The Red Gloves Collection (39 page)
They were almost at school when Hannah remembered the Christmas miracle. She leaned forward and grabbed the back of Buddy’s seat. “Can I ask you something?”
In the mirror, Buddy’s eyes sparkled. “I’ve been waiting.”
Hannah smiled. She should’ve told him the minute she climbed in. “Remember that Christmas miracle you’re praying for—the one for me?”
“Sure do.” He gave a firm nod of his head. “Praying every day about it.”
“Good.” Hannah held her breath. Fresh new possibility sat in the seat beside her. If there was a God, He wouldn’t mind her being more specific, would He? She gripped the back of Buddy’s seat a little more tightly. “Could you add a few more details to the prayer?”
“You bet.” Buddy’s smile faded. “What’re the details?”
“Well … “ She took another few deep breaths. “Pray that I can spend Christmas with my parents.”
Cars whizzed on either side, and Buddy moved the Town Car over two lanes so he could turn into the school parking lot. When he was stopped, he turned and made eye contact with her. “They’re not coming?”
Hannah thought about telling him the whole truth— that they weren’t coming and, worse than that, Jack wasn’t even her father. Instead she forced a sad smile. “No, Buddy. They’re not.”
He nodded, and his eyes looked watery. “Then that’s what I’ll pray for. That you and your parents would be together for Christmas.” He paused. “But don’t forget something.”
“What?”
“Miracles happen to folks who believe. You gotta believe, Miss Hannah.”
Believe? It was something she hadn’t thought about before. “Okay. I guess I could do that.” She grabbed her roller bag and patted the back of Buddy’s seat. “See you later. Thanks, Buddy.”
Not until she was halfway to her first class did she realize that she’d been walking with her fingers on her lapel pin, on the wings. She stopped before she reached the building and stared up at the clear blue sky.
Was he a pilot now? Had he stayed with the Army all these years? Hannah rubbed her thumb over the wings one more time.
She would wear them as long as Buddy Bingo was praying. And maybe one day she’d have more than the wings of the daddy in the memory. Maybe one day—if she believed really hard—she’d have the daddy.
The one in her dreams.
C
ongressman James McKenna had things to do. But the conversation with the girl wouldn’t let him go.
He’d met her a time or two at political dinners. She was Hannah Roberts, daughter of the ambassador to Sweden, the powerful Jack Nelson Roberts Jr. And now apparently there was a family relative missing, someone the girl had only just found out about. McKenna remembered the conversation with the girl like it had just happened.
“Please, sir, my parents are busy and I can’t find him by myself.” She’d sounded on the verge of tears. “My mother gave me all the information she has, and … well, sir, it isn’t enough.”
Near as he could tell, the missing man—a Mike Conner—was the girl’s uncle, someone she’d been very close to as a little girl. “I’ll see what I can do,” he told her. And now he felt stymied in every other way until he could at least point her in the right direction. It wasn’t so much that she was Jack Roberts’ daughter. It was the catch in her voice when she’d finished her request:
“If I can’t find him, I’ll spend the rest of my life looking.”
McKenna sighed loud and hard. He shoved the paperwork on his desk to the side and grabbed a notebook. The details weren’t much. Mike Conner from Pismo Beach, joined the Army in 1994.
He picked up the phone and called one of the top officers in the Army. He had contacts all over the country, and this was one of them. “Jennings, McKenna here. I need you to run a check on an Army man for me.”
The sound of rustling paperwork came over the line. “Okay, shoot.”
“Mike Conner. Joined in’94.”
It took less than a minute for Jennings’ answer. “We got a couple of Mike Conners. One joined in ‘65, and another one in 1973. Two last year. Nothing even close to ‘94.”
“Any of them from Pismo Beach?”
“Uh … the one in ‘73 was from San Francisco. That’s the closest I’ve got.”
McKenna pinched the bridge of his nose. “You sure about the date?”
‘Yes.” Jennings sounded rushed. “The guy got a discharge. Hurt his leg, it looks like.”
