Healed by His Secret Baby Read online

  Now that he was gone, the world was a bleak, frightening place.

  If Kiah had had a magic wand, he’d have waved it and been back on St. Eustace. Probably running on the beach, or playing cricket with his friends.

  “It’s Biblical. Hezekiah was a king of Judea. You should know that, Justin. Isn’t your grandpa a pastor?”

  Kiah had been half-aware of the girl in front of him turning in her chair but thought she’d just been staring and giggling like all the others. When he heard her defending his name, he’d looked up and, for the first time, his gaze met Mina’s.

  She was so cute his heart stumbled over itself. Her hair swung around her fine-boned oval face like a curtain of amber, and her wide-set chocolate brown eyes, tilted slightly at the corners, twinkled. Later on, he learned she’d gotten her eye coloring and shape from her Korean mother, while the lighter hair had come from a trip to the beauty salon. Not that her hair was as dark as her mom’s. Mr. Haraldson, her father, was almost white-blond, and in Kiah’s estimation Mina was a perfect combination of her Korean and Scandinavian heritages.

  “That’s enough now, class.” Mrs. Nowac had shushed them, causing Mina to turn back around and face front. Then the teacher started talking about the first lesson of the day.

  “Smart-ass. I’ll deal with you later, Mina Haraldson.” Justin obviously didn’t like being upstaged, and whispered the threat just loud enough for Mina to hear.

  “Just try it,” she replied, without turning around.

  And despite his mother’s firm injunction to keep his head down and not make any trouble, on pain of a thorough thrashing, Kiah turned and gave Justin a scowl.

  “Yeah, Justin.” He made no effort to temper the swing and tempo of his accent the way he’d learned to do since moving to Canada, and the name rolled out like a dirty word. “Just try it.”

  When Mina glanced back at him and grinned, he’d suddenly felt better, as though life just might be worth living after all.

  She hadn’t had to befriend him. She was from a well-respected family and popular in school, not a misfit like he was, yet she’d gone out of her way to make him feel welcome and, after a little while, her friends had accepted him, too.

  His mother hadn’t been pleased about their friendship. Not that there was anything that made his mother happy.

  “You have no business making time with that girl,” she’d said, shaking her finger in his face. “You an’ she no have nothing in common, and if she father find out ’bout you, he not goin’ be happy.”

  “We’re just friends,” he’d protested, knowing how truly upset his mother was, from the way her English deteriorated into St. Eustace patois.

  “Make sure you keep it that way,” she’d said, turning back to the stove and rescuing the ripe plantains frying in the pan before they burned. “We don’t need no trouble ’round here.”

  He knew what she meant, of course. The Haraldsons were rich, like Mrs. Burton, and he was a little black boy from nowhere—son of one of their neighbors’ hired help. Kiah had believed his mother when she said Mr. Haraldson would be angry if he found out but, to his surprise, it had been the complete opposite.

  Without Mina and her family, who’d treated him as though he were one of their own, he’d have been lost, and who knew where he’d have ended up? They’d been there for him during all the worst moments in his life, in a way his mother never had.

  Witnessing his father’s fatal heart attack, barely a month before meeting Mina, had devastated him, left him floundering, unmoored. Mina’s friendship had helped him get through it, just as it had helped him deal with his mother’s increasingly violent rage. And when his sister had died, she was the first person he’d called.

  She was the best friend he’d ever had, and now she needed him to repay all the care she’d given him.

  As Mina’s sobs abated, Kiah leaned forward, holding her with one arm, and snagged the box of tissues off the coffee table. Clearly, this wasn’t the first crying jag she’d had, if the used tissues strewn around were any indication. Pulling out a couple, he thrust them into her hand, noticing for the first time how she’d crossed her left arm over her body and tucked her stump out of sight.

  His heart broke all over again.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, mopping at her face.

  “For what?”

  “For crying all over you, of course,” she replied, burying her face back into his neck. “For being such a soggy mess.”

  He chuckled, as she no doubt meant him to, with the reference to one of the classifications they’d come up with for different types of people they’d met. “Soggy mess” was reserved for the whiny, weepy, complaining type. Not her at all.

  And in his estimation, not what she should be apologizing to him for. She should be sorry for not telling him how deeply she’d sunk into depression, and for not asking for help. He was trying to formulate the right thing to say, but before he could figure it out, she sighed, and from the way she suddenly relaxed, he realized she was falling asleep. Then Mina conked right out, so abruptly he wondered how much rest she’d been getting.

  Sliding down slightly in the couch, he made himself comfortable, cradling her across his lap. Eventually he’d transfer her to her bed, but not yet. If this was what she needed, he had no problem staying exactly where he was.

  Reaching down, he gently took her left arm in his hand and lifted it. Mina didn’t stir as her sleeve dropped down, revealing the site of her transradial amputation. He was surprised that she wasn’t wearing a compression garment—a shrinker—since he’d read about the efficacy of its use for controlling edema, and how important it was for pre-prosthetic fitting.

  There were so many questions he wanted to ask about how she was managing with the loss of her hand. Some of them he’d tried to ask her before, on the phone, and she’d brushed him off, wanting only to talk about her then-ongoing divorce from Warren the Worm. Just thinking about her ex-husband had his temper simmering, but Kiah pushed his antipathy aside. Now wasn’t the time to indulge.

  Just as it wasn’t a good time for the dampness making him blink, as he looked at where Mina’s small but eminently capable hand used to be. The last thing she’d want, or probably needed, was his sympathy.

  She’d always been driven, in control, and fearless. Whatever needed to be done, she’d been there with a plan. Seeing her like this, drifting and seemingly broken, was almost too much to bear.

  Lifting her arm a little higher, he pressed a gentle kiss just above the surgical site and then laid it back across her stomach, making sure not to jostle it. He pulled the sleeve back across to cover the stump.

  “I got you, sweet girl,” he whispered, before also kissing the top of her head. “Kiah’s got you.”

  Copyright © 2020 by Ann McIntosh

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  ISBN: 9781488066511

  Healed by His Secret Baby

  Copyright © 2020 by Louisa Heaton

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places
and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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