Firestorm (18 page)

“You notice, of course,” he said, drawing near her again, “that I regained my balance. Another near accident averted because of the supreme balancing ability of Logan McCabe.” He puffed out his chest and struck a heroic pose.

“Bravo,” she said blandly.

He turned back to her, quickly looking her over from head to toe. “You, my love, are stunning.”

Reyne gave him a genuine smile then. “And you’re not half bad yourself. I like that shirt.”

Logan fingered the heavy, hand-woven cotton. “This li’l ol’ thing?” he asked in a silly imitation of a Southern belle.

“The cowboy boots, too,” she said, pointing to his feet.

He grinned and looked down. With the extra height of the boots, he realized, he was a good six inches taller than she. She was gazing up at him, her face bright in its halo of pale gold, and he fell silent, cherishing the look of love in her eyes.
Please Father
, he prayed silently,
let that love always be there
.

Logan could not imagine anything better than this feeling between them. It was exhilarating. Sometimes when he was fighting
a fire, he entertained thoughts of quitting just to be with her. What could be more important? Lately he had considered her suggestion of serving on a command center team. That way, they would be far more likely to end up together at a fire than they were now. Or maybe the forestry company would eventually hire her, too. It all depended on a lot of unknown factors.

He considered telling Reyne right then what he was thinking. Then he shelved the idea, deciding to wait for the perfect moment.
If I really want to do it
, he wondered.

“Madam,” he said, offering her his arm, this time taking on the voice of a distinguished English gentleman, “it would be my distinct pleasure to escort you to the ball.”

“Lead on, my good man, lead on.”

Reyne and Logan joined their friends at the dinner tables outside the grange hall half an hour later, immediately joining in the merry fun of the barbecue dinner, the loud, raucous conversation, the unbridled laughter. As usual, the entire town had turned out for the annual event of the summer. What was unusual was the general absence of the festival’s hallmark, buckets of fragrant sweet peas. In the near-drought conditions, there were few to be found in Elk Horn’s gardens. Many gardeners had brought roses instead, which were prospering in the heat. The townspeople had happily dubbed the roses “temporary sweet peas” and gone about their festival.

Reyne reached over to hug Rachel and Beth and to give their husbands quick kisses on the cheek. She ignored the fact that Beth was as white as her cotton dress and smiled into her friend’s eyes as if willing strength into her body. But as they sat down to eat, she
could not help but notice the slow manner in which Beth approached her meal, as if every motion was agony and even lifting the rib to her mouth to eat was a burden.

Still, Beth was smiling, and the general mood was upbeat. They finished eating and then joined others who were filtering into the grange hall to dance off their supper.

Inside, the temperature rose a good ten degrees, and Reyne was glad she had chosen her sleeveless linen dress. She moved into Logan’s arms for a fast dance where he whirled her about, teaching her the country-western steps as they went. She felt like clay under the potter’s deft fingers, easily finding her way with the dance as if she had known it all her life.

“You’re quite a dance instructor,” she said into his ear, almost shouting to be heard over the noise of the country band. “Is there anything you don’t do well?”

Logan clamped his lips shut and furrowed his brow, apparently thinking while he continued to lead her across the dance floor. When they came together again in a subtle move, he whispered into her ear, “My chocolate cakes are pretty sad.”

She laughed, feeling alive and happy, truly happy, for the first time in what seemed like ages. Dance after dance, Logan taught her new steps and kept her on the floor, discouraging her many admirers from cutting in. Clearly, they were a couple and interested in no one but each other. Their eyes often met and held, creating “eternal moments,” as Beth would have called them.

Surely this is the handsomest man I’ve ever met
, Reyne thought as she gazed into his sparkling sky blue eyes. She laughed out loud.

“What?” Logan asked, taking her hand and expertly swinging her around.

“Nothing,” she said evasively, still smiling.

“What?” he asked again, giving her a mock-threatening look.

“I was just thinking about the first time I saw you,” she said.

“And?”

“And I thought you were the biggest jerk in the world.”

“And the most handsome and intelligent, right?” he said, smiling down into her eyes for a moment before they separated and went on with their dance.

“That came later. Definitely later.”

“As long as it came. I, on the other hand, knew as soon as I saw you that you were beautiful and intelligent.”

