Part 39 (1/2)

John felt the familiar rush of adrenaline that came with working around constant disaster. It had been years since he'd worked an ER s.h.i.+ft, but the rush was quick and familiar.

He could hear sirens blaring across Bloomington. ”What happened?”

The nurse shook her head. ”No one's sure. They're still working the blaze. I heard they lost track of three firefighters, and everyone's fearing the worst.”

John's heart sank to his waist. Firemen? What if .. .

He followed her into the back, where a flurry of medical personnel were preparing for the first victims. ”Did you get the names of the firefighters? the missing men?”

The nurse stopped and turned around. ”It was Company 211. That's all we've got so far.”

John could feel the blood draining from his face, and immediately he launched into silent, fervent prayer. He prayed 352 for the people fighting the fire and for the families trapped inside.

And for the men of Company 211.

He pictured them lost in an inferno, risking their lives to save mothers and fathers and children. He imagined them buried beneath burning rubble or cut off from all communications with their chief.

Then he prayed for one of Company 21 l's men in particular. A strapping young Christian who'd loved John Baxter's middle daughter, Ashley, since the two of them were kids.

The money was running out.

That was the main reason Ashley Baxter was out looking for a job on this beautiful summer morning-the type of blue-skied, flower-bursting day that was perfect for creating art. Ashley sighed and ran her hand through her dark, short-cropped hair.

She studied the ad in the paper once more. ”Care worker for adult group home.

Some medical training preferred. Will provide cla.s.ses for certification. Salary and benefits.”

As mundane as it sounded, it might be just the job she needed. She'd checked with her father and found out the pay was decent. She'd be working mostly with Alzheimer's patients, oldtimers, she liked to call them. People with dementia or other age-related illnesses, unable to survive on their own.

There would be wrinkled bodies to tend, hairy chins to wipe, and most likely diapers to change. There was no question the job wasn't glamorous.

But there was a reason Ashley wanted the position.

She was only twenty-five, but since returning from her sojourn in Paris, everything about her life had changed overnight. She felt jaded and cynical most of the time, and she rarely ever laughed. Despite the way she turned heads, the truth was she felt downright ugly.

353 Paris was partly responsible, but much of who she'd become was caused by a lifetime of running from Landon Blake's attempts to marry her and her family's attempts to mold her into a woman she could never be.

Whatever the reason, she was aware that something tragic had happened to her heart. It had grown cold. Colder than the wind that whipped across Bloomington, Indiana, in a typical mid January.

And that, in turn, was affecting her only true pa.s.sion-her ability to paint.

Ashley turned off Main Street and searched for the address of the group home. In addition to bringing in a paycheck, working with old people might ward off the cold all around her. Might even melt the ice that had built up over the years.

She felt a kind of empathy for old folks, an understanding. Somehow they stirred a place in her heart that nothing else could touch.

She remembered driving through town a week ago and seeing two ancient women-hunched-over, gnarled old girls in their eighties or nineties-walking arm in arm down the sidewalk. They took careful, measured steps, and when one started to slip the other held her up.

Ashley had pulled over that afternoon and studied them from a distance, thinking they'd make a good subject for her next painting. But instead of a composition idea, a dozen questions were born of the moment. Who were the women, and what had they seen in their lifetimes? Did they remember the tragedy of the t.i.tanic?

Did they lose sons in World War II-or had they themselves served somehow? Were any of the people they loved still alive or close enough to visit them?

Had they been beautiful once, flitting from one social event to another with a handful of handsome boys calling after them? And did they grieve the way they'd become invisible, now that society no longer noticed them?

Ashley watched the women shuffle carefully across the street and freeze when the light turned, catching them halfway into 354 the intersection. An impatient driver laid on his horn, honking in sharp staccato patterns as the expression on the women's faces became nervous and then frantic. They hurried their feet, stumbling, nearly falling. When they reached the other side, they stopped to catch their breath, and again Ashley wondered.

Was this all that was left for these women-angry drivers impatient with their slow steps and physical challenges? Was that all the attention they'd receive on a given day?

The most striking thing about the memory was that as the questions came, Ashley's cheeks had grown wet. She popped down the visor and stared at her reflection. Something was happening that hadn't in months. Years, even.

She was crying.

And that was when she realized the depth of her problem. The fact was, her experiences had made her cynical, and if she was ever going to create unforgettable artwork, she needed something more than a canvas and a brush.

