Hearts Afire

by Marta Perry

Pastor Brendan Flanagan straightened at his approach, turning off the hose he was running. “Welcome. I’d offer to shake hands, but I’m way too dirty. I’m glad you’re here, Dr. Landsdowne.”

  “Jake, please, Pastor.”

  “And I’m Brendan to all but the most old-fashioned of my parishioners.” The minister, in cutoff jeans, sneakers and a Phillies T-shirt, didn’t look much like he had at the board meeting.

  “Brendan.” Jake glanced around, spotting five or six people working. “What are you up to?”

  “We recruited a few people to get the place in shape. Dixon hasn’t used it for anything but storage in a couple of decades.” He nodded toward what appeared to be a pile of broken farm implements. “It’ll be ready soon. Don’t worry about that.”

  That wasn’t what he was worried about, but he wasn’t going to confide in the minister. “I’ll have a look inside.”

  He stooped a little, stepping through the door. The farmer certainly hadn’t parted with anything of value when he’d donated this space.

  “You must be Dr. Landsdowne.” The woman who had been brushing the walls down with a broom stopped, extending her hand to him. “I’m Siobhan Flanagan.”

  “Another Flanagan?” He couldn’t help but ask. The woman had dark hair, slightly touched with gray, and deep blue eyes that seemed to contain a smile.

  “Another one, I’m afraid. I’m Terry’s mother. Brendan recruited me to lend a hand today.” She gestured around the large, rectangular room, its floors pockmarked and dirty, its few windows grimy. “I know it doesn’t look like much yet, but just wait until we’re done. You won’t know the place.”

  He might be able to tell Terry the place was a hovel, but he could hardly say that to the woman who smiled with such enthusiasm. “You must look at the world through rose-colored glasses, Mrs. Flanagan.”

  “Isn’t that better than seeing nothing but the thorns, Dr. Landsdowne?”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “I’ll take your word for it.” She’d made him smile, and he realized how seldom that happened recently.

  Somehow the place didn’t seem quite as dismal as it had a moment ago. It reminded him of the clinic in Somalia. For an instant he heard the wails of malnourished children, felt the oppressive heat smothering him, sensed the comradeship that blossomed among people fighting impossible odds.

  He shook off the memories. That was yet another place he’d failed.

  Through the open doorway, he spotted the red blaze of Terry’s hair. She was in the process of confronting an elderly man whose fierce glare should have wilted her. It didn’t seem to be having that effect.

  He went toward them quickly, in time to catch a few words.

  “…now, Mr. Dixon, you can see perfectly well that we’re not harming your shed in any way.”

  “Is there a problem?” Jake stopped beside her.

  The glare turned on him. “I suppose you’re that new doctor—the one that’s in charge around here. Taking a man’s property and making a mess of it.”

  This was Matthew Dixon, obviously. “I’m Dr. Landsdowne, yes. I understood from Pastor Flanagan that you agreed to the use of your building as a clinic. Isn’t that right?” If the old man objected, that would be a perfect reason to close down the project.

  “Oh, agree. Well, I suppose I did. When a man’s minister calls on him and starts talking about what the Lord expects of him, he doesn’t have much choice, does he?”

  “If you’ve changed your mind—”

  “Who says I’ve changed my mind? I just want to be sure things are done right and proper, that’s all. I want to hear that from the man in charge, not from this chit of a girl.”

  He glimpsed the color come up in Terry’s cheeks at that, and he had an absurd desire to defend her.

  “Ms. Flanagan is a fully certified paramedic, but if you want to hear it from me, you certainly will. I assure you there won’t be any problems here.”

  A car pulled up in a swirl of dust. The man who slid out seemed to take the situation in at a glance, and he sent Jake a look of apology. He was lean and rangy like the elder Dixon, with the same craggy features, but a good forty years younger.

  “Dad, you’re not supposed to be out here.” He took Dixon’s arm and tried to turn him toward the car. “Terry and the others have work to do.” He winked at Terry, apparently an old friend. “Let’s get you back to the house.”

