Love Inspired April 2021--Box Set 1 of 2, page 23
“The girls’ll step up. Ma don’t like askin’ for help.” He darted a look of regret at his sick wife. “She’s afraid someone will call the county and they’ll snatch the little ones away, but Zannah’s got two righteous-good daughters. They’ll stand by.”
“Perfect, Ed.” Her mother smiled at him. “Hassie’s in the best possible hands here with Jess. Did you know that she’s been an ER doc in New York City for years? Now that’s a bit of business, let me tell you,” she added as she swung open the door.
“I seen how busy it was on the news,” he replied as he pulled a too big jacket around his middle. “Folks every which way, and so many lights. Maybe too many,” he added before his voice faded as the door swung shut behind him.
Too many lights.
His words would give her something to think about later, but right now she had a patient, an old woman who had no idea how serious her condition might be.
Shane came closer. “Can I help with anything?”
“Shane Stone.” The old woman peered up at him through narrowed eyes. “I heard you were back.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She frowned at him. Suddenly, Jess felt the need to protect him.
Then Hassie reached out a frail hand. “Folks shoulda stood up for you back then, Shane. All of us. No matter what pushed you to do what you did, we all shoulda been there in that court tellin’ that judge what a good boy you were. I’m sorry we didn’t do that, and I know Mary’s girl is ’bout to make me stop talkin’—”
“Don’t make me get a muzzle, ma’am,” Jess said in a gentle tone. Sixteen years of emergency medicine had taught her that sometimes the heart needed to heal right along with the body.
“No worries, Miss Hassie.” Shane smiled down at the old woman. That smile didn’t just warm Jess’s heart. It melted a corner that had turned to ice long ago. Maybe enough to let some light back in. “It was a long time back, and I learned right quick how to turn lemons into that lemonade folks like so well. It all turned out fine.”
“It didn’t.”
Something in the old lady’s gaze made Jess want to let her go on, but she couldn’t.
“I’m sending him on his way so you stop talking, Miss Hassie,” she scolded lightly as she rechecked her vitals. “You need rest, and oxygen, and a course of antibiotics. And Shane’s got work to do.”
Shane took the cue. “Plenty of it. I’ll stop back later to see how you’re doing, Miss Hassie. Still like those butter rum candies?”
Her face brightened. A stern look from Jess kept her quiet, but she nodded and Shane gave her a thumbs-up.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
* * *
Shane thought he’d been gone long enough from his hometown to prevent any waves of emotion.
Wrong.
He hadn’t expected Jess to be an issue because she’d been saving lives in Manhattan, not Kendrick Creek, right? So he hadn’t been prepared to find her teetering on the edge of an icy mountain road.
That was his first wake-up call.
Finding out about her battle with cancer?
Definitely a second wave of rough-road emotion.
And seeing Hassie Trembeth lying there sick in the clinic was a firm third. He hadn’t gotten to the outlying places in town yet. But he’d been raised on the graveled road up the creek from the Trembeth place.
Shane’s mind went back thirty years as he crossed the road to check on the demolition crew.
He used to run errands for the Trembeths. Ed had lost a lung to tuberculosis years before a simple course of pills thwarted the disease, and he got out of breath easy back then.
And they’d lost her their son years back, so there’d been no one left to do the heavy lifting, the yard work, the upkeep on their tiny cabin.
Hassie had sent him cards in prison. She and Mary Bristol had been part of a small group of people who hadn’t forgotten him. Those notes and cards had fed his faith and kept him going.
Seeing her lying there, sick and feeble, broke his heart because he hadn’t sent her a card in years.
You’ve been busy building a business, helping Chrissie, and raising two kids. Cut yourself some slack.
Yet the guilt rose up and he had a hard time tamping it down.
“Hey, boss, we’re set up. You give the nod and we’ll bring this one down.” Brian Vee, one of his foremen, met him along the road’s edge. “Makes it convenient, not having a sidewalk or grass edge to worry about.”
His words made Shane look around. He clapped Brian on the back. “That’s it.”
Brian frowned, confused.
“A sidewalk. Something that ties the businesses into a community setting.” He looked left and pointed. “That little parking area could be expanded to give the town a municipal parking lot.”
“Except who’s going to use it, Shane?” Brian’s skeptical expression took in the shabby buildings that hadn’t been destroyed by fire.
“Everything starts somewhere, Brian. Why not here? Now? Go ahead with this and the next one. Mary owns both those places, and I’m going to sketch out an idea and present it to the town board and see what they think. Let’s start small. But if we get things started, and others jump on board, that’s how we get things happening. Like on that street in Baltimore.”
“Big city, lots of help. Boss, I hear you, but this is a different situation. Different setting, different population.”
Shane disagreed. “They’re folks who want the best for their families, same as you and me. We’ll figure it out, Bri. I understand the time frame,” he added when he noted the hint of worry in the other man’s eyes. Brian had a fiancée in Maryland, a woman with two kids. His wedding was slated for late March, scheduled so that it wouldn’t interfere with their busy construction season. “I’ll have you back home in time for your wedding.”
