The Fireman's Homecoming

by Allie Pleiter

  Clark turned and sat on the edge of the boat. “Well, parts of it were. Only I don’t really think I was alone. Dramatic as it sounds, I only felt alone for a little bit of it. Slowly, I came to feel...well, I don’t think there’s any other way to put it, but I felt God in there with me. Like He’d been waiting for me to go down far enough to wake up to the fact that He was there. To wake up and realize I couldn’t ever get myself out of everything I’d fallen into.” He managed a tight laugh. “Seems you have to go pretty far to make the rescue guy figure out he needs rescuing himself.”

  Melba looked up at him, framed in sunlight but humming with tension. It cost him something dear to revisit that time. She liked that he felt safe enough to do so with her. She liked it a lot. “I’m sorry.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  Clark came back to sit opposite her again. “Don’t be. I mean, yes, it was awful, but I think I needed it. I’m not saying I had any kind of earth-shattering ‘Run to Jesus’ moment down there in the dark. It was more like a waking-up—which is what I did four hours later in a hospital bed—and a ‘slow crawl in Jesus’s direction.’ I was still a lousy guy in lots of ways. But it was the tipping point for me. I started heading in the right direction after that. And, I hope, I’m still heading the right way.”

  “You’ve turned your life around, Clark. I so admire that.”

  He smiled, and she flushed, thinking her words right out of a bad greeting card. “Not everyone shares your view.” His smile broadened and he let one finger run slowly across the back of her palm. “But thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “Don’t listen to those biddies. You belong here. Focus on all the good you can do.”

  His broad smile simmered down into something much warmer. The man’s eyes were brilliant emeralds, clear with purpose...and with something else that made it hard for Melba to breathe. His fingers intertwined with hers, and Melba couldn’t tell if he was pulling her toward him or if she was pulling him toward herself. He was so solid, so strong, and she felt like such a wobbly reed lately. “I don’t want to be focused. Not right now. Right now I want to be distracted.”

  His eyes were beyond distracting. They were engulfing. A vast emerald expanse to get deliciously lost inside. “Me, too.” Melba wasn’t sure she actually managed to say the words out loud.

  Slowly, oh so slowly, Clark slid one hand along the line of her jaw, cupping her face while his grip on her palm pulled her forward. It was as if she could taste him on the air between them even before their lips touched, and she let the sensation blot out every other thought.

  When he leaned in, Melba actually kissed him first. Clark’s laser-sharp intensity, the sheer vibrancy of him, filled this black hole she hadn’t even realized had swallowed her. Kissing him, being kissed by him, was like gulping down life in the face of all the looming death and trauma. His touch was strong, but not fierce. Melba felt like a distinct person again—a woman with her own life, wants, and spirit—instead of just her father’s guardian. When had she forgotten that life with Dad could also mean life beyond Dad’s care?

  Clark’s slow, lingering kiss had such power in it. Not just his power, for he was the most commanding man she’d ever met, but a resurgence of her own strength. A strength that kissed him back—really kissed him back—until they both pulled away with huge breaths, looking stunned and delighted into each other’s eyes.

  “I’ve been wanting to touch your hair since I met you,” he said with a smoldering grin as he wound one finger through a lock of her hair. He kissed her again, with an exquisite gentleness, then tugged on her hand until she came over to snuggle into him on the same seat. The sun, the gentle rocking of the boat, the sounds of the riverbank—it all wove together into a moment of perfection. “Wow,” he sighed, and she laughed again, for she’d been having the exact same thought. Wow.

  Melba let herself completely relax, dropped the ever-constant vigilance for a blissful bit of curling against a broad chest. There was definitely something to be said for the firefighter’s physique—it felt like Clark had enough muscles to pick her up with one hand.

  “Clark,” she reluctantly groaned after about a couple of minutes of delicious and peaceful quiet.

  “I know.” He sighed. Squinting his eyes as if it caused him pain, he lifted the bag from its place over the throttle control and handed it her. “You do the honors while I drag us back to the real world.” The engine rumbled to life, announcing the end of their escape.

