Her Unlikely Family Read Online Free PDF

pressed the button on his shoulder radio to call the station and lumbered away.
    Mike stood nearly nose-to-nose with Josie. “Let’s go in the house. Now.”
    Each word was its own sentence. The man meant business.
    Well, she meant business, too. She jabbed at his nose with her forefinger. “Talk to me in that tone of voice and I’ll call the cop back over here.”
    â€œGo right ahead. I’ll throw around the word kidnapping this time.” He tried to peer around Josie. “Lisa, get packed. You’re coming with me right now.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI won’t take no for an answer.”
    â€œThen you’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming. What will the neighbors think about that? Huh?”
    Michael thought his blood pressure might blow out the top of his head. Never in his life had he been this frustrated. There was only one solution.
    He barreled toward the front of the house. “Officer Fredrickson!”
    The man heard him and rolled down his window. “Yes, Mr. Throckmorton?”
    â€œI want to press charges.”
    â€œWhat on earth for?”
    â€œKidnapping, against Josie.”
    â€œKidnapping?”
    â€œOr delinquency against my niece. Whichever will get a runaway sixteen-year-old home the quickest.”
    Â 
    Michael had to hurry each step to keep up with the irate, stomping pace of Lisa.
    â€œI cannot believe you,” she raged in her staccato fury—the same words she’d repeated a dozen times on the way to the police precinct.
    He was beginning to regret his hasty decision. It didn’t look as if it would work in his favor. Especially since Josie had offered herself so the cop wouldn’t haul Lisa in to the station.
    Michael reached around Lisa to open the door to the building, but she grabbed the handle and flung it outward, nearly hitting him in the face.
    â€œI just can not believe you did this to her.”
    As he started to ask a man at the front desk where to find Josie, Lisa squealed her name and ran into an adjoining room.
    The “prisoner” sat perched on the edge of Officer Fredrickson’s desk, her busy foot swinging, while the man laughed at something she’d said.
    She didn’t look too traumatized, yet Lisa threw herself at Josie as if Josie had been abducted and tortured for a month.
    â€œI’m okay, Lisa. We were just talking.”
    â€œYou mean they didn’t, like, lock you up with murderers?”
    â€œYou may be watching a little too much TV, darlin’,” the older officer said in a kind voice. “The first thing we have to do is fill out form after form.”
    Lisa’s eyes teared up. Michael assumed it was from relief. He hadn’t realized having Josie arrested would frighten his niece so much.
    Lisa grabbed the officer’s arm. “Josie didn’t do anything wrong. She never made me stay. She’s been helping me.”
    Lisa turned to Michael. Her anger seemed to have vanished, and her eyes pleaded with him. “I don’t ask for much. But I’m asking now. Tell them to let her go.” She swallowed. “Please.” It came out in a choked whisper.
    How could he refuse?
    â€œWe haven’t filed any paperwork yet,” the officer said.
    Josie patted his niece and gave Michael a mother-bear look. “All you’ve managed to do is scare her to death. You’re not helping yourself a bit.”
    With a wave of his hand, he said, “Fine. I won’t press charges.”
    Instead of rushing into his arms and thanking him, Lisa glared daggers at him, took Josie’s hand, then tugged her back to the entrance as if racing away before he changed his mind.
    â€œJosie’s a good woman,” the cop said. “You can trust her with your niece. Our church has referred a couple of runaways to her. She’s worked wonders.”
    He was coming to the same conclusion himself, but didn’t have to like the fact.