Deep Haven [02] Tying the Knot

by Susan May Warren

  “Are you on today?” The chart had listed Dr. Simpson as the doctor on duty, although she hadn’t seen him yet.

  Dr. Jefferies nodded quickly. “And I’m late. Can I borrow the keys?”

  Anne pulled the keys out of her smock pocket and dropped them in his palm. “I’ll be down in room 102.”

  He turned and strode down the hall, around the corner.

  Olin Karlstrom quizzed Anne for ten minutes on his upcoming surgery. The poor man looked pasty and she didn’t like the hue of his lips. She took his pulse and made a note to track down Dr. Simpson.

  Wheeling the medical cart out of the room, Anne headed toward Darrin’s room. The soft click of a door closing made her pulse jump. She stopped and scanned the hall. Nothing but the ticking of the overhead clock and her own paranoid heartbeat.

  She rolled the cart down to Darrin’s room. Katie had the kid in stitches, retelling some story about Bucko wrestling two Duluth packs.

  “Time for your meds.”

  Darrin shot her a wicked grin and sat up. Anne gave him a mock glare as she took his vitals. “Listen up. After today, your dosages go down. The last thing you need, believe me, is to get addicted to these.” She spilled the pills into his palm and gave him a drink. He sucked them down.

  “Are you on duty?” Katie asked.

  Anne nodded. “Sandra is whipped. I was going to ask you if you could take Bertha over to my place. My aunt will keep an eye on her until I get home.” She dug into her pocket to grab her house keys, then remembered she’d hooked them onto the floor keys. “Just a second; I’ll run and get them.”

  Striding down the hall, it occurred to her that perhaps this moment delineated her future. Working endless shifts—double or single—in this tiny county hospital, taking pulses, administering meds. If she got lucky, she’d land Jenny’s position and her world would expand to doing pregnancy tests and drug screenings at the Indian reservation.

  Her heart suddenly weighed a million pounds.

  One month ago the thought of living in this peaceful community gave her reason to rise each morning. It pumped hope into her veins, administered the grit to face rehabilitation, and supplied the energy to finish her internship. Nursing was a noble profession, worthy of every ounce of dedication. Hadn’t she been desperately grateful for the nurses attending her while she clawed her way back to health?

  But somehow this life dimmed in the face of all she’d seen recently. Shelly, craving for God’s word. Latisha, laughing as she braided Katie’s hair, precious trust rich in her voice. Darrin, crying as he confessed his sins and turned his life over to Jesus.

  Spiritual nursing at its best.

  The thought of spending her life dispensing the medicine of the gospel to these children sent a charge right to her soul. Never had she felt so alive, so pulsing with hope as she had this past month. Yes, facing these kids had nearly scared her out of her skin, but some sort of spiritual metamorphosis had changed her viewpoint. She’d seen past the tattoos and the body piercing to the aching, wounded souls within.

  Perhaps this was how her father had felt that day as they sat at their kitchen table while the sun waxed it golden. His voice had shaken, his eyes alight, his very aura suggesting that they stood at the threshold of a great adventure, a life-altering purpose that would change their lives. And more.

  Someone has to go, Anne.

  These kids’ souls needed tending from someone who understood their illnesses and the cure. Someone like Noah. Someone like Anne, who’d grown up among them. A street-toughened woman who faced their battles, in their language, and didn’t surrender.

  Someone with guts.

  Anne marched down the hall with her hands fisted, wishing for the thousandth time that fear didn’t streak through her every time she thought of Minneapolis. Wishing the past didn’t imprison her, locking her away from the ministry she longed to dive into . . . from the man who already swam in those deep, dark waters.

  She walked past the nurses’ desk, down the corridor, and had just passed the medical closet when she heard . . . something coming from inside. A breath—no, heavy breathing. In. Out. Quickly.

  The memory of the soft click of a door closing made her pause. She stood silently, listening to her heartbeat gather in her ears.

  Again, breathing. Then the slap of something landing on the floor.

  She grabbed the door handle and pushed it open.

  Dr. Jefferies stood in the middle of the room. His brown eyes widened and he held a box of . . . Percocet?