Brian waved that off. “I’m here as long as you need me, Shane. Kate and I can honeymoon right here if needed. We’ll see this through.” He strode off. He was a good man. He’d been jailed for a crime he hadn’t committed, and Shane understood all the emotions that piggy-backed on that. The only difference was that Shane had done it purposely.
Brian had been with Stonefield for a dozen years and Shane couldn’t find a better leader. He wasn’t a believer, but Shane had put that on his personal prayer list a long time ago.
He’d added Jess to that list yesterday.
The rest was in God’s time, but when he thought of Jess’s health battle, he’d increased his prayers exponentially because fighting cancer was tough enough. Fighting it without faith had to be much more difficult. But right now he needed to figure out demo removal and come up with a suitable place to live with two kids. He wasn’t sure he could do either with so much closed down for the season.
That just meant he needed to try harder.
CHAPTER SIX
Jess pulled the curtain a little further around Hassie’s bed as the woman drifted into a normal sleep. She went through the door and crossed the small front room to her mother. Concern sparked Mary’s gaze as she scanned her phone, but the look disappeared as Jess neared. “Do you think we’ll have others with lung damage? Or injuries?”
Mary nodded. “Yes. Several injured people got help immediately, but the Hassies of the world suffer in silence.” She jutted her chin toward the back room where Hassie now rested. “In this case, the silence could be lethal. The fire swept in at night, with no warning, while folks were sleeping. We may have only lost three people, but in a town this small, everyone knows those three people, and a good number are related to them. It’s the outliers I’m concerned about,” she explained. “Folks in damaged trailers and places with no decent plumbing. They’ve been eking out a living for decades or even generations, but when something like this hits, it hits them hardest.”
“Like Hassie?” Jess whispered. The last thing she wanted was to embarrass the sick old woman.
“That woman’s got a heart of gold, but they’ve had their share of trouble,” Mary said. “The little ones are their great-grandchildren. They lost their son a long time back to a work-related accident. He was a good man, but his wife remarried a scoundrel.
“Drugs entered the equation. Their granddaughter, Weeza, followed a similar path. Along the way, Weeza had two little ones. When she took off to Florida, Hassie and Ed stepped in with the kids. Weeza overdosed less than a year ago.” Mary shook her head. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to go on. It makes the whole town sound backward, and it isn’t, but every town has its share of sad stories, I expect.”
“Every city, too, Mom.” Jess put an arm around her mother’s shoulders. “You save as many as you can. And it’s not that I don’t think about the rest, but in a city with nine million people, things get blurred real easy.”
“I’d have a hard time with that,” Mary admitted on a sigh.
Jess had, too, at first. Then she’d grown more accustomed to it. Now, standing in the converted law offices, she realized that may have been a bad thing.
A knock sounded lightly on the front door before it swung open. “Mary? Jess? Are you in here?”
The familiar voice took Jess back in time. “Devlyn?”
Her old high school friend stepped inside with a school-age boy. The boy stood there, solemn and still, as if not sure of his place.
“I can’t believe it.” Jess crossed the room but stopped short when she drew closer. Her friend was wearing a smile, but there was no mistaking the look of grief in her green eyes. Jess took a breath and then hugged her. “It’s been almost twenty years, Dev.”
“Way too long, Jess. Gosh, we’ve missed you around here.” The sorrow in Devlyn’s tone matched the sadness in her eyes. She reached an arm around the boy’s shoulders.
Jess took the hint swiftly. “Dev, who’s this young man that looks so much like you?”
“You think?” Devlyn smiled, but Jess noted the anxiety behind it. “This is little Jed.”
“Named for his grandpa, I expect.” Devlyn had been one of her best friends throughout childhood, and Jed McCabe had been good to both girls. He and Devlyn’s mother had included Jess in everything, and their house had been like a second home to her. “I’m so sorry he’s gone.”
“Heaven got a winner when it called Jed McCabe home.” Devlyn’s voice held all the Southern lyricism Jess had worked so hard to slough off. “Jed, this is my old friend, Jess Bristol. She’s Dr. Mary’s daughter, and she’s a doctor, too. We grew up together.”
“Where’s her hair?”
Devlyn’s mouth dropped open. She went pale then two bright spots of color blushed her cheeks. She started to scold the boy but Jess squatted right down and looked him in the eye. “Gone.” She pulled off her colorful cap and showed him. “I got sick,” she explained in a calm tone. She might not be accustomed to babies, but once a kid was old enough to ask pertinent questions, she knew how to respond. Quiet honesty tended to win the day with children, whether they were sick, injured, or even dying, and she’d dealt with all three. “The medicine they gave me to make me better made my hair fall out. But look—” she bent her head slightly “—it’s growing back now. You can feel it if you want.”
He shrunk back then reached out a tentative hand and passed it lightly over her heady. “It’s soft,” he told her.
“Thank you.” She smiled at him, then put her cap back in place. “I wear the hat because it’s winter. When you don’t have hair, your head gets cold. And nobody wants a cold head. Do they?”
He shook his head. “No. My mom and her friends make stuff so that people don’t get cold. Hats and scarves and mittens and blankets and stuff. But they all got burned.”
Jess lifted her gaze to Devlyn’s. “You lost a lot in the fire?”