“Hmmm.” McKenna doodled the name
Mike Conner
at the top of his notepad. “Okay, thanks. Maybe the information’s bad.” The phone call ended and McKenna tried every other branch of the service before tossing his pencil on the desk. He’d put in one more call—to a reporter contact at the
Washington Post.
Then he’d let it go. He wasn’t a miracle worker, after all.
That territory belonged to Someone else altogether.
H
annah hung up the phone with the congressman and stared at the piece of notebook paper she’d ripped from her binder. The congressman had a few details, the first one enough to take her breath away. There was no sign of a Mike Conner in the Army, just a few other men with the same name, including someone who’d left with an injury.
So why couldn’t the congressman find her father? He had to have been there at one time or another; her mother had been sure about that detail.
It was the congressman’s last bit of information that gave her hope. Apparently he had a connection at a national country music television channel. Through the holidays they were running messages to soldiers serving in the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hannah might’ve been at the top of her class, and she might’ve had a better vocabulary than most adults, but even she wasn’t sure what a “war effort” was. War, yes. That she understood. And if her dad was in the war, then she had no time to waste. She had to get word out that she was looking for him.
Assuming he was still in the Army.
But here was the best part of all. Even if he wasn’t in the Army or anywhere overseas, he still might watch the country music channel. And if he did, then there was a chance he’d see her message.
She took a deep breath, picked up the phone, and called the channel. She wouldn’t tell the man about her connection to Congressman McKenna or to Jack Roberts. No need. He was the one who took requests, and this was one request she didn’t want linked to her political ties.
“Do you have a loved one in the service, miss?” The man was friendly.
Hannah felt herself relax. He wouldn’t know who she was. And with all the people who watched the station’s music videos, her father might just see her message. “Yes.” She closed her eyes. “My dad.”
“I’m sorry.” He hesitated. “I’m sure you miss him a lot.”
“I do.”
“Well, then, what do you want to tell him?”
‘You mean … ” Hannah opened her eyes and stared out the window. It was raining, and the temperatures were colder than they’d been all winter. Snow was forecast before the end of the week. “You’ll put it on the air? For sure?”
“Absolutely.” There was a smile in the man’s voice. “If your dad’s watching, he’ll see your message.”
“All right, then.” She’d written out what she wanted to tell him. Now she pulled that piece of paper closer and studied it. “Tell him this:
“Daddy, this is Hannah. Mom showed me the pictures, the one with you and me reading and the other one, with you and your surfboard. I’m trying to find you. So if you see this, call the station, and they’ll tell you how to reach me. I love you, Daddy. I never forgot you.”
She took a slow breath. “Is that good?”
The man didn’t say anything at first. Then he made a coughing sound. “Honey, you mean you don’t know where your daddy is?”
“No, sir.” Her throat was thick. She touched the wings pinned to her sweater. “I haven’t seen him since I was four. My mother said he’s in the Army.”
“Well, then let’s get this message on the air today.”
She left her phone number with the man, and he promised to get back to her if he heard anything from her father. The message she’d left was still playing in her mind when the phone rang.
Without checking Caller ID, Hannah answered it on the first ring. “Hello?”
“Hannah Roberts, please. This is Kara Dillon from the
Washington Post.”
The
Washington Post?
Hannah pulled up a bar stool and leaned hard onto the kitchen counter. “This is she.”
“Okay, then.” The reporter hesitated, and in the background Hannah could hear voices and the tapping of computer keyboards. “Congressman McKenna told us you were trying to find a long-lost relative.”
“I am.” Hannah was up off her seat. This was exactly what she needed; help from the media. “I haven’t seen my dad in eleven years and now I have his name and his picture but no—”
“I’m sorry.” The woman didn’t let her finish. “Your father? I thought your father was Jack Roberts, the politician.”
Fear grabbed her around the throat and for a moment she couldn’t speak. Could she do this? Could she go public with something no one else knew? In the time it took her heart to thump out a handful of beats, she remembered her mother’s note. It said nothing about keeping quiet on the issue.
So what if Jack Roberts wasn’t her biological father? She swallowed and forced the words in a single breath. “Jack Roberts married my mother when I was four, and he raised me as his daughter, but my real dad is Mike Conner from Pismo Beach, California, and now he’s in the Army, but there’s no record of him.” She grabbed a quick gulp of air. “He’s the one I’m looking for.”
