Hearts Afire

by Marta Perry

  Down past the growth of pines and hemlocks that crowned the top of the hill, past the maples and oaks, the thick patches of rhododendron and mountain laurel, the sumacs lifted their bronze torches high as if to show her the way.

  Her breath came hard now, but her legs felt strong. She could run all day if she had to. She could do it.

  But she didn’t have to, because there was Jake, coming up through the trees toward her. And, blessing of blessings, he carried her med kit with him.

  He started to run when he saw her, and she slithered down through the fallen leaves to bump into him. He grabbed her, holding her securely.

  “Did you find her? Is she all right?”

  “She fell.” She gasped out the words. “No head or spine injury that I could detect, but a leg fracture and possible rib fractures. I stabilized as best I could, but we’ve got to get back to her. Thank God you brought the kit.”

  “You sounded so upset—it seemed like a good idea. If you go on down for help—”

  “You might not find her without my help.” If she’d lost consciousness. Terry didn’t want to say the words, but Jake knew what she meant. She yanked out her cell phone and saw, to her relief, that she finally had a signal.

  It took only seconds to call in the accident, setting the mechanism in motion for the rescue effort. They wouldn’t be able to bring the unit up that logging trail, but the department had an ATV for situations just like this one.

  “Straight up the logging trail toward the ridge. We’ll mark the point at which you have to leave the trail.” Her shirt was taking a beating, but she could sacrifice a little more. “Watch for a yellow streamer where you have to veer off to the right.”

  She ended the call, knowing she was ending contact with her lifeline. But it didn’t seem to matter. Jake was with her, and the Lord was guiding both of them.

  Jake leaned against a tree, catching his breath while Terry tied a strip of fabric from her shirt to the branch of a shrub overhanging the trail they’d been on. He felt like sliding right down to the ground, but Terry looked as if she could go on forever. And she’d already been up and down this mountainside. He’d admired her before, but never quite so much as he did at this moment.

  If only—but what did he have to offer her? An uncertain future with a man who couldn’t trust his own feelings?

  “This way.” Terry forged ahead.

  He followed. All he could do now was concentrate on Manuela. Get her stabilized, get her to the hospital. That was all either of them could do.

  Terry moved between two trees and suddenly seemed to disappear. Heart in his throat, he reached the trees and found her climbing down at an angle into a ravine he hadn’t even guessed was there. She looked up, her gaze meeting his, and jerked her head toward the ravine floor.

  Manuela. The girl lay very still, and he couldn’t tell from here whether she was conscious or not. He slung the kit over his shoulder and started down in Terry’s path.

  “We can’t go straight, or we’d sent rocks down on her.” Terry moved as surely as if she did this every day. “Manuela, we’re coming.”

  He heard the tension in her voice, felt it echo through him.

  Father, I haven’t asked much lately. I’ve felt so separated from You. Please, be with us now. Guide us to save this child.

  Then he was too busy climbing to think of anything but getting down the steep slope in one piece. Finally he and Terry rushed to Manuela.

  Her eyes flickered open. “You came,” she whispered. “I knew.” She stopped, gasping for breath. “Hurts.”

  He already had a stethoscope out, but he knew what he was going to find even before he listened. Decreased breath sounds on one side—just what he’d suspect with a pneumothorax.

  His gaze met Terry’s, and he nodded.

  “What has happened?” Manuela gasped the words. “I can’t breathe.”

  “It’s okay, honey.” Terry’s voice was sure and soothing. She smoothed hair away from the girl’s face. “You have a broken rib, and it’s causing your lung to collapse. They’ll be able to fix it when we get you to the hospital.”

  He shook his head, frustrated at the limited supplies at their command. “How long?” He looked at Terry. She was the expert at this aspect of care. “How long until the team reaches us, gets her out, gets back to the hospital?”

  Her eyes darkened with fear. “Probably close to an hour for them to reach us. Another hour to get her out safely and get to the E.R.”

