardly anyone noticed the slight limp which was her only tangible tie to that awful night. In her memory, however, fragments of the incident replayed almost daily, especially when she was on assignment.

She felt a familiar nudge at her knee. Lewis laid his furry chin in her lap, begging her to scratch his ears. Not to be outdone, long-haired, golden Clark wiggled in between her and Graydon, trying his best to displace his comrade.

Stacy smiled down at them. “You boys are ready to work, aren’t you?” Lewis stared up at her as if understanding every word, his tail thumping against the wall of the van.

Impatient, Clark wasted no more time vying for her attention. Instead, he turned his efforts back to the man seated next to his mistress.

“Oh, no. Not again.” Graydon caught the dog’s front feet in midair and held him off. “Down!” To his surprise, Clark sank back to the floor as he was told. “Well, well. What do you know? Maybe he really does like me.”

Stacy was going to say, “He also likes to steal garbage out of the trash when I’m not looking,” then decided against voicing the thought. There was no use goading her former nemesis. Graydon Payne might live up to his name and be a real pain, but he was still a member of the public she’d sworn to serve. What was past was past. The important thing was the missing little girl, she reminded herself, again. All else was trivial.

Even the old scars on her broken heart.