Through the Fire

by Christine Lynxwiler

  “You cold?” His voice was right next to her ear, and she could feel the warmth of his breath on her skin.

  “No. Just ready to get started.” She knew her tone was short, but this talk wasn’t going quite like she planned.

  He lightly pushed down on her thumb. With gentle hands, he guided her to bring the reel back and then forward in one fluid motion, releasing the button just as she began the downward stroke. Her hook went flying through the air and plopped thirty feet from the boat.

  He took his arms from around her and sank into his seat again, then quickly repeated the move with his own rod.

  She stared out at the water and tried to forget how right it felt to have his arms around her, even if it was just for a casting lesson. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Jessa’s mouth grew dry with words unspoken.

  “Was there something in particular you wanted to talk about?” Clint spoke softly, but his voice carried across the deserted water.

  Unable to face him, she swiveled her seat away from him slightly. “Yes.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “There’s no easy way to say this.”

  “Whatever it is, I can about guarantee you I’ll understand. Just pretend we’re back in The Twilight Zone.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes at his kind words. She chuckled. “Okay, here goes. When I was five years old, my little brother died of a ruptured appendix. My parents, as well as my older sister and I, were devastated.” Her throat ached with unshed tears.

  “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded, still refusing to turn toward Clint. “Right after my sixth birthday, I started not feeling well. My parents, already understandably overprotective, took me to the doctor.” Here it was. The part that would irrevocably change how he looked at her. “I had leukemia. My parents were sure I was going to die. I almost did. I spent the next three years in and out of the hospital, but when I was nine, the doctors pronounced the leukemia completely gone.”

  “Thank You, God.” Clint’s prayer was simple, but his spontaneous words broke the dam that had held Jessa’s tears back.

  She nodded, hot tears splashing down her cheeks, and tried to concentrate on the soothing ripple of the water.

  “If it had ended there, that would have been a wonderful thing. To look death in the face for three years and come out perfectly healthy. But it didn’t end there.”

  “The cancer came back?” Tension laced Clint’s question.

  She shook her head. “No. I’ve been cancer free for seventeen years.” She held her rod and reel in one hand and swiped at her tears with the other. “But from that point on, my parents took protectiveness to a whole new level. They didn’t want me out of their sight. When they couldn’t watch me, they goaded my sister to report what I ate, what I drank, whether I was feverish. . .” The words, pent up so long, tumbled out now as she held nothing back. “I couldn’t go out with friends or do anything because they were afraid they’d lose me. . .even after I became an adult.”

  “Besides being miserable, I’m sure you felt really guilty.”

  She spun around in her chair. “Guilty?” How could he possibly know that? She’d never told anyone about the guilt.

  “Well, it was natural for you to feel guilty when your brother died and you didn’t, and then when you got sick, because your parents loved you so much but all you wanted was to get away from them. To deprive them of another child.”

  “How did you get to be so smart?”

  “Psychology major.”

  She was as shocked as she had been when she’d found the firefighter picture.

  He smiled. “Yes, it’s a classic case of ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ ”

  She waited for him to expound, certain his comment had to do with whatever had caused a psychology major/firefighter to end up living in his parents’ garage apartment and working for lake security. But apparently, he decided one gut-wrenching confession was enough, because he just reeled his line in and cast it out again.

  Finally she spoke. “You’re probably wondering why I told you all that.”

  “Well,” he drawled, “I’d like to think it’s because we’re friends, but I figure there’s more to it than that.”

  He gave her that all-too-familiar grin, and she had to push the words past the lump that rose in her throat. “Clint, you’re a wonderful person. And I hope we can stay friends.”

  He smacked his forehead with his palm. “I can’t believe I wasted my best fishing tackle for a ‘let’s be friends’ talk.”

  She giggled and felt the tension release. “You know what I mean. I’ve worked too hard to become independent. My parents haven’t changed a bit, and I can’t move halfway across the country to get away from that and end up involved with a protector.”

  He arched his eyebrow. “Didn’t you ever hear you’re not supposed to label people? What exactly do you consider a ‘protector’?”

  She rolled her eyes. “A protector—someone who doesn’t want me to rock climb, doesn’t want me to parasail.”

  “Oh, I get it. . . You mean someone with good sense.”

  “Now wait a minute—”

  He held up his hand. “Only kidding.”

  He rose quickly from his seat and wrapped his arms around her. Her heart skipped several beats. “Clint,” she croaked. “I meant it about being friends.”

  He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Friends don’t let friends lose perfectly good fish,” he said dryly as he put his hand on hers and guided her in reeling in her catch.

  An hour later as they rowed back to the shore, she tried to understand what had happened. She’d poured out her secrets in the hopes of confining their relationship within safe parameters. To her dismay, the resistance was coming from the wrong side.

  Clint seemed perfectly satisfied with being friends, but every time he was near, her traitorous heart longed for more.

  Fourteen

  On Monday afternoon, Doris left a few minutes early to pick up her granddaughter from school, so Jessa was alone when Seth came in.

  “Hi, Jessa. How’s it going?” His slight smile was a pleasant change from the almost sullen boy who had first started working for her. Maybe her efforts to draw him out were paying off. She felt a connection with him that was hard to explain.

