Amazing Grace by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page A

to you at the shelter. You go on with the others.” Janet looked uncertain, but the movement of the crowd heading toward the shelter and her own desire to get there swept her away. Everett figured that whether or not he found her, Melanie would be fine. She was young and resourceful, the members of her band were near at hand, and if she wanted to help the injured in the crowd, that didn't seem like such a bad idea to him. There were a lot of people around them who needed assistance of some kind, more than the paramedics could provide.
    He was taking pictures again when he came across the small redheaded woman he'd seen help the man with the heart attack and then move on. He saw her assist a child, and turn her over to a fireman to try and help her find her mother. Everett took several photographs of the woman, and then dropped his camera again as she moved away from the little girl.
    “Are you a doctor?” he asked with interest. She had seemed very confident in her treatment of the man with the heart attack.
    “No, I'm a nurse,” she said simply, her brilliant blue eyes locking into his briefly, and then she smiled. There was something both funny and touching about her. She had the most magnetic eyes he'd ever seen.
    “That's a good thing to be tonight.” Many people had gotten hurt, not all of them severely. But there were a multitude of cuts and minor injuries, as well as bigger ones, and several people had gone into shock. He knew he'd seen the woman at the benefit, but there was something incongruous about her plain black dress and flat shoes. Her coif had vanished in the aftermath of the quake, and it never occurred to him what she was, other than a nurse. She had an ageless, timeless face, and it would have been difficult to guess her age. He figured her for late thirties, early forties, and in fact she was fortytwo. She stopped to talk to someone as he followed her, and then she paused for a bottle of water herself. They were all feeling the effects of the dust still billowing from the hotel.
    “Are you going to the shelter? They probably need help there too,” he commented. He had thrown his bow tie away by then, and there was blood on his shirt from the cut on his cheek. But she shook her head.
    “I'm going to head out when I've done all I can here. I figure the people in my neighborhood can use some help too.”
    “Where do you live?” he asked with interest, although he didn't know the city well. But there was something about this woman that intrigued him. And maybe there was a story in it somewhere, you never knew. His journalistic instincts came alive just looking at her.
    She smiled at his question. “I live in the Tenderloin, not far from here.” But where she lived was worlds apart from all this. In that neighborhood, a few blocks made a huge difference.
    “That's a pretty rough neighborhood, isn't it?” He was increasingly intrigued. He had heard of the Tenderloin, with its drug addicts, prostitutes, and derelicts.
    “Yes, it is,” she said honestly. But she was happy there.
    “And that's where you live?” He looked startled and confused.
    “Yes.” She smiled at him, her red hair and face streaked with dirt, and the electric blue eyes grinning impishly at him. “I like it there.” He had a sixth sense about a story then, and knew intuitively that she was going to turn out to be one of the heroes of the night. When she went back to the Tenderloin, he wanted to be with her. For sure, there was going to be a story in it for him.
    “My name is Everett. Can I come with you?” he asked her simply, as she hesitated for a minute and then nodded.
    “It might be dicey getting there, because of all the live wires on the street. And they're not going to rush to help people in that neighborhood. All the rescue teams will be here, or in other parts of the city. Just call me Maggie, by the way.”
    It was another hour before they left the scene outside the Ritz. It was nearly three in the morning