  Dixon shook off his hand. “I’ll get myself to the house when I’m good and ready. A man’s got a right to see what’s happening on his own property.”

  “Yes, but I promised you I’d take care of it, remember? You should be resting.” The son eased the older man to the car and helped him get in, talking softly. Once Dixon was settled, he turned to them.

  “Sorry about that. I’m afraid once Dad gets an idea in his head, it’s tough to get it out. I’m Andrew Dixon, by the way. You’d be Dr. Landsdowne. And I know Terry, of course.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “She used to be my best girl.”

  Terry wiggled free, but the look she turned on the man was open and friendly—a far cry from the way she looked at him. “Back in kindergarten, I think that was. Good to see you, Andy.”

  “Listen, if you have any problems, come to me, not the old man. No point in worrying him.”

  “There won’t be any problems.” He hoped.

  Andrew smiled and walked quickly toward the driver’s side of the car, as if afraid his father would hop back out if he didn’t hurry.

  The elder Dixon rolled down his window. “You make sure everything’s done right,” he bellowed. “Anything else, and I’ll shut you down, that’s what I’ll do.”

  Shaking his head, Andrew put the car in gear and pulled out, disappearing quickly down the lane, the dust settling behind the car.

  Jake looked down at Terry. There were several things he’d like to say to her. He raised an eyebrow. “So, are you still his best girl?”

  Her face crinkled with laughter. “Not since he took my yellow crayon.”

  He found himself smiling back, just as involuntarily as he had smiled at her mother. Her green eyes softened, the pink in her cheeks seeming to deepen. She had a dimple at the corner of her mouth that only appeared when her face relaxed in a smile.

  These Flanagan women had a way of getting under his guard. Without thinking, he took a step closer to her.

  And stopped.

  I always told you your emotions would get the best of you. His father’s voice seemed to echo in his ears. Now it’s cost you your career.

  Not entirely. He still had a chance. But that chance didn’t include anything as foolish as feeling attraction for anyone, especially not Terry Flanagan.

  Terry took an instinctive step back—away from Jake, away from that surge of attraction. Don’t be stupid. Jake doesn’t feel anything. It’s just you, and a remnants of what you once thought you saw in him.

  She turned away to hide her confusion, her gaze falling on the trailer Brendan had managed to borrow from one of his parishioners. Bren never hesitated to approach anyone he thought had something to offer for good works.

  “Would you like to see the equipment we have so far?” She was relieved to find her voice sounded normal. “It’s stored in the trailer until we can get the building ready.” She started toward the trailer, and he followed without comment.

  She was fine. Just because she’d had a juvenile crush on him two years ago, didn’t mean they couldn’t relate as professionals now. After all, half the female staff at the hospital had had a crush on Jake. He’d never noticed any of them, as far as she could tell.

  “It’s locked, I hope?”

  The question brought her back to the present in a hurry. She pulled the key from her pocket, showing him, and then unlocked the door. “We’ll be very conscious of security, since the building is so isolated.”

  He nodded, grasping the door and pulling it open. “About meds, especially. All medications are to be kept in a locked box and picked u
p at the E.R. when clinic hours start and then returned with a complete drug list at the end of the day.”

  Naturally it was a sensible precaution, but didn’t he think she’d figure that out without his telling her? Apparently not.

  “This is what I’ve been able to beg or borrow so far. There are a few larger pieces, like desks and a filing cabinet, that we’ll pick up when we’re ready for them.” She pulled the crumpled list from her jeans pocket and handed it to him.

  He looked it over, frowning. What was he thinking? His silence made her nervous. Was he about to shut them down because they didn’t have a fully equipped E.R. out here?

  “I’m sure it looks primitive in comparison to what you’re used to, but anything is better than what the workers have now.”

  “It looks fine,” he said, handing the sheet back to her. “I’ve worked in worse.”

  She blinked. “You have?”

