Chapter 1 - WE'RE NOT SHORT ON FORMULA
Susan Miller slapped Lily Carter across the cheek.
The ten-year-old girl’s head jerked sideways.
She gasped, then immediately folded both arms around the worn double baby carrier strapped across her chest.
One of the twins began crying louder.
“No money? Then get out!”
Lily stared up at the employee.
Her cheek was red.
Her brown ponytail had almost come loose.
She held out wrinkled bills and coins with a shaking hand.
“Please. They need milk.”
Susan snatched the formula can from the counter and slammed it down.
“Not my problem.”
Lily’s eyes filled.
The second baby began crying too.
Susan grabbed Lily’s shoulder and forced her toward the glass entrance.
“Get out!”
Lily curled herself around the infants.
“Please! They’re hungry!”
A man rushed toward them.
“Don’t touch her!”
Daniel Mercer stepped between Susan and the child and knocked the employee’s hand away.
Susan froze.
Everyone in the Pittsburgh supermarket knew the name Mercer.
Most did not expect the billionaire owner to appear at one of his own stores at eight-thirty on a freezing December evening.
Daniel ignored Susan.
He knelt beside Lily.
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head even though tears kept falling.
Daniel looked at the twins.
Small.
Warmly wrapped.
Crying from hunger.
Then he looked at the shelves of formula behind the checkout area.
He stood.
“We’re not short on formula.”
Susan’s face drained pale.
Daniel pointed toward Lily.
“Why would you do this?”
Susan opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Lily whispered:
“I was short.”
Daniel looked down.
“How much?”
She opened her fist.
Coins.
Small bills.
Nineteen dollars and eighty-seven cents.
The formula cost twenty-three dollars and forty-nine cents after tax.
Daniel stared at the difference.
Three dollars and sixty-two cents.
Then he looked back at Susan.
“You hit a child over three dollars and sixty-two cents?”
Susan finally spoke.
“She was trying to take it.”
Lily shook her head violently.
“No! I gave her everything.”
Daniel looked toward the register.
The cashier screen still showed the unpaid balance.
Lily had not run.
Had not hidden the can.
Had not stolen anything.
Then Daniel asked the question no one else had asked.
“Where are your parents?”
Lily’s face changed.
Fear.
Not embarrassment.
May you like
Fear.
And Daniel understood that the formula was only the first emergency.
