Trial by Fire

by Terri Blackstock

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Aunt Aggie’s house was one of the biggest and oldest in Newpointe, and was situated on one of the last undisturbed stretches of land in the center of town. The center point of her acreage dipped down into a valley that flooded when it rained, but her house sat half on a hill overlooking her well-tended garden in front, and half on pilings in back that protected her from rising waters. The driveway swung down and around to the back of the house, and she parked her huge, fifteen-year-old Cadillac underneath. Nick parked next to her car in the garage, and he and Issie carried their things up the steps and into her massive kitchen that smelled of cayenne pepper.

  “Come right in, you,” she said. “Issie, you look wore out, sha.”

  The old woman was wearing a hot pink satin robe and fresh red lipstick on her thin, wrinkled lips. “T-Nick, you takin’ care of her?”

  “Yes, ma’am, Aunt Aggie.”

  “We sure appreciate you taking us in, Aunt Aggie,” Issie said. “I don’t know where I would have gone if you hadn’t. I’ve never been so scared in my life.”

  “Jes’ let ’em try gettin’ you here,” Aunt Aggie warned. “Nick’ll show ’em, won’t you, sha?”

  “They won’t come here,” he said. “My guess is they’re hiding from the cops as we speak.”

  “So d’yeat?” she asked, going to a pot on the stove and taking off the lid. The smell of jambalaya wafted across the room. He wondered if she just kept a pot on 24/7, or if she had thrown this together at the last minute.

  “I’m not really hungry,” Issie said, and Nick shot her a sharp look. She cleared her throat. “But it smells so good…I’ll have some, anyway.”

  “Gettin’ too skinny, sha. You ain’t one o’ them anorexics heavin’ in the toilets, is you?”

  “No, ma’am, Aunt Aggie. I wouldn’t do that.”

  She spooned out the jambalaya and handed Issie a bowl, then started dipping Nick’s. “I ever tell you I was Miss Louisiana in 1938? We needed curves then, not the bones and angles like today. Ma Dugas, he liked ma shape. Never did have nothing for them skeleton types. But I does try to keep ma figure. Ain’t no excuse for letting yourself go. Who trying to kill you, Issie?”

  Nick grinned at the sudden shift in thoughts as he took his bowl and sat down.

  “I think it’s the same people who killed Ben Ford,” Issie said.

  “Like t’get my hands on ’em,” Aunt Aggie said. “Yellow-livered murderers.”

  She ranted and raved for a while longer before she began to wane. Finally, she retired to her bedroom, and Nick found that he felt awkward being here alone with Issie. He wondered what his church members would think if they learned he was spending the night in this house with Aunt Aggie and Issie Mattreaux. Was it really much better than putting Issie up in his own home? But he couldn’t worry about that now. Issie’s life was in danger until the police rounded up all those who were responsible for the church burnings and the murders.

  He carried Issie’s things up to her room, then came back down and found her standing in the dark, peering out the window. “They don’t know you’re here, Issie. It’s gonna be okay.” He came up beside her and closed the blinds, then turned a Tiffany lamp on. The darkness fled.

  Issie took Nick’s hand, making his heart jolt. “Okay, let’s have a look at those burns,” she said.

  He shook his head. “It’s okay, really. Now that I think about it, I can do it. It’s really not that hard.”

  “Then why have you been putting it off all day?” she asked. “You know, you really should have done it this morning.”

  “They’re feeling fine. I just—”

  “You have to change the bandages,” she said. She pulled him toward a chair and got too close, setting a hand on his shoulder and giving a little shove. She was such a flirt, and she was so good at it. He sat down.

  “Come on.” Her voice was gentle as she lifted his feet onto an overstuffed ottoman. “Let’s put your feet up on this and I’ll see what I can do. Where’s your stuff?”

  He nodded toward the guest room. “It’s in there on the bed. In the little black bag.”

