Light the Lamp

by Catherine Gayle

  He said it like a fervent prayer, but I wasn’t so sure I was capable of being thankful. Not right now. Not when I knew all the things that were burning inside my car and that I would never see them again. Not when I was trying to catalog the memories those things were attached to since I would no longer have the physical reminders.

  He leaned back in his seat, visibly shaking as he turned to look at me, his eyes scanning my face as though he was seeing a ghost, as though he was seeing someone from his past and not me. He’d only known me for a grand total of fifteen minutes. There couldn’t be any big, emotional attachment to me worthy of the way he was looking at me. It was unnerving. “Thank God I got you away from there,” he said softly.

  I was still alive, of course. There was that. And life wasn’t any small matter. I nodded because I couldn’t seem to find my voice, and I clutched my purse even closer to me, feeling its meager contents brushing against my fingertips through the threadbare fabric. This was all I had left. My almost-empty pocketbook, the wallet-sized photo album that they’d found in Dad’s pockets, the keys to my now burnt-to-a-crisp car, and Mom’s wedding ring. Other than the clothes on my back and the jacket I had almost left in the passenger seat of my car, this was it. Well, this and my brothers, but they were both far away from here and oblivious to all that I’d lost in the last few months. All that we’d lost.

  “I… Wow,” Liam said. He dragged a hand down over his face, his palm scraping against his five-o’clock shadow. “I never expected… Are you okay?”

  I was fine. As fine as anyone could be after watching something like that. I smiled, determined to look for the positive, and I gave him a confident nod. Getting caught up in negativity never helped anyone.

  “You’re not all right,” he said when I remained silent. “You’re smiling, but you can’t be all right. Not after—” He reached awkwardly over the center console as though he wanted to hold my hand but then pulled his arm back to rest in his lap. “Sorry. I just don’t know what to do…how to help.”

  Flashing lights filled the highway surrounding my flaming car—police cars, a fire truck, an ambulance—and that somehow helped to calm me down, to slow my pulse and think about things rationally. I didn’t know what to do, either, but I would figure it out. I always did, and this couldn’t be any different—even if it felt different.

  “It’s okay,” I told him. I laughed this time, because I didn’t believe in letting myself get too down. Yeah, my car and just about everything I owned were gone, but I was alive, and I might not have been if not for this man’s thoughtfulness. “Thank you for stopping to help me.”

  “How can you possibly be laughing at a time like this?” He let out a little chuckle of his own and shook his head. “You’re so unlike anyone I’ve ever met before.”

  “I’m laughing because I’m alive, and that’s thanks to you. I would have been sitting in my car and waiting for it to cool off if you hadn’t convinced me to leave. I would be dead. Or at least dying.” Death by barbeque didn’t sound too appealing.

  “Thank God you didn’t think I was a serial killer.” Liam shifted in his seat so he could face me more fully. The yellow lights shining over the parking lot illuminated him in an odd glow, making him look older than I’d thought he was when I’d first seen him jogging toward me on the highway—maybe in his mid-thirties. He had neat, shortly cropped dark hair and eyes I could only guess were brown. There was something incredibly appealing about him, with the strong set of his jaw and the fullness of his lips. Something that made my chest flutter. This wasn’t the time for silly flutters, though.

  It was his eyes, more than anything, that drew my notice. They were old—much older than the rest of him—like they’d seen too much to stay youthful.

  That made sense based on what I’d felt when he was trying to convince me to leave my car. There had been something more urgent in his request, and I’d known it wasn’t about me. Just like I knew he was seeing someone else when he looked at me now. I couldn’t put my finger on what made me sure, but that wasn’t all that uncommon. I’d always had these hunches about people, a sixth sense or whatever you want to call it, where I could feel a lot more from people than most others could. More than what they wanted anyone to know a lot of the time.

