“Fran.” Jama took her sixty-year-old foster mother’s hands. “I had my first patient at the clinic. It was Monty.”

Jama explained the situation, slightly surprised that Fran hadn’t already heard about her husband by way of the lively River Dance grapevine.

Fran’s fair skin paled visibly.

“You took care of him yourself?” Fran asked.

“I was the only one there or I’d have requested someone else-”

“Nonsense, I’m glad it was you. Sounds to me as if you made the right call, hon.”

“Harold Kaiser helped carry Monty into the clinic,” Jama told her. “Haven’t you seen him this morning? I’d thought he might tell you.”

“You know he hired that new manager. He and Tilly don’t come in until the afternoon now. I’ll just go see if the store will hold my groceries for me until I can collect them.”

“You can ride with me, and we’ll have Tilly take the groceries to your house when she’s off her shift. She still has a key to your house, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, but I never lock my doors, you know that. Honey, I can drive myself to the hospital. You have a new job, and a new boss who needs your-”

“My new boss doesn’t need me as much as my family does right now. I would be little help to her when I’m worried about Monty.”

Fran’s gentle gaze rested on Jama. “No reason to worry. He’s receiving excellent care, I’m sure. It’s in God’s hands.”

Jama carried the groceries back into the store, explained the situation to Anita, the cashier who had worked the register for twenty years, and returned to the parking lot. She opened the passenger door of her Outback for Fran and waited. Fran was not driving herself, and that was final.

Fran relented with grace-more likely for Jama’s sake than for her own.

“I don’t know how you do that,” Jama said as she pulled out of the parking lot and drove north toward Highway 94.

“Do what, hon?”

“Place everything in God’s hands and let Him handle it.”

Fran paused, staring out across a portion of the family vineyard to the left of the road. “Sounds like a simplistic Sunday-school answer, doesn’t it?”

Jama grimaced. That was exactly what she’d been thinking, and she was ashamed. She was a believer, but this bit about trusting her loved ones and her future to God…that was a hard lesson to master. She’d failed repeatedly at the faith walk that Fran made look so easy.

“Did you ever think it’s the Sunday-school answer because it’s the right one?” Fran asked. “Oh, wait a minute.” She fluttered her fingers over her mouth. “I forgot I’m talking to the original Missouri mule. Little Jama Keith always had to develop her own theory about everything from cooking a breakfast of fried potatoes, eggs and mountain oysters, to understanding God.”

Jama cast her foster mother a stiff grin. “Some things-”

“Never change. I know. But, honey, I trust in God’s power and in eternity. Otherwise, they’d have buried me with Amy.”

Jama turned left onto the highway and headed west, her hands a little tight on the steering wheel, a lump swelling in her throat. She swallowed and focused on the road.

They rode in silence for several miles, and Jama struggled to think of something besides Monty’s gray face, and her instinctive decision to withhold treatment for the most obvious symptoms.

“When I was a young mother,” Fran said, once they were a few miles from River Dance, “I used to worry about how my children would turn out as adults, what I was doing, the decisions I might make that could scar them for life.”

Jama glanced at her. “You were a great mom. Your kids always loved you.”

Fran nodded. “I never doubted that. I finally realized that the worry didn’t do anyone any good, and it took too much time-I was too busy raising my children, keeping house, helping Monty in the fields and vineyards to spend much time worrying. I still struggle with it occasionally. Who doesn’t? I mean, it seems the motherly thing to do, you know. To worry about your children. A loving gesture.”

Jama swerved to miss a dog, honked at it, glanced at it in the rearview mirror. “That looked like Monty’s hunting hound.”

“Probably is. He wanders away sometimes. Monty likes to hunt on Andy Griswold’s property, so Humphrey knows the area. There’s no leash law in River Dance. I suppose there should be, but you know Humphrey, he loves to wander.”

Jama cast Fran a quick look, saw that she was gazing at the Missouri River to the left. Her lips curved downward, her eyes seemed to have dulled in the past few minutes. For all the talk about not worrying, she appeared less than serene. And then she saw Jama’s expression.

“Okay, you caught me.”

“You doing okay?” Jama asked.

“I’ll be fine. How about you? It can’t be easy, making the kinds of decisions you have to make.”

“All that expensive training has its advantages. If I had worried about every patient I saw during residency, I’d have been no good to anyone.”

“But this is Monty,” Fran said gently.

“As I said, that’s where the training kicks in. I’ve seen enough cases like Monty’s to be able to read signs that might not be immediately apparent to others.” She thought about the nurse who had questioned her skills.

Jama glanced toward the river-that steady, curving constant in her life. The Missouri River Valley, lush and fertile, contained the winding force of nature with some difficulty. The flatlands produced high yields when the weather cooperated, but the farmers had to “get while the gettin’ was good,” as Monty would sometimes say. Flooding could wipe out a season of work in a few hours.

Farming was always a risky endeavor, though Monty had done well over the years, supporting his family in comfort through hard work.

Much like medicine. It was never a sure thing.

Jama cast another glance at her foster mom. Monty would be okay. He had to be okay.

Doriann’s lungs felt filled with the hot glue Aunt Renee used for the homeschool art projects. From behind the bush that didn’t hide anything, she watched the two creeps approach. They looked bigger and scarier than they had in the truck.

They were mad, for one thing. Both kinds of mad-crazy mad and angry mad. And they shouted at each other while they called for her. How stupid. As if she was going to answer them? Run to them through the trees like a lost puppy?

Strange, all that brush had seemed so much thicker when she was trying to push through it. Now, with the sun higher, it seemed that she could see for miles in every direction. Which meant, so could the goons.

Clancy stepped around a tree branch, and looked in Doriann’s direction. Toast. She was-

Deb swore loudly. “You just had to go after the dog, didn’t you? Swerve off the road and nearly get us all killed. I guess you know she’s gonna find the cops and lead them straight to us.”

Clancy turned an ugly look on Deb. “That stupid kid’s not even gonna find her own way out of this jungle.”

“You’d better hope not,” Deb muttered. “If that frost hits tonight, we could all freeze to death.”

“What frost?”

“Don’t you ever listen to the weather report? There’s supposed to be a killing frost tonight that could wipe out all this year’s crops. Where do you live, in a tree stump? The kid could freeze to death.”

“Then that’ll be one more problem we don’t have to deal with. I’ve got enough to worry about. I’m soaking, I’m starved, and I need a hit.”

Deb swore again. She did a lot of that. “You think you’re the most important person in the world?”

Doriann saw their heads appear more clearly over some bushes as they drew closer. She saw Clancy give Deb that ugly look again. Deb was too stupid to back away.

He grabbed her by her shirt with one hand and socked her in the face with the other. Doriann heard the smack of flesh, Deb’s low grunts. “I’m the only person in the world.” Clancy growled the words like a mad dog.