“In your dreams, bud.”
“Aw, you didn’t give me a chance to ask.”
“It would be such a waste of breath.”
“I love you, Jenna. I love you so much. I am so sorry I’m not there.”
“Kevin Mason, that will not change my mind about tattoos.”
The sound of his laughter echoed long after they said their good-byes. It comforted, hurt, and submerged her under an ocean of fear all at the same time. It solidified the reality of what she’d done.
She’d told her husband not to come home.
J
enna.”
The voice came to Jenna in a dream. It was Kevin’s, steady and assured. Wave after wave of warmth rippled through her, flooding her with a sweet sensation of deep contentment, flowing even into the corners grown cold.
“Jenna.”
Consciousness crept in, pushing aside the fog of sleep. She hated waking up from such dreams, of leaving that safe cocoon where she felt wrapped in Kevin’s presence.
“Jenna.”
A touch on her shoulder startled her. She jerked and opened her eyes to a dim light. Where was she? Her cheek pressed against hard padding. She lay on her side. More hard padding supported her back. It was a couch. She was on a couch.
In the hospital.
“Sorry.” Cade Edmunds came into view. “I would have let you sleep but—”
“Amber!” Jenna struggled to sit up. She was tangled in a rough blanket. “Amber.”
“No change. She’s the same.” He sat beside her and tried to help her straighten the cover. “You always wake up like a bear?”
“Oh!” Frustrated, she shoved the blanket aside and rubbed her face, brushing hair out of her eyes. Her heart was about ready to burst from her chest. And what was she wearing? An oversized T-shirt and skirt. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“Couldn’t sleep until I’d seen you and Amber with my own eyes. Not that they let me see her. Unlike others, I wasn’t deemed ‘family.’” He paused. “Joey Ames is on the phone.”
Jenna emitted a low moan.
“Will you talk to him?”
“I can’t,” she whispered, gesturing to ward off his request. “No. No. I can’t.”
“Shh.” Cade grasped her flailing hand and squeezed it gently. “He’s talked with the doctor. He’s heard all the medical info, but he needs a firsthand account. Joey Ames deserves a firsthand account. You were there.”
Jenna wanted to kick and scream like an out-of-control toddler in a candy aisle.
Cade said, “If it were you lying in the ICU and Kevin were on the phone, he would want to talk to Amber. Right? You would want him to hear Amber’s voice because it was the closest to your own.”
She gasped to catch her breath.
“Jenna, you can do it.”
The shaking had started again. She gritted her teeth together to keep them from chattering. What had happened to her earlier resolve? All that gung-ho military wife bunk she’d spouted to her parents so forcefully that even her mother left?
Cade reached around her and picked up the blanket. He folded it and draped it around her shoulders. “Come on.” He helped her to her feet. “I’ll stay with you. We’ll do it together.”
She leaned into his sideways embrace and let him lead her across the waiting room.
Let wave after wave of warmth ripple through her . . .
J
enna sat with Cade in a small room. The door was shut. The walls were covered in blue floral-print wallpaper. A single piece of artwork hung. Her sister, Lexi, would be appalled at the paint-by-number depiction of sailboats on a glassy turquoise sea under an azure sky.
On the end table were a low-wattage lamp, a box of tissues, and a telephone base. Five padded armchairs were shoved together into a tight square.
Jenna wondered if doctors delivered horrific news to only four people at a time. If he stood while he did it, though, he could talk to five people. Were such things limited like that?
Between random thoughts about the furnishings, she prayed what her grandmother called “pings”:
God, help Joey. God, help me. God, wake Amber up.
She held Cade’s hand, or rather clung to it as if it were a lifesaver, the thing that kept her from going under.
She held the phone to her ear.
And she listened to Joey Ames cry.
Cade gently pressed a tissue to first one of her cheeks, then the other.
Jenna froze. Cade did likewise, his hand midair, centimeters from her face. He knew as she did that an unspoken boundary had just been crossed.
But it was a moment for the unusual.
She flicked her eyes toward him, sending the message, she hoped, that she would not hold it against him.
Through the phone line, Jenna heard Joey clear his throat. “I’m on my way.”
They had already talked about what happened. He kept addressing her as “ma’am” and “Mrs. Mason” until finally she snapped, “Stop it!”
