Love Inspired November 2014 #2 (15 page)

“She knows You're there, God. Give her consolation.” With something close to a grin, he switched the lyrics so that they were about Charlotte, about her knowing there was consolation. She ought to be halfway by now, closer to Gordon Falls than Chicago. Exhausted as he was, he felt his heart rate pick up at the thought of seeing her soon.

Why was he so frightened of being serious with Charlotte—why be scared of something that had already happened? Getting serious with Charlotte was no longer a proposition; it was a fact. A done deal, whether he was ready for it or not.
I'll sing you home, Charlotte. I'll sing you prayers to bring you home.

He began improvising a little bit on the melody, stretching it out into long phrases he imagined could cross the miles between himself and Charlotte, bonding them further, reaching into that little blue car as it made its way through the dark. “Charlotte knows You're there. She knows there's consolation.”

Do I?

The question from somewhere in the back of his brain startled him so much he bolted upright.
Do I know God is there?

It was the “know” part that brought him up short. He didn't not believe in God, in the grace of Jesus forgiving sins. He liked to think God was around, working in the world. He'd certainly seen what it did for the lives of people he knew. But did he know, really know in the rock-solid way Charlotte seemed to? The way Charlotte would need him to? The way that offered the consolation he felt himself lacking?

It was then that the title of the song surfaced out of his memory. “Jesus Wash Away My Troubles.” It could not be coincidence that of all the gospel songs recorded by all the Motown artists in history, that was the song that came to him on this forlorn street corner in the middle of the night.
You are. You're there.
Jesse felt the astounding sensation of his soul lifting up and settling into place.

He looked around, feeling...feeling what, exactly?
Transformed
was such a dramatic way to put it, but no other word came to mind. He felt lighter. Looser. In possession of a tiny bit of that peace of Charlotte's that pulled him in like a magnet.

This was what made her the way she was. What made her able to ride through life with that indescribable trust that everything would work out in the end, and the courage to leap into situations without hesitation. It was the exact opposite of that drive he had, the one that made him plot and plan and scramble to bend life to his advantage. He'd never trusted that things would work out, because he'd never had anything to trust
in.
But he did now.

Consolation.

He felt consoled. Nothing in tonight's circumstances had changed—the cottage was still a wreck, his leg was still broken, the next six weeks up in the air and all of it beyond his control.

Yesterday's Jesse would be gnawing on his crutches by now. Tonight, he felt absurdly okay with it all.

All of it except the fact that Charlotte was not here. The sting of her absence, the bolt of ice down his back when he thought she might be harmed, the unsettling power of his need for her—those things weren't consolation. They were powerful, a bit wonderful and a great big hunk of terrifying.

Okay, God, this is me, doing the prayer thing. No songs, not someone else's lyrics, just me. And I'm asking You—begging You—to bring her home safe. Keep her head clear enough to drive or smart enough to pull over if she's too tired. I'll wait if I have to. But I figure You already know that I don't want to. Just keep her safe, because I can't. Not from here. That's going to have to be Your department. You get her here and I'll take it from there.

He sat there on the curb in the fading darkness of near dawn, listening to the steady drip of water off the cottage. They hadn't soaked the house, but even a small fire like the one tonight called for a fair amount of water, and firemen never had the luxury of being careful with their hose. He sang all the verses he could remember from “Amazing Grace”—Aretha Franklin had a dynamite ten-minute version on one recording he owned—humming in the parts where he couldn't remember the words. He was segueing into Ray Charles's “O Happy Day,” feeling the beginnings of a second wind, when his cell phone rang.

He grabbed it like a lifeline, a gush of “Thank You” surging from his heart when he saw Charlotte's number on the screen. “Charlotte?”

“I just got off the highway. I pulled over on the shoulder on Route 20 to call.”

Jesse was glad she was only ten minutes away. She sounded weary. “You're almost here. I'll be up by the floodgates, waiting for you.” He wanted to hold her, to give her every ounce of support he could before she saw the cottage.

She guessed his strategy. “That bad, huh?”

“No, not really. It's all fixable from what I can see. But you have to be so tired.”