  I was fairly sure that was how Liam would feel about it. I didn’t think he wanted anyone to know he had this big hole inside him, but it was big enough to almost overwhelm me, a giant, empty ball of ache, gnawing at him from his center. It was definitely big enough to make me forget about my own problems for a little while. I’d had a big hurt inside me a few years ago, too, when Mom and Dad had died. I’d been nineteen then and had suddenly become a mom to my brothers. I was twenty-four now.

  I knew that kind of pain. I hated when anyone else had to feel like that. It made me want to find a way to suck all that hurt out of them and pull it inside myself, because I knew I could find a way to get rid of it.

  He smiled at me, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He still looked anxious, with his eyebrows pinched together and his jaw set in a tight line. “Let me take you for coffee. I need something to help me calm down after that. God knows you probably do, too.”

  “Shouldn’t we talk to the police?”

  “Oh.” His eyes flickered back to the highway and all the emergency vehicles. They’d managed to contain the fire. Only a small stream of black smoke was still billowing up above all the headlights and emergency lights filling the road. Then he met my gaze again. “They have enough going on over there without us. They can call if they need to talk to you. Let’s get coffee.”

  They couldn’t call, though, because I didn’t have a phone, and the address the car was registered under wasn’t mine anymore. They wouldn’t be able to find me very easily. I didn’t even know where I would go now. Not until I could get a job. I’d looked into some homeless shelters when the bank foreclosed, but there was no guarantee that any of them would have a bed. That was why I’d been sleeping in my car.

  “All right,” I conceded. I didn’t know how to tell Liam all of that without making him feel sorry for me. That wasn’t what he needed right now. Besides, I could spare a few dollars for a coffee with him since I wouldn’t need to pay for gas or car insurance anymore.

  Liam started the engine and carefully pulled out of the parking lot. He drove a few blocks before turning into the parking lot at a nearby Starbucks.

  After he shut off the ignition, he turned to me with a questioning look. “I didn’t think—Do you need to call someone? Hell, was your phone in the car? Should I take you home so your family doesn’t worry?”

  “No, I—” I wasn’t quite sure how to explain that my home had burned up right in front of our eyes, so I just shook my head. “There’s no one I need to call. It’ll be fine for a little while. Let’s go have coffee.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I nodded, sliding my shoes onto my feet, even though that was the furthest thing from the truth. But my brothers, Ethan and Chris, didn’t even know I’d lost the house yet. I’d sort it all out before they finished their semester at college. I’d have somewhere for them to come home to. Then I could explain things. Granted, I didn’t know how I would get a job and a place to live in such a short amount of time when I hadn’t managed it in the last several months, but that wasn’t the important part. I’d figure it out.

  Liam gave me another nod, and then he got out of the car. I’d barely unbuckled and opened my door before he’d come all the way around and was standing there to help me out. I wasn’t sure what to do with that, but when he held out his hand for me, this time I took it.

  His hand was big and warm, and it enveloped mine completely. It was comforting, like my favorite blanket, the one Mom crocheted for me years ago. I’d been sleeping with it on top of me lately. Not anymore. It was gone now, too.

  Instead of taking me to the counter so we could order, he found a quiet table with two chairs in a corner near the windows and urged me to sit.


  “What can I bring you?”

  “Oh.” I sat down and pulled my purse onto my lap, keeping it close. “Hot chocolate?” I said, digging through my bag to pull out my wallet. It had been forever since I’d splurged on something as decadent as that.

  His lips quirked up into a grin. “Hot chocolate. You’ve got it.” Then he turned and walked away before I could even get my wallet free.

  A minute later Liam came back and passed a cup across the table to me. “I got you extra whipped cream. I figured you could use it after a night like tonight.”

  He had that right. I wrapped my hand around the hot cup and took a slow sip. “Thank you,” I said, pushing the few dollars I’d dug out across the table toward him.

  He shook his head and slid the bills back toward me. “My treat. It’s the least I can do…” He took the lid off his own cup of black coffee and took a sip as well.