  A quick check of her cell gave her quite a shock. “Your watch didn’t go off. We’re running late.” They’d spent nearly an hour out of cell service. Sure, Barney was with Dad, but it still made her nervous. As he hauled in the anchor, she told him, “It’s nearly one.”

  “It’ll be fine, don’t worry.” He turned the boat in a graceful curve back toward town. Melba found herself almost dreading the sight of Gordon Falls as it slipped into view around the bend. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine, she echoed in her thoughts.

  As she handed Clark’s phone back to him with a sad smile, both their phones leapt to life. Melba looked down to see four missed calls. One from the house, two from Barney’s cell, and a one from the Gordon Falls Fire Department.

  The snarl of words she heard from Clark told her his phone held much the same.

  Chapter Twelve

  They ran.

  Clark docked the boat so fast he wasn’t even sure he tied it up, grabbing Melba’s hand as they raced up the landing to his car. She was trying to call Barney as she ran, and he was glad she didn’t put up a bit of resistance when he led her to his car so he could drive. He snapped the radio on to hear it crackling with the dispatcher’s voice and replies from various firefighters. Melba made a choking sound as they gave out her address.

  “Dad!” She started to cry. “Oh, what’s happened?”

  Clark tried to think of something comforting to say, but all that came to mind was to tell her that it was probably nothing more than toast left in the toaster. He couldn’t lie to her like that. Not when he recognized the codes on the radio. He grabbed the handset and identified himself as online as his tires spun the gravel out of the parking lot.

  “Where are you?” came his father’s furious growl. After seeing the three missed calls—all within a minute of each other—on his phone, Clark could imagine his father’s angry face.

  “I’m with Melba Wingate. We’re on our way.”

  “What in the name of...” Pop never got personal over the radio...unless he was livid.

  “Not now, Pop, okay?” That broke all kinds of protocol, but Clark didn’t care.

  He slammed at the switch on his dashboard that turned on the emergency lights and grabbed Melba’s hand as he roared through town. Dear God, he prayed even as he heard Melba praying and punching numbers on her phone beside him. Don’t make her pay for this. Don’t turn my stupidity into a giant disaster.

  As Clark pulled around the engines onto Melba’s lawn, he knew enough not to be shocked by all the smoke—even the smallest fires made lots of smoke—but Melba lost her grip. “Hang on!” He tried to grab her with his eyes, do that thing he knew was his gift when rescuing, pulling victims to him, lending them his confidence. “Just hang on.”

  He flew around the car, reaching her as she tumbled out of the seat, not bothering to shut either door. He grabbed her hand and held it tight, scanning the site and the equipment and the sounds to get the fastest assessment of the situation as he could.

  “Dad!” Melba shouted. “Where’s my father?”

  Jesse Sykes, his hand on a length of hose, pointed toward an ambulance to Clark’s left. “There’s no fire. He’s okay. He’s over there with Barney.”

  Melba pulled out of his grasp and headed toward the ambulance at a full run, and Clark let her, knowing he didn’t belong in that scene right now. Jesse could tell him wha
t he needed to know.

  “Outbuilding. Old man was digging through some boxes and the place filled with smoke. Not sure how yet—maybe the wiring. Never really went up, though. The guy’s rattled, got a bit of smoke inhalation, but he’s mostly okay.” Jesse pointed to a shed Clark could now see as they walked behind the house. Garden tools, lumber and a number of file boxes in varying states of destruction stood strewn on the grass beside it.

  Clark glanced at the house’s back door, the screen door still swinging open even though the inner door was shut. “Mort was out here alone?” That couldn’t have been wise. Not with the way Mort had been acting lately.

  “Barney said she thought he was in the living room watching television. She looked up and saw smoke coming out of the shed, and spotted the old man coming out as she was on the phone to us. He’s not too sharp, I think. Kinda gone, if you know what I mean.” Jesse raised one eyebrow and tapped his temple.