  “That’s too long.” He began to sift through the med kit, automatically double-checking what they had to work with. “We can’t wait.”

  “You’re going to put in a chest tube.”

  He lifted his eyebrows at her tone. “You don’t agree?”

  “It’s not that.” She lowered her voice. “What about the clinic rules? Morley will have a fit when he learns you’ve done a procedure like that out here.”

  For just a moment he hesitated. Some analytical part of his mind, that part of him that was like his father, weighed and measured the risks and benefits—not just to the patient, but to him and his career.

  Then he looked at Terry, watching him, ready to do whatever he wanted to assist him. At Manuela, lying helpless, looking at him to take care of her.

  There really wasn’t anything to measure at all. A sense of freedom washed over him. “We’re doing it.” He smiled at Manuela. “Hang on, sweetheart. We’re not going to let you down.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Terry hesitated in the hallway outside the waiting room. Manuela’s family was inside, waiting for word from the doctors who were treating her. It shouldn’t be long. Manuela was going to be fine—she was sure of that. God had held her in His hand today.

  By the time the rescue team had arrived, Jake had successfully inserted the chest tube. Manuela was breathing easier, and they’d splinted the leg and had her ready for transport. Terry had been so proud of the firefighters and paramedics as they’d brought the stretcher down into the ravine, loaded Manuela and taken her back up as gently as if they’d lifted fragile china.

  Everything had gone exactly as it should. Still, she hesitated to face Manuela’s parents. What must they think of her? It had been her interference that had brought Manuela to this place.

  She couldn’t be a coward about it. She’d go in and try to comfort them while they waited. Even from outside the door, she could hear the murmur of Maria’s voice. The nurse had been with the Ortiz family, translating, from the moment she’d heard what happened.

  The elevator doors at the end of the hall swished open. Perhaps Jake—

  But it wasn’t Jake who stepped off the elevator. It was Matthew Dixon.

  She stared at him blankly. What was he doing here? Surely not checking on Manuela—he’d exhibited little enough caring for his workers to this point.

  Dixon stalked down the hall to her and stopped, fixing her with that intimidating glare. “You’re here, are you? I guessed you would be.”

  “I’m waiting to hear how Manuela is. They should be ready to take her to a room soon.”

  He nodded shortly. “Heard about it. Heard about how you’re the one who found her, too. You did a fine job.”

  “Thank you.” That was surprising praise from him.

  “Something else I have to say to you.” White brows drew down over his fierce blue eyes. “I didn’t believe you. What you said about the housing. You want to know why I didn’t believe you?”

  She nodded.

  “Because I put my son in charge of renovating the housing months before the crews arrived. I turned that over to him, along with a lot of other things that had to be done, after I had a bad turn with my heart back in the spring.” His face was bleak and old. “Turns out I shouldn’t have trusted him. My own son, and he was salting the money away for himself instead of using it the way I ordered.”

  “I’m so sorry.” But not, she realized, totally surprised at some level. Maybe she’d always recognized something l
acking in Andy’s character. She put her hand on Dixon’s arm. “I really am. If there’s anything I can do—”

  He covered her hand with his. “Nothing. I made a mistake, keeping Andy here, thinking he’d want to take over the operation once I couldn’t run it anymore. It’ll be better for him to be on his own for a while. Maybe give him time to do some growing up.” He fixed a pleading gaze on her. “That’s what he needs, don’t you think?”

  Her heart hurt for him. Maybe he had made mistakes in raising his son, but he didn’t deserve this betrayal. “You’re probably right.” She patted his hand. “Do you want to go in with me to see Manuela’s parents?”

  He hesitated for an instant and then squared his shoulders, nodding. She knew exactly how reluctant and guilty he felt, because she felt the same. Together they approached the waiting room.

  Mr. and Mrs. Ortiz looked up simultaneously when they appeared, faces questioning. Juan sat on a chair in the corner, completely absorbed in the cartoon program someone had put on the video player for him.

