Looking for Miracles/the Prodigal's Return

Lori Harper needed a miracle. It didn''t have to be a big, showy miracle. Not like the time she and Tyler were down to peanut butter, crackers and half a bag of flour in the whole house and Tyler had reached his hand between the couch cushions and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat.She pushed her shoulder-length blond hair out of her face and shifted her unwieldy body on the edge of the bed. It didn''t even have to be a medium-size miracle. There had been plenty of those in her life, and she was thankful for them. Of course there were times when even miracles didn''t help, or she wouldn''t be in the fix she was in.She still didn''t understand why Gary had to go and run the car off the road last August or why he didn''t get out before the car sunk in the lake. There had been no miracles that day, unless it was the kind crew from the county fire-and-rescue team that had broken the horrible news.The young woman, especially, had been wonderful. Carrie had helped Lori face all the awful arrangements. She''d even bullied Gary''s boss, Clyde Hughes, into giving them a replacement car, even though Gary had no insurance, and no paycheck coming except from the week he died. Carrie had stood her ground and argued toe-to-toe with the prominent businessman in a way that Lori couldn''t imagine doing.That was a minor miracle, even though Gary hadn''t left any others in his wake. He did the best he could as a father and husband until the day he died. Lori wished he could have lived long enough to be here today. Even more, Lori wished she''d told Carrie about this baby. She hadn''t been showing noticeably in August, and didn''t feel like seeming even more pathetic than she did already in this awful place with only her son Tyler for company.Lori arched her back. The only thing moving did was remind her that her swollen belly dwarfed the rest of her slender body. It didn''t ease her discomfort. Still, she considered herself fortunate. Even if it was out here with no neighbors, at least they had a roof over their heads, and it was warm and dry and there weren''t any crawly things in it, like that one apartment in Kansas City.A sharp wave of pain across her belly brought Lori back to the present. Yes, this time a little miracle would do just fine. Like the time the lady from the next farm over, where they had a telephone, stopped by the way she did that once before Gary told her to leave them alone. Right now she''d even take Gary''s old boss coming out to ask his aggravating, enigmatic questions."Anybody," Lori said aloud through dry lips."Anybody at all would be a miracle." And she needed that miracle soon. Because this time Lori Harper had to admit something to herself. Unlike the time with the peanut butter, when she and Tyler would have been hungry and uncomfortable, she was in real trouble now.This time it looked as though she was going to give birth in a trailer with no phone, miles from anyone except her five-year-old son. It hadn''t been an easy pregnancy, and if she was reading the signs right, she had maybe an hour until the baby arrived. This time, Lori admitted, if she didn''t get her miracle she could very well die."I hate my job." Mike Martin didn''t answer his friend Carrie Collins because he knew she wasn''t talking to him. She was talking to Dogg, who took up most of the bench seat of the pickup between them. The big black-and-tan shepherd thumped his tail and moaned softly at the attention from Carrie. "I hate my job, I hate my life, I hate...""Aw, knock it off, Carrie," Mike told her. "You don''t hate your job. You''re one of the best fireand-rescue officers in the county, maybe even in the state of Missouri. You only hate the fact that it''s winter, it''s cold and you''ve got to go out in the middle of nowhere and remind some woman she''s a widow.""Like it''s going to surprise her, I''ll bet," Carrie said glumly, still holding Dogg''s massive tawny head in her hands. "But stilBulock, Lynn is the author of 'Looking for Miracles/the Prodigal's Return ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373652686 and ISBN 0373652682.