Chapter 12
Becky’s meandering feet took her back to the house, shame dogging her steps. She had struck out at Rick in anger, using words that cut and hurt, issued ultimatums she would never keep. Then, worse yet, she had run away instead of staying and facing the consequences of her actions.
“Please forgive me, Lord,” she whispered, lifting her head to the night sky. “Forgive my hard words.” She prayed that she hadn’t hurt him with her truth the very way she had accused him of hurting people with his.
Rick wasn’t empty. He had depth of character and a candor that didn’t hide behind fancy words. His relationship with God was based on the same kind of honesty.
Now she had to find a way to apologize to him. To regain lost ground. Because in spite of words thrown out in anger, she couldn’t let him go.
She slipped into the house through the doors leading into her father’s study. She needed to call Rick. Find out where he was and try to rebuild what she had so foolishly broken down.
As Becky punched in his home number, she glanced at the notes he had left behind. The fateful interview. Yes, it still mattered, but obviously it also mattered to Rick. And in spite of how she felt about Jake’s confidences, Rick had a point. Jake held a public office and as such, his private character was as much a part of that as his public one. But how could she be fair and just at the same time?
Her call went to voicemail. “Please pick up, Rick, if you’re listening. I’m sorry I got so angry. Call me on my cell phone. Please.” She didn’t care that she sounded like she was begging.
As she tried his cell phone, her heart started up. It rang six times, each ring sinking her spirits further. Then, finally, he picked up.
“Rick, this is Becky. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.” Her words rushed out in her eagerness to make a connection. “I want to talk to you. I was wrong…”
“Becky?”
She stopped. The voice on the phone wasn’t Rick’s. Her face burned as she realized her mistake. “Sorry. Wrong number.”
“No. Becky, don’t hang up. This is Neil Hemstead. I’m using Rick’s cell phone.”
“What. Why?” Other than the occasional chitchat at Terra’s coffee shop, Rick hardly knew Neil. What was he doing with Rick’s cell phone?
“Becky. Listen to me. There’s been an accident. Rick was involved. I was the first one at the accident and used his cell phone to call the ambulance.”
Accident. Rick. The words caught like barbed hooks, tearing and slashing.
“Where? How? Is he okay?”
“The ambulance just left. He hit a deer with his Jeep.”
She felt a sob push up her throat. Her head spun as she dropped the phone. Rick. Lord, forgive me.
“Okay. I’m going.” She stumbled past the desk, heading for the door, shock numbing her movements.
“Becky. What’s wrong?” her brother called out as she lurched through the family room. “I thought you had a meeting?”
“I have to get to the hospital.” Becky glanced wildly around, as if looking for answers. “It’s Rick. He’s been in an accident.”
She saw her mother half rise from her chair. Her father’s shocked face. Leanne and Colette both cried out.
Dennis caught her by the shoulders just as her legs gave way. “You can’t drive, Becks. I’ll take you.”
Seconds later they were in Dennis’s car, flying through town. All she could do was pray inarticulate prayers while fear and panic lurked at the edges of her mind.
She couldn’t. She had to concentrate. Rick needed her.
“You don’t know how bad it is, Becks. Don’t think the worst,” Dennis said, downshifting as he approached a red light. He slowed, glanced left and right and gunned it through.
The hospital was just ahead and, as Dennis prepared to turn into the parking lot, she saw the flashing lights of the ambulance coming from the other direction, heard the ominous wail of the siren.
Becky grabbed the door handle, ready to jump out as soon as Dennis stopped the car. But he caught her with one hand as he spun the wheel for the turn into the parking lot with the other.
“Wait, Becks,” he said. His voice was soft but his grip brother-tough as the car rocked to a halt. “I’m coming with you.”
The spinning red and blue lights kicked her heart into high gear, but she forced herself to wait for Dennis to turn off the car. Undo his seat belt. Then hers.