  “I’m doing pretty good. Remember a week or so ago when you couldn’t believe I’d never been fishing?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, I have now. Clint took me yesterday afternoon, and I caught one.”

  A glimmer of interest flickered in his eyes. “What kind?”

  “Well, you’d have to ask Clint. It was actually kind of ugly.”

  “What lake did you go on? Millicent?”

  She nodded. “Have you ever been out on it?”

  “Naw.” He ducked his head. “You have to be a resident or a guest to fish on those lakes.”

  Jessa could see the longing in his eyes.

  “Where do you live?”

  He blushed and named a part of town that she recognized as the poorest section of Lakehaven.

  Big mouth, she scolded herself silently. “Well, we’ll have to make that our goal. To get you out on Lake Millicent.”

  “No biggie.” He picked up the flower carrier and carefully loaded the bouquets in it. “I don’t have much time to fish anyway.”

  Afraid of saying the wrong thing, she nodded and held the door open for him.

  After Seth was gone, she wiped off the already clean counter and made a quick check through the front room for trash or anything out of place.

  She looked up at the big clock. A few minutes after five. Clint should be off work.

  She snorted with self-disgust. She’d thought of him more since she’d given him the “let’s be friends” talk, as he called it, than before. She couldn’t believe she’d explained to him that they could only be friends when he’d never really expressed any interest in being anything more. He’d probably been secretly relieved.

  She s
hook her head. This line of thought was getting her nowhere fast. It was time to go home. She grabbed her purse and unlocked the back door.

  A loud crash resounded through the building. She dropped her purse and ran into the front room, then slammed her hand to her mouth. Four of her most expensive silk arrangements lay on the floor, the vases shattered to smithereens. She stepped forward, being careful of the shards of glass.

  “Jessa? What happened?”

  She jumped and spun around.

  Clint stood in the doorway, still in his Tri-Lake security uniform.

  “I’m not sure. I unlocked the back door and was about to leave, then I heard the crash.”

  Clint stepped up closer to examine the wall where minutes before a wooden shelf had supposedly been securely anchored to the wall.

  “Come here and let me show you something.” He reached out his hand to guide her around the glass.

  He pointed at two places where chunks of drywall had come out, apparently with the screws that had held the shelf. “Now look at these.”

  Slightly to the right of each of those places was a small hole with a metal wall anchor in it.

  “Someone moved the shelf?”

  “It sure looks that way.” He reached to the shelf above the one that fell and handed her a big vase with silk flowers. “Set these on the counter.”

  When they had transferred the last arrangement to the counter, Clint gently pulled on the wooden board. The shelf easily came loose from the wall, just like the first one, taking pieces of Sheetrock with it.

  She gasped. Clint nodded grimly, carefully setting the shelf down on the floor away from the broken mess. He methodically went through the remaining seven shelves and discovered three more had been tampered with.

  Jessa got the broom and dustpan and began to clean up the broken glass.

  “Aren’t you going to call the police?”

  “And tell them what? That my shelf fell?” She shook her head and went back to sweeping.

  “I still think it would be a good idea. Just to alert them to a possible problem.” He reached around the counter and retrieved the small garbage can.

  “You think more things will happen?” She kneeled down and picked up the biggest pieces, dropping them into the trashcan.

  He squatted down next to her. “Be careful. You’ll cut yourself.”

  She looked up at him.

  He regarded her intently. “That was a ‘protector’ thing to say, huh?”

  She nodded.

  “Sorry. Anyway, back to your question. Do I think more things will happen?” He shook the glass off the silk flowers down into the garbage, then laid them in a pile to the side. “Remember the faucet?”

  “Yeah.”

  He nodded at the mess they were cleaning up. “Same person.”

  “Does psychological profiling tell you that?”

  “Nope.” He stood. “Common sense tells me that.” He pulled a multipurpose tool from his pocket and flipped out a screwdriver.

  He carefully put each bracket screw back into the wall anchors. Jessa handed him the shelves one at a time until they were all back in place. The extra length covered the small holes in the drywall, but Jessa knew they were there.

  Clint helped her divide the remaining arrangements between the empty shelves. When they finished, it was difficult to even see that anything had happened.

  “So who can it be?” Jessa asked, hoping against hope she was wrong.

  “You tell me.”

  “You think it has to be one of my two employees, don’t you?”

  Clint nodded grimly. “It looks that way.”

  “I don’t like that theory. Let’s explore the whole intruder idea.”

  He looked up at the ceiling. “She’d rather have an intruder than a dishonest employee.”

  She punched him on the shoulder. “You know what I mean. Could someone have come in and done this?”

  “Not without a key. No sign of forced entry.”

  “Whoa, you just started the job and already you sound like security.”

  “Yeah, that’s me, jack of all trades, master of none.”

  “I don’t know, it seems to me like you’re good at everything you do.” As soon as the words were out, her face grew hot. She always seemed to open her mouth without thinking when he was around.

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence. You may take it back when I tell you that Seth is my chief suspect.”

  “He doesn’t have a key.”