  “No news yet,” Terry said quickly. “Maria, please assure them that she was stable when we brought her in.”

  “I already have, but I will again.” Maria spoke quickly to the parents.

  Terry cleared her throat. “There’s something else I have to say, if you’ll translate for me. I’m so very sorry. I realize my responsibility in all this. It was my idea to offer Manuela the opportunity to stay for a few months to attend school. I didn’t realize her family would refuse, or how badly Manuela would take it—”

  “¿Que?” Manuela’s mother interrupted the soft flow of Maria’s voice. She turned on her husband, letting loose a torrent of words that battered at him. He began shaking his head, obviously trying to explain something, but she didn’t seem to want to hear it.

  Maria blinked, looking from the agitated parents to Terry and Matthew Dixon. “Apparently, Mr. Ortiz never talked to his wife about your offer. She seems to have some pretty strong feelings about it herself. She wants Manuela to have her chance at a good education.”

  Hope flickered through Terry. If only something good could come out of this. Please, God.

  Maria paused for a moment, listening to the rapid exchanges between the parents. “He’s arguing that it’s not safe to leave a young girl here with strangers, no matter how nice they may seem.”

  “Wait one minute.” Matthew Dixon stalked across the waiting room and came to a halt in front of the upset parents. “This girl that’s hurt is the one you talked to me about?”

  Terry nodded. The situation had spun out of her control. She could only watch and wonder where it would go next.

  “You.” He barked the word at Maria. “Tell them that I have a permanent job for them, if they want to stay. A decent place to live, too. I could use both of them, if Mrs. Ortiz is willing to look after the house and Mr. Ortiz wants farm work. Tell them.” His face tightened. “I’ve got a bit of making up to do. That’s a good first step, if they agree.”

  Terry held her breath, but she didn’t have to wait until Maria had translated their answer to know what it was. The expressions on their faces told her only too clearly. They would stay. Manuela would have her happy ending.

  She blinked back tears. Manuela deserved it, and she wouldn’t allow even a whimper of self-pity to ask why she couldn’t have the same.

  Jake paused in the doorway to the patient room. Manuela, leg encased in plaster, lay propped up in bed, still on oxygen, but looking much better. Her skin had not quite returned to its rosy glow. Still, the contented smile that touched her lips and the happiness in her eyes more than made up for that.

  Her parents sat on either side of her bed, talking to her softly. Terry was bending over Juan, showing him a book, but she looked up as if she knew he was there.

  She rose quickly, coming toward him. “Come in, please. You’re the hero of the hour. I know Manuela’s parents want to thank you.”

  “You’re the one they should thank.” He pressed her hand, longing to tell her what he felt, but not daring to venture there. “You’re the one who ran up and down that mountainside twice today. Feeling a little sore?”

  “By tomorrow I will.” She grimaced. “But don’t you dare tell anyone I admitted it. Paramedics are supposed to be tough.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  Tough? Well, Terry was tough in the professional way she needed to be, but in every other way she was more tender and warmhearted than anyone he’d ever met. And he couldn’t tell her so.

  The parents, roused by their soft conversation, came toward him, beaming, their gratitude overflowing in words he couldn’t understand. Still, they didn’t need translation, did they?

  He nodded, smiled and felt relieved when Terry’s parents, her sister, Mary Kate and Pastor Brendan came in. Their arrival took the pressure off him—the pressure to accept gratitude for something he’d actually hesitated to do.

  “They don’t understand the risk you took.” Terry’s soft words reminded him that she seemed to have developed the ability to sense his thoughts.

  He managed a smile and resisted the impulse to pull her against him and bury his face in her bright hair. “They don’t ever need to know.” He shrugged. “As for the risk—well, it may have made my decision for me, in a way.”

  Something that could have been pain darkened her eyes. “That’s not fair. Surely you’re not going to let Mr. Morley force you out for doing something you know was medically necessary.”