He’d known who she was, of course. Amber had told him all about her, probably like she’d told Kevin all about Amber. Maybe not quite the same. While Jenna said,
“She’s such a flake, Kev,”
Amber probably said,
“She’s absolutely clueless when it comes to the military, Joey.”
Then she would add, in her inimitable half-f style, something kind and positive.
Unlike Jenna.
How had the two of them ever sidled into a friendship?
Because Amber was Amber.
Now she said to Joey, “When will you get here?”
“I don’t have the schedule yet. I’ll let you know. Can I have your number?”
She gave it to him. “When she wakes up, you know she’ll chew you out for coming.”
The sound from halfway around the world was part chuckle, part sob. “Yes. But she’ll just have to deal with it because
I am coming
.”
Jenna heard the steel in his voice. The guy would have to be made of reinforced armor to match Amber’s personality.
“Thank you, ma’am—Jenna. Thank you.”
She nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Good-bye.”
“Bye,” she whispered.
Cade took the phone from her.
Steel. Why was it that Kevin’s steel led him to enlist, to go away, to leave her and be a hero to others?
Why was it that her steel led her to say, “Don’t come home”?
She curled into herself, legs folded on the seat, blanket wrapped around her. Cade’s chair was tight against hers, his shoulder right where she needed it. She leaned across the chair’s arm and nestled into him. He enclosed her in his arms, resting his chin atop her head.
In the midst of her worst imaginable nightmare, the comfort from such an unexpected source warmed her once more.
C
laire heard voices out in the courtyard and looked down at the bowl on the island countertop. Eight unbeaten eggs would not be enough. She pulled another egg from the carton and once again thanked God that they’d had the foresight to black out the weekend for guests.
Next week marked the first anniversary of the wildfire that had torn through the area. Even before Jenna’s tragic incident, Claire’s emotions had gone haywire, inexplicably and uncontrollably at times. Seeing to guest needs might have put her over the edge. Right now, just figuring out how many eggs to cook felt like an insurmountable task.
Max entered through the open kitchen doorway.
She sighed. Having him nearby was making all the difference. “Are Lexi and Tuyen here?”
“Dad too.” He arched his eyebrows. “Checking on the mums. Ready for breakfast. If there is any.”
“Got it covered, so wipe the angst off your face.”
Walking toward the island, he glanced toward the other end of the large kitchen. Skylar was stretched out on the couch facing the fireplace, her head on Indio’s lap. His mother, eyes shut, stroked the girl’s hair with her good hand and hummed softly.
Max laid some rosemary cuttings on the counter. “This was supposed to be a quiet weekend.” He spoke in an undertone. “You and me.”
Claire cracked two eggs, one in each hand, against the mixing bowl. “Ta-da! Look at that. Am I getting more efficient or what?”
Max breathed heavily at her shoulder.
“I learned this trick from your mom. I also learned”—she eyed him over the rim of her glasses—“that we go with the flow or forget about trying to run a retreat center.”
“No whining?”
“None.”
“That was Danny on the phone.” Max had just been talking on the cordless outside. “He already picked Jenna up from the hospital.”
“Really? Hallelujah! I still can’t believe she spent the night in a waiting room. How is she? How is Amber?”
“No change in Amber. Jenna, he said, is wiped out.” Max kissed her cheek. “They’ll be here in twenty minutes.”
Claire laughed. “Then we’ll make French toast, too, her favorite. After breakfast, we’ll tuck her into bed and hide all the car keys. She needs to stay put for the weekend.”
“I suppose God had a hand in this.”
“You think?” she teased.
“Yeah. We tell guests not to come. We tell our kids not to come and look what happens.” He sighed dramatically.
“They didn’t make it happen.”
“Doesn’t matter. They’re boomerangs. Won’t they ever move away and stay there?”
“Oh, I hope not.”
He chuckled with her. Their remarks echoed recent conversations they’d had about surrendering outdated parental roles. What did it look like to let their adult children go and yet . . .
not let go of them
? Where was the balance?
He said, “’Tis a quandary for the ages.”
Claire smiled and pulled two more eggs from the carton. A vague feeling of happiness tugged at her again. She’d been trying to tamp it down since the hospital visit last night because it seemed sort of demented. The truth was she was overly happy that Jenna needed them. But her poor baby needed them because she’d gotten hurt.
