Joy in His Heart (6 page)

She was so tempted to agree that she held her breath to keep from betraying her level of discomfort. One benefit of his solo trek was that it would be a shorter day hiking. “I told you I’ll make it. And I will,” she said after a pause then she shifted her stance a little. “We’ve wasted enough time today. How do you think we should go about carrying all this?”

“One of the things I did while you were sleeping yesterday was to rig up a backpack for myself out of a parachute harness. I hated to waste the suture kits to stitch it, but we may need these supplies.”

“You can’t carry it all.”

Brian stared at her for long moment then winked. “Watch me, sweetheart,” he quipped and turned away to begin packing up and breaking down the shelters. “It should take me half an hour. In the meantime, you should rest. I’ll give you that painkiller I promised now. By the time we’re ready to move out, it should kick in.”

Joy fervently hoped that it would.

Brian glanced behind him to check on Joy. He leaned back against a rock and waited for her to catch up. She was a trooper he had to give her that, but her labored pace was painful to watch even though his idea for the crutch seemed to work well. Back at the campsite her anger had nearly convinced him he’d been wrong about the possibility that she was afraid. She’d looked like a proud, strong Valkyrie standing there wielding that crutch. But then he had to wonder what she’d thought she would need to fight off—a two-or four-legged menace?

Then, as often happened to him, his mother’s voice echoed from the recesses of his mind. Around the time Joy was fourteen he’d been teasing her. Not that there was anything different about that, but this time Thomasina Peterson had come down on him like a ton of bricks for hurting Joy’s feelings.

Indignant, Brian had countered that Joy gave as good as she got. She wasn’t hurt, just angry, he’d said. His mother’s kind face had creased just a little more with a sad smile. No, she’d explained, Joy was the kind of person who hid her hurt behind anger. She’d explained
the difference between his home and Joy’s—that there was no place in the Lovell household for hurt feminine feelings. Basically, she said Joy had been taught from an early age to process hurt and make it anger. She’d even wondered aloud if Jimmy Lovell knew his youngest was a girl. She’d gone on to add that Joy was very nearly a young lady and that as a young man it was his duty to protect young women, not torture them.

Brian had gone off to sulk, annoyed that his mom would try to wreck the one bit of fun he’d had in his life at the time—a sad testament to his teenage years in the blue-collar neighborhood. Being top in your class didn’t earn you street credibility, that was for sure.

After that, teasing her had lost its luster and he’d tried to be nice to her. She’d responded in kind and they’d struck up a wary friendship. A few more years passed and he came to be grateful. He’d had considerably less to apologize for when he’d come home from college for winter break and saw that the cygnet had become a swan in his absence. He’d wanted to date her then, but he’d waited till she was in her senior year of high school. And then it had only taken months for his dreams to turn to dust.

Brian dragged his thoughts back to the present and focused on Joy as she limped toward him. Thus far she’d refused his help, but he could see she was tiring quickly. “Suppose you rest here for a little while. I’d like to scout that area off to the left,” he said and pointed to a small sunlit meadow on a parallel course to theirs. “This trail’s getting rocky and pretty steep. I thought maybe there might be an easier path leading down the mountain beyond that meadow.”

Joy nodded and Brian took off his pack. He untied the gurney pad and tossed it down for her to sit on. The vinyl-covered pad made the pack bulkier than he would’ve liked and at first he’d intended to leave it behind. It had already served its purpose of cushioning the bundle he’d dragged with him out of the plane. But leaving it had bothered him. His father had taught him and his brothers not to leave a mark on the wilderness with discarded things. Then, as if to cement his instincts, Joy had insisted she would carry it if necessary. Taking that as a sign that she was a lot more uncomfortable than she was willing to let on, he’d decided to bring it along. So he’d rearranged things and they’d gotten started for the plane.

As he tramped toward the meadow, Brian remembered their short exchange earlier in the day. His mother had been both right and wrong. Joy did hide hurt with anger, but she had never wanted or needed his protection within a relationship between them. He was beginning to think what she’d needed was for him to show he had confidence in her abilities. If that was the case, then he’d failed her.

Maybe that was why since Joy, he only dated petite brunettes—women as different from Joy as he could find. The thought gave him pause. So why, if they were her polar opposite, did those women always lose their fascination for him so quickly? None of them made his heart pound. His head spin. Or his heart ache with tenderness and admiration. And those were all the things he felt now as he watched Joy fight pain and fatigue with steadfast determination and courage.

No wonder just glancing at her across a room bothered him so deeply. He was tired of the animosity—he missed her friendship and he’d never been so attracted to any of his petite brunettes. Though they could never be more to each other than friends, it would be nice if they could at least have that again. He sighed. They could have been so happy if he had been what she’d needed and if she could have been what he wanted.

