Emma and Ben had come this morning to help empty buckets, and they would return in about an hour to empty them again and help Cassie bottle the syrup. Titus lingered somewhere, helping Dawdi with the chickens or the milking, ready to do any heavy lifting she needed.
She trudged to the woodpile by the toolshed, filled her arms with logs, and went back to the sugar shack, where she deposited the wood on the ground near the first fire.
“You didn’t let Elmer Lee chop that, did you?” Zach’s smile was like springtime as he ducked between the sumac bushes and came to her.
Her heart did seven somersaults and a triple backflip. His coat was unzipped, and he wore the pink shirt she liked so much. My, but he was handsome. She’d never get enough of that crooked nose.
He stood on the edge of the clearing as if waiting for her to give him permission to approach. She grinned at him and stretched out her hand. He let out a deep breath, and in two long strides he’d closed the distance between them, hooked his arm around her waist, and planted an achingly gentle kiss on her lips.
“Is that okay?” he said. “Because I am capable of keeping my distance. I don’t like to, but I can.”
“If you keep your distance, I’ll be able to keep my wits,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him close for another heart-pounding kiss. “But who needs wits?”
Both arms slid around her this time, and he lifted her feet right off the ground in his enthusiasm. After he kissed her again, he set her on her feet and released her. She nearly toppled over. Kissing tended to make her ankles mushy.
He coiled his hand around the back of his neck. “It’s a little disconcerting how hard it is to control myself when I’m with you. You’re just so beautiful. But I promise your virtue is always safe with me.”
She wanted to kiss him for being so noble, but maybe that wasn’t such a good idea when her pulse already raced out of control. “I know,” she said as she felt a blush warm her cheeks. “Thank you.”
“So, I’ve written down the rules.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket.
“Rules?”
“They are the kissing rules that my mom made when I was a teenager. I didn’t follow them, but I still remember what they were.”
Cassie curled one side of her mouth. “Your mom made kissing rules?”
“She and Dad. They had three sons, and she’s a very smart lady.” He unfolded his paper and read. “Rule number one: No kissing while sitting down.” He glanced up at her and flashed those white teeth. “This is so you don’t end up making out on the couch in the rec room. Rule number two: No kissing in the car, which if you follow rule number one, you don’t really need rule number two unless you have a really tall car that you can stand up in.”
“Like a motor home.”
“Rule number three: No being alone together in anybody’s bedroom. And rule number four: Three kisses max per date.”
Cassie dropped her jaw in mock horror. “Only three? We’ve already reached our limit.”
He squinted and studied his list more closely. “Maybe that’s a typo. I think it’s supposed to say ‘thirty.’”
“And maybe it depends on your definition of a date. We’re just hanging out at the sugar shack. I don’t think you can officially call this a date.”
He smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. “Dating is so overrated.” He inclined his head and gave her a swift kiss before sliding an arm around her shoulder. “How is the sap coming along?”
“It’s almost as exciting as watching paint dry, only colder.” She pointed to the first kettle. “This one is almost ready to take to the house.”
“You’ve been busy.”
She caught her breath. “How did Austin’s surgery go?”
Zach nodded eagerly. “Dr. Perez said it went really well. He’s in recovery now. Jamie promised to call as soon as he’s lucid enough for visitors.”
“Oh, Zach. I’ve been praying so hard.”
The tenderness in his eyes stole her breath. “Thank you. So have I. He was doing well enough that I thought it was okay to sneak out for a minute to come and see you.”
“And when do you sleep?”
“I don’t need sleep. Not when just thinking of you gives me a boost of pure energy.”
Zach’s phone rang. Cassie smiled when she heard his ringtone. “Because I’m happy. Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof . . .”
He smiled with his whole face. “I changed it last night. You know, ’cuz can’t nothing bring me down.”
She giggled.
“It’s Jamie,” he said. “I’ll put her on speaker.” He swiped his finger across the screen. “Hello, Jamie?”
“Zach?”
“Yeah, I’ve got you on speaker with Cassie. She’s been worried about Austin.”
Cassie’s heart plunged to the ground when she heard the gut-wrenching sob on the other end. “Zach. Something happened. He went into cardiac arrest.”
Zach furrowed his brow. “Okay. I’m coming over right now. Everything’s going to be okay.”
Another sob that shattered Cassie’s hopes. “You can’t. You can’t help. Austin . . . Austin is gone.”
Cassie clapped her hands over her mouth as a gaping, gnashing emptiness threatened to consume her. Austin was dead? That poor little boy. That poor sorrowing mother.
Zach gasped and turned as pale as Death himself. His phone slipped from his fingers, and he stumbled backward as if he’d been shot.
“Oh, Zach,” Cassie moaned. “I’m so sorry.” She reached for him, but he recoiled from her touch as if he wanted to suffer the full weight of exquisite grief all by himself.
Pressing his palms to his eyes, he doubled over and roared in anguish. Cassie had never heard a more primal, heartrending sound.
Stunned by some invisible bolt of lightning, Cassie drew a gulp of air into her lungs. “We’ve got to get over there. We’ve got to see what we can do for Jamie.”
