“I’ll give it a shot.”
That was all the foothold she needed. “Okay. Mo and I are on the way.”
“Wait...you have the cat with you?” He sounded surprised.
“Evidently he likes car rides.”
He pushed out a breath. “I had the guys scouring the neighborhood for the beast. I thought he was a goner, or at the very least ran away.” He actually sounded relieved. “Glad to hear he’ll live to torment me another day.”
Even on the phone, even faced with disaster, he’d managed to pull a smile from her—one just large enough to get her on her way. “See you soon.”
* * *
Every single bone in his body ached. His leg injury was down to a dull fire thanks to the pain medicine, but Jesse felt the sorry combination of wide awake and exhausted pound through his muscles and thud in his brain.
He should go home. It was feat enough that he’d hobbled all the way here on his crutches—it wasn’t that long a walk but still, that had to have been damaging. He should take himself back to his apartment and at least make an effort to get some sleep.
Only he couldn’t. He sat on the curb, his splinted leg sticking out in the deserted street atop his crutches in a makeshift attempt at “keeping it elevated,” staring at the cottage. He was trying to make the place feel like his cottage, striving to muster up the sense of ownership he’d privately claimed before Charlotte came along. It wouldn’t come. This was Charlotte’s place, and two things were currently driving him crazy.
One, that he needed to make it Charlotte’s perfect place—wonderfully, uniquely hers.
Two, that no matter what he told himself, no matter how “unserious” he claimed to be about that woman, he couldn’t stand the thought of her gone.
What had swept through his body when he realized Chief Bradens’s radio was crackling out orders for Charlotte’s cottage was sharper than fear. It was the bone-deep shock of loss. A loss that wasn’t about bricks and shingles, but the woman who’d come to invade his life. He’d told himself it was better to keep things cool, to play their mutual attraction the way the old Jesse would have done. Only he couldn’t. She’d done something to him. He’d told himself that his balking over her rental suggestion was just the legendary Sykes ego, a refusal to live in the house over some sore-loser impulse. That would have been a good guess for his personality a month ago. That wasn’t it, though—he’d bristled because he hated the idea of the house without Charlotte inside, even temporarily. Somehow he knew—had known since the beginning in a way he couldn’t comfortably explain—that she belonged there. Living there instead of her seemed just plain wrong.
Sitting there, feeling something way beyond sidelined, Jesse added two more items to the list of things that were bugging him:
Three, that he couldn’t help with the cottage. Normally, Jesse wasn’t the kind to rush in toward a fire. There were guys like that, firemen who were nearly obsessively drawn to a crisis, driven by an inner urge to save the day that made ordinary men heroes. He’d never felt that pull—until tonight. It buzzed through him like a ferocious itch that he could only watch from the sidelines. It gave him nothing to do.
Which brought up number four: Charlotte’s request that he pray. He could no more help her get here from Chicago than he could march into that cottage, and the sense of helplessness crippled him worse than his leg. The prayer she’d requested was the only thing he could do for her...but he wasn’t sure how. He was not a praying man. He wasn’t opposed to the idea—he took some comfort in the prayers Chief Bradens or Chad Owens or any of the other firefighters had been known to offer, and he found himself drawn to Charlotte’s prayers of grace over their dinners. Still, none of those people had ever directly asked for prayer from him. It was like being told to use a complicated new tool without being given the owner’s manual.
Only, was it complicated? Charlotte never made it look like anything more difficult than breathing. Prayer seemed to come to her like singing came to him—something that just flowed out of a person.
Singing.
Jesse searched his memory for a gospel song. He owned nearly every recording Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin and Bobby Darin ever made, not to mention Ray Charles and Smokey Robinson. One of them had to have a gospel song in there somewhere.
He couldn’t remember the title of the song, but his mind recalled Sam Cooke’s mournful voice singing, some song about Jesus and consolation. That’s what Charlotte needed. And so, after a guilty look around to see if there was anyone who could hear, Jesse began singing the couplets he remembered. Charlotte needed consolation to return to the assurance she’d first proclaimed to him: God is never late and He’s never early; He’s always right on time.
He kept on singing, letting the words soak into his own tangled spirit as he remembered more and more of the lyrics, letting the song undo the knots in his shoulders and the grip in his chest that wouldn’t let him breathe. Letting him know that it might not be a bad thing that he felt so bonded to her, and her alone. Slowly, he felt his own words form—not out loud, but like a sigh inside his head, a breath waiting to be exhaled.
“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
Charlotte 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?”
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