Lonestar Angel Read Online Free PDF Page B

to take her, so she ended up in foster care at age three.”
    “Was she home during the shooting?”
    Rick nodded. “She has nightmares about it, though she says she doesn’t remember. Several psychologists have tried to get details out of her. The murderer was never apprehended.”
    “Where’s her mom?”
    Rick shrugged. “Took off sometime before that and hasn’t been in contact.”
    Clay picked up another paper. “From what I read, India’s entire family was killed in a house fire?”
    Rick winced. “Horrible situation. She was four. A meth lab explosion.”
    Clay’s own plight began to feel less horrible, somehow, knowing the pain that innocent children endured every day. “Lot of heartache in these kids’ lives.”
    “Too much.” Rick leaned over and picked up a picture of Paige.
    Clay’s heart clenched at the somber expression on her face. Her mousy hair hadn’t been washed. Too much misery stared out of those brown eyes. “What’s her story?”
    “No one really knows. She was a year old and found in a Walmart. There was a video that showed two men leaving her in the toy department.”
    “Was she—abused?” It was all he could do to force out the question. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
    Rick shook his head. “No. That was the first worry, but other than being dirty and uncared for, she was healthy.”
    “How did you know her name?”
    “The foster home named her. She’s been with the same couple for four years. In fact, they’ve started adoption procedures. Good family.”
    Which one was Brianna? Clay had no clue. He was drawn to Katie, but how much of that was simple charisma and personality? And the red hair, of course. His daughter could be any one of the girls except for India. He flipped back through the pictures. Why had he thought this would be so easy?
    “Want to meet the other counselors?” Rick asked.
    “Sure.”
    “They’re coming here for devotions. We try to do that with all the kids together. I wanted to make sure you were up to it on your first night.”
    “I can use some of God’s Word myself right about now. It’s been a wild day. But fun.”
    Clay watched Rick step to the door and call across the yard. A few minutes later a couple trooped inside with eight girls. The kids were a little bigger than Clay and Eden’s charges, calmer somehow, and a little warier.
    The couple was in their late thirties. The man looked like a young James Earl Jones, burly and with an expressive face as he smiled and shook hands with Clay. “Glad to have some help here,” the man said. “I’m Zeke, and this is my wife, Della.”
    His wife was beautiful with black hair and dark eyes that held love as she touched the head of a little girl near her. “I caught a glimpse of your pretty wife, Clay. Where is she?”
    “She’s getting the girls ready for bed.” He heard them trooping down the hall. “Here they come.” He drank in the sight of the freshly bathed girls. He was already beginning to think of them as his girls.
    Eden paused in the doorway and smiled. “Hi. You must be the Rodriguez family.”
    “We’re about to have devotions together,” Clay put in.
    The day she left him, she shouted that she wanted nothing to do with a God who would take her baby from her. She said she was a Christian now.
    When her eager smile came, he wanted to know what had happened in the five years they’d spent apart that had brought her to Christ.

    In the shaft of light through the open door, the children were clearly visible. Eden stared at each girl. They slept peacefully, curled together like puppies in the big bed. They’d begged to sleep together, but she doubted they’d stay like that all night. She pulled the door closed, squared her shoulders, and went to find her husband.
    She stopped in the hall and gulped. Clay was still her husband. She hadn’t allowed her thoughts to wander there much since this race to find their daughter had begun. Was it only yesterday at