  “Thank you again,” I said, marveling that anyone could drink coffee without adding cream and sugar to it. It was far too bitter for me that way. “You drink it black? That’ll put hair on your chest.” I shocked myself that I’d said it. I hadn’t been thinking about anything but what Dad had always told me and my brothers any time we wanted to drink coffee.

  “I’ve already got hair on my chest,” Liam teased, and he winked at me. “I’m not too worried about it.” Then he took another swallow, letting out a hiss at the heat after he got it down.

  I was blushing before I could stop it. Mainly because as soon as he’d said it, my eyes had gone to his chest and my mind had started thinking about how broad and muscled it was. I didn’t have any business gawking and thinking about him like that. He was a very kind man who’d saved my life and bought me cocoa, not someone whose bones were available for jumping. I didn’t even know where to begin with the whole bone-jumping thing. In order to hide my embarrassment, I took a bigger drink from my cocoa than I should have, and in the process I nearly burned the roof of my mouth.

  “Careful,” he said, but again he sounded like he was teasing me. “It’s hot.”

  I let my mouth cool off for a second. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t… I didn’t—” I didn’t have the first clue how to say what I was thinking.

  He gave me a questioning look and then shook his head. “Please don’t apologize for flirting with me. It’s been too long, and it feels too damn good.”

  Flirting with him? Was I? If I was, it hadn’t been intentional. God, I was so clueless sometimes. My face felt ten times hotter than my mouth had from the hot chocolate, and I couldn’t look at him. Did that mean he was flirting with me, too?

  “Why has it been too long?” I asked when I finally found my voice again. He was a professional athlete, after all. Surely there were women who would flirt with him just because of that. And when you added how gorgeous he was into the equation…

  He took a long moment to answer, watching me so intensely the whole time I thought I might melt beneath his stare. “Because my wife died,” he finally said. “Most women don’t really flirt with widowers.”

  “Then most women are stupid.” I couldn’t believe I said that.

  I wasn’t really sure why I told Noelle that other than because it was really easy to talk to her. She had this way of listening that made me feel like she was really hanging on to every word I had to say, like she was taking it all in and it actually mattered to her. Liv had been like that, too, but most people aren’t. They tend to listen with half their attention, if that, and all the while they’re messing around with something on their cell phones or watching TV or playing a video game, and that’s where their attention truly lies.

  Even though I’d only known Noelle for a half an hour at the most, I felt like she was more invested in me than anyone had been since Liv’s death. That sort of emotional connection was something I missed, more than I had even realized until I had it again.

  Talking to this woman could become addictive.

  Noelle set her cup down on the table between us and reached across to take my hand. She might not have even realized she was doing it. I got the sense that it was just an instinctive behavior for her, something she automatically did without thinking about it.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. Her hands squeezed around the one of mine she’d taken, and it felt so good to be touched by someone that I squeezed back as though I could somehow keep her from relinquishing her hold. She didn’t try to let go, though. “I had no idea. I wouldn’t have—”

  “It’s all right,” I interrupted her. I didn’t want her to apologize. Besides, the more time she spent apologizing, the less time she’d spend flirting. Flirting was another thing I hadn’t realized I’d missed until I had it again. “It’s been a year and a half since she died,” I said. “It’s good to be able to talk about it with someone.” Or at least to talk to Noelle about it.

  Surprisingly, I meant that. In all the time since Liv’s death, I hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone. The Islanders had insisted that I go to the team psychologist regularly, but for all the good he might have done for some of my teammates, I couldn’t make myself open up to him. I hadn’t been ready, maybe.

  Or maybe he just wasn’t the right person to talk to, and Noelle was.

  “What happened?” She slid the pads of her fingers over the sensitive skin on the inside of my wrist. “Only if you want to talk about it,” she rushed to add.