She jumped out, her eyes drawn to the ambulance now pulling up to the emergency entrance. Dennis caught her by the arm again, leading her along.
The back doors of the ambulance swung open, two men jumped out, whirled around and pulled out a stretcher holding a body.
“Rick,” Becky called out, her knees buckling. Dennis held her up, slipped his arm around her waist. But adrenaline surged, gave her strength and she ran.
They got into the emergency entrance just as they wheeled Rick in. Blood covered Rick’s forehead, matting his blond hair, streaking down the side of his head. His one eye was swollen shut. A bag hung above the stretcher, a narrow tube running from it into his arm.
Becky slapped her hand against her mouth, holding back a cry. He looked like a war victim.
He opened his eyes, turned his head and saw her with his good eye. When he reached out his hand, she ignored Dennis, pulled away and ran to Rick’s side, catching his hand in hers.
“Miss, I’m sorry. You’ll have to stand back.” One of the paramedics caught her by the shoulders, gently drawing her away.
But Rick wouldn’t let go.
“Please, let her stay,” he muttered, his hands clenching Becky’s with surprising strength. Then his head rolled to the side and his hand grew slack.
Panic surged through her, but then someone was pulling her away.
“Becky. Please. He’s unconscious.”
Leslie VandeKeere, the Emergency Room nurse, had her hand on Becky’s arm, her expression sympathetic. “Let us do our job.”
As her words sank in, she stepped back. Leslie, another nurse and a doctor converged on Rick and he was whisked away into a curtained off area.
Dennis was right behind her, his hands on her shoulders.
She turned to him, buried her face in his shoulders and all the emotions of the evening converged. She started sobbing, her shoulders shaking as sorrow and regret surged through her.
This was her fault. She had caused Rick’s accident. He’d driven off in a rage. Why had she been so self-righteous?
“Becky, let’s go sit down.” Dennis drew her gently to the waiting area. She didn’t want to go, but didn’t have the strength to resist. Dennis pulled her down into a chair, his arm still around her shoulders.
Please, Lord, she prayed. Please keep Rick safe. Please.
I love him. Don’t take him away from me now.
The words went round and round in her head as she clung to her brother’s hand, her eyes focused on the hallway leading to the emergency ward. She could hear the faint murmur of voices, the shuffling of feet from one of the curtained-off cubicles. The occasional muffled clang of an instrument on a tray.
What was going on?
The doors of the Emergency Entrance whooshed open and her parents swooped in on them.
“Oh, honey. What happened?” Her mother sat down beside her, her hand stroking Becky’s shoulder.
“I don’t know.” She didn’t look at them, her entire attention on the cubicle as if by sheer force of will she could make Rick whole. She knew Rick’s life wasn’t in her hands, but she couldn’t stop herself.
“Is he okay?”
She forced her gaze back to her father, who had taken Dennis’s seat beside her, and tears filled her eyes again. “He looked terrible, Daddy.”
Her father laid his hand on her head and awkwardly stroked her hair with his rough hand. “We have good doctors and nurses here.” He smiled. “And I know you’ve been praying. So have we. His life is in God’s hands.”
And what if she didn’t trust th
at God would let her keep him?
The horrible question stopped her thoughts cold. Her mind slowed, circling the thought. It sounded like something Rick might say.
And in that moment, she understood him a little better.
Pain stabbed through the haze. Once. Then again. Coming closer together as he swam through the syrupy darkness that held him down, slowed his thoughts.
His eyelids had been glued shut. They wouldn’t open. Wouldn’t open. Voices swam through his mind. His mother’s. Grandfather’s. Becky’s.
Hushed and vague shapes of people he didn’t know mixed with the voices, speaking his name.
Was death this painful?
He willed his thoughts past the agony surging through his head, his chest and pulled his lids up.
The first thing he saw was a head, lying down by his arm. He tried to speak but only a groan came out. The head lifted and he was looking at Becky’s eyes, her soft smile.