Brian was shocked to realize that he desperately wanted to be what Joy needed right now. Remembering the tired look on her face as she settled onto the mat, he wondered if that were possible, considering their history. He was nearly sure he couldn’t get her to rest for long, but at least he could find an easier route to the valley.

Rolling his sore shoulders and shaking a cramp out of one of his arms, Brian moved swiftly across the meadow. The pack he’d left with Joy was heavy and he was out of practice with this kind of exercise. He made himself promise—when they got back home, he’d begin taking more time for relaxation, for life.

Nearly at the far edge of the meadow, he’d just spotted a deer path when he heard Joy’s terrified scream. It had taken a full five minutes to get as far as he was, but Brian made it back in two minutes flat. He didn’t know what he expected to find but it wasn’t Joy cowering against the rock he used for a seat a short while ago. Or the adorable bear cub, sitting back on its haunches, sniffing the air then licking its paws. He was so relieved that she wasn’t in immediate danger, he chuckled.

“It isn’t funny,” Joy snapped.

He looked around, realizing she was right. It was easy to see why people got themselves into trouble with bears. “No. He’s cute but you’re right. It really isn’t funny. I’m guessing you didn’t see the mother.”

“No, thank the Lord. I woke up and it was standing over me making weird noises. Then he licked me.” She shuddered and wiped her cheek. “It startled me, is all.”

“No doubt,” Brian said, reaching for a neutral tone and schooling his lips in a straight line. A grin at that moment could be disaster. She was so prickly anything could start another argument and they really didn’t have time for one. He decided not to mention the fact that she’d been wide-awake and trying to press her back through solid rock, looking more scared to death than startled when he arrived. It seemed as if his mother had taught him something after all.

When to shut his mouth.

“Come on. We have to get out of here,” he urged and offered her his hand.

“Then it is dangerous?” she asked and put her hand in his.

He pulled her to her feet and helped her lean against the rock. After bending down to pick up the crutch and pad she’d been sitting on, he explained. “The cub isn’t too much of a danger on its own, but its mother will be if we’re between her and her baby or she doesn’t like how close we are. Since we don’t know where she is, we’d better be on our way.”

Brian didn’t hand her her crutch, but stepped to her left side after shouldering the pack and tucking the gur
ney pad under his arm. “I know you don’t want my help but we’ll get away from here faster if you accept it. I think I found a deer path at the other side of the meadow. That will be a little easier going than this trail. It looks like our best bet from here.”

Prepared for her to fight his help, he was surprised when she only nodded and wrapped her arm around his waist. He did the same to her and wished it didn’t feel so right to have her by his side.

A
lmost in a daze, Joy gave in and let Brian help her. He led them back the way he’d come and out into the meadow. The bright sunshine warmed her skin. Minutes later though, she swallowed deeply as they approached the tree line, fighting an instinctive fear and a corresponding tightening of her muscles. Not long after their return to the darkness of the dense forest, they came to a stream and were able to replenish their dwindling water supply.

As Brian had hoped, the deer track was easier to navigate. Because of that they were able to cover more territory than if she’d gone it alone. But, though his assistance helped her toward their goal and lessened the pain in her knee and ankle, his nearness was sheer mental torture.

As they trudged along in silence, Joy found herself going over the last twenty-four hours. She realized they had been all her worst nightmares come true.

First had come the rude awakening that her passen
ger was the one person she least wanted to spend time with. Then the inevitability of the crash of her plane had forced her to parachute with him into one of the wildest parts of the northeast. Next she’d awakened to find herself hurt, out of her element and completely dependent on the man whose rejection had broken her eighteen-year-old heart twelve years ago.

It wasn’t bad enough that she’d had to deal with a long, torturous night in a crude shelter. Oh, no. Following a night spent huddled in the dark, quaking with fear, she’d experienced a truly terrifying moment when she woke. Alone in the makeshift camp with miles and miles of wilderness between herself and civilization, she’d thought nothing could be worse.

She’d been wrong. Because none of the rest of it compared to waking from a short, accidental rest on the trail staring into the furry face of the most horrendous death she could ever have imagined. She shuddered at the memory.

Joy could still hear Brian’s chuckle after he’d burst upon the scene that she’d found anything but funny. He’d once tormented her from behind doors and garden walls and trash cans in the back alley for an entire summer with the chant of “Lions and tigers and bears.” The memory had echoed from the recesses of her mind and she’d been all set to lash out at him. Instead he’d helped her up, confirmed the bear cub as a possible danger, then whisked her away to safer territory.

Brian’s reaction left her off balance and forced her to reevaluate everything she’d thought about him in the twelve years since they broke up. It didn’t take long to
face the difficult truth. She’d been wrong about Brian for years. She didn’t know how she’d managed to convince herself that he was nothing more than an older version of the boy who’d tormented her half her life. But she had.

