Deep Haven [03] The Perfect Match

by Susan May Warren

  “So, this man, who’d accomplished so much for God, had forgotten the secret of his success. Seeking God.” The missionary set his Bible on the podium, then braced his hands on either side, leaning into his sermon and lowering his voice. “That moment, right in front of the priests, God afflicted him with leprosy. From that day forward, he had to live separately from his family. He forfeited his kingdom to his son to rule, and when he died, the people said only one thing about this king who had been great.

  “He had leprosy.”

  Ellie had closed her Bible, and was smoothing her hand across it as his low, soft, even dangerous words burned her.

  Even now, she remembered trembling.

  Oh, Lord, how will I be remembered? As a leper? An outcast? Someone to run from?

  She curled into a ball, drawing up her knees. A leper.

  No, my child, you are not a leper. You are lost.

  She felt, more than heard, the words, and a sob racked her.

  But I’ve let my pride rule me, my desire to be someone special.

  You already are. You are Mine. The greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends. I’ve already proven My love for you in the sacrifice of My beloved Son. Now embrace it and know Me. It is My greatness and My grace that make you special. Because I, the Almighty God, chose you to be Mine.

  Ellie stilled, letting that truth settle into her bones.

  Abide in Me, and you will find peace. You will find hope. You will find purpose.

  Liza’s words, so gently spoken, in the Deep Haven park, drifted through her mind like a fragrance. The more we work for Him, the more we seek Him. The circle of joy.

  She’d been running in circles most of her life, one step behind joy. Because she hadn’t stopped to abide. To let His love settle in, fuel her steps. It wasn’t that her job wasn’t important; she simply hadn’t let God make it meaningful.

  Because she’d refused to believe she was important to Him. She’d been trying to get His attention, but she already—always—had it.

  Ellie had God’s attention in a sweltering fire shelter, and she had it while freezing on a cold cement floor. She had it sitting on the shore of Lake Superior with Dan or alone while she searched a smoke-filled building. She had it whether she had logged miles for the gospel and saved hundreds of lives, or if she simply wiped toddlers’ noses and did mounds of laundry.

  She had God’s attention because she was His child.

  Ellie closed her eyes. Oh, Lord, I want my life to make a difference, but I’m not sure where to start.

  Me. Start with Me.

  Alone, shivering, dirty, and frightened, Ellie bowed to the command, tears flooding her eyes. Yes, Lord. Forgive me for trying to go it alone. For not believing in Your love for me. Help me see my worth in Your eyes. Help me not to base it on my accomplishments but on my relationship with You. As Your child.

  His child. His beloved.

  As she lay there, bound and broken, she felt the first wisps of that truth, that immensity. Getting a tight grasp on it would change everything, just like Dan’s friend Katie had said.

  Warmth, radiating from the inside of her body, swept through her veins, her pores, her soul, making her tremble. Oh yes, His child. Nothing more. Nothing less. All the days of her life. However long it might be.

  A time frame, she thought as she lay there, breathing in and out under a supernatural calm, which might have an ending sooner than she wanted. Not only could she not feel her feet, but fatigue seemed like a sweet, enticing blanket against the cold, and her breathing required new effort, heavy as it was to draw into her lungs.

  She closed her eyes and in the back of her mind decided that the new redolence filtering into her dark coffin smelled faintly of smoke.

  Dan raced Mitch and Sam to the parking lot of the city municipal building. The night had turned black, the wispy clouds that remained of the day’s deluge pushed north, and a new storm front headed in from the west, drawing a shadow over the stars, the moon.

  Dan stopped, stood still, adrenaline burning through him, helplessness raging in his veins. Rounding on Mitch, ten steps behind him, he shot him a silent plea.

  “I don’t know, Preach. It was dark. I think he wore a mask. All I saw was him throwing her into the back of my pickup. I missed him by twenty feet.” Mitch was still breathing hard, and the man looked genuinely stricken.

  Sam opened his car door. “I put out an APB for her, and I’ll have a cruiser run through the neighborhoods.”

  Dan slid into the front seat. “Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know.” Sam shoved his key into the ignition. “I thought we’d start with the firehouse.”