“Oh, so it’s a contest now who discovered whom?”

“There was no contest,” he quipped, smiling smugly.

She shook her head and smiled, feeling her cheeks ache from all the grinning and laughing.
Thank you, Lord
, she prayed suddenly.
Thank you for this incredible happiness
.

It was with some consternation that Reyne watched Beth accept a friendly neighbor’s invitation to dance. She had been sitting with Matt, storing up energy for a slow dance with him, but could not refuse the sweet, well-meaning invitation. It was so like Beth to go the extra mile just so she wouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings.
If it were me, I would’ve just said no thank you
.

Furtively Reyne watched her friend, glancing occasionally to Matthew’s worried face.

“What’s wrong?” Logan asked at their next turn.

“Oh, nothing. It’s just that—” She broke off, watching Beth more closely. Was something wrong, or was Reyne just imagining things?

“What?” Logan looked over his shoulder, following her gaze. “You worried about Beth?”

“Well, yes. She hasn’t been feeling great, and she’s as white as—” This time she broke away from Logan, running to the spot where Beth lay slumped on the floor, her bewildered partner kneeling beside her. A crowd gathered, and the music trailed off as people rushed to help. Matthew shoved his way through, checked his wife’s pulse, and called, “Beth? Can you hear me? Beth?”

The group grew silent as they waited in vain for her answer.

T
he news wasn’t good. At the county hospital, Logan and Reyne had sat with the Tanners and their pastor while Matt stayed in the emergency room with Beth, awaiting test results from the lab. Beth had come around while still on the dance floor, protesting that she had fainted and nothing more, but Matt had insisted on taking her to the hospital to check things out. Much to Beth’s dismay, the Tanners, Logan and Reyne, and Pastor Arnie went with them.

They were glad they were there though. Hours later, when Matt came out to pass along the report, he looked gravely ill himself. But he managed to keep his composure for a time, carefully explaining what had been explained to him. Beth was dying. The cancer was so pervasive that it had spread throughout her body—the lymph nodes, her liver, even her brain.

“Looking at radiology reports,” Matt said, finally daring to look into his friends’ compassionate eyes, “the doc says it’s a miracle she’s alive now.” His last words were choked with agony, and then he finally let go. Watching the big bear of a man dissolve into tears immediately brought the rest of them to their feet. Logan moved to him, embracing him in a fierce hug. Then Rachel gently led Matt to a couch and sat down beside him.

Matt kept saying, “I gotta be strong,” chanting it as if saying it would make it true. But the words just made him teary all over again.

“We need to pray,” Arnie ventured softly to the tightly knit group when Matt finally gained some measure of control. “What would you like us to pray for, Matt?”

His suggestion just seemed to aggravate Matt’s pain, and his tears turned into giant, quiet sobs.
O God
, Reyne cried silently.
This can’t be happening! Tell me this is not happening! Please, Father, where are you? Not Beth! Not her!

Matt’s friends waited, with tears streaming down their own faces, until he regained his composure. He swallowed hard, wiping his eyes and nose with a large handkerchief. “Time,” he said at long last. “Let’s pray for every minute that God will spare her to be with us.”

And right there they knelt about him, praying for as much time as possible.

Logan and Reyne rode home in silence, each thinking about Beth and Matt and little Hope. Reyne was the first to speak as they exited the highway toward her home. “Surely this can’t be God’s way,” she said softly.

“His ways are mysterious,” Logan answered. “What doesn’t make a whole lot of sense now will make more sense years from now.”

Logan’s answer angered her, as if he were dismissing all of the pain with his easy, trite words. “I don’t care about the future,” Reyne said, sniffling and looking toward the reflected dashboard lights in her dark window. It was late, about eleven o’clock. “How can you say things like that?”

Logan continued driving, apparently mulling over his response. “I don’t think they come easily. I mean, I’m almost thirty-one, and I have learned some hard lessons. In the end, it seems that afterward I
can always see more clearly where God was than when I’m in the middle of the muck of life.”