With a wild look in his eyes, he paced around and around the clearing as if he had to get somewhere quickly but had nowhere to go. “God wasn’t supposed to let this happen. We prayed, Cassie. All of us prayed. He wasn’t supposed to let this happen.” He scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “You told me I just needed to have enough faith. Why did God take him?”
“I don’t know.”
He seemed to turn on her. “You knew all the answers before, and suddenly you don’t know anything? You told me . . . you were so sure.”
“I’m sure of God, but nothing else.”
“You’re sure of God? How can you be sure of God? Austin wanted to play soccer.” Zach lifted his tearstained face to the sky. “Was that too much to ask? Are You so heartless that You couldn’t even let a little boy live long enough to play soccer?”
Cassie’s tears flowed down her face. “Zach, it’s going to be okay. Austin is with God now. He doesn’t have any more pain. He’s free.”
Zach snapped his head around to glare at Cassie. “You said God would heal him.”
“No, Zach. I said that God could heal him, but our ways are not God’s ways.”
“So God wanted Austin to die?”
Cassie didn’t know what to say. Zach was inconsolable, and she found it impossible to give him answers she didn’t have. If he blamed God for Austin’s death, she didn’t know how to comfort him. Jesus could not heal him if he wouldn’t open his heart to God’s love.
Zach seemed to lose all strength. He sank to the overturned bucket, propped his elbows in his knees, and cradled his head in his hands.
Cassie came close and laid a light hand on his shoulder. He didn’t move. “I don’t know anything, Zach,” she said softly, her voice trembling. “I don’t know why God chooses death for some and not for others. All I know is that Jesus said, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.’”
With his face still buried in his hands, he took great shuddering breaths
that seemed to shake his whole body. When he spoke, his words were muffled and heavy, but she heard them clearly enough. “I don’t buy into your blind faith anymore, Cassie.”
Her mouth went dry. “My blind faith?”
He lifted his head. “What has all your feel-good religion gotten me? What good has it done for anyone? Did Jamie think all her church work would save her son? Did all your praying give him one more minute of life?”
“It was in God’s hands. All we could do was pray and leave it in God’s hands.”
He frowned and pressed his palm to his forehead as if he were trying to erase the pain. “I had faith because you had faith, Cassie. I let down my guard and you led me right into an ambush. I was weak and trusting and naïve. You made me believe.” He laughed softly, bitterly. “You made me believe.”
He might as well have slapped her. “I’m sorry” was all she could think to say. She stood in a barren, frozen wasteland where spring would never come again.
“I’m sorry too,” he said, spitting the barely audible words out of his mouth.
She shook so violently, she could barely speak. “It doesn’t matter what you think of me right now. We’ve got to get to the hospital to be with Jamie.”
He stood and squared his shoulders. “Not we. Me.”
She felt the sting of his bitterness all the way to her bones. “Zach, don’t do this.”
He scooped his phone off the ground and marched out of the clearing. “Keep away from me with your blind faith and your meaningless platitudes,” he snapped. “I’m not listening anymore.”
And then he was gone, taking her heart with him. Numb with grief, she sat down on her bucket and cried until Titus found her and took her into the house.
Zach eased his body onto the sofa. He felt like an old war vet with a dozen battle scars and a thousand aches and pains. He’d been at the hospital for over two hours, helping Jamie make arrangements for the body, closing the loop with Austin’s doctors, keeping Jamie’s cup refilled with hot black coffee. Two sugars, no cream.
An hour after he’d arrived, Cassie had shown her face at the hospital, along with several friends from church and Jamie’s parents and brother. Jamie’s ex-husband was also there, looking like one of the walking dead from one of those dark and disturbing television shows.
Most patients with subacute bacterial endocarditis did well with heart surgery. Austin was just too sick. His little body couldn’t take the stress.
Zach had set aside his own grief so that he could help everybody else deal with theirs. Wasn’t that what doctors were supposed to do? Be a comfort to their patients even when they were barely surviving themselves?
He should probably call Mom. She had been thrilled when he’d asked her and her Bible study group to pray for Austin. Not thrilled that Austin was sick, but thrilled that her son even considered prayer as a solution to anything.
Yeah. Well. He wouldn’t try that again.
He pulled out his phone. He hadn’t looked at it for hours. There was a text from Cassie that he didn’t want to read. She had served him a heaping plate of hope, but now it tasted like poison.
She’d probably sent some Bible verse or some well-meaning cliché like He was too good for this world or God must have needed another angel in heaven. God didn’t need another angel. God had millions of angels. Surely He could spare the life of one little boy and still have a pretty good choir.
He reluctantly opened Cassie’s text, just in case she’d sent something crucially important.
Never forget that I love you, it said.
He’d forgotten already. What they’d shared was an illusion. Cassie and her family weren’t living in the real world. In the real world, angels didn’t exist and God didn’t care.
His head throbbed, his eyes stung, his arms and legs felt heavy as if he’d been dragging them around for hours. The hole in his chest threatened to suck his soul into nothingness. He might welcome a little oblivion right now. It would be better than hurting so bad.
He shot off a quick text to Mom. She’d want to know.
