by Marta Perry
Nate leaned his forearm on the counter, closing the space between himself and Vince.
“I spent most of the week in Boulder,” he began briskly.
To Nate’s surprise, Vince’s expression turned to that of wary concern. “Where’s Gracie? Did something happen? Is she okay?”
“Gracie is fine,” Nate assured him. “We dropped her off at the day care before we came up here.”
“Oh. I see,” said Vince, who visibly relaxed for just a split second before drawing himself back up to his full height. “Then what’s the problem?”
“I’ve been to see the county inspector.”
Nate held up his hand when Vince would have interrupted. “I know it may look like I’m messing with your business, Vince, but that’s not how it is.”
“How is it, then?” Vince asked acerbically, refusing to back down from his hostile stance.
“Look,” Nate said, blowing out a breath to steady a surge of anger and doing his best to placate his unreasonable older brother. Getting mad wouldn’t help his case any. “This whole building permit fiasco was my fault, so I thought it was only right that I be the one to clear it up.”
He dug into his pocket and laid the signed permit in front of Vince. “It’s a done deal. You—we,” he amended when Jess nudged him, “can get that shed built now, before we get socked with a bad winter storm. Oh—and as of right now, the lodge is officially in the ‘no fine’ zone.”
Vince studied the paper for a moment, his expression unreadable. Finally, he looked up, locking his gaze with Nate’s.
“We?”
Again, Jess nudged Nate with her elbow.
He got it, already.
“Yes, we,” Nate answered, his gaze flitting to wink at Jess before settling back on Vince. “Two heads are better than one, and all that. I figured since I plan on staying around for a while, I might as well be doing something useful.”
Jess gasped and dropped Nate’s hand. He turned to find her staring up at him, wide-eyed.
His shrug was meant for both Jess and Vince. “It’s no big deal.”
But it was a big deal, and all three of them knew it. There was a tense moment of silence while each of them were lost in their own thoughts.
Unable to take the strain of the sudden quiet, Nate thrust his right hand forward, toward Vince.
His brother just looked at Nate’s extended hand for a moment without moving. Then, just as Nate was about to pull away, Vince suddenly put his hand forward and shook with Nate.
“Thanks for the permit,” Vince said, pocketing the piece of paper.
“And the shed?” Nate prodded. “Do you want my help with it?”
Vince shrugged as if it didn’t matter one way or the other, but Nate saw a sparkle of something in Vince’s blue eyes that he hadn’t seen before.
Acceptance?
“Do what you want, Nate,” Vince said. “I’ll be out here in the morning to work on the shed. With or without you.”
It was as close to a peace offering as Nate knew he was going to get from his bullheaded brother, and he couldn’t help but smile—first at Vince, whose frown never wavered, and then at Jess, who beamed back at him, showing without words that she knew he’d just won this battle, and that she was celebrating the victory with him.
Nate turned back to Vince.
“Done,” he said, keeping his voice a clipped, businesslike monotone that belied the elation pounding in his chest. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”
“Whatever,” Vince said grudgingly, and Nate just laughed.
* * *
“That went well,” Jessica commented shyly. They’d been sitting in the Jeep for five minutes now, and Nate had yet to say a word, much less make any kind of effort to turn the key in the ignition to take them back to the day care to pick up Gracie.
He looked at her as if he was surprised she’d spoken to him.
“It did, didn’t it?” he said, bemused. “What do you know?”
“I told you Vince would act rationally once he’d had time to think things over.”
Nate flashed her a twisted grin.
“And now that you’ve solved his problem for him, I would hope that things will be better between the two of you.”
“Do you think?” He chuckled. “Don’t forget that I was the one who created the problem in the first place. I’m sure Vince won’t.”
“It’s a start,” she insisted, patting her knees for emphasis. “A good start.”
“I don’t know, Jess. I’ve spent all these years resenting Vince, but lately I’ve realized that the real problem is with me.”
“No, it’s not,” she denied instantly, then paused thoughtfully. She wasn’t doing Nate any kind of favor by blurting out her opinion before she’d listened to what he had to say. “I’m sorry, Nate. Go on.”
“I don’t know. I’m struggling, but I’m not sure why.” He paused, squeezing his fists against the steering wheel. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.” She was both curious and hopeful as to what he would say.
“The other day, when you told me about Russ and Elizabeth, you explained how God got you through the bad times.”
“Yes, that’s true. He carries me through the bad times and rejoices with me in the good. I’m not saying faith in God erased my pain, or made it somehow magically easy for me. It’s not. I struggle every day.”
“You do?” he asked, sounding genuinely perplexed. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. I mean, I know you have your problems, but you seem so joyful.”
“I’m only human.”
Nate nodded. “I know. It’s just that you have such a sense of peace about you. I want that. I’ve been trying to do the right things with my life, for Gracie’s sake as much as my own, but nothing I do seems to help. No matter how hard I try, I just don’t perceive the world the way you do, with your faith.”