  The door to the fire station was open, a yawn of darkness where the engine took up daily residence. “Where’s the pumper?” Mitch asked in a voice that matched Dan’s horror. “I didn’t hear a siren or a call.”

  “Is it still at the church?”

  Mitch shook his head. “I thought Guthrie brought it back to the house.”

  “Guthrie,” Dan growled. “What about Smoky Joe’s?”

  Sam radioed in their destination, while Dan braced his feet against the floorboard. Perhaps Sam had done time as a state trooper. He zipped up the highway at a speed that shed tears.

  They saw the blaze a block away. A glow of flickering light against the haze of night. Dan’s mouth opened, and out of him came a noise that sounded painfully like a groan.

  Sam grabbed his radio. “Structure fire. Smoky Joe’s. Highway 61. We need all crews.” He faced Dan, a hollow, pained look as he finished. “The engine is already here.”

  Dan was out of the car before Sam stopped, a step in front of Mitch, who caught his arm. “You can’t go in there.”

  The restaurant, a stand-alone wooden building a stone’s throw out of town, billowed out ugly black smoke like a coal furnace. Flames licked out of the back windows; smoke tumbled out of the front door.

  “It looks like a grease fire from the color of the smoke, lots of fuel, burning fast.” Mitch had turned into a captain. He gripped Dan by the shoulder, half dragging him to the engine.

  “Ellie!” Dan ripped out of Mitch’s grasp, ran for the house.

  Mitch had to tackle him. Dan landed, chin in the rutted weeds. It peeled a layer of skin.

  “It’s too hot, man! Wait for your gear!”

  Dan twisted and shrugged the man off, eyes tearing against the smoke that scraped the air. “What if Ellie’s in there?”

  Mitch pulled him back to the engine. “Help me get out the hose.”

  Dan’s hands shook as he unlatched the door, unhooked the hoses. Ellie couldn’t survive that inferno. But maybe . . . okay, so maybe she wasn’t in there. Maybe it was a coincidence.

  “There’s my truck,” Mitch growled under his breath and nodded toward the back.

  Dan tightened his jaw, feeling like he might lose his supper, and rushed to the truck. It was parked behind the building, the tailgate still ajar. “Ellie!”

  Dan heard movement and whipped around the truck.

  Guthrie. The man sat, knees up, curled into a ball, hands over his helmet. He wore his turnout gear and air pack.

  When he looked at Dan, his face wasn’t his own. Wild fear ravaged his eyes, whitened his color.

  Dan stood in paralyzed shock a second before he snapped. He seized Guthrie by the collar, yanking him to his feet, not caring that he had a reputation or that this man was a member of his flock. Not caring that Guthrie obviously hovered on the raw edge of hysteria. “Where is she?” he yelled.

  The intensity must have rattled Guthrie, for the man’s eyes focused, darkened. Then his mouth opened in a howl that sounded more like a wounded animal’s than a human’s.

  “Where, Guthrie?” Dan said, trying to gentle his voice. It wasn’t easy with a thousand gallons of adrenaline surging through him. He took off Guthrie’s helmet, started to wrestle him out of his coat. “I’ll go get her; just tell me where.”

 
Guthrie blinked at him, then nodded. “The meat cooler. I . . . I didn’t want to hurt her.” He shrank to his knees, his hands over his face, sobs now racking him so violently that Dan had to fight them to get off the jacket. “I just wanted to rescue her. Prove to her that I could be . . .”

  Dan stared at him, on the brink of ripping the words right out of his throat.

  Guthrie looked up. “I just wanted her to love me.” His eyes glazed. “Why can’t she love me?”

  He shook out of Dan’s grip, backing away, his eyes widening. “But she loves you. I heard her calling out for you when I threw her in the truck.” When his face twisted, some sort of mania-induced hope filled his face, his voice. “You’ll rescue her, right? You’ll do it.”

  Dan dropped to his knees. “I need the boots.”

  Guthrie worked them off, as if eager now to assist. He stripped out of the bunker pants and Dan put them on, snapped the suspenders up, and dived into the boots. The SCBA gear under his arm, he hurried toward the engine.