She’d fallen in love with him before he’d even called a moratorium on that sort of behavior so she didn’t know how she could have been so blind. Blinking back tears that had little to do with her injuries, she stumbled to a stop and Brian reacted immediately.

“Too fast?” he asked, clearly concerned.

She shook her head. “I think I should try it alone for a while. This is…um…putting too much of a strain everywhere else.”

Brian frowned, but nodded and handed her the crutch he’d so carefully constructed. “Just let me know if you need to stop, or go slower or if you need help,” he said and started forward alone, taking the lead, testing the footing on the trail. His strong back, his slightly too-long hair curling at his hairline, the way he moved along the path, snared her attention. Joy couldn’t seem to take her eyes off him. She stood watching as he moved away from her with sure-footed ease until she could see only the top of his head. With a sigh, she followed.

Brian stopped once in a while to help her negotiate a difficult stretch of the trail, then let go without a word and started off alone again. After enduring the neutral look in his eyes for half the day, Joy came to understand the real source of her misery today where Brian was concerned. He’d been decent and solicitous, but he would do the same for any stranger. In fact, while prac
tically glued to her side, he’d treated her exactly as if she
were
a stranger. It was as if that whirlwind courtship had never happened. They were now, at best, childhood adversaries who’d become a couple for a brief moment in time before going their separate ways.

And that was the crux of the problem. Each act of kindness reminded her of all that might have been. The loneliness she battled each day was worse now because he was so near, yet so far. When he’d loved her, he’d done it in all the wrong ways but, at that moment, it didn’t seem to matter. Because if he was still the man she’d once thought him to be, then she’d lost him for the reason she’d always feared.

She hadn’t been enough.

He’d been wrong to demand she become someone she wasn’t and that usually made her angry. Today it only made her sad.

Joy limped along determined to keep up. She wanted to get this forced togetherness over with as soon as possible. She carefully watched where she put her feet. Mooning over what might have been was futile and self-destructive, she lectured herself. What was important today was survival and continuing on. If she fell, they would probably have to stop for the day, so she was cautious and deliberate with her every step.

Fighting a wave of exhaustion, Joy intentionally turned her mind to other matters. When she did, she felt an intense shame strike deep within her. Not once since waking, trapped and tangled in a tree with Brian for a rescuer, had she considered the reason they’d been out there in the first place. In her anger at Brian when he
returned to camp, she hadn’t even noticed when he’d mentioned them. The children.

If she was afraid, how much more terrified were they?

All she’d been thinking about was herself—
her
fear,
her
discomfort,
her
pain. She’d wallowed in self-pity and anger at Brian, never once examining the rest of the consequences of her failure as a searcher. She’d crashed and those children were still out there somewhere alone, maybe hurt and almost definitely afraid. Suddenly sick with guilt, Joy pushed ahead more determined than ever to keep up.

They’d hiked about a mile more when Brian stopped at a fork in the trail. He bent at the hips and braced his hands on his knees. Then he just stood there staring at the ground for a long moment.

“Brian? Is something wrong?” she asked, gaining on him.

He hunkered down as if to get a closer look at whatever had grabbed his attention. “Tracks,” he said, absently looking from right to left.

“Who are you all of a sudden? Daniel Boone?” she quipped. Stepping to the side, Joy saw what he did. There were several sets of footprints. “Oh. I see what you mean. They sure are footprints, aren’t they? You think they’re from the lost kids or a search party?”

Brian stood and placed his foot next to one of the prints. All the prints were much smaller. “Not adults. That’s for sure. It has to be those kids. I’m no expert but these prints were made when this was all mud through here. They could have been made after one of
the storms last week, I suppose.” He paused. “Still, I’d think the deer that travel through here would have obliterated some of this by now if these were made that long ago. I’m thinking they were made after yesterday’s storm.”

Joy had a good sense of direction even if she couldn’t see the merits of the forest while surrounded by its trees. “That puts them in this area but it means they’re headed away from the plane. I’m sure it went down off in that direction,” she said, pointing to the right.

Brian turned to face her and Joy looked up into his dark brown eyes. She was surprised to read indecision and reluctance in his gaze for the first time. It was oddly disconcerting. He was always so sure of himself. There’d been a time when she’d have reveled in his hesitation. She’d always found his self-confidence annoying, but right then, she needed him secure in his decisions. “What? What is it?” she asked.

“I’m not sure what to do,” he replied, confirming her worst fears. “Do we go after them? Or do I get you to that plane as quickly as possible so you can check out that transponder? You can’t go traipsing all over the preserve in the condition you’re in. But even though we know there are search parties looking for all of us, those kids have been alone out here for too long already.”

She wanted to get to the plane but she knew that if those kids were half as afraid as she was, they needed Brian, too. He might not be able to effect a rescue but he could keep them safe until one came along. Besides, after they found the children, they could all make their way to the plane together. She started off down the footprint-marked trail.

