“If he loses his hands –” her voice was thick, scratchy, hard to hear.

“Stop it,” he ordered gruffly.

She sucked in a breath that broke and Chace pulled her closer.

Last night, Sondra and Silas had still been at Faye’s when he got there because they’d arrived minutes before. They all shared a drink and talked quietly in Faye’s seating area before her parents felt comfortable with the state of their girl and left him to see to her.

Close, long hugs were exchanged between Faye and her Mom and Dad. Chace got a shorter one, but a close one, from Sondra and a firm handshake with a couple claps on the arm from Silas.

After they left, Chace had poured Faye another glass of wine and opened himself another beer and she’d interrogated him about what he found and where it was.

He’d told her nothing and, as she kept at it, reiterated she didn’t need to know.

When she gave up, she did it by looking in his eyes and saying quietly, “I already know just because you won’t tell me.”

She likely didn’t and therefore he was glad she gave up.

He got her another drink. To relax her and in an effort to perk her up, he told her he’d watch the show she’d been begging him to watch.

It worked. She gave him a small smile and even acted a little excited as she sorted out the TV. She also fell asleep halfway through the episode.

Chace, however, didn’t. Luckily she fell asleep before he had to admit that, although it had an edge of geek, the show about two brothers who were on a self-appointed mission to save the world from a variety of phantoms, demons and monsters, whose best friends were an angel who wore a trench coat and a redneck who always wore a beat up baseball cap, wasn’t all that bad.

She woke slightly when he moved to take them to bed. So she groggily got ready and joined him there then slid straight back into sleep, curled close.

Chace didn’t follow her for long hours.

Now was now, Chace holding Faye in his arms while she struggled against tears.

He tipped his chin down and against her hair told her, “Honey, let it go. Nothin’ wrong with tears.”

“If he wakes up, I don’t want him to see my eyes red and face blotchy,” she replied, her voice still thick which meant her throat was still clogged.

When he wakes up, Faye, all he’s gonna see is pretty. Trust me, he’s a guy, I’m a guy, that’s all we see.”

She shook her head as best she could seeing as her face was in his chest then she tilted her head back and caught his eyes with her brightened ones.

“Stop being sweet,” she whispered.

Never, he thought, caught in her crystal blue eyes.

He pulled her up so they were face to face.

Then he offered her an out.

“You want something to think of, not the vast pile of shit that all of this is?”

“Please,” she answered softly.

“I don’t know his story. I don’t know who his people are. How he got where he is and how he is. I also don’t care. We gotta think about how we’re gonna engineer this situation so he goes from where he is now to somethin’ good. I don’t mean possibly well meaning foster carers because there could be a ‘possibly’ in that. I mean somethin’ good. That goes without saying that if CPS gets him and can’t place him in foster care, he doesn’t go to a fuckin’ home for boys.”

Her entire face brightened and she stated immediately, “I’ll take care of him.”

Chace knew he’d get that.

So carefully, gently, he told her, “That isn’t going to happen.”

“Chace –”

“Faye,” he cut her off, “I’m a cop on a recently cleaned up local police force. I can finesse this but I gotta use that finesse above-board in a way questions won’t be asked and that kid gets what he needs. And, baby, I know you’d give him what he needs but right now you do not have the ability to do that since you live in a one room apartment over a flower shop.”

Her nose scrunched up because this point was valid but she didn’t like it.

She still gave into it.

“Right.”

“I got room but I’m also a single man who’s got a girlfriend who spends the night and, I’ll repeat, the finesse I gotta use has gotta be above-board so I can’t just take a kid under my wing without goin’ through certain motions. And my sleepover girlfriend might be frowned upon if I do.”

“Mom and Dad,” she said immediately.

“Yeah,” he replied. “Or Krystal and Bubba or Tate and Laurie.”

“Or Boyd and Liza,” she threw in.

“Right, or Sunny and Shambles,” he suggested.

“We need to make calls,” she whispered.

“We need to make calls.”

“Who first?” she asked.

“Your Mom and Dad.”

She grinned, the sorrow shifting totally out of her face. “They’ll say yes.”

He already knew that.

“Yeah,” he murmured.

Her grin turned into a smile. “They’ll be great with him and we can see him all the time.”

He knew that too.

“Yeah,” he repeated.

“I’ll call them now.”

He twisted his neck, looked at her alarm clock then looked at her.

“It’s just going six thirty.”

“They’ll be up.”

“Will they be up and in the disposition to discuss takin’ on a kid when they not too long ago got their house all to themselves?”

“Yes,” she replied immediately.

He figured that was true too.

“Give me a kiss then grab the phone.”

She smiled even bigger so he felt it on her lips when she gave him her mouth.

When he broke the kiss, she moved in to give him another light one before she rolled out of his arms and reached for the phone.

Chace rolled out of bed and moved to the bathroom.

By the time he walked out, she was sitting at the side of her bed, off the phone, her dancing eyes came direct to him and her mouth moved.

“They said yes.”

Then she smiled big.

Chace smiled back.

Then he walked to the kitchen and made his girl breakfast.

* * *

“Chace, I get you but I haven’t had time to assess the situation fully yet. What I already know –” Karena Papadakis started.

She was a Child Welfare Officer and she was standing with Chace outside the Critical Care Ward.

“He’s a deacon at the church,” Chace cut her off to say. “She designs the Sunday programs. He mows the church lawn. Seriously, Karena, Sondra Goodknight won’t even let her twenty-nine year old daughter say ‘frak’, a made up curse word from a Sci-Fi TV show. They’ll do good by this kid.”

