The Doctor's Surprise Family. Mary J. Forbes

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      Three nights later, he heard the creak of a twig to the right of the porch where he sat in a wicker chair enjoying the evening quiet. Something stole through the forest. Ears straining for the slightest sound, Dane remained motionless, two traits he’d learned in Iraq when darkness closed in and rebels prowled villages, on the hunt for drugs brought along by medical teams.

      These days on Firewood Island, night fell around five p.m., obliterating shadows and outlines and things that moved in the trees.

      Several silent moments passed. Then…a soft crunch, as though someone stepped on a thick carpet of dead leaves.

      Dane’s body tensed. Had the person noticed him on the porch?

      His gaze zeroed in on the large cabin in the trees across Kaitlin’s backyard. Last night, Dane had observed lights in two windows. A second guest? He didn’t care, as long as they kept to their side of the property and left him alone.

      Without making a sound, he got to his feet—and waited. The rustling had stopped. Creeping down the steps, he went around to the side facing the wooded hill. His eyes narrowed against the forest’s obscurity.

      Someone panted softly.

      Dane stepped into the block of light shining from the window of the eating nook.

      “Holy crap,” a boy’s voice muttered, before the kid scrambled like a wild animal back up the slope.

      Dane leaped toward the escapee, entering the trees like a predatory animal, silent, quick. Without a word, he sprang over moldering logs, and ducked grasping branches. Ten feet ahead the kid dodged right and left. Suddenly, he turned and scrambled farther up the hill, and then—abruptly—twenty feet ahead, Dane saw arms, legs and branches whip like miniature windmills. Thunk.

      “Ow!” the boy yelped. Gasping and wheezing and clutching his leg, he writhed on a wet bed of leaves.

      Dane approached slowly.

      “Please,” the boy whispered. “I didn’t mean it.”

      “Easy, son.” Dane frowned at the slashed denim along the boy’s left leg. Crouching on one knee, he shrugged from his jacket and laid the garment across the boy’s chest. “Got a name?”

      “Y-Yes sir. Blake.” The winded words came out Yea seer bake.

      Kaitlin’s son?

      The wheezing accelerated. Blake’s face altered, faded, and for an instant Zaakir stared up at Dane.

      He swiped a hand across his eyes. He was losing it, and this kid was showing every sign of an asthma attack. “Where’s your inhaler, son?”

      “Home.”

      Sure, it was. Damn kid, creeping through the woods in the dark and forgetting his lifeline. Dane squashed the urge to give Blake a good shaking. Instead, he scooped the boy into his arms. “Hang on.” Careful of wayward limbs, he trotted through the trees, crossed Kaitlin’s back deck and, while the boy clung to his neck, yanked open the mudroom door.

      “Inhaler,” he hollered, storming into the kitchen with Blake wheezing against his chest. “Now.”