  “There are ways around that. A window left unlatched, or even slipping back and unlocking the front door after you’d already checked it.”

  She thought of the sixteen-year-old boy she was growing closer to every day. Admittedly she didn’t know him well, but she liked him. And he’d done nothing to make her think he wasn’t worthy of her trust. “Oh, Clint, I don’t want it to be Seth. He’s had a hard life. I was going to ask you to take him fishing.”

  “That might not be a bad idea. He might admit to it.”

  She put her hands on her hip. “I didn’t mean so you could interrogate him. I meant so he could enjoy what we enjoyed yesterday.”

  He fixed her with an inscrutable gaze. “What did we enjoy yesterday?”

  She refused to rise to the bait. “I mean the beauty of God’s creation, the peace of being on the lake. He’s not a bad kid, Clint. I’m just sure of it.”

  “I hope you’re right. But somebody is guilty.”

  Jessa looked around the room. Unless a person was familiar with the inventory, like she and Doris were, they wouldn’t realize anything had even happened.

  “Thanks again.” She waved her hand at the clean room.“Glad I could help.” He put the trash can back where he’d gotten it; then he helped her turn the lights off.

  In the parking lot, she turned to face him. “Thank you again for helping me clean up that mess.”

  “No problem.”

  When she got into her car, she noticed he waited in his Jeep until she pulled out of the driveway, then eased onto the road behind her.

  Ever the protector.

  Why did she feel all warm and fuzzy instead of defensive?

  ❧

  “Skinny’s has nothing on you, Jessa.” Clint popped the last bite of the sandwich in his mouth. “That was wonderful.”

  “Thanks. I have a confession, though.” Jessa picked up the sandwich wrappers and plates and tucked them neatly in the basket.

  “Sounds interesting. Let’s hear it.” He took a sip of tea. He’d been shocked to find Jessa waiting at his Jeep when it was time for his lunch break. It had been three days since he’d helped her repair the shelves. He hadn’t seen her since except for a glimpse of her in her car now and then.

  “I fixed lunch for you because I need a sounding board. I think Doris may be behind the accidents.” Jessa’s voice rose. “I know you think it’s Seth, but that’s because Doris didn’t have a motive, but now Doris does have a motive. So you can’t think that anymore—”

  “Whoa, slow down there.” He held up a hand. “I didn’t know a Georgia peach could drawl that fast. Now what makes you think Doris has a motive for sabotaging the shop?”

  “This morning I was in the back room when a customer came in. I wasn’t eavesdropping. . .” She looked intently at him, as if to be sure he understood that. “But I couldn’t help but overhear. The woman asked Doris what had happened to her idea of buying the shop, and Doris told her she just couldn’t work out the financing.” Jessa’s voice trembled.

  “Hmm. . .” Clint frowned. It did sound incriminating. “So was that all Doris said?”

  “No, she said she guessed it just wasn’t God’s will for her right now. But she could have just been saying that because she knew I could hear her.” Her words still tumbled over one another. Obviously the sabotage had upset Jessa even more than she admitted.

  “Or it could have been the truth.”

  She ran her fingers through her hair, and tears glistened in her green eye
s. “I don’t know what to think.”

  “Me, either. But I do know that as much as I like Seth, he’s hiding something. I can see it in his eyes.”

  “That just makes no sense.”

  “Nothing about this does.” He glanced at his watch. His lunch hour was almost up. He got to his feet and offered a hand to Jessa.

  She put her hand in his, and he helped her to her feet.

  “So what do I do?” She didn’t jerk her hand away. Her eyes pleaded for answers. Answers he didn’t have.

  He pulled her into his arms. She relaxed against him, and he brushed her hair with his hand. “Just keep praying. God will help you figure it out.”

  She leaned up on tiptoes and touched his cheek with her lips. “Thanks, Clint. See you soon.” She threw the blanket over her arm and grabbed the picnic basket. She was halfway to the car before he realized she was gone.

  Staring after the red-haired bundle of energy, he put his hand to his cheek. When had she become such an integral part of his life?

  Fifteen

  Jessa’s heart pounded as she slid into the car. She couldn’t believe she’d kissed him. At least she’d settled for his cheek. Even though she’d made a quick getaway, she sensed he had reacted as strongly as she had to their embrace. He still stood at their picnic spot staring this way.

  Dear God, please help me get this mystery figured out so I can have a clear mind to think about my feelings for this exasperating man.

  She drove slowly to the shop and—other than the day after the fire—for the first time since she’d bought the shop, she entered The Flower Basket with a heavy heart.

  All of Doris’s kindnesses flooded back to her. And then, just as quickly, she thought of the changes in Seth’s attitude, the easy camaraderie they were developing. Neither of them would hurt her like this. It just wasn’t possible.

  Jessa had told Doris about the mishaps with the faucet and the coolers right after they’d happened in order to see her expression. She’d seemed genuinely dismayed. There had been no hiding the fact that several silk arrangements had been broken either. Jessa had seen the pieces click together in Doris’s eyes when she told her about the shelf falling. There was no doubt that the woman knew now that Jessa suspected sabotage.