Divine Temptation

by Nicki Elson

  Shining his flashlight, he briefly examined it before handing it back. “I’m going to have to ask you to park here, off the road. You’ll find your daughter straight up that way.” He indicated the road behind him.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Is everyone okay?”

  “The officers with your daughter can tell you more.”

  Keeping her hands as steady as she could, she pulled her car alongside a minivan parked diagonally in the faded grass. The land was brittle and dry as it awaited the first snow of the season. Maggie practically ran down the rocky road until she came upon a group of teens standing between two police cars. Three fire trucks stood on the left of the road, and just beyond them streams of water gushed from long hoses into the smoking field.

  “Mom!” Kirsten called out from the group, but was held back from bolting to Maggie by the police officer who was apparently watching over them.

  Without needing to be asked, Maggie whipped out her driver’s license again and said, “That’s my daughter. Can you please tell me what’s going on?”

  The officer let Kirsten come to stand by her mother and explained that the police had been called in when the resident of a farmhouse nearby reported seeing flames in the field. The fire department had responded immediately and contained it, but several minors had been caught attempting to flee the scene. Upon questioning, the teens had revealed that they’d started a bonfire in the field, but they’d lost control of it and it spread.

  While he explained, a couple more parents arrived, and he addressed them as well. “As of right now, we believe we have all the minors in attendance accounted for, and thankfully none are injured. Because they’re all minors, no arrests have been made, but they’re guilty of trespassing, damages to property, and violation of burn laws. All misdemeanors, but nevertheless, I suggest you each get yourselves an attorney. They’ve all been processed and questioned, so you’re free to take your children home.”

  Maggie looked at her daughter. “You’re okay?”

  Tears filled Kirsten’s eyes, but she nodded. “Yeah. I’m sorry, Mom. I really thought we were going to see the movies, but Kate got a text from these guys and they picked us up at the theater and took us out here. I’m so sorry!”

  Maggie pulled her into a hug. This wasn’t the time to lay into her, yet she couldn’t quite conjure up any words of comfort either. She was in shock. “Does your father know?”

  “He wasn’t home and didn’t answer his cell.” Of course Kirsten had tried him first.

  “Let’s go,” Maggie murmured and began walking toward her car. On the way, they crossed paths with Sharon, and Maggie glared at her.

  “Oh my God, Kirsten!” Sharon shouted. “Where’s Katie? Is she okay?”

  Kirsten nodded and shrank into Maggie, who jerked her head back and said tersely, “She’s back there with her other friends. Don’t plan on seeing Kirsten around your house for a while.”

  Sharon’s mouth fell open, and Maggie tightened her grip over Kirsten’s shoulder and continued walking. She didn’t speak again until they were back on Foxgrove and heading home. “Now, how about you tell me exactly what happened.”

  “It was just supposed to be a bonfire,” Kirsten said. “We were only going to stay for a little while, and then they’d bring us back to the theater for the next movie, so I didn’t see any reason to call you.”

  “Don’t feed me that bull. We’ll talk about all the ways you’re in trouble with me tomorrow, but tonight I want to figure out exactly how much trouble you might be in with the law. How did the fire spread? And tell me the truth—did some of those kids do it on purpose?”

  “No! It was all an accident. Someone threw a full can of pop in there and we were taking bets on what would happen, and then it exploded. At first it just seemed like ash flying out, but then we saw sparks turn into flames so a bunch of us started stomping them out. It was fine. But all of a sudden all these other explosions started happening—I swear I don’t know why. I didn’t notice anyone else throw in cans—but the fire was exploding and we all started stomping out the flames, but they kept coming, and then some got really big and just, like, took off into the field. I guess we all panicked and just started running. It was really scary, Mom.”