“Maybe you’re trying too hard,” she suggested softly, reaching out to stroke his biceps.
“What else can I do?”
Jessica looked at Nate for a long moment, seeing him through new eyes. Here was a man who had worked hard for every single thing he had ever received in his life. He was a self-made man in the very best sense of all of those words.
So it just made sense that he would approach God the same way he approached everything else in his life. By putting Gracie ahead of himself. By asking himself what he could do. By measuring himself up to some impossible standard he’d created in his own mind.
“I think maybe you’re approaching the idea of faith in God all wrong,” she suggested tentatively, not wanting to inadvertently hurt his feelings.
“I am? How?”
“Being in a relationship with God isn’t what you do. It’s who you are.”
Nate blanched a sickly white color. “I’m in trouble, then.”
Jessica was taken aback. Nate had always exuded self-confidence. It was one of the things she admired most about him. And now he was demeaning himself with surprising fervency.
“Why do you say that?”
He shook his head, a wild look in his eyes, as if he was being pursued by something, as if he was the prey in some crazy hunt.
Jessica squeezed his arm. “What is it? Talk to me, hon.”
“You know me better than anyone, Jess. When I should have been turning to God, I shunned Him. And now that I suddenly see how foolish I’ve been, and how much I want Gracie to grow up in the very faith I despised as a youth, you want me to believe God will just turn a blind eye and accept me the way I am?”
He didn’t sound as if he believed it could be possible, and Jessica knew exactly how he felt. The circumstances were different, but at the heart of it all, not too long ago, she had been in the same place, spiritually speaking, that Nate was in now.
“God accepts
you for who you are,” she explained quietly, praying for the right words to make Nate understand. “But it’s not because He blinds himself to your faults. He knows everything, Nate, and He loves you anyway.”
He stared at her, unspeaking.
“The Scriptures say that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
His mouth compressed into a tight line and his face became even more grim.
“But how can He...” His question drifted off into silence.
“I know that’s a lot to wrap your mind around,” she continued. “But it’s true.”
Nate reached for the ignition and gunned the Jeep into motion. Jessica thought to say more, but she could see she had overwhelmed him with what she’d already said. She drew her hand away from his arm and clasped her hands together in her lap, praying silently for God to reach Nate with His love, the way He had in her heart and life.
As Nate maneuvered down the road, he kept his gaze facing forward. Jessica watched him out of her peripheral vision, noting the stony expression on his face. With the way he was reacting, she maybe ought to have been worried about him, but her soul was oddly at peace.
God was clearly at work in Nate’s heart, and she was thankful for both Nate’s sake and for baby Gracie’s. When all was said and done, Jessica had faith that God would prevail, even with tough, stubborn, single-minded Nathan Morningway.
God had reached her stone-cold heart when she didn’t think anyone or anything could. She was so thankful that God was greater than their sins, even stubbornness and disbelief.
There was no doubt about it. Nate might be fighting it, but his heart was softening.
And when that final barrier had been broken, Jessica thought she might just lose her heart to Nate, once and for all.
Chapter 14
Nate’s mind was a million miles away as he tried to wrap his thoughts around what Jess had said to him. It all appeared so monumentally complicated in his mind, but Jess made it sound simple and uncomplicated. Somehow she streamlined it in his mind in a way he hadn’t thought of before.
What it boiled down to, Nate realized with a start, was faith.
Even after all his time with Jess, faith wasn’t an easy concept for Nate to grasp. Yet in a way he could not begin to explain, he felt it—God’s presence—as the truth of the Scriptures made the slow migration from his head to his heart.
“What is that?” Jess asked, pointing over the ridge in the direction Nate was driving. “Look at all the smoke. Is something burning?”
“Probably just a barrel of trash,” he answered, still in a hazy state of mind. Then he glanced to where she was pointing and pressed down hard on the accelerator. The Jeep leaped forward in time with Nate’s heart.
This was no burning barrel of trash. The smoke billowing out over the top of the tree line was too thick and too black to be an organized burn. His gut clenched as he realized he was driving right into it.
The day care.
Gracie was there, along with at least a dozen other small children and two teachers.
“Nate?” Jess questioned uncertainly.
Nate flashed a quick, encouraging glance at her, most of his concentration on maneuvering the Jeep across the washboarded dirt road at the highest speed he dared. He hoped the shock and panic registering on Jess’s expression didn’t reflect his own gaze.
“The day care!” Jess exclaimed. “Oh, God help us. Nate, hurry!”
Responding to the horror in her tone, Nate gunned the engine, clasping the wheel tightly with both hands as the Jeep fishtailed around a curve. In moments, they had crested the ridge and could see into the valley where the day care was located.
At his first glimpse of the flames and smoke pouring from the burning building, the knifing pain in his belly stabbed into his chest and throat. As he drove nearer, the black, ugly clouds of smoke billowing from the front windows seemed to be blocking out the sunlight. Flames surged from the windows on the east side of the building.