She needed a tender heart.

After seeing the two old women together, she realized that if she truly wanted a softer heart, she need only to spend time with the aged.

That's why the ad in this morning's paper was so appealing. She drove slowly, scanning the addresses on the houses until she found the one she was looking for. Her interview was in five minutes. She pulled into the driveway, taking time to study the outside of the building. It was mostly brick, with a few small sections of beige siding and a roof both worn and somewhat sagging. The patch of gra.s.s in front was neatly manicured. A row of red and yellow tulips struggled proudly out of the ground in front of a full-size picture window to the right of the door. A wiry gray-haired woman with loose skin stared out at her through the dusty gla.s.s.

Ashley drew a deep breath and surveyed the place once more. It was nice enough, the type of place that drew little or no attention 355 and served its purpose well. What was it her father called homes like this one? She thought for a moment, and it came to her. Heaven's waiting rooms.

There were sirens in the distance, lots of them. Sirens usually meant one thing; it'd be a busy day for her father. And maybe Landon Blake. Ashley blocked out the sound and checked the car mirror. Even she could see the twinlike resemblance between herself and Kari, her older sister. Other than the fact that Kari had brown eyes and Ashley blue, they were nearly identical. The resemblance between them, however, stopped with the physical.

Kari was good and pure and stoic, and even now-five months after the death of her husband, two months after the birth of their baby-Kari could find a reason to smile, to believe the best about life and love.

Of course, Kari had Ryan Taylor waiting in the wings for her, whether she wanted to believe that or not. He might live a thousand miles away, but he was waiting, Ashley had no doubt. And even in the midst of all that had happened to Kari, the knowledge that Ryan was there for her was bound to make things easier. At least it would once Kari figured out how to get on with her life.

Because Ryan Taylor was definitely a man worth moving on for. Ashley thought of the day she and Ryan had spent together before Christmas. As good as that afternoon had seemed at the time, it had been wrong. Ryan didn't love her; he loved Kari.

That much was obvious from how the day had ended. Ashley sucked in a deep breath. Those hours with Ryan had dropped the temperature of her heart another ten degrees. She'd never told anyone about what happened, and that only added to the distance between her and the only one of her three sisters who still cared for her at all.

The other Baxter girls-Brooke and Erin-might have been on another planet for all they shared with Ashley. And their brother, Luke, was worse. No matter how close they'd been as children, Ashley's time in Paris had changed everything between 356 them. These days Luke, too, was little more than a stranger-an angry, judgmental stranger.

In fact, though her parents were wonderful baby-sitters, caring for her little Cole on days like this, and though her world had once revolved around the family who grew up with her in their sprawling home outside of town, Ashley felt little connection to any of them these days. She needed them, needed their help with Cole, but she no longer felt a part of the highly respected, deeply faithful family of Dr. John Baxter and his lovely wife, Elizabeth.

To a person they wanted her to be like Kari, even if they never said as much.

They wanted her to stop painting and get on with their definition of life. To find satisfaction in marriage and homemaking. To settle down with Landon Blake.

The truth was, they wanted her to think of Landon the way the rest of them did: a firefighter with the deepest sense of integrity and commitment, a man who might be a father to little Cole if only she'd allow it. A man who was no doubt sought after by every single woman in Bloomington, but who had eyes only for Ashley Baxter.

They just couldn't see that Landon Blake wasn't right for her. He was too safe, too predictable. The very thought of spending her whole life with him-or any other man, for that Matter was enough to make her heart race with anxiety.

Of course, her family stayed clear of her these past few years for another reason. After her time in Paris, she had fallen away from the family's faith.

She couldn't swallow it, couldn't troop with them into church and pretend that everything was fine, couldn't gather with them in prayer circles and convince herself that their words changed anything. So now-more often than not-when she was at a Baxter gathering, she felt like an outsider.

Ashley blinked back the stinging in her eyes as she grabbed her purse and headed up the walkway toward an uncertain future in a profession she truly knew nothing about. One that required no 357 education, no training. Adult-care homes were desperate for people willing to change the diapers of octogenarians.

With each step toward the front door, thought again of the old ladies, how she had cried at the way they seemed lonely and isolated -and forgotten, and a thought dawned on her. The reason they had been able to warm the cold places in her heart was suddenly clear.