Free Collision of The Heart by Laurie Alice Eakes

smiled, showing a fine set of porcelain teeth. “She’s having her eleventh child.”
    “How . . . prodigious of her.” Mia shuddered at the notion of so many children breaking into her thoughts and work.
    “I wondered what happened to you.” Ayden appeared beside her, his nearness reminding her that she hadn’t always felt that way about children. Once upon a time, the mere echo of that deep, resonant voice sent shivers of anticipation down her spine.
    But “once upon a time” belonged in fairy tales, which weren’t real—just like their love.
    She swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. “This lady hasn’t eaten. Apparently getting to the food line is too difficult for her. I thought that basket might have some food in it.”
    “Quite a lot.” Ayden crouched to be at eye level with the lady. “I have some apple fritters and some muffins. Would one apiece be enough, or would you like two?”
    “Just one or the other.” Tension around the lady’s eyes vanished as though she were a drawing and the artist had taken an eraser to the tightness.
    “Two apiece—to tide you over.” Ayden wrapped the pastries in a sheet of newsprint and handed them over. “And there’s the reverend bringing out more coffee. Would you like some, or would you prefer tea?”
    The old lady nearly turned into a puddle under Ayden’s warmth. She smiled. She giggled like a schoolgirl.
    The corners of Mia’s lips twitched. The edges of her heart twisted. She turned away and began to move through the crowd. Pitching her voice a little above the hubbub, she asked, “Does anyone know anything about a missing child?”
    The tumult lowered as though someone had dropped a blanket over them.
    Mia paused. “Anyone? We found a little boy on the train the other night, but his people seem to have vanished.”
    A chorus of denials of knowledge rose in the entryway, the fellowship room, the sanctuary. No one had seen the child or heard of anyone seeking one.
    “If you do,” Mia said in each room, “send them to the Goswells.”
    “You’re staying at the Goswells’, Mia Roper?” A vaguely familiar female voice rang through the church.
    Mia spun on her heel, her wide merino skirt belling out around her. “Genevieve Perry?”
    “Genevieve Perry Baker now.” The smiling, petite redhead threw her arms around Mia, portfolio and pencil and all. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
    “I never thought I’d be here again.” Mia kissed the other woman’s cheek. “You look beautiful. Is marriage to Jonathan Baker suiting you, then?”
    “Quite, quite well. And you? No fiancé or even husband back there in the East?”
    “No time for love.” Mia stared at the muddy, water-stained floor. “I work too much and travel.”
    “How exciting. Did you come in on one of the trains?”
    “I did.” Mia nodded to her left wrist. “A relatively minor injury, but a nuisance.”
    “A rather painful nuisance, I should think.” Genevieve’s vivid-green eyes narrowed, and her lips bowed. “Is there any significance to you staying with the Goswells?”
    “Nothing beyond the idea that God may have a rather unpleasant sense of humor, though I suppose that’s blasphemous to say in a church.”
    “Or anywhere.” Genevieve tucked her arm through Mia’s and began to shepherd her toward the front door. “You must come to our house for coffee and catch me up on everything. Catch us up on everything, to be more precise. A dozen of us are making gallons of soup and pounds of bread rolls for these people’s lunch.”
    Mia smiled at her friend from the years she spent teaching school before receiving the opportunity for journalism work in the East. “Not today. I have work to do.” The instant the words emerged, an ache opened in her chest, a chasm in which lodged a cold, hard boulder into which she had long ago tucked all her wishes for friendship, family, and a home. “I’m only here on assignment.”
    “Ah, your journalism career.”