His Healing Touch by Loree Lough Read Free Book Online

television show a time or two and had enjoyed it, but he hadn’t made a career choice because of it. He hadn’t gone the route of most students interested in medicine, who, after interning in pediatrics or obstetrics or geriatrics, changed their specialty until they found one that “fit.” Adam had known almost from the morning after that life-changing night which field he’d choose.
    But how could he explain that to Kasey?
    Just then, the oven timer began chiming.
    “Oh, my,” Kasey said, dashing into the kitchen to turn it off. “I must have pushed the wrong button when I was looking for the overhead light.”
    Saved by the bell, Adam thought. With any luck, when Kasey came back to her perch on the couch, she wouldn’t pick up where she’d left off.
    “I wish there was some way to call home. They’ll be so worried.”
    “They?”
    Nodding, she snuggled back into her corner of the sofa. “My mom and Aleesha. Who knows what they’re thinking, what with this storm and all. And it’s the night before Halloween.”
    The night before Halloween. Fifteen years ago tonight, Adam, Luke, Wade and Travis were huddled in Buddy’s basement, making plans for “the great prank,” each agreeing to bring one element vital to its success….
    “Well, you know how it is in Maryland,” he said. “Chances are fair to middlin’ it isn’t even raining in Ellicott City.”
    His words seemed to reassure her, for she sent him a small smile.
    “True. Still, I’ve never been gone this long without telling them where I was. They’re probably thinking something terrible happened to me.”
    “And maybe because they know you so well, they’re thinking you’re a feet-on-the-ground kind of gal who’s riding out the storm in a safe place.”
    “You’re very sweet to say that.”
    The warmth of her gaze lit a fire in his soul, and as much as he wanted to warm himself by it, it was a blaze Adam knew he had to tamp, immediately.
    “So who’s this Aleesha person you mentioned?”
    “She’s seventeen now, but I met her three years ago, when I volunteered for the Big Sister program in Baltimore. Her parents died in a house fire at just about the same time my dad was killed. She’d been bounced from foster family to foster family ever since. Poor little thing doesn’t even remember her folks, she was so small when she lost them.”
    Kasey hadn’t said her father died, he noticed; she’d said he’d been killed. All the more reason not to stoke what he was beginning to feel for her, because sooner or later, she’d find out he was one of the killers.
    “Aleesha and I hit it off, right from the get-go,” Kasey continued. “She’s the most wonderful, loving girl. She has some problems but we’re working around them.”
    “Problems? What kind of problems?”
    “Learning disabilities, for starters. Plus, she’s very myopic, and wears braces on her legs. I adopted her just over a year ago.”
    “Legally?”
    She gave one nod. “Legally.”
    So the girl who’d grown up without a dad had learned enough about loving, about giving, to share her life—her self —with a needy child. “You’re something else, Kasey Delaney. Something else.”
    She blushed, waved his compliment away. “Seemed the least I could do. I mean, God has been pretty good to me.”
    God? Adam failed to see what God had to do with whoand what Kasey had become. Seemed to him she was self-made, that she’d fought adversities of all kinds, and won—and Adam said so.
    “No.” She said it emphatically, in a no-nonsense voice. “I am what I am, if you’ll pardon the Popeye quote, because God saw fit to give me my own little miracle.”
    What kind of nonsense was she spouting? She’d seemed perfectly rational and reasonable, until that “miracle” business came out of her mouth. It was ridiculous enough to be laughable. “A miracle, huh?” he asked, hoping the sarcasm he felt didn’t show in his voice.
    “Yup. In the form of a generous,