  Guthrie grabbed him by the arm and Dan whirled, not sure if the man was trying to stop him. Guthrie shoved the helmet onto his head. “Be careful,” he said, his eyes strangely bright.

  Dan nodded, not sure exactly what to say.

  Mitch had already unfurled the hose. John Benson had arrived, and one look at him told Dan that John knew the stakes. He was latching his coat, pulling on his gloves. Dan pulled on his mask and hood as the fire roared behind them, now sending a plume of sparks into the sky. “Guthrie stashed her in the meat locker.”

  “What?” Mitch’s face darkened. “I just ordered the electricity shut off. She’ll asphyxiate in there without the recirculating oxygen.”

  The picture of Ellie, white-faced in a death pallor, gasping for her last, poisoned breath filled his brain with icy pain. “I’m going in after her.”

  “No. We need two men on the hose,” Mitch barked. “We have a better chance of saving her if we don’t lose you too. We need to do this right, how she taught us.”

  Dan glared at him, then closed his eyes. Oh, God, please help me! He could run in, his fears unbridled, and leave behind common sense, or he could listen to his captain and hope they beat a path to the kitchen door. Either way, it would be in God’s hands. Frustration felt like a living beast crawling up his stomach. He tightened Guthrie’s helmet onto his head. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Dan tucked himself behind John as they sprinted toward the building with the limp hose. “She’s in the meat locker! Near the back,” Dan hollered, adrenaline garbling his voice through the mask amplifier. If he wanted John to understand him, he’d have to stay calm. He swallowed and repeated his words.

  At the entrance John nodded and turned on the nozzle. The spray hit the flames with a serpent’s hiss, loud and long and agonized. Steam buffeted Dan’s mask while he wrestled the hose forward. They stepped into the building, staying low, spraying near the base, just as Ellie had drilled into them. Two steps. The blackness felt alive, moving in shadows. Dan made out nothing, not even John’s form in front of him. He only knew the rush of the water, the steam, the pulsating hose in his hands.

  And then hands behind him moved him aside. “It’s Ernie. Go.” When Ernie stepped up into his place, Dan dropped to the floor. Ellie would skin him alive for plowing into a fire without a buddy, but he’d apologize later. He reached out, knocking over what he surmised was a chair. He felt like a snail, slow, encumbered, blind as he crawled through the restaurant, the smoke mocking the efforts of his feeble flashlight. The heat pressed him down onto the floor, and dread seeped into his soul.

  How would she survive this?

  His head bumped hard into a wall, and as he felt it, he placed himself at the bar. Working his way along it, he hesitated at the lip. Through the darkness he made out orange-and-yellow flames, beckoning, outlining the kitchen door.

  And just beyond, the meat locker.

  “I need water!” he yelled, then realized he was wasting his breath. The fire devoured his words.

  Gathering his feet, he tucked his light into his pocket and scrambled toward the flames, then dived.

  He hit the door of the meat locker, fought for the handle, wrenched it open, and threw himself inside, closing the door behind him as the fire surged toward the new oxygen supply.

  The cold breath fogged his mask, and the blackness felt as surreal and teasing as the smoke. He reached for his flashlight, flicked it on.

  He gritted his teeth against the sudden lurching of his heart when he saw Ellie, eyes closed, curled into a ball in the center of the floor.

  23

  Ellie roused to hands on her shoulders. Her eyes felt frozen; her throat burned with every breath. She had tried to fight the wave of sleep, vaguely aware of voices in her mind screaming at her to stay awake. But she no longer felt the pain spiking through her joints, the cold felt less brutal, and her mind—oh, she’d found sweet oblivion remembering—

  “Ellie!”

  When she heard the mumbled voice, tears flooded her eyes. She fought to open them as someone ripped at her bonds, growling in frustration. She conjured up a thought through her foggy mind—her wrists had to be bleeding because she’d spent the better part of the last twenty minutes rubbing them raw. Or maybe it had been longer than that.

  Suddenly the tape snapped. She cried out while it tore from her wrists, a sudden flash of pain after so much numbness. She hunched over, breathing hard as she brought her hands around.