  “I’ll get it.” She took off toward the bedroom, and he closed his eyes and leaned his head back and prayed a silent prayer that he would keep this in perspective. He wasn’t used to being alone with women or having one address his needs. Oh, occasionally someone would bring him a meal or come clean up his house when he was particularly busy, but usually it was one of the married members of his church. He had a few single women who had targeted him for husband material, but they weren’t women in whom he was interested. And Aunt Aggie’s ministrations didn’t count.

  Issie Mattreaux was someone he had spent too much time thinking about. He wondered if she was aware of just how attracted he was to her…

  ... And just how much he didn’t want to be.

  She came back, her black hair shimmering in the lamplight, and he wondered if she took any special care of it or if it came easy to her. He didn’t think he knew any other women whose hair looked quite that silky. It was midnight-colored satin, and he told himself that it probably didn’t feel as soft as it looked. In fact, it was probably coarse to the touch, and probably smelled like sauerkraut or old gym shoes…

  Yeah, right.

  She brought the bandages and the Silvadene cream that he was to put on the burns. He tried not to wince as she peeled the bandages off. Instead, he chuckled, amused that he would be concerned about impressing her with his toughness.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked as she worked.

  “It’s not funny,” he said. “I was just thinking how big and strong I’m supposed to be—since I’m ostensibly protecting you and all—and here you are, making me coil up like a toddler about to get a shot.”

  She grinned. “Am I being rough with you?”

  “No, it’s okay.” He chuckled again. He watched her work on his legs and she did it quickly, competently, and he realized that she was very good at what she did. The pain was making him sweat, and he tried to get his mind to shift gears.

  “What would you have been if you hadn’t been a paramedic?” he asked her.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’d probably be in jail.”

  He hadn’t expected that, and he laughed. “Jail? Come on.”

  She grinned. “I’m half serious,” she said. “I really only decided to be a paramedic for the money. It looked pretty good, and there’s a lot of time off. A lot of time on too, though.”

  “Give me a break. You love what you do.”

  “Sometimes,” she said as her grin faded again. “But days like today…I think I’d opt for jail.”

  He wished her eyes were easier to forget. “Tell me you didn’t have any feelings of wanting to help people, wanting to rescue them.”

  “I think I kind of liked the idea of the adrenaline pumping through my veins. You know what I mean?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I know. But I saw you today. You weren’t trying to save that kid’s life for the money or the adrenaline rush. You really cared about him.”

  She seemed to concentrate harder on the burns.

  He winced. “And besides that, the money isn’t that great,” he said. “You could have been a nurse or a doctor and made a lot more money.”

  “Yeah, can’t you just see me as a doctor?” she asked. “I couldn’t care for patients long-term. I don’t do anything long-term. I’m not like you, Nick.”

  “What do you mean, you’re not like me?”

  She kept her eyes on his burns. “I’m not the commitment type.”

  “And I am? You haven’t ever seen me commit to a woman, have you?”

  “Well, you’ve committed to a lot of other things. Your church, the people you’re friends with. People rely on you. I, on the other hand, am not one that anyone relies on.”

  “Hey, if I was in a fix and needed rescuing, you’d be the one I’d call.”

  She gave a weak smile. “Thanks, Nick. I appreciate that
, and obviously the feeling is mutual since that’s exactly what I did tonight.”

  His face sobered, and suddenly he felt very vulnerable. It wasn’t a bad feeling. “Why did you call me, Issie?” he asked quietly. “Me, of all people?”

  She sat back then and looked a little embarrassed. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

  She wouldn’t meet his eyes. She just kept looking at his legs as she worked, and he forgot the pain and watched the pink color climb in her cheeks. He’d never seen her blush before. She wasn’t the type. He wondered if it had anything to do with today when he had pulled her back against him and held her. It had been instinctive, something he probably shouldn’t have done. He was a preacher, after all, and had to maintain a certain amount of decorum. But she had been so distraught…

  He couldn’t forget how small she had felt in his arms.

  She finished bandaging his legs, then stood up. “Almost good as new,” she said.

  “I appreciate that. You just don’t know how much.” He carefully lowered his feet to the floor, then set his hands on his knees.