“I am. You must be, too. This was your second fire of the night and you weren't even supposed to be on duty.”

Jesse saw no point in giving her the details yet. She'd see the crutches soon enough. “No worries, Miss Taylor. This is what I do. Get back on the road and I'll see you soon.”

“Okay.” If she hadn't already been crying, she was close to tears. Who wouldn't be in her situation?

Jesse pocketed the phone, picked up his crutches and hobbled toward the floodgates humming “O Happy Day.”

Chapter Seventeen

C
harlotte worked it out, somewhere west of Rockford. The force of her own idiocy had struck her so hard she'd nearly had to pull over and catch her breath.

She had set her own house on fire.

She'd left the oven on with the paper bag and tin containers of food inside to keep them warm. The greasy nature of Dellio's fries made them downright addictive, but probably also made them something close to kindling if left unsupervised.
Father God, I burned my own house down. How could I have been so foolish?
She wanted to ask Jesse—had tried to, in a roundabout way with her repeated question of “How bad is it?”—but she knew he'd never say. Not while she was driving. He'd save the lecture for when they were face-to-face.
Why did I have to leave right then? Why couldn't I have been sensible and waited until morning or at least until I was calmer?

Part of her knew the answer: what she felt for Jesse was frightening her. She wasn't ready to love a firefighter. She wasn't ready to accept the life that she saw beat Mom down over the years. Needing someone who could be yanked away from you on a moment's notice? She didn't think she could handle that. Hadn't she already proved how poorly she handled that? The facts that Jesse didn't have a relationship with God—and seemed to have trouble with relationships in general—were just the icing on the cake.

She wouldn't worry about that right now. Right now she would just get to Gordon Falls, fall exhausted into his arms, thank him for saving her house and praying her safely here, and let him save her for now. The rest of it would have to wait until she could think straight. Charlotte pulled off Route 20 and sighed out loud when she caught sight of the familiar green floodgates that marked the official entrance into Gordon Falls.

The sigh turned into a panicked yelp when her headlights shone on Jesse. He was standing on a pair of crutches with a bandage over one eyebrow, and a splint on one leg.

He'd been hurt. And he hadn't told her. Had he been injured fighting the fire at her cottage? A dozen thoughts slammed together in her head as she threw open the car door and raced up to him.

“You're okay!” He reached out to her as much as the crutches would allow.

“You're not!” As much as she wanted to melt into his arms and cry buckets of tired tears, the shock of seeing him injured wedged between them. “You're hurt. What happened? Why didn't you tell me?” It was as if the omission of that detail let loose a deluge of her own panic, and everything she'd been holding in check the entire drive came gushing out of her in a choking wave of sobs.

“Hey.” He tried to grab her but she darted out of his grasp. “Hey, I'm okay. I didn't think you needed the extra stress of the news on the drive.”

She noticed the bloody bandage on his leg above the splint and felt a bit dizzy. In her mind she heard her mother yelling at her father. The one night he'd been seriously injured—a stab wound in his shoulder—he'd simply waltzed in the door with his arm in a sling and Mom had gone through the roof. Now she knew how that felt. “You were hurt and you didn't tell me? You were hurt fighting the fire
at my cottage
and you didn't think I could handle knowing? So it's bad enough that I started the fire, why add to my guilt? Is that what you think of me?” Some part of her knew she was being unreasonable but she couldn't stop the spiral of panic and guilt that wrapped itself around her.

Jesse managed to grab her arm, the force of his grasp startling her out of the tailspin. “Look at me. Charlotte,
look at me.
” His eyes were fierce, but in a protective way. He pulled her toward him. “I am fine.” He spoke the words slowly, clear and close. Charlotte latched on to them like an anchor line. “I'm hurt, yes, but I'm going to be okay. We're both going to be okay.”

She didn't see how any of this was going to be anything close to okay. She started to shake her head, but Jesse tugged her closer, crutches still under both arms, and held her close.

“You're here. You're safe. That's what matters.” He let the crutches fall against the side of her car, holding her face in his hands. “I went nuts when I realized it was your house. I would have run there in my bare feet if it weren't for this.” He wobbled a bit, standing on one leg, and she helped him hop over and sit on the hood. “When they couldn't find you...”