  Her voice trembled, and Maggie reached a hand from the wheel to grasp her hand as she continued with the story. “It didn’t seem like a regular fire. It was, like, alive, sort of. I was running with Katie and Jake and Carter, but then it felt like the fire shot in a line straight through us and I got separated from them. I kept running farther away from them because it seemed like the flames were chasing me. Every time I swerved one way, they followed, and then finally, somehow Carter got back to me and just tackled me to the ground, out of the way, and the fire kept going but didn’t spread out to us. We were able to walk away, and then the firemen and police were there.”

  Maggie returned both hands to the wheel and gripped it. The thought of how this story could’ve ended differently was too frightening, too horrible, to contemplate. And there would’ve been nothing Maggie could’ve done about. “Do you have any idea how lucky you are?” she found herself shouting at her daughter. “What in the hell were you thinking? Trespassing! You think it’s okay to just light a fire on someone else’s property?”

  “It was already lit when we got there!”

  “And why were you even there? Don’t lie to me again and tell me it was Katie’s friends who called—this Carter is apparently your boyfriend! Correction, ‘was’ your boyfriend. You won’t be seeing him anymore. You won’t be seeing anyone for a while.”

  Kirsten pulled her arms up and crossed them over her chest, staring out the windshield as tears streamed down her face.

  Maggie exhaled. “I’m sorry I lost my temper, but I assure you, the rest of your friends there tonight will also be grounded—at least the ones with parents who care about them.”

  Kirsten blew a derisive laugh. “Yeah, right. Like you care so much.”

  “Don’t turn this around on me. Of course I care about you. And that’s why we need to tighten up the rules now that you’ve proven your intent to stretch them.”

  “Well, if I’m home all the time, won’t that make it more difficult to sneak around with your new boyfriend? Or will you just keep him up in your bedroom all the time?”

  Maggie stared straight ahead. She felt her daughter’s eyes on her but was too stunned to respond.

  “I’m not stupid,” Kirsten continued. “I can hear his voice coming from your room at night. I can’t make out what he’s saying or anything, but I know it’s a man’s voice. And lately it’s obvious all you really care about is getting me and Liam out of the way so you can be with him. At least Dad includes us on the stuff he does with Melissa.”

  “I…I brought you along to the zoo with Mr. Fender—and you were kicking and screaming the whole way.”

  “So you admit you’ve got someone else now?”

  They’d arrived home, and Maggie pressed the button to open the garage door. As they waited for it to open she said, “I’ve got a television in my room and have started watching it when I have trouble sleeping at night, so that’s got to be what you’re hearing. The closest thing resembling a boyfriend is a rather handsome doctor in a new show I’ve become addicted to.” She hated to lie to her daughter, but there was no other option. And after what Kirsten had pulled that night, she figured she was owed a chance to lie.

  They got out of the car and entered the kitchen to find candles still flickering all over the place. Kirsten sneered at her mother. “Is this all for the rather handsome doctor?”

  “Wash up for bed,” Maggie ordered as she snuffed the candles. “We’ll talk about all of this in the morning. For now, I honestly am just happy to have you home and safe.” She planted a kiss on her daughter’s head and wrapped her in a tight hug.

  After Kirsten was safely in bed, Maggie threw her coat back on and paced along the front porch, attempting to invoke whatever summoning po
wers she was allowed. “Would it really have been so difficult to snuff the candles?” she muttered to herself while she waited.

  “You’re angry about candles?” Evan asked skeptically from behind her.

  She pivoted and huffed. “Well, they sure didn’t help our case. Kirsten’s heard you in my room and asked me about my new boyfriend.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That you play a doctor on TV.” Maggie pressed her icy hands into her closed eyes and sank onto the wooden rocker. “Everything’s such a mess.”

  Evan left her alone with her emotions for a few moments, and then said, “She’s okay though. Unharmed. What did she tell you about the incident?”

  Maggie lowered her hands. “So you already know about it?”

  He nodded.

  “She said some stupid kid threw an unopened can of soda into the bonfire and it exploded. Apparently there were a lot of other idiots there who did the same thing because the fire kept popping and caught the surrounding dried stalks, spreading out like…wildfire, for lack of a better word. She said a line of fire chased her until the little bastard that brought her there in the first place pushed her out of the way.”