The day care, like all of the other buildings on the Morningway retreat grounds, was built to resemble a rustic, old-fashioned log cabin. Nate wondered, fighting down panic, how fast a structure such as this one would burn to the ground.
Too fast.
Nate took in the whole chaotic scene at once. One of the teachers was ushering a handful of preschoolers away from the burning building. The children were surprisingly subdued, given the circumstances. They moved in an organized line. The teacher, an older woman, was scurrying back and forth between the front and back of the line, pointing toward the trees and encouraging the children to walk faster, away from the burning structure.
Nate refocused his gaze on the building itself just as the second teacher emerged from the front door, covered with soot. She carried a little girl under her arm like a football and was pulling another child, a little boy, by the hand. Scooping the boy up in her other arm, she rushed toward where the other teacher and the children now stood, hunched in small groups near the tree line.
He heard Jess praying under her breath, her fists clenching the dashboard as she leaned forward to survey the scene. “Lord, help us.”
Nate sped into the parking lot and punched on the brake. The Jeep slid several feet on the loose gravel under the tires.
Jess was out the door before the Jeep had slid to a stop.
“Jess, no!” Nate cried out. He reached out to grab her, to stop her from putting herself in harm’s way, as he knew instinctively she had every intention of doing. Like him, her only thought was for Gracie and the other children trapped in the inferno.
His hand met empty air. Jess was already rushing toward the burning building.
Nate looked after her for a split second that felt like a lifetime, his entire being supplicating God for help as Jess disappeared through the billow of black smoke coming through the open front door of the building. His stomach lurched and he swallowed hard, forcing down the increasing sense of fear and panic eroding his thoughts.
Focus, he ordered himself, forcing a breath into lungs that appeared to have stopped working.
He jammed his hand into the front pocket of his bomber jacket and retrieved his cell phone, while with the other hand he was putting the Jeep into Park and shutting down the ignition.
His first instinct was to run in after Jess, but he wasn’t sure if either of the teachers now huddling over the children near the tree line had a cell phone with them, nor if they would have the presence of mind to make the necessary call.
It looked as if they had all they could do just to contain the gaggle of children, some of whom were staring wide-eyed at the blaze, others who were chattering up at the adults, though Nate could barely hear them through the ringing in his own ears. He felt a little dizzy, and he realized he was hyperventilating.
He had to pull it together, to remain in control, for Jess’s sake now as well as Gracie’s. His military training finally kicked in, slowing his pulse and his breathing so he could think.
He jumped down from the Jeep and was racing toward the front of the day care center even as he punched in the emergency number. Thankfully, a new cell tower had recently been built just north of the Morningway property, and the signal on his phone was strong. After just one ring, the emergency dispatcher picked up.
“Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?”
“This is Nathan Morningway of Morningway Lodge,” he said, enunciating every word. “We need the fire department here right away. The day care center is on fire. I think there are still some little kids inside. I don’t know how many.”
One, for sure. His baby.
His baby!
He paused before the entrance of the building and gave the emergency dispatcher all the necessary information on the location. Fear like he’d never experienced before clutched at his chest, and he could barely think past the pain.
What if he lost Gracie—or Jess?
No!
He couldn’t—wouldn’t—think that way. He had to get into that building and get them out of there.
Alive.
“Please stay on the line, sir,” the dispatcher said in the calm, determined manner to which Nate knew she had been trained.
“Just get them here quickly,” Nate replied. “I’ve got to go. My daughter is in there.”
Panic preceded every thought as he snapped the phone closed and took one last deep breath before plunging into the smoky room, ducking as low as he could to the floor while still at a dead run, one arm sheltering his mouth and nose.
He couldn’t see a thing through the black smoke, so he reached out his other arm in front of him, hoping to feel his way around, if it came to that.
Suddenly he felt a hand on his arm.
It was Jess. He could barely see her through the haze and the way the smoke stung his eyes, but she was there, holding a handkerchief over her mouth and nose and gesturing with her free hand, pointing back toward the front door where he’d just entered.
What was she trying to tell him?
* * *
Jessica’s hand slid from Nate’s upper arm and clasped to his wrist in an iron grip. She tugged in earnest, but he was so tense his arm didn’t budge. She knew he couldn’t see anything through the thick smoke, and the fire was roaring too loudly for him to hear her speak. Touch was her only choice in finding a means to communicate with him.
She fought down the rising surge of panic. They were running out of time, and she couldn’t get Nate to move in the right direction.
She yanked harder and felt him subtly shift. Desperate for him to understand, she dragged his hand in front of her, waist-high, where several children were huddled. When his fingers connected with one young boy’s silky hair, she felt him freeze as the realization of what she wanted finally hit him.
When she’d burst into the building moments earlier, she’d found five small preschoolers huddling under the art table. Her first thought had been to go for Gracie, but she couldn’t abandon these tiny innocents to the elements, no matter how much her heart cried out for the baby she knew was in the next room.