“Not the most important thing,” Devlyn said firmly. “He’s standing right here.”
“And as cute as can be,” Jess affirmed.
“Devlyn.” Mary had gone into the back room to check on Hassie. She crossed the room quickly and gave Devlyn a big hug, then reached into a pocket of her scrub jacket. Withdrawing a pair of candy canes, she held them out to Jed. “Cherry or peppermint?”
“The fruity ones are best,” he told her matter-of-factly. “Are you working here, Dr. Mary?” He took in the office setting with curious eyes.
“Just until my office gets fixed. It’ll take a while, Jed. How are you doing?” she asked the boy.
The boy’s eyes welled with tears. He shook his head, and Jess’s eyes filled, too. She didn’t dare look at Devlyn to see the effect the child’s emotions were having on her. “Not too good,” he whispered in a choked voice.
“I know.” Mary put a hand of comfort on his little shoulder and bent closer. “Life is like that, Jed,” she said in a soft, even voice. “Sometimes bad things happen, and it takes us a while to realize that bad things only happen once in a while. Mostly we’re surrounded by good things. And it’s okay to be sad and even a little worried and scared. We all get like that sometimes. Even grown-ups.”
“Even you?” he asked, surprised, as if he couldn’t imagine Dr. Mary getting upset.
“Even me,” she told him as she unwrapped the candy cane for him. A hint of sadness shadowed her eyes with the admission. “Happens to all of us, I expect.”
Hassie coughed in the back room and Mary moved that way. “I’ll see to her, Jess. You take some time with Devlyn.”
“She’s amazing.” Devlyn’s eyes followed Mary until she disappeared into the two-bed clinic. “Within hours after the fire, she had a cleaning crew in here, getting this ready for an office and a place for folks who needed care. By the end of that day, it was ready. I don’t know anyone else like her,” Devlyn admitted. “Except maybe you.”
“I can’t even imagine what would make you say that,” Jess replied while Jed seemed to be enjoying his candy cane.
“Working in the city, in the emergency room, with all the busyness and craziness,” Devlyn replied. “Things here must seem real backward to you. You stuck it out through all that sickness up there, on top of everything else that happens in a big city.”
Jess had been in treatment throughout the recent pandemic, staying distant because her suppressed immune system had put her at a greater risk. She’d hated being unable to help, but she’d had no choice, so she was the last one who should be getting kudos for anything. “I can only hope to be as strong as Mom someday,” she told Devlyn honestly, but she couldn’t address the truth behind her friend’s words.
This did seem backward by comparison. Her mother’s makeshift office was clean and solid, but it wasn’t anything like what she’d find in the city or the suburbs. And yet...
A thought came to Jess as she spotted Shane’s work crew beginning demo on one of the burned-out buildings across the street.
Maybe there was a different goodness in all of this. One she hadn’t been mature enough to appreciate years ago.
She put an arm around Devlyn’s shoulders. “You drink coffee?”
“My blood is part java,” her old friend replied.
“Then what do you say to we take a drive and get this office a few necessities?”
“Like bandages and stuff?” Jed asked.
Jess touched his head lightly. “You’ve got it, dude. Bandages—and a coffee machine. And maybe a minifridge, because I might have been in the city for a long time, but the country girl in me loves real cream in her coffee. You game, Devlyn?”
“I’d love it.”
“I’ll steal Mom’s keys,” Jess said. “You may not have heard, but my SUV is halfway down the mountain.”
“Oh, I heard.” Devlyn batted her eyelashes and this time a true smile brightened her face. “Shane Stone to the rescue as he rappelled his way down the mountain to retrieve your things after saving your life in a death-defying act of courage.”
Of course, she’d heard. There was no such thing as privacy in Kendrick Creek.
Jess had been fairly anonymous in the city. No one was anonymous here.
She told her mother about their mission, jotted down a short list of things Mary needed, and ten minutes later, she, Devlyn and Jed were in the SUV.
“Where are we headed?” she asked Devlyn.
“Sevierville,” Devlyn told her. “Every shop you need is right there.” She clicked her seat belt into place as a shadow fell across the driver’s window.
Jess looked up, straight into Shane’s big blue eyes. Once she looked into his eyes, a part of her didn’t want to stop.
She lowered the window and he leaned in slightly. “Heading out?” he asked her easily before shifting his attention. “Hey, Devlyn.”
“Hey, Shane.”
“Are you really going to fix our house?” Jed asked from the back seat.
Shane nodded. “Could be. That okay with you?”
“Maybe. Will it be bigger?” Jed persisted, and Shane shrugged.
“All stuff we’ll sort out. Are you guys on a run for supplies for the emergency clinic space?”
“Yup, plus a coffee maker.”
“I will happily be your first customer, Doctor, because there isn’t a place left to get a cup of coffee here in town.”
“Is that right?” she drawled. Jess hadn’t embraced her drawl in a whole lot of years.
“Right as rain.” He pointed left. “I parked my office trailer down the road near the church, and that’s fine for the guys working nearby. But the town’s too spread out to make it convenient for the people working up here. It’s too far to go to grab coffee. Every half hour gone is work time we’ve lost.”