He was alive.
Becky held his hand, and before the black pulled him down again, he felt her lips touch his fingers.
He wanted to kiss her but slowly the dark overcame him.
“How’s it going, Becks?” Sam didn’t glance up from his Bible, but his quiet question was a gentle reprieve for Becky.
She sat cross-legged on the living room floor, papers scattered around her in a semicircle as her fuzzy and distracted mind tried to find some thread of coherence from Jake’s interview.
Her eyes were on the paper in front of her but her mind was on Rick. And each time she thought of him, she prayed for him.
She had stayed as late as she dared last night, then this morning she dragged herself out of bed to get some work done before she went to see Rick again.
The magazine needed her now more than ever, but she felt torn between the reality of the magazine’s balance sheet and the needs of her own heart.
She rubbed her eyes and flashed her father a quick smile. “It’s going okay, Dad.” Which was a lie, but she couldn’t let her father in on the secret that came out in the interview. For now it was between her, Jake, Rick. And Kerra.
She pressed her fingers against her eyes, hearing again Jake’s confession, reliving her painful disillusionment. Had she known the chaos her innocent question would have generated, she would never have mentioned Kerra’s name.
She pushed the papers away, unable to figure out what to write about. What to think. Life wasn’t supposed to be this complicated.
“Do you want some help?” Sam closed his Bible, signaling to Becky that she now had his complete attention. Sam always spent time in the morning on his devotions, something Becky hadn’t done for a while.
She didn’t have time.
Becky pushed her hands through her hair, holding it away from her face as she blew out her breath in a frustrated sigh. “I dunno, Dad. I just…”
Sam leaned forward, inviting further disclosure.
Becky looked up into his deep blue eyes. Almost as blue as Rick’s. She hadn’t seen much of Rick’s eyes the past day and a half. He slept a lot and when he was awake, his one eye was swollen shut, the other still bloodshot. It tore her heart each time she saw him weak and helpless and in pain.
“Life isn’t as easy as I thought it should be,” she said finally, feeling an unaccountable prick of tears at the back of her throat.
“Rick is young and strong, Becky. He’ll be up and about in no time.”
“And he’ll still be pushing me to do something I shouldn’t. And someday he’ll be leaving.”
Sam sat back in his chair, tapping his fingers together. “And that bothers you?”
Becky swallowed against the restriction of her throat. “Yes, Daddy. Too much.”
“Does he know this?”
Becky just shrugged.
“Was that what you were fighting about?”
Becky pulled her legs up to her chest, bouncing her chin lightly on her knees, and decided to let go. She had carried the burden of Jake’s secret and its consequences and needed to share it with someone whom she could trust. “Jake told me something in confidence, even though the tape was still running. Something that could ruin his career. Rick heard it and wants to use it in the article. That’s what we were fighting about.” And that’s what probably put Rick in the hospital.
“Did Jake tell you it was off the record?”
“Not until later. Which is a technicality.”
“Do you want to use it?”
Becky sighed, thinking of the precarious financial position of the magazine. The article would definitely sell magazines, but was that the direction they wanted to go? “I don’t. But Rick says we should because Jake is a public figure holding a public office. He shouldn’t have secrets.”
“What’s Rick’s motivation for running the article?”
“It would increase the circulation of the magazine. His main purpose for everything he has done since he came here.”
“Do you think that’s his only reason?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore where Rick is concerned.” Becky looked up at her father, her emotions wavering between her growing feelings for Rick and the reality of Rick’s temporary situation at the magazine.
“Have you prayed about it?”
Becky nodded.
“With Rick?”
She shook her head. They had touched upon faith issues, but she couldn’t imagine ever getting close enough to Rick to pray with him.
“So maybe you should start there. Lay your needs and Rick’s before the Lord. Together. It might help clarify both your thinking.” Sam got off his chair and sat down beside Becky, slipping his arm around her shoulders. “I know you care for Rick. Maybe even love him. I also know that you don’t want less than a God-fearing man in your life. Maybe you need to make that clear to Rick.”