  “What are you doing?” Her voice sounded pitifully weak. She frowned at him to compensate.

  His mouth opened. No sound fell out. Her heart jumped. This scene suddenly felt so . . . familiar. Perspiration beaded his forehead; his hands trembled.

  She moved back.

  Then his eyes narrowed. “Come in, Anne. Close the door behind you.”

  Yeah, right. Anne stiffened. Adrenaline pumped through her, and she told herself to run. Instead her eyes fixed on the doctor as he finished stuffing the box into a fanny pack around his waist. “You’re stealing from the hospital.”

  His look told her he wasn’t impressed with her assessment. “Come here.”

  Her head shook of its own accord. She felt for the door handle behind her with whatever feeling remained in her cold hand.

  He took a step toward her. She noticed his pupils for the first time. Dilated. Black as night. He reached into his pocket, his gaze holding her like a steel trap. Her breath caught when a second later he pointed a gun at her nose. “Come here.”

  The air whooshed out of her.

  No.

  Not again.

  “Help!” She flung the door open and ran. “Help!” The sound echoed down the sterile hall like a gunshot. “Help!” Her heartbeat thundered out before her.

  “Anne!” Dr. Jefferies’s voice came a breath behind her. “Stop.”

  Oh, sure. Anne’s legs couldn’t work fast enough. She rounded the nurses’ station, heading toward the door—

  He grabbed her hair.

  “Ugh!” The pain speared right into her brain. Down her neck. Into her legs. They buckled and she fell to her knees.

  He yanked her hair again. “Get up.”

  No. This was not happening to her again. She slammed her fist into his jaw. Pain exploded in her knuckles. “Ow!”

  “C’mon,” he growled. The man before her couldn’t be the same person she’d sat beside in church, the man who had whizzed her around town in his Lexus. She stared at him dumbly.

  “Anne, are you okay?”

  Anne twisted around, crippled by his hold.

  Katie stood in the hall, her eyes huge.

  “Katie! Run!”

  Anne heard Dr. Jefferies shout. Saw fear cascade across Katie’s face. The gun whisked past her vision.

  Katie whirled.

  Ran.

  When the gunshot shattered the air, Anne went dead inside.

  27

  The wind slicked Noah’s sweaty skin as he drove down the Gunflint Trail to Deep Haven. His first stop after visiting Darrin would be the municipal pool. He needed a real shower if he intended to live with himself any longer.

  He motored into the hospital parking lot and grimaced. Anne’s dog, Bertha, had her massive head poked out of Katie’s Mazda, completely dwarfing the driver’s seat. She barked in hilarious greeting. Noah waved at the dog as he parked his bike, trying to keep his heart from settling into his knees.

  Bertha’s presence meant that Anne was still here. He’d have to face her and somehow confess that he’d failed her. He’d sucked her into a project that had burned to ash around them. He didn’t want to think about the accompanying death of their future.

  “Here, Bertha.” He freed the dog. She jumped out, then slammed her huge paws on his chest. He nearly toppled over. “Okay, okay, I love you too.” He rubbed the dog behind her ears while she slobbered his chin. “Go, run.” Maybe killing a few minutes watching Bertha torment the seagulls w
ould bolster his courage. He knew Anne wasn’t going to give him the same reception. Not if Katie had delivered his message.

  He folded his hands and tucked them behind his head, stretching. Bucko and the kids were probably past Hinckley by now. Their farewells, some with tears, tugged at his heart. He drew in a breath of the pine-scented air and tried to—

  “Help!”

  Noah whirled.

  “Help!” Katie tore out of the hospital as if it were on fire. “Help!”

  He sprinted toward her, caught her arms. “What’s the matter?”

  “Anne . . .” She hiccupped. Tears streaked her face. “Someone with . . . gun. Inside.”

  He didn’t mean to shake her. “What? Is she hurt?”

  Katie covered her mouth with her hand, terror in her eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “Go. Call 911.” He raced toward the building.

  The utter silence in the hallway made him halt.

  Swallow.

  Breathe.