  Evan’s face tensed. “Is that all?”

  “Essentially. Then she told me what a horrible mother I am.”

  He kneeled in front of her. “Are you okay?”

  She frowned and ran the back of her fingers down the side of his face. “Just please tell me my kids have guardian angels too and that I won’t have to rely on that twerp Carter to protect her.”

  “They do,” he answered.

  She shook her head, feeling only slightly relieved. “I just wish we could infuse her with all the things I had to learn the hard way, you know? Now that she’s getting older and more independent, I’m just so scared about what can happen to her. Can’t the Lord give teenagers an extra layer of protection?”

  “He does.”

  Maggie tilted her head questioningly at him.

  “He gives them parents.”

  His sober look when he said this was like reflective glass, causing Maggie to see herself through someone else’s eyes. But they weren’t Evan’s eyes she was looking through, they were Kirsten’s. When she’d confronted her mother about her new boyfriend, Maggie’s first concern had been to protect her secret. But looking back on it, she only now realized that Kirsten had been telling her something else—she’d been feeling neglected, pushed aside by the mystery paramour. Pushed aside by her mother.

  Maggie’s head waved from side to side. “And I wasn’t there. I was with you, playing a game.” She locked eyes with his and held his gaze. “Evan, I’ve been pushing a lot of things aside for you.” His gaze held steady, giving nothing away as she carefully watched him, and she pulled her hand back from where it had been lingering at his chin. “Kirsten does tend toward the dramatic, but I admit there’ve been nights when I’ve rushed through getting the kids to bed in the hopes of seeing you. And I certainly haven’t gotten as sad as I used to about the weekends they spend at Carl’s.”

  “Dependence on either side—parent or child—isn’t good. So this is a beneficial development. You know Kirsten wouldn’t have let you join her tonight, whether or not you’d had other plans. If not with me, you might’ve been out with a friend.”

  Maggie absently nodded. “Uh huh. If I hadn’t been looking so forward to spending the evening with you, I probably would’ve called Sharon again. And I might’ve looked a little more carefully at any clues Kirsten gave that she was up to no good.”

  Evan pushed back onto his heels, away from her. “I didn’t intend for you to give up parts of your life for me.”

  Maggie studied his expression through the thin cloud that formed when his breath met the cold night and detected a flash of guilt there, along with something else…fear? A sickening conviction began to take form in her mind as she replayed the last weeks. She’d thought their mutual affection was something they’d implicitly agreed to leave unspoken, but now she wondered if she’d been wrong and there’d been nothing mutual about it.

  “I haven’t been entirely honest with myself lately,” she said, her voice coming out at a higher pitch as she pushed it through her tightening throat. “But now I see that I’d better be honest with both of us before I keep traveling too far down this rabbit hole. As much as I knew it could never happen—I thought you and I were forming something here.” She halted her confession when he backed farther away.

  “We are forming something,” he said.

  “What, exactly?” she asked.

  “Friendship.”

  “Yep. That’s what you’ve been telling me all along.” She spoke in a laughing tone, but her voice was bitter. “But you see, I’m operating at a whole other level of delusion over here. I’ve been telling myself it’s only the angel/human thing keeping us from being more, but I get it now. There’s another reason: you don’t want it. Not anymore.” She shook her head. “But I continue to twist your every gesture, expression, and word the way I want to see it. I’m such an idiot. I’ll never learn. Just like Carl, just like Ray—you’re done with me.”

  “Maggie…don’t.”

  “Don’t what? See the truth? Why won’t you touch me, Evan? Why won’t you even touch me?”

  “We agreed—”

  “No!” She shot up from the chair and then lowered her voice. “You said you didn’t want to touch me anymore. I let myself believe it was for the sake of purity, but that’s not the whole reason. Even when you kissed me…you had a perfectly logical and innocent explanation. I was the one who chose to fool myself into thinking there was more to it. But you warned me, and I wouldn’t listen. Meanwhile, I’ve been neglecting all my other relationships for you.”