  “I get it,” Clark said, feeling sorry for Mort. He knew what it felt like to suspect people were talking about you, and he’d begun to feel a reluctant affinity for the grumpy old man, even if it was clear Mort disliked him. “Is Chad coming out?” For small and straightforward issues like this, Chad often took the role of investigator. It wasn’t hard to rule out foul play here—either human error or bad wiring were most likely to blame—but an official report still needed to be filed.

  “Later, I think.” Jesse and Clark scanned the scene. Equipment was being loaded back onto the engines.

  “Chief?” he asked tentatively, for he tried never to refer to his father in familial terms on the job. Which he wasn’t. Or wasn’t supposed to be. The lines between on-the-job and off-the-job weren’t standing out as clean as he’d like right now.

  Jesse took off his helmet and ran a hand through his dark blond hair. “Says he’s not needed. I thought that’s why you were here.” Normally, Pop talked to the homeowners or victims involved, but evidently the chief wasn’t sticking to his personal protocol in this case. It wasn’t like Pop to ditch duty on account of a little personal friction, but this whole situation with Mort no longer classified as “a little personal friction.”

  Clark stood looking at the smoked-out shed and prayed for guidance. What now, Lord? Do I step in or back off? Was Pop sending him a message, or just plain ticked off? Oddly enough, it was his father’s favorite childhood advice that popped into his head. When you make a mess, clean it up. This mess was partially his fault, wasn’t it? Clark wasn’t foolish enough to think he could have stopped the incident, but he’d added to Melba’s distress—and his father’s ire—by going AWOL in more ways than one.

  “Yeah,” he said to Jesse. “That’s why I’m here.”

  * * *

  Mort had looked old and frail in the hospital. Now he looked trapped and angry. As if the world had played a mean trick on him. In some way, hadn’t it? When Clark approached, Mort was sitting on the edge of an ambulance, swatting away the paramedic who was trying to check him out. Barney was two steps away, shaking her head and talking to another paramedic. Melba was bouncing back and forth between them, looking more upset than he’d seen her yet. Definitely a mess.

  He caught her eye for a moment, looking for permission to come closer. Sending Mort into another fit topped the list of least helpful things to do right now. Her expression didn’t say much beyond sheer overload. He’d take that over the all-out “this is your fault” he was half expecting from her. Raising an eyebrow, he waved his finger between himself and Barney. Not only could Barney give him the most useful information right now, it seemed by far the safest place to start. Melba gave a small nod and walked wearily over to her father.

  “I can’t remember when I’ve been so scared,” Barney said, still shaking her head.

  “Are you all right? You’re not hurt?”

  “Scared out of my wits, but not hurt. I been thanking the Good Lord for that every minute since, I tell you. And Mort. I don’t want to think about what could have happened if I hadn’t caught sight of that smoke from the kitchen window.” She looked up at Clark with worried eyes.

  Clark held her gaze. “You’re both safe, and that’s what matters. Do you think you could walk over to the back of the house with me? Tell me what you know and what you saw?” He took Barney’s hand and tucked it in his elbow. “Do you have any idea why Mort was in the shed?”

  “I didn’t even know he’d left the house. He’s not really the kind to wander off like that, and he usually asks me to go find things for him. He’d been quiet this morning, maybe a little foggy but nothing out of the ordinary.” She sighed and put a hand to her chest when the shed came into view. “I couldn’t tell you what was going on in that man’s mind to go out there, nor whatever it was he was fixing to do inside.”

  “Did you ask him?”

  She leveled a grandmother’s glare. “What do you think? Of course I asked him what possessed him to sneak out on me and near get himself killed!”

  “What did he say?”

  “Oh, he thinks he answered me, but he didn’t. Just gave me some angry mumbo jumbo about wanting to see if Melba had straightened up in there, which I know is no kind of answer. He didn’t want to tell me. He made that clear enough.”

  Clark scratched his chin. “Barney, I have to ask—do you think he was trying to set it on fire?”