“Whoa. Where are you going?” Brian demanded.

She looked back and raised an eyebrow. “After those kids. What did you think?”

“I thought something more along the lines of you staying here tucked in a shelter where you could rest while I take off after them.”

The man was impossible! She battled down fresh, utter panic at once again hearing him toy with the idea of leaving her behind. “I thought we had this discussion yesterday and again this morning. We don’t separate the downed party. It isn’t as if the footprints aren’t headed downhill. It’s the right general direction. We can always double back toward the plane once we find the kids in the valley. What were you planning to do? Make them trudge back up here just to get me?”

Brian had to admit she was right. After nearly a week wandering alone in the forest he doubted those kids would have any strength to spare for an unnecessary side trip. Still, Brian was uneasy about her continuing on. He could see the pain in her eyes, and they were beginning to glaze with the fever she was trying to hide. He’d given her a loaded dose of penicillin that morning hoping this wouldn’t happen but, like everything else on this ill-fated journey, that seemed to be going wrong, too. She was clearly developing an infection.

“Are you sure you won’t wait here?” he asked. “Don’t try to tell me you aren’t in agony.”

She grinned and tilted her head. “That’s funny, I thought I was in New York. Now let’s get this show on the road.”

He chuckled at her Uncle George’s patented corny
joke then sobered. Why couldn’t she just do things the easy way? “Joy, I’m serious. I’d hate to see you do permanent damage. You need rest and you’re not looking too good.”

“If one of those kids dies, it’ll be a lot more serious than me developing a permanent limp.”

Well, he couldn’t argue with that logic. So he nodded and once again took the lead on the trail. But he wasn’t happy about the situation. He also knew she needed something to distract her so she could get her mind off her pain.

“I heard you bought a house,” he said, hoping the opening gambit would get her talking. Women loved talking about their homes. And though she seemed to deny her femininity, she was unmistakably a woman after all.

“It’s a carriage house actually,” she explained. “I fell in love with it the minute I saw it. It was one of those things that happens and you just know the Lord had His hand in it.”

“Like how?” he asked. He’d probably heard the story from his mom but he wouldn’t have wanted to hear about a house he hadn’t bought for her. He’d probably put it out of his mind as soon as he could. Just as he knew she’d accepted the Lord a few years ago but didn’t remember exactly when or how it had come about. He remembered thinking he was glad, but he’d felt guilty that he hadn’t even bothered presenting the Gospel to her when he’d had the chance. It seemed he had failed her in every way he could.

“…and that’s when I met Adam Boyer,” she was
saying when he realized she’d begun to answer his question about her house. “Who would ever think I’d meet a guy who owns an estate at one of my brother’s barbeques? Anyway, the carriage house sits on the front corner of Adam’s property. He mentioned that he’d decided to sell it and a little of the land surrounding it. It sounded perfect and it is.” She laughed.

He’d bet it was the first time he heard her laugh in years. There was nothing quite like seeing Joy happy. He didn’t have to look back to know how her blue eyes sparkled and what that smile that could light a dark room looked like. It had been hiding in his memory for years.

“So what’s the place look like?” he asked, surprised to find he really wanted to know.

Once again, she laughed. “Like the seven dwarfs are going to walk out the front door at any moment.”

“Dwarfs?” Joy was every bit of six foot tall. It didn’t sound like the perfect house for her. “Do you have to duck to get in and out the doors?”

“No. The doors are the regular size. It’s just that the house looks sort of like it came straight out of a fairy tale. A hedge of tall boxwood hides it from the road and drive and it’s partially covered in ivy. It has two arch-top carriage doors on the ground floor and a front door that matches them. All the windows arch, too, and they’re made of diamond-patterned, leaded glass. Like I said. It’s a fairy tale come to life in wood, stone and mortar.”

Before this he would have guessed Joy would rather have a furnished airplane hangar than a storybook
house. “So is it convenient to your airfield?” he asked, instead of voicing his clearly faulty conclusion. His perceptions of her were changing so rapidly he couldn’t seem to switch tracks fast enough. For years, hearing about her adventures, he’d come to think he’d had a lucky escape. He’d once joked to his older brother that she was nothing but a guy with female equipment. He was beginning to see why Greg had looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

She didn’t answer his question about her commute for a while but just kept plodding along behind him. Finally, after a long pause, she said, “It’s about ten miles from the field but it’s not a bad ride because they’re back roads. Sometimes, though, I wish I could just fly there and back. But I don’t think my neighbors would appreciate my parking the Huey in my backyard and scaring their horses.”

Brian chuckled. “I always did see you as a city girl. I was surprised when you moved out to Chester County.”

“I
am
a city girl. I moved from Riverside to Wilmington, Delaware, to be close to Agape Air and I lived happily there for years, but I wanted to be closer to Mom and my brother, especially since Jim married Crystal and they gave me a niece.”