He’d already told her he wanted her to place Malachi with the Goodknights and she was rightly and not surprisingly balking due to procedure.

“They’re older,” Karena replied quietly.

“Yeah. They are. Which means they’ve already raised three kids so they know what they’re doin’. One of those kids is the Mom of two boys. One’s the town librarian who has a Master’s Degree. The last one’s in the Army serving our country,” Chace returned.

“They don’t have foster certification,” she told him.

“Then get it for them,” he told her.

“It would require home visits, foster parent classes –” she began.

“The state he’s in, Karena, he’s not gonna be discharged tomorrow,” Chace pointed out. “You have time and what you already know about that kid and the more you’ll find out, I know you, you’ll bust your hump to fast-track it.”

He was not wrong about this. There were people who found jobs. Karena Papadakis found her calling. Her caseload wasn’t exactly light but it also wasn’t what a person in a similar position in a city would be. This gave her plenty of time to do her job the way she’d probably break her back to do it even if her caseload was double. And that was, with care.

She held his eyes and then cautiously reminded him, “Medical reports say this kid may be special needs. The history you gave me tells me he already is.”

“You know I won’t let that kid down. You don’t know this but you can take my word my woman won’t let him down. They’re her parents. She’s got nephews close to his age. Her sister lives in Gnaw Bone. You place this kid with the Goodknights, he goes from livin’ in his own shit in a shed in the middle of nowhere to livin’ in a modified Brady Bunch house ten minutes out of town with a good, close family who, I assure you, can handle special needs. These people got so much goodness, Karena, they can handle anything.”

“Chace,” she said softly, “I’ve heard what you and Faye Goodknight have been doing for this boy but –”

She stopped speaking, her body jerked and her eyes went over his shoulder so Chace twisted his torso to see Silas bustling up.

“Heya,” he dipped his chin to Karena on a grin when he stopped at their side and muttered a further. “Sorry to interrupt.”

Then he turned to Chace and jerked up a box Chace didn’t get a good look at before he kept speaking.

“Lookee here, Chace,” he shook the box. “After church, me and Sondra went real quick to the mall. My Faye says Malachi likes to read lots and since his hands are messed up, got him one of those fancy shmancy eReaders.” He shook the box again. “Guy at the electronics store, he said all he’s gotta do is press a button on the side to turn the page. They even had little stands he can set it in to hold it up so he doesn’t have to hold it himself. So we got him one of those too. ‘Til he gets his hands back, he can keep right on readin’ cause I figure he can press a button.” He lowered the box, dropped his head and studied it murmuring, “Gotta turn it on at the bottom with a slide doohickey but I figure Sondra, Faye, she’s around, or me could set him up to get him goin’.”

Sondra caught up, didn’t seem to notice Karena at all and lifted a bag toward Chace. Chace also didn’t get a chance to look at it before she dropped it and started talking.

“PJs,” she announced. “Warm ones. You think they’d let him put them on?” she asked then didn’t wait for an answer and turned to Karena who she hadn’t yet met and informed her, “Those hospital blankets are thin. He needs warm jammies.” Then her head jerked this way and that, caught on something and she moved quickly away, muttering, “There’s the nurse. I’ll ask her.”

“I need a plug,” Silas said at this point. “Gotta charge this puppy up.”

Then he took off.

Chace watched as Silas moved away, his head down, his eyes obviously scanning for an outlet. Then Chace saw Sondra standing with an African American woman who was not a nurse, but Malachi’s doctor. She was wearing scrubs, her long, glossy black hair pulled back in a thick ponytail and both of them were looking at a pair of navy blue, flannel, little boys pajama bottoms with airplanes printed on them, smiling.

Chace looked back at Karena.

“I’ll fast-track it,” she mumbled, her lips twitching and she moved away, hand in her purse to pull out her phone.

It was Sunday and Karena Papadakis, a woman he’d worked with more than once, had taken his call and left her family to meet with him at the hospital.

Now she was making more calls to colleagues who also probably didn’t work on Sunday.

Chace grinned at her back as she walked away.

Then he moved toward Silas to help him find a plug.

* * *

“I’m sorry, Detective Keaton, this is awkward but I’ve asked you here because unfortunately we have to have this conversation,” the hospital administrator started. “Now that that boy is past urgent care, as he doesn’t have insurance, we need to discuss –”

“Don’t worry about the hospital bills,” Chace interrupted her. “I’ll be responsible for them. If there’s a specialist that can confer with Dr. Hughes who can assist in saving his hands and foot, please advise her that she has the go ahead to seek assistance with his case.”

The administrator blinked then rallied to inform him, “Dr. Hughes is an exceptional pediatric critical care doctor. We’re lucky to have her.”

Chace held her gaze, nodded and replied, “Glad to hear that. But if there’s more that can be done for him, I want it done. Even if he has to be transferred to another hospital.”

Quickly, she gave him information he didn’t give a fuck about, “We’re a fully-equipped Level II Trauma Center. The only one in the mountains outside Loveland and Grand Junction.”

“He’s beyond trauma care,” Chace reminded her.

“We’re an excellent facility,” she pressed.

“I believe you. I still want everything that can be done for Malachi done,” Chace returned.

“It’s my understanding the boy cleaned the wounds and treated them. Gangrene didn’t set in. He may lose some mobility but the threat of him losing them entirely is over.”