Safe in His Arms Read Online Free PDF Page A

he expected her to figure out that he’d been the one to give it to her? Why was he so uncomfortable about it? She’d thought about telling him that she’d been carrying the poem in her purse for months, but she thought it would bother him even more.
    Then he shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
    â€œGet what?”
    â€œHow, after everything you’ve been through, can you possibly still believe?”

Chapter Three
    H ow could I not?
    Lindsay’s words rang in Joe’s ears as he carried her blanket to the car. He could think of a dozen reasons why anyone who’d been through all she’d been through wouldn’t believe in God, and she couldn’t think of any? One would be the preschooler Lindsay was pulling toward the parking lot as she struggled along with her cane.
    Yet, with all that had happened, Lindsay Collins still believed. She even quoted scriptures, when the words had lost impact on him a long time ago. He couldn’t understand her resilient faith. If a loving God existed, wouldn’t Emma still have a mother? Wouldn’t Joe still have his? Wouldn’t his little-boy prayers have had an impact, instead of slamming against the ceiling while his mother wasted away in slow, deadly steps? And he wouldn’t let himself get started on natural tragedies, like Hurricane Katrina, or manmade ones, like 9-11. Those wouldn’t have happened, either, would they?
    â€œI don’t want to go to your house, Aunt Lindsay,” Emma whined as they struggled along. “I want to go to my house.”
    â€œSweetheart, that’s not—” Lindsay stopped herself with a frustrated sigh.
    Joe didn’t have to wonder if her next word would have been “possible.” Lindsay had already told him that Delia Banks’s house had been sold as part of the estate. Emma would have a tough time understanding that she could never go home again.
    â€œI want to go to my house,” Emma hollered this time.
    â€œCome on, Emma. We’re leaving now.”
    Joe wanted to tell Lindsay she was handling the situation all wrong, but he doubted she would appreciate his opinion. Not for the first time this afternoon, he wondered if Brian and Donna Collins were right in questioning their daughter’s ability to raise a child.
    Maybe he should give her a few tips—no. He put a quick stop on the path his thoughts were taking. He’d already fulfilled his promise to tell her about the accident—well, most of it. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her the rest. What possible good purpose would it have served? She already had some serious survivor’s guilt. The last thing she needed was to learn that her pleas for help for her sister first had fallen on deaf ears. It was more likely that he just didn’t want to confess that those deaf ears had been his.
    â€œI don’t want to go,” Emma started again.
    â€œYou’re just tired.”
    The little girl shook her head hard, her ponytails hitting her aunt’s hip with each swing. “I’m not tired. I want to stay. Want to play with Trooper Joe.”
    He couldn’t help but to smile at that, so he turned his head so they wouldn’t see. Wasn’t it just like a kid to forget what she was causing a ruckus about in the first place and to just keep arguing for the point of arguing?
    She tried to pull Emma along again, but the child had gone limp. Lindsay couldn’t pull her without falling.
    â€œThat’s enough, Emma.” Her jaw flexed as she gritted her teeth. “We have to get home, and Trooper Rossetti doesn’t have time to play with us all afternoon.”
    â€œNo!”
    Emma jerked free from her aunt’s hold, making Lindsay struggle to keep her balance. The little girl only made it a few steps toward the playground before Joe caught her around the waist and lifted her from the ground. He wasn’t doing a good job of not getting further