  “I’m sorry, Maggie.” Evan remained rock still, not even a finger twitched in her direction, and she was painfully aware of the earlier times when he’d soothed her heart by resting his head on her chest or tracing his fingers down the side of her face.

  “Don’t be sorry, Evan. You didn’t do anything wrong. But I’m afraid I have to ask you to stay away. Maybe for good this time. I’ve tried and tried to keep my feelings for you straight, but friendship just isn’t enough for me. It’s been nearly a year since you first started coming around, and we’re still not any closer to figuring out why. Looks like this entire relationship has been nothing more than a lesson in futility. If it was supposed to be anything more than that, I have failed.” She walked to the door. “Please, just go.”

  “I can’t.”

  Her hand clenched the door handle, and she stared down at it. “Unless you’re actually a demon and your real purpose is to torture me, you’ll do this for me.”

  “Maggie, you have to understand something. That wasn’t a chance fire out there today. I doubt your police will send up helicopters to survey the field, but the charred lines form a pattern. A symbol. One I’ve seen before.”

  Chapter 20

  EVAN WASN’T GOING ANYWHERE after all. As he explained to Maggie on the front porch once she relinquished her hold on the door handle, he’d ignored the symbols once before and wouldn’t take them lightly ever again.

  Maggie was skeptical. “Wouldn’t the fires of hell have been a bit more of a challenge to a team of human firefighters?”

  “The firefighters had some help. But I agree; it did seem too easy. The fire’s purpose obviously wasn’t destruction. It was perhaps a communication of some kind.”

  “Or a remarkable coincidence.”

  “I’m not taking any chances. There have been too many coincidences already.”

  “Well…say the fire is the work of a demon, shouldn’t you be out there, looking for it, protecting the community at large? What makes you think it has something to do with me specifically?”

  “It was chasing your daughter, Maggie.”

  A chill ran through her with his words. She had the sudden urge to look in on Kirsten again, and she wished Liam was safely upstairs too. She
might want to drive Evan away from herself, but the idea of keeping that extra protection around for her children—just in case—was what made her decide to stop fighting him. When she gave him a small nod, he breathed out in relief as his tensed shoulders eased, sloping slightly downward.

  With fear’s fingers now gripping her, it was difficult for Maggie to be that near Evan and not run into his embrace, not let his strength and peace become hers. But that wasn’t an option anymore. Even if he’d allow it, she needed to stay rational and keep her affection in check for the sake of her sanity. No more relapses. He was her guardian angel, not her boyfriend…and maybe if she kept repeating that to herself, she’d actually start to accept it. Maybe.

  “I’m going to bed. Please don’t come in,” she said. “But if you see any flames making a run for the house, kindly do put them out.”

  That was the last they spoke to each other for the next week. Maggie sensed his presence everywhere, but he stayed hidden for the most part, allowing her the distance she’d requested. Even when he was in her line of vision, he gave up trying to talk to her after she’d ignored him enough times. Steeling herself with bitterness toward him made it easier to realign her emotions, and she knew that allowing him a single kind word or gesture was more than her raw and delicate heart could handle right then.

  She ’fessed up to Kirsten that she’d been seeing someone, but explained that she hadn’t been sure enough about him to make introductions. She also told her daughter that the relationship was over, which Kirsten seemed to accept. For support, Maggie turned to her sister. Nancy’s sons hadn’t exactly been saints during the teen years, so she understood and didn’t judge Kirsten for the mistakes of the young.

  “Carl’s attorney spoke with the other kids’ lawyers and they’re hoping to work something out with the farmer,” Maggie informed her sister over the phone. “He assures us that when all is said and done, this will be nothing more than a minor blip on Kirsten’s record.”

  “Thank God.”

  “Nothing can be settled until after the first of the year, but it’s not a bad thing that she has to sweat it out a little bit—she did screw up.”