His words struck her. “You were hurt at the first fire?” It was still awful, but the weight on her chest eased up a bit. She looked at his leg. “What happened?”

“I tripped and fell into a porch railing. The railing was in bad shape, so it gave way and I went down. Kind of hard.”

Only Jesse would make light of something like that. “And...”

“Broken tibia and sixteen stitches.”

She put her hands to her mouth. “Oh, wow. That's bad.”

“Well, it's not the ‘put some dirt on it and walk it off' kind of thing, but I'll be all right.” His hands came up to her hair. “I was worried about you. I was close to banging down your cousin JJ's door and getting one of those corporate helicopters her husband uses rather than forcing you to make that drive.”

She knew Jesse would have, too. She hadn't imagined what had sprung up between them; it was real. “Alex doesn't run a huge corporation anymore, you know that.”

“I just kept thinking about you all alone on that dark highway, tired and scared. For a guy's first prayer you sure picked a doozy. I'd say ‘baptism by fire,' but I think that would be in poor taste.”

Charlotte touched the bandage over his eye. His eyes. He could never fake what was in his eyes right now. It was no trick of entertainment; it was deep, true care. “So you did pray?”

“Of course. You asked me to. I couldn't work out how at first, so I just started singing whatever gospel song I could remember. It got easier after that. I just tried to believe as much as I know you do, hoping it would rub off.”

“Did it?”

The warmth in his eyes ignited further, and she felt his hands tighten around her waist as she stood next to him beside the car. “Yeah, it did. I couldn't help you from where I was, but I began to feel like God could. Like He would.” He looked down and shook his head. “I don't know how to explain it, really.”

She lifted his chin to meet her eyes. That wasn't just warmth or care, it was peace. “No explanation needed. I get it. And I'm glad.” The peace that had momentarily abandoned her—or had she abandoned it?—returned bit by bit. She allowed the strength of his embrace to seep into her, felt his head tilt to touch the top of hers and leave a handful of tender kisses there. Real. True. Trustworthy.

“You may not be so glad in a few minutes. The cottage is a mess. It's still there, it didn't burn, but there's a lot of damage.”

She cringed. Her beautiful cottage—undone by a burger and fries with a side of stupidity. “I started it. Oh, Jesse, the fire is my fault. The oven...”

He tightened his grip on her. “I know. Clark told me they found the Dellio's tin in the oven. Or what's left of the oven.” He put his face close to hers. “We'll get through it. Just...”

“Just what?”

His entire face changed, the fierceness leaving to reveal a heart-stopping tenderness. “Just don't leave. Don't go to Vermont, Charlotte. I don't want you to go. You belong here. You belong with me. You know you do, don't you?”

She knew how much it cost him to admit that, to make the request, and the last piece of her heart broke open for this incredible man. “I want to, but how?”

“I don't know yet. But if God is never late and He's never early, then maybe He's never wrong. I'm pretty new at this, but you told me yourself you felt like God led you here. It's got to still be true. We'll just have to figure out how to trust that.”

* * *

Jesse's work with the GFVFD put him in the position of dealing with friends and neighbors after a fire, so he should have been used to this. None of that explained how his heart drummed against his ribs as he rode in Charlotte's little blue car, crutches banging against his shoulders, frustrated that he was forced to let her drive.

The damage on the outside wasn't especially visible in the predawn light, though there were
some
signs. The loose front railing had given way when knocked by one of the firefighters, and it lay propped up against the side of the cottage. The bushes Charlotte had just trimmed after months of neglect were trampled, and there were divots and gashes in the front lawn, scraggly as it was.

He caught her gaze as she turned off the ignition in the driveway. “See, it's still here. Not even a window broken. You should realize how fortunate you are.” He wanted to reassure her, bolster her up before she saw the inside. He'd not been in there yet, but he knew what to expect. He dreaded watching her eyes take in the overwhelming sooty blackness he knew would cover her home.

“Yeah, I know.” She said the words for his benefit, her tone hollow with disbelief.