  He cast a look toward the ER and saw a shadow move against the wall behind the nurses’ station. “Anne?”

  “No. It’s Sandra.” A head popped up. Fear emanated from her expression. “I saw him. He took her that way.” She pointed, not steadily, down the hall the opposite direction as she ran toward him. “They went into a room. I don’t know which one.”

  Noah grabbed her shaking hands. “Get out of here. Go.”

  Sandra tore out the front doors.

  Noah stalked down the hall, nerves taut. Every instinct told him to burst into each room and mow down Anne’s assailant with pure fury. He reined it in. It wouldn’t help her if he got shot. Lord, give me wisdom!

  He circled the nurses’ station and ducked behind the desk, listening. He heard muffled voices, one of them Anne’s.

  “Is Katie dead?” Anne sat on a hospital bed, hands in the surrender position, staring at Dr. Jefferies. He paced the room from end to end like a caged tiger. She could hardly believe that she’d once thought him handsome.

  “I didn’t want it this way, you know.” His tone hovered barely over a mutter. He stopped, looked at her with reddened eyes. “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “There are always choices.”

  He gave a sardonic laugh. “You don’t know anything. You don’t know what it’s like to be . . . trapped.” His speech started to slur. “I just want him to stop. Hurting. Me.”

  She kept her voice soft. “Who’s hurting you?”

  He shook his head, his eyes wild.

  Anne watched Dr. Jefferies draw into the fetal position and morph as if suddenly a child, a terrified child. “Doctor?” She eyed the door. Right now. Run!

  He snapped up his head, his face twisted. “Don’t. Move.” He smiled, looking like a wolf. “Are you afraid? Get in line, Anne. The world feeds on fear. It’s all around us, pulsating, waiting to devour.” He burst out in insane hilarity.

  She gulped back a paralyzing spurt of terror. “And getting strung out and killing me is going to destroy that fear?”

  He stumbled, then leaned against the wall. “I’m fine.” He slumped down. “Just fine.” He angled the gun at her; it wavered in his hand. “I’m tired.”

  She edged off the bed. “Let me help you. I’ll get you something to eat. You can take a nap right here—”

  “You’re so stupid,” he snarled, but his eyes couldn’t stay fixed on her. She noticed the way his grip spasmed on the gun, dangerously close to the trigger.

  She swallowed. Oh, Lord, I am stupid. How did this happen to me again? Her throat grew raw at the irony. Here she’d been building a refuge and the enemy lived right inside the gates. She blinked back tears. God where are You?

  Here. I am here.

  She stilled. Breathed. In. Out. And felt a presence so thick it filled the room and settled in her soul. Here. Peace reverberated through her as if two hands rested on her shoulders, holding her down. I am here.

  Her heartbeat slowed. She closed her eyes and words flooded her mind: “When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea-billows roll; whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, ‘It is well, it is well with my soul.’”

  It is well with my soul. God had her soul, was keeping it . . .

  Suddenly with a wash of pure, brilliant clarity, she understood.

  God hadn’t brought Noah into her life so she could hide in his muscular embrace. He’d brought Noah into her life to answer the pleas from her childhood . . . to show her, indeed, there is safety, peace, in this world.

  The memory of Noah’s song infiltrated her thoughts.

  For me be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live.

  If Jordan above me shall roll.

  No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life,

  Thou shalt whisper thy peace to my soul.

  God had been with her as she bled on that bedroom floor, present in Noah’s song, in Noah’s strong hand holding hers.

  God, there, watching over her bereft, terrified soul.

  Keeping it safe, on both sides of eternity.

  God had heard her prayers and answered—through Noah and his song. God had brought Anne to 2135 Franklin Avenue for a reason—to teach her that, yes, whether in death or life, even when storms and sea billows roll, all was well with her soul.

  Tears fell in a torrent. Yes, Lord. It is well. It is so well. She may be a doomed hostage at the business end of a pistol, but Dr. Jefferies couldn’t kill her soul.

  Whether in fear or in triumph, God was with her. Just like He’d been a year ago in the soft song of an unnamed hero. And before, in the protection of her parents and their heritage of faith. God never left her.