Becky laid her head against her father’s shoulder, much as she had when she was a little girl. “But I don’t know if it matters to him what I want.”
She heard Sam’s chuckle deep down in his broad chest. “I think your opinion matters a lot more to him than you realize. I’ve seen how he looks at you. How he listens to you.”
“But he’s still leaving, Dad. He has told me that again and again, as if I need to know. And we’re so different. He’s a traveler and I like to stay in one place. He’s called me sentimental and I’ve called him coldhearted.”
“Then use your warmth to thaw him out.” Sam drew back and bracketed Becky’s face in his hands. “And it wouldn’t be so bad if you spread your own wings a bit. Saw more of the world than Holmes Crossing and Edmonton. I think you have things you can give each other. I think you can fill parts of his life and he can fill parts of yours.”
Becky bit her lip as she held her father’s gaze. “But what about faith, Daddy? You always told me that I should never enter a relationship with someone who doesn’t believe. Rick has so many questions about God and why there is so much sadness in the world. It’s like he’s angry with God.”
“If he didn’t have questions about God, I would be concerned. His anger shows that God matters to him. I think it might be up to us to help show him the way back. Questions and anger and all.” Sam smiled down at her. “I think complacent, lukewarm people are harder for God to deal with.”
“And after all this happens, what if he’s still leaving?”
Sam sighed lightly and stroked Becky’s cheeks with his thumbs. “Then you might have to let him go. Love him and let him go. He needs to find his own way back home.”
Becky resisted that thought. Pushed it away. Could she do it?
Chapter 13
The ringing of the doorbell broke into the moment and Becky drew reluctantly away from her father’s side. Her father’s words hurt, and she didn’t know if she could face the reality of them just yet.
Her mother answered the door and Becky heard her chatting with someone.
A tall, elderly man stood on the porch. His thinning hair was swept back from wide features. Deep
blue eyes held hers, and as his mouth curved up into a smile, Becky felt a tingle of recognition.
Cora turned and drew Becky to her side. “This is my daughter. Becky, this is Colson Ethier. Rick’s grandfather.”
“I can see a family resemblance,” Colson said, reaching out to shake Becky’s hand. “I’m pleased to meet you. I’ve heard about you.”
“I’m sure,” Becky said with a sharp laugh. “Let me take your coat.”
“That’s okay, I’m not staying long. I went to the office of Going West and some woman there told me I should find out more from you. So here I am, hoping to find out about my grandson before I go to the hospital.”
“He’s pretty banged up. He’s got a few broken ribs. He’s been in and out of consciousness the past twenty-four hours. He also has a badly sprained wrist and bruises. The doctor said it would be a few days before he’s up and around.” Becky listed off the injuries, trying to keep her own emotions in check. It had only been a day and a night since the accident. Guilt still dogged her. It was their fight that had put him in the hospital.
Her mother had come by the hospital and had practically dragged her from Rick’s bedside last night. It was only the endless demands of work she couldn’t pass on to anyone else that kept her away. Otherwise, she’d be sitting beside Rick right now, family or no family.
“I came as soon as I could,” Colson said. “Do you think he will see me?”
Becky remembered the only conversation she had heard Rick have with Colson. Rick had been uptight and snappish for a couple of days after that. She couldn’t imagine what a face-to-face visit would be like.
“Of course he would,” Cora said. “You’re his grandfather.”
“An absent one, I’m afraid.” Regret edged his words, echoed by the slump of his shoulders. “Rick and I haven’t always been close.”
“Then this might be an opportunity to remedy that.” Cora’s optimism brushed away Colson’s concerns.
Becky kept her uncertainties to herself. Colson looked too tired. Too weary to hear her opinions. Rick had never said anything positive about his grandfather.
A Place in Her Heart Page 17