He grabbed her hand, needing to make her understand. “Your neighbor called when she heard your smoke detectors go off and she didn't see any lights come on in the house. If it had become fully involved in open flames, I don't think you'd have much of a cottage left.” He tried to put it into the terms that would mean the most to her. “You're blessed, Charlotte. It could have been so much worse.”

Her grip on his hand tightened. “You put those smoke detectors in for me.”

“And boy, am I glad.” There was no way he was going to let her sleep in that house without the best smoke detectors he could get. It was the one extravagance he endorsed without a hint of guilt. He couldn't help drawing the connection between that urge and her current safety. He knew Charlotte wouldn't call that coincidence, and it was starting to sink in that it wasn't. He'd been placed in Charlotte's life right at this time.
God is never late, and He's never early; He's always right on time.
“Come on, let's get the first look over with. It gets better after that.”

She hesitated, one hand still white-knuckled on the steering wheel. “What's in there?”

“I don't know. I haven't been in yet.”

“Yes, but you know what to expect. Tell me what I'm going to find.”

Jesse took a deep breath. Perhaps this was the least he could do—lessen the sensory shock so that it didn't hit her like a brick wall. He pulled her hand into his lap and stroked it softly while he kept his tone low and calm. “It will smell bad—at least for now. It's good that you don't have a lot of furniture in there yet.” He thought of the little plaid chair where he'd imagined resting his leg. “Most of the textiles might need to go or be professionally cleaned.”

“All my yarn and fabrics are still in Chicago. And my china, too—well, most of it.” Her grappling for positives unwound his heart.

“Yep, that's good. Most of the kitchen will be covered in black soot and probably some whitish powder from the extinguishing agent. Probably some of the dining room and hallway, too. None of the windows are broken, so that's good, too.”

“My new sink and faucet are goners, aren't they?”

“Maybe, maybe not.” He gave her hand a final squeeze before he let go and opened the car door. “There's only one way to find out.” When she winced, he added, “I'll be right beside you, Charlotte. Now and all the way through this.”

Before he could get himself out of the car, Charlotte grabbed his shoulder and gave him a tender kiss. If there had been any resistance left in him, the need he felt in that kiss dissolved the last trace. The small, insistent longing to make her happy swelled into a consuming urge. He returned her kiss as if he were sealing a promise.
I will see you through this. I will stand by you.

“Thank you,” she said, their foreheads still touching.

He started to say, “You're welcome,” but the words weren't near adequate. Instead, he kissed her again, hoping his touch spoke more. “Okay.” He forced a grin and a wink. “Enough necking in the driveway. Let's get the hard part over with.”

Her hands were shaking as she pulled aside the yellow tape that held the door shut. They'd had to break down the door. “Oh well, I was thinking about a new front door anyway.”

“That's the spirit. Ready?”

“No.” She managed the smallest slip of a smile, a weak and wobbly thing that still looked breathtaking on her.

“Want me to go first?”

She pushed back her shoulders and raised her chin. “No. I can do this.”

You can. I know you can.
In that moment, Jesse knew she'd come through this even stronger. Chief Bradens said he could always tell which people would beat the fire, and which people would let the fire beat them. In this case, Jesse could see it, too. Charlotte wouldn't let this keep her down for long. Jesse felt his heart slip from his grasp as she stepped across the threshold.

The acrid scent of smoke hit them with a force that was almost physical as he followed her into the house. Her hands went up to her face. “Oh, Lord, help me.” It wasn't a casual expression—it was a heartfelt plea to heaven. Jesse, to his own surprise, felt a similar plea launch up from his own heart—
Help me help her.

The front hallway and living room weren't as bad as they could have been. Thin black film covered everything, but he'd seen far worse. In the gray-pink light of dawn, it was as if the room had been poorly erased; everything blended together in a smudge of colorless dust. He made his way over to the windows and began opening them up. He'd go through the house with Charlotte and open every working window until the worst of the smell had eased up a bit. It would feel like progress to her, and he knew all she really needed was a first foothold.

He heard a whimper and turned to find her staring at the plaid chair, now damp and smudged with soot. He could tell her something optimistic, but he owed her the respect of honesty. “You'll have to trash it. I'm sorry.”