  The glare darkened. “What kind of a question is that? Do you know how hard that man worked to keep this house after he sold off the resort? Ain’t no way he wanted that to happen. He was scared, I tell you, he wasn’t setting that fire, he was running from it.”

  “So you think this was a simple mishap?” A standard investigation would confirm that one way or another, but Clark wanted Barney’s take on the incident. It seemed less painful than asking Melba the same questions.

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “I’m sure, too.” His gut told him that—and Pop always said a fireman’s gut was his best equipment—but it felt good to hear that Barney hadn’t seen anything to make her suspicious.

  Barney turned back from the soggy shack to raise an eyebrow at Clark. “Now I got a question for you.”

  Clark raised an eyebrow right back.

  “You treating her right? None of that old Clark foolishness going on?”

  So Melba had told Barney where she was going. And who she was going with. With a pang of guilt, Clark recognized that he’d been a lot less conscientious in letting people know where he’d be, and with whom. It wouldn’t matter, after he’d gotten on the radio and said he was heading to the scene along with Melba Wingate.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, not knowing what else to say. “I’m doing my best.” Doing my best to mess things up, a snarky voice at the back of his mind added.

  He was grateful for the smile that replaced Barney’s glare. “Well now, that’s all any of us can ask now, ain’t it? I’m worried about her. She don’t know half of what’s coming, I think. It’s gonna get rougher from here. Maybe fast, maybe not. But I never liked the idea of her facing it all by herself, far from all her city friends.” A bit of the glare returned, and she wagged a thick finger at him. “Only you hear me, young man, I will not see that girl hurt. I knew her mama, and Mort gave me my first job. Jake’s, too. Anyone at GFCC will tell you I will not stand for good people being hurt.”

  “I know.” Barney’s eyes could pin a man down at a hundred paces. At a full-grown twenty-eight, Clark fought the urge to gulp.

  “I’m on your side,” she said. “I’ve been defending you at church to those old hens who can’t see the value in a man capable of changing his ways. Takes spine to turn your life around like that. It’s gonna take spine to fill your daddy’s big shoes in this town. It’s gonna take spine to walk Melba through what’s ahead of her.”

  “Barney, you’ve got more spine than anyone I know.”

  The
woman had one of those warm, bubbly laughs that tumbled out of her, rich and low. “Takes one to know one, I always say.” She elbowed his ribs, and Clark offered a befuddled smile. She planted her hands on her hips and blew out a breath. “Is the shed gonna have to come down?”

  “I expect so. You’re certainly not going to want to let it stay cluttered up like that. I’ll come by tomorrow and help Melba start sorting things out. I don’t think Mort should help her—at least not at first.”

  “He’s been complaining about the groceries I bring home. Why don’t I take him out for a shopping trip and lunch at the diner? That ought to give Melba some time to sort through the worst of it.”

  “You’re a good friend, Barney. Mort and Melba are blessed to have you.”

  “I’m glad to be helping out. I think maybe Melba’s a bit blessed herself, if you don’t mind my weighing in on the subject.”

  It was nice to have someone weighing in positively on whatever was going on between him and Melba. He knew what his father would say—and was probably already saying. And before that kiss on the river, he’d have argued back that they were just friends and that he had no intention of pursuing anything else. He...couldn’t say that anymore. “I don’t mind at all.” His cell phone went off again, Pop’s office number flashing on the screen. “I should probably get back.”

  “You going to stop and say goodbye to Melba on the way out?”

  “I was thinking it might be better if I didn’t. Mort got pretty upset the last time he saw me, and I don’t think anyone needs more drama right now.”

  Barney looked back as if she could see Melba and Mort through the house. “I think you’re right. I’ll tell her what you said and that you’ll come by tomorrow while Mort goes out with me.”

  * * *

  “You were unreachable.” Pop stood in the firehouse hallway. Even with the sounds of firefighters putting away equipment behind him, the men yelling to each other and the clang and splash of engines getting washed and restocked, Clark heard his father loud and clear as he growled the accusation.