Huh?
She beat the eggs and sent Max to search the freezer for French bread.
The vague happy feeling snowballed into an onslaught of pure delight. She giggled and sighed.
Maybe she was just tickled because Jenna was joining them for breakfast. And Danny. And Lexi. Tuyen as well. Skylar too, even. What was Erik doing that morning? A truly grand time would be if he came and brought Rosie with him. And Nathan, Lexi’s friend, who already seemed part of the family, might get a ride with them . . .
Claire smiled. When she told Max she hoped the “boomerangs” would never leave for good, she only half teased. Yes, the kids needed to spread their wings and fly, but the thing was, her mama’s heart sang whenever one of them paid a visit to the nest. Arias resounded if they stayed overnight. Entire operas poured forth if all of them were there together at the same time.
An opera couldn’t be bad thing, could it?
T
hey sat around the kitchen table on chairs and the L-shaped bench seat. Jenna snuggled against Claire, Skylar against Indio. Max refilled coffee cups. Danny appeared tired. Ben was gregarious, Tuyen quiet but not withdrawn. No one moved yet to clear the breakfast clutter.
Lexi was talking about Nathan. “Remember that follow-up article he wrote about the fire victims?”
Max said, “When you two started dating?”
“Yeah.” She smiled in a dreamy way.
Claire smiled too. Little Alexis had blossomed into a lovely young woman, counting more battle wins than losses against an eating disorder, falling crazy in love with a wonderful young man, and thanking God for it all.
“Well,” Lexi went on, “he’s doing another article about where we all are now, a year later. He’s coming up today so he can file it before the actual anniversary date next week. The article is basically done, but I’m taking him along the escape route, sort of for ambience. Not that it’ll be the same with the sun shining.” She wrinkled her nose, her only negative expression about that awful night of the fire. “Mom, you don’t have to come along, but you’re welcome to. Same for you, Nana. Papa.”
Claire froze. Images of thick smoke filled her imagination. She could smell it. She could hear the roar of wind, the crackling rush of fire. Her heart pounded.
Ben startled her with a chuckle. “Thanks but no thanks, Lexi. Being able to hike up that path a year ago was a miracle, thanks be to God. I see no reason to ask Him to perform it again.”
Indio smiled. “Amen. That trek was indeed a supernatural event. The good Lord will have to do a powerful lot of talking to my heart to get these old bones moving like that again.”
Max said, “Physical abilities aside, I don’t know that you’d all care to relive that night in other ways. Lexi, are you sure you want to?”
“I do.” She nodded. “I’ve thought a lot about it. I am totally ready now.”
“Must have something to do with
The Guy
tagging along?”
“Dad.” Lexi blushed whenever her dad teased about Nathan.
While everyone else laughed, Max locked his eyes with Claire’s.
Her heart’s mad thump slowed. Hearing her family’s reaction to the thought of retracing that night’s steps calmed her. Hearing Lexi proclaim that she was ready to face that demon encouraged her tremendously.
Claire had faced it some time ago, taking Max with her along the escape route. They’d driven through a large portion of the estate’s rough terrain, parked, and then hiked up what she would have deemed impassable rocky hills. She’d even crawled into the hole when she didn’t have to . . .
Yes, she’d relived it with her guy beside her. She understood now that the Lord had been there, too, singing songs of deliverance over her the entire way. It was finished.
Claire turned to Lexi. “I don’t think so, hon.”
“Been there, done that?”
“Yeah.”
Lexi smiled. She knew her mom’s story.
“I’m glad you’re ready.”
“Me too, Mom.”
Danny announced he wanted to go along. He invited Skylar, who perked up at his request. Tuyen wasn’t interested, but suggested they call Erik. Jenna, her eyes nearly shut, asked which room she could sleep in. Max declared he was back to Plan A, which included no hikes, no guests, no family. Claire hushed him with a fierce glare.
Ben cleared his throat loudly. “While we’re announcing plans to revisit the past, I have one to add.”
All eyes turned to him. Voices quieted. Ever since Beth Russell’s visit, Ben’s old compassionate, confident self had reemerged, a change welcomed by all.