  He was nervous, he realized, and that was so silly. He was almost always nervous around Issie. He didn’t know why. Sometimes it felt as if she was playing with him. Other times he felt a fierce, overwhelming sense of protection toward her. He didn’t know why he would think that God might appoint him protector over her. Surely, there were plenty of other men who wouldn’t mind guarding her, men who were more her type.

  She got up and sat facing him on the ottoman, her knees just inches from his. She had something on her mind, he sensed, something she didn’t want to say from across the room. He expected coy flirtation, but instead, her face was serious as she looked into his eyes.

  “Nick, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure,” he said. “What?”

  She looked down at her hands, and he saw that she was fidgeting. Her voice was quiet, as though she didn’t want Aunt Aggie to somehow overhear. “Sometimes…I look at my life…and it’s not exactly the way I thought it would be. And I see my family…” She swallowed. “My father’s an alcoholic…not that I would know it firsthand, since he’s never been around. Before my mother died, she worked in a bar in Slidell and had very little interest in anything I did. She had…weird priorities, you know? Always did. And then I see my brother and Lois standing back at arm’s length while Jake gets involved in such a mess. I start to wonder…what things might have been like if we were different.”

  He knew that she was leading up to an important question, one for which he needed an answer, and he silently prayed that God would give him the wisdom to answer it in the right way. It was tempting, sometimes, to tell someone what they wanted to hear, just to make them feel better. But Issie’s life might depend on the truth. Her eternal life, anyway.

  “Different how?” he prompted.

  “Different, you know. Religious maybe. I mean, sometimes I look around at the people who go to church, people like you and Mark and Allie…Dan and Jill…Susan and Ray…and I think how together they all seem to have things. Sometimes I just look at them and think it’s harder for them, you know? Like when Mark and Allie were having problems. Other people might have just gone for divorce, moved on, taken the easy way…but it was harder for them because they had this standard to live by. In some ways I felt sorry for them because of that. Angry even. But that’s another story.”

  Nick couldn’t meet her eyes on that one. He knew that she had been in love with Mark and wanted to see that marriage break up. The fact that it didn’t happen had probably surprised her.

  “But then I look at them now and I see how happy they are, and they’ve got the baby. They’re a real family. And Dan and Jill. You know all that time when Dan was single, I used to watch the women line up for him. And frankly, I would have gone out with him in a second if he’d asked. He just never did, and I think I know why.”

  Nick met her eyes again.

  “I wasn’t his type,” she said. “I was a little too loose and free. And, of course, most men like that, but Dan was of a different ilk.”

  Nick grinned. “You can say that again.”

  “But he was,” Issie said. “He had that standard, that different set of rules he lived by.”

  “They’re not rules,” Nick said. “Really, Issie, they’re not.”

  “Well, the Ten Commandments are rules.”

  “Issie, the only reason Christians live by a different standard is because they trust that God wants what’s best. God gave those commandments for their good, not so they couldn’t have any fun. He knows how sin hurts people. It really does, Issie. Look at what’s happening to Jake. Look at the murders. Look at the church burnings.”

  She nodded. “Look at my life.”

  She was coming around, he thought as his heart rate sped up, like it always did when someone started to see and understand the truth. He wondered if Jesus had gotten that racing heartbeat when someone finally got it. He took her hands, as if to hold her there and keep her from backing away. “The cycle doesn’t have to go on,” he said. “You could stop it right now.”

  She was quiet for a long time, staring at a button on his shirt. “I don’t know, Nick. I’m not the type to start living by rules. And besides that, I can’t imagine a God who would care a thing about me. Some stupid medic who drinks and parties too hard…who has a past like I have.”

  “He does care, Issie. You have to believe that.”

  “Well, I wish I could believe it. I really do. It serves the people who believe it. Kind of a placebo effect, maybe. If they think it, then it makes things better for them. Maybe it’s all psychological anyway. Maybe I just need to get my mind thinking right.”

