"You can call me Samantha if you want."

"Okay."

Sam smiled at Marisa before looking back at Ana. "I prayed for you a lot while you were gone."

Ana lifted her head. "You did?"

"I did. Every time I thought about you, which was about a thousand times a day, I prayed that God would be with you and keep you safe."

Ana pushed away from her mother and leaned toward Sam. She placed her index finger on Sam's cheek. "You're not an angel."

Sam tilted her head to the side. "Nope. Just a woman."

"But God listened to you, because Jesus was with me."

"He was?"

"Uh-huh." Ana glanced at her mother. "Every night when it got dark, he came into my room and told me stories until I fell asleep. Not like Mama tells, though. Different stories."

"What were they about?" Sam asked.

She shrugged. "I don't remember. Just that I always fell asleep while he told me stories, just like I do when Mama does."

Sam's eyes filled with tears, and she swallowed hard. "That sounds like Jesus. He loves you very much."

"I know. And you know what else? I could smell him. When I got really scared, I knew he was there, 'cause all of a sudden, I could smell him."

"What did he smell like?"

"Rain." The answer was so matter-of-fact, as if everybody knew that. But Sam's eyes filled with wonder.

Marisa could hear her father's words. Whenever you smell the rain, that's God's reminder that he's near.

"What a beautiful gift he gave you," Sam said.

"And he told me Mama would find me, so I wasn't scared." She paused, looked at Marisa, and said, "I was scared sometimes, but sometimes I wasn't. That's okay, right?"

Marisa held her daughter tight, all the words her daughter had said dripping over her like...rain. "Of course, pajarita. You were very brave."

Chapter 38

"I TOLD YOU IT WASN't bad." Nate's frustration must have been palpable, because the doctor, a heavyset Hal Holbrook doppelganger, sighed and looked up.

"You'll forgive us for taking stab wounds and head injuries seriously."

"I feel fine."

The doctor ignored the comment and continued stitching the minor flesh wound on his back. After four stitches, he finished and adjusted Nate's hospital gown. "There. Now maybe you won't bleed to death."

"I wasn't going to bleed to death. You guys are just being paranoid."

Brady chuckled, and Nate glared at the man standing in the corner. "And another thing. How come, whenever there's serious crime in this town, I end up in the ER, and you come out without a scratch?"

The man shrugged. "Years of training."

"In avoiding danger," Nate said.

Brady didn't rise to the bait. He addressed the doctor, who was pulling off his latex gloves as the nurse put away the supplies. "Good to see he's back to his jolly self."

"If this is jolly," the doctor said, "I'd hate to see him cranky."