  He leaned against the back of the trailer, looking down at her with a faint smile. “You sound surprised.”

  “Well, I thought—” She blundered to a stop. She could hardly ask him outright what had happened to his promising neurosurgery career.

  “I didn’t stay on in Philadelphia.” Emotion clouded the deep blue of his eyes and then was gone. “I spent some time at a medical mission in Somalia.”

  She could only gape at him. Jacob Landsdowne III, the golden boy who’d seemed to have the world of medicine at his feet, working at an African mission? None of that fit what she remembered.

  “That sounds fascinating.” She managed to keep the surprise out of her voice, but he probably sensed it. “You must have seen a whole different world there—medically, I mean.”

  “In every way.” The lines in his face deepened. “The challenges were incredible—heat, disease, sanitation, unstable political situation. And yet people did amazing work there.”

  She understood. That was the challenge that made her a paramedic, the challenge of caring for the sick and injured at the moment of crisis.

  The emergency is over when you walk on the scene. That was what one of her instructors had drummed into them. No matter how bad it is, you have to make them believe that.

  “You did good work there,” she said softly, knowing it had to be true.

  “A drop in the bucket, I’m afraid. There’s so much need.” He glanced at her, his eyebrows lifting. “Hardly the sort of job where you’d expect to find me, is it?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You were thinking it.”

  “Yes, well—” They were getting dangerously close to the subject he’d already said he wouldn’t talk about. “Everyone said you were headed straight toward a partnership with your father in neurosurgery.”

  “Everyone was wrong.” Tense lines bracketed his mouth. “I found the challenges in Africa far more interesting.”

  There was more to it than that. There had to be, but he wouldn’t tell her. How much of his change in direction had been caused by Meredith’s death?

  It had changed Terry’s life. She’d given up her bid for independence and come running home to the safety of her family. Had he run, too?

  Jake closed the doors and watched while she locked them, then reached out and double-checked.

  She bit back a sigh. He couldn’t even trust her to do something as simple as locking a door. How on earth were they going to run this clinic together?

  Chapter Three

  “Not a bad day, was it?” Terry glanced at her mother as they cleaned up after the clinic’s opening day.

  She probably should get over that need for Mom’s approval. Most of her friends either called their mother by her first name and treated her like a girlfriend or else feigned complete contempt for anything a parent might think. She’d never been able to buy into either of those attitudes, maybe because Siobhan Flanagan never seemed to change.

  Her mother turned from the cabinet where she was stacking clean linens. “No one would recognize this place from the way it looked a few short days ago. You can be proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

  Terry stared down at the meds she’d just finished counting and locked the drug box. She should be proud. But…“Three clients wasn’t much for our first day, was it?”

  “It will grow.” Her mother’s voice warmed. “Don’t worry. People just have to learn to trust what’s happening here. And they will.”

  “I hope so.” It was one thing to charge into battle to help people and quite another to fear they didn’t want your help at all. “Maybe I’ve leaped before I looked again.” Her brothers had teased her mercilessly about that when she was growing up, especially when she’d tried to rope them into one of her campaigns to help a stray—animal or human.

  “Don’t you think that at all, Theresa Anne Flanagan. You’ve got a warm heart, and if that sometimes leads you into trouble, it’s far better than armoring yourself like a—like an armadillo.”

  Terry grinned. “Do you have any particular armadillo in mind?”

  Siobhan gave a rueful chuckle. “That was a mite unchristian, I guess. I’m trying to make up for it, though. I’ve invited Dr. Landsdowne to your brother’s for the picnic on Sunday.”

  “You’ve what?” She could only hope her face didn’t express the horror she felt. The Flanagan clan gathered for dinner most Sunday afternoons, and it wasn’t unusual for someone to invite a friend. But Jake wasn’t a friend—he was her boss, in a way, and also an antagonist. She wouldn’t go so far as to think of him as an enemy, and she certainly didn’t want to think of those moments when she’d felt, or imagined she’d felt, something completely inappropriate.