Austin Stetson passed away after surgery this afternoon. I can’t talk about it right now. I’ll call you when it doesn’t hurt to breathe anymore.
There was an almost immediate response.
My heart is broken. When you’re ready, call me and we can cry together. P.S. It will always hurt to breathe.
Zach put down his phone, buried his face in his hands, and wept.
It would always hurt to breathe.
He woke up on his uncomfortable sofa and tried to clear the fog from his head. Someone was knocking on his door and calling his name. His apartment was pitch black. How long had he been asleep? An hour at most.
He groaned as he got up and hobbled to the door. Was there some sort of fire? The pounding sounded urgent enough.
He opened the door to a frowning Blair, who stood in his hallway holding two brown bags. “They told me what happened at the hospital. I’m really sorry about that little kid. I thought Chinese might make you feel better.”
In his half-asleep haze, Zach felt something stir to life inside him. Blair was pretty and available and comfortable. And man, he needed some comfort right now.
She wouldn’t try to talk him into believing in God. She wouldn’t judge him or make him feel guilty for not measuring up to all those holier-than-thou’s out there. She didn’t expect anything from him. No virtue, no convictions, no commitment.
Everything was so easy with Blair. With the rest of his life so hard, he wanted easy.
And he was so tired of the fight.
He let out a breath. “You wanna come in?”
Her lips slowly curled into a smile as she glided into the apartment with those electric hips and set the bags on his metal-filing-cabinet coffee table. She flipped on the light switch and studied his face. Maybe looking for a chink in his armor. Well, she’d find plenty of chinks. “You look terrible.”
“I feel worse.”
“I hate it that people have to die.”
“Yeah.”
Puckering her lips sympathetically, she took his face in her hands. “I know how to make it all better.”
Easy. Being with Blair was so easy. He gently snaked his hands around her waist. “Just don’t talk to me about God.”
She laughed derisively. “The last time I went to church was Easter ten years ago. I don’t believe in all that stuff.”
Neither did Zach anymore. He and Blair were perfect for each other.
That thought put a bitter taste in his mouth, which he quickly swallowed. He didn’t even need to coax her. He relaxed his arms slightly, and Blair slid into his embrace as if an irresistible force of gravity had propelled her there. Their lips met in a long kiss that should have heated the passion inside him. Instead, he felt nothing.
“I’m glad I checked out of my hotel,” Blair cooed.
“Me too.” He kissed her again, hoping to ignite some sort of spark. No luck.
Blair, on the other hand, seemed to be on fire. Her breathing was shallow and rapid, and her lips couldn’t have been more eager. “I bet you’ve never done this with that Amish girl.”
Zach winced. Why did she have to remind him? Cassie’s kiss might have been the most pleasant sensation he’d experienced in his life, but that was over. Cassie was an illusion. Her faith was an illusion. Her God was an illusion.
He clamped his arms around Blair and doubled his efforts. Surely he could use all that desire he’d bottled up for weeks and make himself feel something for Blair. He kissed her again and again, tangling his fingers through her hair and pulling her uncomfortably close.
Blair sighed with pleasure, slid her hands down his chest, and found the top button of his shirt.
Zach stiffened as realization slammed into him like an air bag in a head-on collision. How crazy had Austin’s death made him?
How could he have talked himself into thinking he wanted this?
Being with Blair was wrong. Unconditiona
lly, absolutely, dead wrong. And he couldn’t do it.
He wouldn’t do it.
Blair eyed him doubtfully as he pulled away from her and wrapped her hands in his before she could unfasten any more buttons. Dishonorable and cavalier wasn’t who he was anymore. As much as he wanted to lash out and hurt Cassie and God and himself, something deep inside him went to battle for his soul and refused to give in to temptation.
The devil-may-care doctor who had once been Blair Baker’s perfect match no longer existed. He’d come too far in the last few weeks, and he wouldn’t be going back.
“Sorry, Blair,” he said. “I forgot myself for a minute.”
“I thought you finally remembered who Zach Reynolds really is.”
He nudged her away. “You caught me in a moment of weakness, but I’m not doing this. It’s wrong, no matter how sad I am about Austin.”
Blair nibbled on her bottom lip and narrowed her eyes. “I can make you forget.”
“No one can make me forget.”
Blair didn’t surrender, but the fire in her eyes dimmed. “I think you’ve lived among the natives for too long. Their hokey religion has rubbed off on you.”
He looked away as a fresh wave of pain almost knocked him over. “I don’t believe in their hokey religion.” Nothing he could say would make her understand. He quit trying. “I just don’t want to sleep with you, Blair.”
She tried to mask the hurt that flashed in her eyes. “Okay, I can respect that.”
He could plainly see that respect had nothing to do with it, but he wasn’t about to argue. She’d backed off . That was all he wanted. “You should probably go now.”
“I’ve got nowhere to go. I checked out of my hotel, remember?”
“You better check back in.”
How did she manage that orphaned-little-girl expression? “Can’t I stay here just for the night? I’ll sleep on the sofa and keep my moral depravity to myself.” A drop of bitterness tinged her tone. Just a drop.
Huckleberry Hearts Page 27
