Free Return by Karen Kingsbury Page A

him for interfering.
    Steadying himself, John left the rest room and went to Lori’s room. Hers was the bed nearest the door. John had never met the girl, because Luke wouldn’t hear of it.
    “Is she afraid of us, Son?” John had asked Luke the last time they were together—sometime back in January. “You’ve always brought your friends home for us to meet.”
    “Not this time, Dad.” Luke’s jaded laugh raked John’s nerves. “You’ll have her listening to your God talk in five minutes flat.”
    “That’s not fair, Son. At least give us a chance.”
    But Luke was adamant. “I won’t have you meet Lori until you accept both of us for who we are.”
    John took quiet steps closer to the bed and studied the girl. A friend of the Baxter family was a professor at Indiana University, and last semester he’d had Lori in his class.
    “She’s a fighter, John. An always-angry, cause-bearing campus activist.” The man raised an eyebrow. “She’s the last person on earth I’d picture Luke dating. And vice versa.”
    John studied the monitors and then shifted his gaze back to Lori. She looked nothing like a fiery activist now. Her face was smooth and unlined, her eyes as peaceful and long-lashed as a twelve-year-old’s. Somehow he’d pictured her taller, more like Reagan. But the young woman lying in the bed was barely five feet tall.
    As John watched her, he realized something. This frail patient had become the enemy in his mind, the woman who wooed Luke away from everything he’d believed in, the one who convinced him to drop his moral convictions and move in with her, taking up causes and joining clubs he would’ve laughed at a year ago.
    But the girl lying here was hardly the enemy. She’d merely bought into a pack of the enemy’s lies, traded old-fashioned common sense for an answer that was really no answer at all. She was as much a victim of her own bad choices as Luke. And now…if she recovered from the abortion, she’d have a whole new set of lies to deal with.
    John thought back to Lori’s chart. Her temperature had spiked as high as 105 in the past hour, and it hadn’t come close to breaking. The doctor on duty had her hooked up to fluids, painkillers, and big-gun, broad-spectrum antibiotics. The next twelve hours would be crucial. If the infection spread to her blood, they could lose her.
    So where was Luke?
    The girl stirred and a low moan came from between her dry lips. With a jolt, her face convulsed in a twisted mass of pain. John took her hand in his. “It’s okay, Lori. You’re going to be okay.”
    She stirred just enough that John thought maybe she could hear him.
    Despite the months his son had spent with this young woman, John knew little more than that she’d been raised in an agnostic home that tended toward atheistic viewpoints, and that she was a supporter of many left-wing and New Age organizations and causes.
    Still, two truths remained: She was God’s child, and she loved Luke. And as such, John did for her what he would’ve done for any of his own children. He clutched her hand a bit more tightly, closed his eyes, and began to pray.
    “God, I beg you to lay your hand of mercy on Lori and breathe healing into her body.” His voice was a whisper, and the heat from her fevered body filled the air between them. “Help her survive this, Lord, and forgive her because—” His voice caught. The baby she aborted had been his grandchild, Luke’s son or daughter, a baby none of them would ever know. Still, John had no contempt for her. “Forgive her because she’s been lied to, God. And I’m sure she doesn’t understand what she’s done. Heal not just her body, but her heart. And forgive Luke, too. Thank you.”
    John straightened and let go of Lori’s hand. Whatever reason Luke had for not being here, it wasn’t good enough. John checked his watch, and it hit him that he had no idea where his son would be at seven-thirty on a weeknight.
    He sucked in a breath and