  “Mark and Allie’s marriage wasn’t healed because of any psychology,” Nick said. “It was because God worked on their hearts and changed them. Trust me, Issie. If there was a woman alive who could have lured Mark from Allie, it would have been you.”

  Her eyes rounded in surprise, and he realized the spiritual talk had given him solid footing and made him forget his awkwardness.

  “Funny coming from you,” she said.

  They were too close, and he never should have taken her hands. He needed to get up, put some distance between them. But he couldn’t seem to do it. He kept his eyes boldly locked with hers. “I have the same impulses you have, Issie.”

  Her eyes were the softest brown, almost hazel, and he felt he could see through them right into her heart. The air between them was charged with electricity, and he feared he would feel the shocking pop, telling him that the voltage was too high.

  “I never would have figured,” she said. Now he heard the expected flirtation in her tone.

  “Yes, you would,” he whispered.

  It was clear by the grin in her eyes that she relished the power she had over him. “So you’re telling me that even preachers have temptations?”

  “They absolutely do,” he whispered. He swallowed hard, trying to get his bearings. “But the Bible tells us there’s no temptation too great that God won’t give us the means of escape. And I’ve found that to be true every single time.”

  The pleasure seemed to fade from her eyes, and he sensed her disappointment. “Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like if you didn’t escape it?” she asked. “Just once? If you gave in to something that you wanted to do?”

  He wanted to say yes, that he was struggling with that now, that it would have been so easy to let her have that power over him as she sat knee to knee, holding his hands, grinning into his eyes. It would have been so easy to just lose himself in that moment, to taste of Issie Mattreaux and learn what he was missing.

  But then there would be tomorrow, and the emptiness would set in, and when it did…where could he run for comfort? How could he turn to the Savior he had betrayed? She would never understand.

  “I want to please God,” he said. “That’s my first priority.”

  She sighed, as if disappointed. “I don’t eve
n know why I like you,” she told him. “There are a million other people I could have called tonight. I could have called Joe’s Place and just asked for somebody and ten people would have come to the phone wanting to help me. Ten medics, like me, sitting there unwinding together. We have a bond, you know. We’re close. I could have called them.”

  Nick smiled. “But you didn’t call them,” he said. “You called me. Isn’t that interesting?”

  “So what are you saying? That that’s a God thing?”

  “I think maybe.”

  She lifted her chin high and leaned closer. Her eyes sparkled. “Maybe it was a chemistry thing,” she said defiantly. “Maybe I called you because I’m attracted to you, God-only-knows-why.”

  He felt the blood rushing to his face and pulled his hands away. Had she just admitted she was attracted to him? Issie Mattreaux, to the preacher? He didn’t know where to go with that.

  “Maybe God’s telling us that you and I are supposed to be an item,” she went on, chiding him. “How would you feel about that, Nick, with all your rules?”

  His mouth suddenly felt dry. “I don’t know, Issie. I don’t think that’s what happened.”

  “Of course it’s not,” she said, “because a pious person like you could never get involved with a wretch like me, is that right?”

  She was too close to him now, looking up into his face, daring him to back away. He smelled the scent of her hair. It was nothing like sauerkraut or gym shoes. Strawberries, maybe. He liked strawberries.

  She turned her face up to his, her lips too close to his. “I’m not good enough for you, am I, Nick?”

  He looked down at her, feeling her breath against his own lips, and wondered what it would be like to kiss her just once. He wanted to feel that sprinting of his heart and that sweet relief and urgent desire warring inside him. He wanted to tell her that he thought about her more than any other woman he knew, that her image was constantly on his mind.

  But escape lingered there in the back of his mind. He could take a step backward, break this spell she seemed to have over him. He could close off the vision he had of holding her and kissing her, and focus back on the Christ who would not have orchestrated their coming together for the purposes of becoming a couple, not when they were so unequally yoked. Christ would want someone for him who could share his passion for the kingdom. Christ would have chosen someone who shared his passion for the Lord. A woman who had the same goals and purpose that he had, someone who understood the grace of the Cross, someone whose heart was broken over it.