  “Hang in there, honey,” the fireman said.

  Her heart jumped into her throat, pricking new tears. Dan?

  He rolled the tape down her legs, off her feet as she awoke every muscle and lifted her head to look.

  Yes, Dan, and he looked as if someone had bludgeoned him. Pale, eyes red, even through his mask. She pulled him down next to her. “You found me.”

  He dumped his helmet, ripped off the hook, and levered his mask from his head. “Where are you hurt?”

  He moved his mask to her mouth, and sweet, compressed air rushed over her. Despite the coolness, it felt like fire on her frozen throat. She shook her head in answer.

  He lay down next to her. “The kitchen is on fire. We’re trapped. We’ll have to wait until they find us.” Taking off his jacket, he draped it over them, cocooning them in instant warmth, his flashlight lighting one side of his face. “I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner.”

  She scrabbled to focus, fight the press of sleep. “I can’t believe you came in after me.” Her voice sounded drowsy. But one thought centered her. He had tracked her down and risked his life to save her in the face of her betrayal. The realization left her weak. She didn’t deserve this man. She wiggled away from the mask. “Breathe.”

  He obeyed, drinking in air, then covered her face again with his mask. “Of course I’m going to come after you. I love you. Don’t you get it?”

  She felt a sob build and pushed it back. “I want to. I do. But why?” Her voice was muffled against the mask.

  “Because you’re you,” he said softly, as if they were sitting on the beach instead of huddling under his coat, buddy breathing. “Because God knew I needed someone who makes me feel, makes me want to embrace the day. You set my life on fire, Ellie.”

  “Is that good?” She pushed the mask toward him and watched him breathe, his eyes locked on hers. She dug her hand into his suspender, drawing him toward her.

  “Very good,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.

  “Oh, Dan, I’m sorry I suspected you. What was I thinking?” She hiccupped back a sob. “I’m an idiot. I should never have suspected you.”

  He moved the mask from his face toward hers. “I forgive you. We’ll talk about it later. That, and why you seem to try so hard to keep me out of your life.”

  “No.” She pulled the mask away, aware now that his face was only inches from hers. She could feel his five-o’clock shadow, feel his warm breath on her skin. His eyes held hers with such compassion she just wanted to burrow into h
is arms and hide from reality—the air heavy and filled with poison and a fire blocking their road to freedom.

  A good fire chief would think of a way to escape.

  Only she didn’t want to be a fire chief right now. She wanted to be a terrified and wounded woman. She wanted to be protected, rescued, and cherished. She wanted to be the woman Dan needed, the woman she saw reflected in his eyes. “Dan, I’m not going to keep you out of my life. I’m ready to hang up my helmet. I’ll do this on your terms.”

  Dan returned the mask to her face, forcing her to breathe. “That’s just the fear talking. I know—”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know. I’m tired. Tired of trying to be enough for myself, for everyone else. I want to rest.” She closed her eyes, her words settling deep. I just want to abide. To be.

  “I’m not going to let you give up.”

  A whoosh, then water lashed them, drenching them. When Ellie jerked, Dan’s arm tightened around her. Pinpricks of pain started at her legs, worked their way up her spine. She felt the temperature in the room immediately warm as the heat from the kitchen fire invaded the room. “Where am I?”

  “In the fridge.”

  “The fridge? As in, a side of beef?”

  He nodded. “It’s better than being barbequed, don’t you think?”

  “Immensely.” She smiled at the relief that washed over Dan’s face. “Let me warm up and then we’ll talk about my future as a fire chief.”

  The firemen turned the room into a cave of steam. Water dripped from the walls, the sides of beef, the wire shelves. Dan held Ellie under his coat until the deluge stopped. When John lifted Dan’s coat, the fireman resembled some sort of outer-space alien in his mask amidst a fog of cooled smoke. “You guys okay?”

  Ellie coughed through the mask Dan held to her face. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Dan climbed to his knees, then lifted Ellie into his arms. To his complete shock, she looped one arm around his neck and pressed the mask back to his face. “Get me out of here.”