The Whole Golden World by Kristina Riggle Read Free Book Online Page A

her face was still close to the girl’s. “Sweetie, let’s try to find your mommy. I’ll take you.” She held out her hand and offered the girl a soft smile.
    The girl seemed to relax at this gesture, and she slipped her dimpled hand into Rain’s.
    Rain started to walk toward a distant play structure, thinking that a likely place the girl had wandered from. The toddler scuffed her feet along slowly. She shifted her grasp of Rain’s hand so that her tiny fingers were wrapped around Rain’s pinky.
    Their progress was painfully slow. Rain paused and crouched down again. “Let me pick you up, sweetie, so we can go faster. Can I do that?”
    The girl didn’t reply, but nor did she seem upset by the idea. Rain put her hands under the child’s armpits. She didn’t react or seem alarmed. So Rain stood up and propped the little girl on her hip. She smelled of strawberries and tomato soup.
    A familiar pang registered in Rain’s chest at being this close to a child not her own. She looked down at the girl, those precious bouncy pigtails, and planted an impulsive kiss on the top of her head, the downy curls tickling her lips.
    A shriek shattered the air.
    â€œLet go of her!”
    A woman was running toward them, almost waddling with a preschooler on her hip, the older child bouncing along crazily.
    Rain set the girl down carefully, and the toddler ambled toward her mother, arms up and fingers flexing.
    The mother fell to her knees and dropped the older boy at once, opening her arms for the girl. When her daughter was safely in her arms, she turned on Rain.
    â€œWhat were you doing with her? Where were you taking her!”
    Rain held her hands up, palms out. “I was trying to find you!”
    â€œYou were walking her toward the parking lot.” The woman was half sobbing and had reached her other arm around her son, who looked to be maybe four years old, as if Rain might try to run away with him, too.
    Rain replied, half pleading, “No! The playground! I thought she’d come from the playground! She was by the fountain!”
    â€œDid you follow her there? Were you watching for a child to wander off? I should call the police.” She took out her cell phone and began to dial, but her hands were trembling and she dropped it.
    The girl—who had been placid throughout her walkabout and her brief journey with Rain—began to cling to her mother and wail. The boy popped a thumb in his mouth.
    â€œNo, ma’am, please, I didn’t mean any harm . . .”
    Rain heard the rhythmic pounding of running feet and soon after, panting breath in her ear. Next to her was the jogger who had passed them earlier. “Ma’am?” he said, addressing the mother. “I have to say I watched this young lady with your daughter, and it’s clear she was only trying to help.”
    He jogged in place, keeping his heart rate up.
    The woman plopped down on her rear end and started to sob into her daughter’s neck. “I thought she was gone . . . Joey fell, and I . . . I didn’t know she could unbuckle the stroller . . .”
    The jogger nodded at Rain, one curt dip of the chin, and carried on with his run. She muttered “Thank you,” though he couldn’t have heard.
    Rain approached the woman as one might a wounded animal. “Ma’am? Is there anything you need me to help you with? Carry that diaper bag or anything?”
    The mother dried her face on her daughter’s hair, her hands still locked around her children. “No,” she croaked out. “Sorry. I . . . Sorry. Thank you. Sorry.”
    As Rain walked back down the path to the fountain, she heard the woman still muttering “sorry.”
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    Rain walked back through the door of NYC and cringed when she saw the clock on the store’s rear wall. She was a full fifteen minutes late for her next class. That meant a bunch of angry