  “What’s wrong?” Her mother crossed to Terry, her face concerned. “I know you think he’s a bit officious about the clinic, but if we get to know him better—”

  “I already know him. From Philadelphia.” Her throat tightened, and she had to force the words out. “He’s the one I told you about. The one who blamed my team for the death of the woman he’d been seeing.”

  The words brought that time surging back, carrying a load of guilt, anxiety and the overwhelming fear that perhaps he’d been right. Perhaps she had been responsible.

  “Oh, Terry, I didn’t realize.” Her mother gave her a quick, fierce hug. “I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head. “It’s all right. I didn’t tell anyone because—well, it didn’t seem fair to me or to him.”

  Mom sat next to her on the desk. “Has he talked to you about it, since he’s been here?”

  “Only to say he thinks we should leave the past alone.”

  “But the inquiry cleared you of any wrongdoing. He should apologize, at least.”

  Terry’s lips quirked at the thought of Jake apologizing. “He probably doesn’t see it that way. Anyway, if anyone’s guilty—” She stopped, regretting the words already.

  Her mother just looked at her. Better people than she had crumbled at the force of that look.

  “We’d been called to the woman’s apartment before. Two or three times. Always the same thing—she’d taken an overdose of sleeping pills or tranquilizers. We figured out finally that she was being careful. Never taking enough to harm herself. Just enough to make people around her feel guilty.”

  “And Dr. Landsdowne was the person she wanted to feel guilty?”

  She nodded, remembering the gossip that had flown around the hospital. “They’d been dating, but I guess when he wanted to break it off, she didn’t take it very well.” A brief image of Meredith flashed through her mind—tall, blond, elegant, the epitome of the Main Line socialite. “I don’t suppose anyone had ever turned her down before.”

  “Poor creature.” Her mother’s voice was warm with quick sympathy. “And him, too. What a terrible thing, to feel responsible for someone committing suicide. But what happened? You said she was careful.”

  “She took something she was allergic to.” Terry’s throat tightened with the memory. “We couldn’t save her.”

  Her mother strok
ed Terry’s hair the way she had when Terry had been a child, crying over a scraped knee. “That’s probably why he blamed you. He couldn’t face it.”

  Or because he did believe she was inept and incompetent. “I don’t know, Mom.” She pushed her hair back, suddenly tired. “I just know I’ve got to figure out how to deal with him now.”

  “Do you want me to cancel the invitation?” It was a testament to her mother’s concern that she’d be willing to violate her sense of hospitality.

  “No.” She managed a smile. “I’ve got to get used to his presence. At least I’ll be on my own turf there.”

  Her mother laughed. “And surrounded by Flanagans, all prepared to defend you.”

  “I don’t need defending.” The quick response was automatic. Her brothers had been trying to shelter her all her life. They’d never accept that she didn’t need their protection.

  “I know.” Her mother gave her another hug and slid off the desk. “They mean well, sweetheart.”

  The sound of a horn turned Siobhan toward the door. “There’s Mary Kate, coming for me. Are you heading for home now?”

  “I just want to make one last check, okay?” And take a few minutes to clear her head. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Walk out with me to say hi to your sister.” Her mother linked her arm with Terry’s.

  Together they walked to where Mary Kate sat waiting. The back of her SUV was filled with grocery bags.

  “Hi, Terry. Come on, Mom. I’ve got to get home before the frozen stuff melts.”

  “I’m ready.” Siobhan slid into the car, while Terry leaned against the driver’s side, scanning her big sister’s face for signs of strain.

  It had been ten months since Mary Kate lost her husband to a fast-moving cancer—ten months during which she kept up a brave face to the world, even to her own family.

  “How’re you doing? How are the kids?”

  “Fine.” Mary Kate’s smile was a little too bright. “They’re looking forward to seeing you on Sunday.”

  “Me, too.” She wanted to say something—something meaningful, something that would help. But, as always, words faltered against Mary Kate’s brittle facade. She’d never relax it, certainly not in front of her baby sister.