  I didn’t want to talk about it, except with her. She made me want to tell her every detail of my life, all my hopes and fears. Or almost all of them. I had to get a grip. I could tell her some things, but now was not the time for a tell-all exposé. There was a thing or two I just couldn’t tell anyone.

  “There was an early ice storm in New York, and I was on a road trip with the team in California. Liv had a flat tire on the highway after a night with some of the other players’ wives, and so many people were calling for roadside assistance that night because of the weather that they said it would be at least four hours before they could get to her. She decided to get out and change the tire herself, and a drunk driver lost control of his eighteen-wheeler. He hit a patch of ice, and then he hit her. She was dead before they got her to the hospital.” And our unborn baby died with her. Not that I could talk about that part, not even with Noelle who was so easy to talk to.

  I’d never talked to anyone about that. The psychiatrist had constantly tried to get me to open up about it, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t go there. I doubted I’d ever be able to.

  “And that’s why you couldn’t let me stay with my car tonight.” It was a statement, not a question.

  I looked up and met Noelle’s gaze. I could happily get lost in her eyes and never want to find my way out. They were filled with such a wealth of compassion and sincerity it nearly robbed my breath.

  “Yes,” I somehow said around the sudden thickness of my tongue. “I couldn’t bear the thought of something like that happening again, whether it was my wife or not.”

  She nodded. “You loved her very deeply.”

  “More than you could ever know.”

  “You saved me. What an amazing way to honor her memory,” Noelle said. “I didn’t know Liv, but I’m sure she would be so proud of you.”

  She had always been proud of me, regardless of the fact that she hadn’t wanted to leave Sweden. Liv had been the only girl I’d ever dated. We’d started going out when we were just fifteen, and she’d been my biggest champion through all the ups and downs of my career. But how had I repaid her? By nagging and badgering her to come to New York with me until she’d finally given in, even though it had been the last thing in the world she’d wanted to do.

  If she hadn’t been pregnant, she might not have even agreed then. I forced down the massive lump trying to rise up through my throat.

  Noelle had finished her hot chocolate, and I’d taken enough of her time. She’d said there was no one she needed to call, but that didn’t mean I should keep her out all night so I could cry on her shoulder over m
y dead wife. Her hand brushed over the outside of her purse, and I wondered what was in it…or maybe more importantly, what was not.

  I cleared my throat. “Are you ready to go? I should probably take you home.”

  An odd look passed over her face, but it was gone as soon as it appeared. “You don’t have to do that. I can get home myself.”

  “In what car?” I asked, raising a brow. “Do you have someone you can call to come get you? Because it’s really not a problem for me to take you. Especially after you let me spill my guts.”

  “No, I’ll call someone. Or I can take the Max. It’s easy enough to get where I’m going that way. Really, you’ve done enough, Liam. Thank you for everything.”

  Something about this whole thing was starting to feel really off. I’d been so caught up in my own misery that I’d completely lost the plot with everything surrounding Noelle, and she was the one who’d just watched her car explode on the highway. Tonight was her traumatic event. Mine had happened a very long time ago.

  “Is someone going to be pissed that your car is ruined?” I asked. “A husband or boyfriend? Your parents?” Maybe I should stick around to be sure she had someone to argue her case.

  “It’s nothing like that,” she hedged.

  “Then what is it?”

  For a minute, she just sat there worrying her lower lip with her teeth and giving these little shakes of her head, as if she was arguing with herself.

  “It can’t be that bad,” I said, hoping I was right.

  “I…” She closed her eyes for just a moment and then popped them open again to stare at me. “Okay. You can take me to the Salvation Army shelter. I think it’s on Second Avenue.”

  “Shelter? As in homeless shelter?” I should have kept my voice down, because half the people in the coffee shop turned their heads to stare at us.

  It didn’t seem to faze Noelle, though. She blinked a couple of times, but she still had a damned smile on her face. “Yes, it’s a homeless shelter for women. They might not have a bed tonight, but I suppose I’d better find out, and sooner rather than later or they’ll all be full.”