  Her caring moved him more than he could say. “Don’t make a crusade out of me, Terry. I don’t need rescuing.” Quickly, before he could let her see too much, he moved out into the hall. “Tell Manuela I’ll stop back to see her before she goes to sleep.”

  She nodded, accepting the rebuff, and turned back to the group around the bed.

  He started down the hallway, not sure where he was going, just away from Terry. Around the first corner, he saw the hospital administrator, William Morley, coming straight toward him, purpose in every step.

  So here it came, the end to his time in Suffolk. Now that he faced losing it, he recognized how much he had come to love this place, this job, these people. It wasn’t just Terry, despite her importance to him.

  This work was satisfying in a way that neurosurgery had never been. That had been nerve-racking, challenging, a personal triumph when he succeeded. But here—here he focused on the people—both the patients and the team. He loved this. And he was going to lose it.

  “Dr. Landsdowne.” Morley’s tone didn’t leave much doubt as to his agenda. “I can hardly believe what I’ve been told. You deliberately flouted the rules we set down for the clinic. I would not have believed it of you.”

  The self-righteousness in the man’s tone set his teeth on edge. He’d had some brief thought of apologizing, of trying to justify what he’d done, of promising never to break the rules again, but that wouldn’t be true to himself or to what God demanded of him.

  “What wouldn’t you believe, Mr. Morley? That I would put the patient’s welfare above your petty regulations?”

  Morley went red, then white. “Petty? You’ll see how petty my regulations are. You’ve broken hospital rules, doctor, and your contract is hereby terminated.”

  “Well, now, what’s all this?” Sam Getz’s booming voice exploded the tension in the hallway into a million pieces. “Who’s talking about termination?”

  Morley stiffened. “This isn’t the place to have this discussion.”

  “Seems to me you’re the one who started it here.” Getz’s gaze had a hint of steel.

  “Dr. Landsdowne has broken the rules that were clearly established and agreed upon for the clinic’s operation, undertaking a risky procedure out in the woods, setting the hospital up for the possibility of a lawsuit—”

  “Nonsense!”

  The edge in Getz’s voice sent Morley back a step.

  “Really, Dr. Getz, I think you’ll allow that hospital administration is my provi
nce.”

  “Supervising medical staff is mine, and I wouldn’t give a nickel for any doctor who’d let rules come before saving a child’s life.” Ignoring the administrator, Dr. Getz focused on Jake. “I don’t see any need in prolonging this probationary period. You’re the man for the job here, and I’ve got the votes on the board to make it official. What do you say?”

  “Yes.” Thank You, Lord. “I say yes.”

  Terry was aware of Jake the instant he came in the patient’s room. She’d lingered after the others had gone. Because she wanted to see him again? Probably.

  He stopped just inside the door, letting it swing behind him. She slid off the faux leather chair and went to him, her sneakers making little sound on the tile floor.

  “She’s asleep,” she whispered. “Her mother is coming back after she gets Juan to bed, so I thought I’d stay for a while.”

  “Taking care of other people, as always.”

  “I guess so.” In the illumination provided by the night-light on Manuela’s bed, she could see his face, but she wasn’t sure of the expression in his eyes. “Is anything—did something happen?” Maybe she didn’t have the right to ask, but she had to.

  “Everything has happened.” He shook his head. “I can hardly believe it. Morley was actually in the middle of firing me when Dr. Getz walked up and offered me the job permanently. Said he wouldn’t give a nickel for a doctor who’d put rules before a child’s life.”

  Happiness rippled through her. For him, she told herself. Not for her. “I’m so glad. I can just hear Sam Getz saying that. But what about your father, and the residency he arranged for you? I thought that was what you wanted.”

  “Maybe it was, once.” In the dimness, his expression was inward, as if he still tried to understand himself. “You know, despite what happened between my father and me, I was still trying to apply his standards to my life. Trying to be the impersonal surgeon who never gets emotionally involved. Can you believe that?”

  If Jake saw that, he’d come a long way. “I guess we’re all affected by what our parents think.”