Noah's Rainy Day Read Online Free Page B

down my leg and I doubled over.
    “Damn. I really think I broke a rib.”
    Michael was rolling up the lead and removing Beulah’s harness for me. “Probably need to call this in to the Game, Fish, and Parks, Boots.”
    I wasn’t too pleased with the idea, but Michael was right.
    If I ever thought I had a chance to be called out on search and rescue, I needed local and federal support. Not reporting to GFP that I’d had an encounter with a mountain lion during a training session wasn’t exactly the way to win friends and influence people. Even if the cat had run away with no harm to any of the parties involved.
    “I know.”
    Then, something worse dawned on me.
    “Don’t tell Elizabeth.”
    Michael just laughed at me.
    I had eight siblings: Elizabeth was fifth born. I was seventh. Frances is the closest in age to me at eighteen months older and my little brother Jens is two years younger. We all had our own personalities, but the same general value system. I was the neat freak growing up. Obnoxiouslyimpeccable, my oldest sister Agatha always called me. And practical. Lacking pizzazz, as Ida says. I’d like to think of myself as more of a minimalist. Barbara might call me cheap. She’d be right. I don’t like spending money if it isn’t necessary or spending time if it’s only to improve my looks. Everything I have must have a purpose and I like everything in its place. That’s me. My sister Catherine calls me “The Big O,” for organized. Eight siblings with strong opinions. Even stronger minds and backbones. And immense hearts.
    “I’m serious.” I really didn’t want my sister Elizabeth calling me Critical Mass, or CM for short, again. She’d taken to calling me that this summer when my world had seemed to become a magnet for all things evil. Luckily, Frances defended me. I was staying with Frances and her family now, temporarily, while I found an apartment. I had leased out my house in Fort Collins when I went to Quantico and now I’m trying to sell the place. It’s too far to justify coming into Denver every day, now that I’m a special agent.
    Frances would be the most sensitive, compassionate, and kindest soul among us. Ole calls her the iron marshmallow, soft and squishy like a favorite teddy bear, but tough as nails when circumstances call for it. Elizabeth says she’s the Bergen version of Mother Theresa, which particularly irks Catherine, considering she’s the only nun in the family.
    We all agree, Frances is the glue.
    I collect rocks with characteristics that best describe my family members. Frances is my gypsum. In its purest form, gypsum is transparent, like Frances. Frances doesn’t have a phony bone in her body; she’s always the same wonderful soul no matter who she’s with. She can conform within a crowd, making everyone feel at ease, yet she is the first to stand up against the injustices or the toughest of circumstances. Although gypsum from the quarries is normally quite pliable, sculptors prefer alabaster—a variety of gypsum—to nearly any other medium since it’s forgiving. Gypsum also is the ingredient that gives cement its compressive strength. The iron marshmallow of the rock world.
    God knew what he was doing. Noah needed a mother like Frances.
    “The whole CM thing?” Michael asked.
    “Yeah, for starters.”
    Michael pulled out his GPS and marked the location of the tree in which the mountain lion had been. I went back to retrieve the knife I’d dropped and noticed something lying under the scrub nearby. The brush was prickly and I earned further scrapes on my hands, arms, and cheeks going after the prize tucked deep beneath it. I pulled on the strap and came out with a backpack. A small, camouflage backpack.
    “What’d you find?”
    I lifted the pack and felt its weight.
    “A hunter’s?” Michael asked, stepping up behind me.
    I unzipped the bag and peered inside, finding schoolbooks and candy wrappers and a couple of Matchbox cars. “A child’s. A