Reyne nodded, still sniffling. “Sorry,” she forced herself to say. “I’m not mad at you. It’s just hard for me to see how Beth’s dying would be a part of some divine plan. And I’m mad at Beth’s body for not fighting off the cancer. At God for not stepping in. She doesn’t deserve to die, Logan. She’s such a good person. She has so much to teach me as my friend! She and Matt—they’re great together. And Hope … how fair is it for a three-year-old to lose her mother?” The tears came fast, building with each new thought.

Logan pulled to a stop in front of her house, unfastened Reyne’s seat belt, and then drew her to him. He sat there, silently waiting for her to finish crying, not pushing, not making her feel stupid for doing so, just understanding and waiting and holding her.

When she had wiped her face again and gained some measure of control, he spoke. “Reyne, we have to think about all the things we can do to make Beth’s last days the best possible. I think that’s what God wants of us. To bow our heads and accept whatever’s ahead, make the most of it. And to celebrate every moment that we have with Beth as a gift. That’s what the Morgans are after. We should be too.”

Reyne nodded, tearing up again. “That’s what she told me that day by the creek,” she said, fairly croaking. “ ‘Every moment is precious,’ she told me.”

Logan opened his door. “Why don’t you invite me in for coffee? I think we both need to talk. And pray.”

D
espite the fires that were raging from Washington to Mexico, Reyne requested a leave of absence. The officials at Forest Service headquarters were gracious but reluctant to let her go. She was needed, they said. But Reyne gave them no choice. To her, there
was
no choice but to stay near Beth. To Reyne, there
was
no greater need than that of the Morgan family.

Rachel and Reyne took turns spending the afternoon at the Double M. They fielded phone calls from neighbors and church friends, suggesting ways to help. They helped Beth bathe as she grew too weak to get in and out of the tub, brought Hope to her bedside so she could read to her daughter, and picked up the stories when Beth fell asleep in the middle of them. And then, gently, they would ease the little girl away from her mother, often distracting her with games outside the house. All the while, every adult was counting the ten days that the doctors had allotted as Beth’s probability at life.

One afternoon four days after Beth had come home from the hospital, Reyne was playing with Hope outside while Beth rested. Hope was giggling and being so silly that it caught her father’s attention and he went to retrieve the video camera to shoot some footage. While they went on playing, Reyne suddenly stopped, looking from Matt to the bedroom window upstairs.

“Hey, Matt,” Reyne said. “I just had a great idea.”

“What’s that?” he said, looking at her through the camera lens.

“I’ll tell you in a minute.” She rushed by him, eager to get to Beth and see what she thought.

It seemed like hours before Beth finally awakened. When she did, Reyne was right there. “Beth,” she said, kneeling beside her bed, “I just had a brainstorm.”

“Uh-oh,” her friend managed to joke, her voice little more than a whisper. “What are we in for now?”

“Stop it,” Reyne said, nudging her arm playfully. “Matt was out there videotaping Hope, and I got to thinking. What if we set up a camera and taped you? You know, make a series of tapes for Hope from her mom. For her eighth birthday or her eighteenth. For her baptism! Her wedding day!” She stopped herself from getting too excited about the idea before Beth agreed to it. The last thing Beth needed was pressure.

Beth turned her head on her pillow and gazed outside. A single tear escaped her eyes and trickled down her left cheek. “That,” she said, taking a deep breath, “would be wonderful.” She thought a bit more and then said, “But I don’t want to look like an invalid. You and Rachel would have to make me beautiful and then get me into a chair in the living room. No bedridden, last-messages stuff.”

“It’s a deal.” Reyne smiled. It felt good to have a plan, a purpose. She took Beth’s hand in hers. “I’m so glad you like the idea. I think those tapes will become priceless to Hope as she gets older.”

“It’s a good way to reach out to her, even after I’m gone.”

Her words frightened Reyne. How could they be talking this way? How had it come to this? It seemed unreal. Surreal. Intolerable.

“To show her how much I love her,” Beth was saying, “how much I miss her. How dearly I wanted to be a part of her life.” Beth
paused to take a breath, apparently forcing tears away. Reyne waited patiently, trying hard to ignore what felt like an elephant sitting on her chest. She swallowed hard against sudden tears. “Call Rachel, will you Reyne?” Beth asked in a whisper. “Ask her if she can come first thing tomorrow. I usually do better in the mornings.”