“I see.” The reporter took a minute, maybe writing down this new information. “Does your … mother know you’ve gone public with your search?”
Hannah bit her lip. “Not really.” What’s the worst thing the paper could print? And whatever headline might run, the fallout would be worth the possibility that her dad would see it and find her. She walked out of the kitchen and dropped into a suede recliner in the den. “But I don’t think she’ll mind. She’s the one who told me about Mike Conner.”
“Well, then.” The reporter sounded overly happy. “I think it’ll make a perfect Christmas story. Let’s go ahead with the interview.”
The questions went on for nearly an hour—questions about her childhood and the memories she held of her early years with Mike Conner. Once Hannah started opening up to the woman, the answers came easily. Not until she was brushing her teeth that night, after cheer and dance and a long conversation with Kathryn about which guys might be worth going to the prom with, did she feel a hint of remorse about agreeing to the interview.
Her mother wouldn’t mind, would she? Whatever the paper printed, it was bound to help her find her father, right? Besides, her mother hadn’t exactly told her no. But only then, hours after the fact, did it occur to her that maybe—just maybe—she hadn’t only answered the reporter’s questions because of her deep need to see her dad.
But because of her need to see her mother, as well.
M
ike Conner trudged through the tent to the food line, took a plate of hot chicken and gravy and a slab of bread, and found a folding chair near the television set, ten yards away. Usually he sat at one of the tables, sharing talk with the guys. But tonight he had nothing to say to anyone.
The mission was in twelve hours.
An old western played above the distant conversations—John Wayne telling somebody where to get off and why. Mike settled into his chair. The television was set up in the dining tent, as far away from the blowing sand as possible. This tent was bigger than the others, a makeshift cafeteria tucked away at the back of their temporary base. In it were a couple dozen folding chairs and rows of aluminum tables, usually filled with weary soldiers and chopper crews catching a quick meal between assignments.
Mike took a bite of the chicken and shifted it around in his mouth. Too hot, like always. After a few seconds he swallowed it and stared at the television. He rarely watched it. Life on the outside was no longer real to him, no longer something he wanted to see or be a part of.
All existence centered around the sandy base, the endless desert, and the enemy. Wherever he might be. Bombing missions came up every few days, some that never made the papers back in the states. Insurgents acting up or strategic military sites belonging to start-up terrorist groups. The Air Force handled strikes, but the choppers came in before and after, dropping supplies or men to aid in the attack. Air attacks made up a routine part of their work.
Always there were dangerous missions. And that Sunday, December 11, two weeks before Christmas, the mission that lay ahead was the most dangerous of all.
In the end, the conversation had been short. He had gone in to see his commanding officer, determined that he wouldn’t leave the man’s presence until he’d been granted permission to man the mission—the one that would have him hovering over an insurgent compound for eleven insane minutes.
“Sir,” Mike had stood at attention, his hands at his sides, chin up. “I request permission along with CJ to crew the chopper for the mission.”
His superior had mumbled something profane and leaned back in his seat. “I can’t afford to lose you, Meade.”
“You won’t, sir.” Mike kept his shoulders straight, his voice even. “Ceej and I can get the job done.”
“What about the others? Wouldn’t one of them work?”
Mike had held his breath. Some men were dispensable, right? “Sir, the others have much more to lose. CJ and I, we don’t have family, sir.”
“Fine, Meade.” The colonel swore again. He grabbed his pack of cigarettes from the desk and tapped it. “Listen. I didn’t ask for this mission, and I can’t say I agree with it. The command came from higher up, so someone’s got to do it.” He snatched a cigarette, slipped it between his lips, and stared at Mike. “But no unnecessary bravery, got it? If you have to pull out and come back, do it. Just get the job done and get out.”
Mike could still feel the fire inside his gut at the victory. He stifled a smile. “Yes, sir.”
“And follow orders.” The man’s voice was louder, gruff. He lit the cigarette and inhaled deep. The smoke curled out from the corners of his lips. “The first order most of all.”