  She’d left Him. Katie’s voice returned to her: We will find God if we turn to Him. And in that surrender, He’ll turn it into something both for His glory and your eternal good, according to His will.

  Anne had taken her eyes off her only source of healing. Her source of hope.

  “For to me, living is for Christ, and dying is even better. Yet if I live, that means fruitful service for Christ. I really don’t know which is better. I’m torn between two desires: Sometimes I want to live, and sometimes I long to go and be with Christ.”

  Anne comprehended for the first time what her father had meant. The fullness of Philippians 1:21-23 swept through her, taking with it the final residue of grief. The joy of her faith didn’t come from living in safety on earth. It came from living in safety in her Father’s hand, wherever He put her, among the living or the dying.

  Anne couldn’t construct a world without pain. But she could trust a big, capable God who would be there, holding her when trouble invaded her world. God’s grace was sufficient to hold her in any circumstance. And in this—this reality, this character of God—dwelled the joy of her faith.

  Joy wasn’t a reaction to God’s blessings. It was a state of being because of salvation through Jesus Christ.

  She stared at Dr. Jefferies—his brown hair askew, his eyes drooping, his gun hand quivering—and a wave of pity swept through her. A cleansing flow that left peace in its wake. Fear lingered at the recesses, but in the deepest place of her soul she felt the touch of the Almighty.

  The embrace of grace.

  The caress of eternity.

  She began to laugh, a hysterical wonder that, even to her, felt just on the lee side of lunacy. But it bubbled out until she had to cover her face with her hands. Then the laughter turned to tears.

  Only God could make her face her worst fears and, in that moment, heal her of her wounds.

  “What’s so funny?” Dr. Jefferies’s eyes were half closed, but somehow he made it to his feet. “What’s so funny?”

  She stared at him. “Nothing is funny,” she answered honestly. “I’m sorry that you won’t let me help you.”

  He laughed, a sickly, throw-his-head-back puff of disgust. “Yeah, you can help me. C’mon.” He staggered toward her and dug his fingers into her arm, causing her to wince.

  “Where are we going?�
�� Her voice came out surprisingly calm. God was holding her tight.

  “Outside. Home. Away.” He wobbled toward the door, then pushed her in front of him, curling his arm around her neck. “No fast moves, honey.”

  “I’m not your honey.”

  That endearment belonged to Noah.

  “Stop it! You’re hurting me!”

  Anne’s angry voice drilled into Noah. He gritted his teeth, fighting the urge to tear her assailant apart like a grizzly.

  “Let go. It won’t help you to kidnap me. They’ll catch you.”

  “No they won’t. Not if they want you to live.”

  Her quick intake of breath dittoed Noah’s gasp. He remained behind the nurses’ counter, watching the duo shuffle by. Good girl, Anne. Fight him. Distract him. Noah’s legs tensed as he crept around the side of the station.

  Sirens blared, a low moan in the background piercing the air.

  Dr. Jefferies? Noah recognized the man from church, and a streak of white-hot fury shot through him. What kind of deceiving rat posed as a doctor one moment and took lives the next? It was like watching himself, only inside out. Dr. Jefferies looked like a man people could trust with their lives. Noah looked like the local thug down the street.

  Well, a thug might be just the person Anne needed at the moment. Like Pastor Dan had said, God had made him exactly the way he wanted him.

  Noah moved quietly. Swiftly.

  He sprang like a cougar, arms out toward his prey. When he landed on Dr. Jefferies, they went down in a bone-cracking tackle. Pain spurted into Noah’s shoulder. Dr. Jefferies rolled and jabbed an elbow into Noah’s chest.

  “Anne, run!” Noah grabbed the doctor by his shirt as the man bounced off the floor. “Run!”

  He saw Anne turn, stand transfixed. He thought he heard his name. The physician wriggled out of his grip. Momentum propelled Noah off the floor, and he tackled the slimeball again. “Run, Anne!”

  Dr. Jefferies roared in anger. Manic in his fury, he slammed his knee into Noah’s ribs. Noah shoved his forearm into the man’s neck. “Calm down!”