He let himself kiss her, felt the jolt of her surprise, and deepened the kiss, drawing her closer. Years of history with Meghan and he’d never imagined something this sweet.
Meghan broke off their kiss and pressed her hand against his chest. “You’re going to break my heart,” she whispered. “Don’t do this. I already made my choice. If I had to make it again, I’m sorry but you’d lose.”
“I know.” He eased back. “And I’m not going to put you in that position. I’ll give us both some space.” He watched her touch her lips, and the softness in her smile was enough to become a priceless memory of this night. “Could I ask a favor?”
“Sure.”
He asked it fast, while he thought she might say yes. “I’d like you to remove yourself from the jewelry search. I don’t want to worry about your getting into trouble with the same idiot who broke into my barn. My heart can’t take it, Meg.”
She stilled.
“Please. I know it’s a big favor, but do it for me. Put your focus back on the nursing work at the clinic and let Kate and Dave deal with the search.”
She rubbed his arm. “I can’t. Someone was in my house last week.”
Twenty-two
Stephen studied all the doors from the kitchen to the garage, looking for any signs of tampering. He tightened the doorknob screws until the Phillips head screwdriver began to strip the metal, his anger simmering just below the surface. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”
Meghan circled her finger around the coaster on the kitchen table, not looking over at him. “I thought it was my just misplacing things.”
Someone in her place… He had felt guilty about keeping a secret from her about what had happened when he was nine years old and she’d been hiding this. “What else besides the earring is missing?”
“A bag of chips I bought. I checked: It was on my grocery receipt, I know I put the bag away in the cupboard, and it’s gone.” She shifted in her chair and leaned down to rub Blackie’s back. “And I think some cash is missing, but it’s hard to tell how much. It’s probably a kid. I could have lost the earring, but why take only one earring and not two?”
Stephen didn’t want to scare her to death, but what if she really had someone watching her, someone feeling comfortable coming and going from her house, taking items to keep as mementos and putting her off balance…? Stephen looked at the dog. Blackie would take a man down if he thought Meghan was threatened. That was the one point of comfort in this.
Maybe it was a kid; the chips would suggest that. Maybe she had simply lost one of the earrings. Maybe she had miscounted the cash. There were a lot of maybes… “Has Blackie ever acted unusual when you got home?”
“No. And you know he would if anyone was here. He’s very territorial. When we get home I let him run around the yard or he prowls through the house. At a minimum he’s going to bark like mad when he senses something is wrong, get his back up, and stand between potential danger and me. He’s trained for it, and it’s also his nature.”
Stephen walked past Meghan into the living room. He checked the front door. There was no sign of tampering. If someone was stealing from her, how were they getting in? He checked the windows. The alarm system was good—it would catch a door or window opening. “What’s down in the basement?”
“Darkness.” She smiled. “It’s a place I rarely go because the stairs are narrow and steep. It’s also concrete with a lot of odd things to touch such as the furnace and the hot-water heater. The door is by the utility room.”
“Any windows down there?”
“Just two small eight-inch half windows at ground level.”
Stephen opened the door to the basement, turned on the light switch, and found the bulb had good wattage. “I’ll take a look.”
“I’m staying right here.”
He found the basement sparse; the water heater, furnace, and sump pump were in the east corner. The windows had a reassuring layer of cobwebs and accumulated dirt on the panes. The lighting was good, and he inspected the stairs while he was there, looking for any signs they were weakening or that the banister had loosened in case Meghan ever needed to come down here. He walked back upstairs, shut off the light, and closed the door. “The basement looks fine. How do you get into the attic?”
“Stephen, that’s not necessary.”
“Then it will just take a couple minutes to confirm it.”
She led the way down the hall and stopped by the linen closet, then pointed up. “The ladder tugs down.”
He opened the access panel and went up to check the attic. There wasn’t much clearance and one glance told him based on the layer of dust that nothing around the access door had been disturbed in months if not years.
“Everything okay?”
“It’s okay.” He closed the access door. Meghan stood in the hallway, arms crossed, leaning against the wall, a combination of weariness and uncertainty in her expression. “I’m adding my phone number to that list of automatic dials the alarm system makes.”
She nodded.
“I want your word you’ll let Blackie go into the house ahead of you, and if there’s anything at all you question that is missing, moved, or just doesn’t feel right, you’ll call me.”
“You’ve got my word.”
He reached out and ran his hand down her arm. “Then I’ll let this rest.”
“The alarm system is good, and I’ve got Blackie. There’s Mace in the bedside table, a phone in the bathroom, and good locks on that door if I decide I have to bolt somewhere. I’m not letting a possibility drive me out of my own home.”
“I’ll worry about you anyway.”
She half smiled. “At least I didn’t acquire a black eye.”
He leaned over and planted a quick kiss on her lips, unable to resist that smile. “I’m going home.”
Stephen walked his land, not bothering to try to sleep for the remaining hours of the night. The precious idiot. She didn’t think it was worth mentioning that something felt wrong at her home. She was blind, but she had moved so far beyond it in how she structured her life that it took nights like tonight to remind him just how vulnerable she was to trouble. At least with Blackie and that alarm system this was contained. She really was invading his heart. What was he going to do now?
I’m in over my head.
It wasn’t his job this time; it was his personal life, or lack thereof. And what he had to do now was intensely more complex. He wanted what was best for Meghan. Her faith had allowed her to survive being blind and was the foundation of the peace in her life. She felt incredibly loved by her God, but he wasn’t on speaking terms with her best friend.
The bind he put Meghan in because of that was huge. He wanted to deny it was that big of a deal. God was spirit, and it shouldn’t be that big a deal if he knew Him or not, but Stephen was kidding himself. She’d made the right choice by saying it was an insurmountable problem. She wouldn’t be able to talk freely about God and share that bond with him. If he fell in love with a lady who wasn’t on speaking terms with one of the O’Malleys, it would have ripped him apart trying to choose between them.
He was already feeling the stress of being the only holdout in a family of Christians. There was a growing sense of a distance because he just didn’t get it. He hated that void. They were working so hard not to let the relationship change, and yet it was happening. He wanted to belong. He’d been searching for that his whole life—in his profession, his family—and all he knew for certain was that he hadn’t found the perfect answer yet. Maybe it was God who filled that void. The other O’Malleys thought so.
He looked at the land he called home and the stars displayed overhead.
“I don’t know what to say to You.”
He stopped walking. He’d just acknowledged that there was someone there to listen to his words, whom he expected to respond. He’d spoken without thinking, and now it was out there lingering as if there was someone listening. Maybe a relationship with God mi
ght be personal, even for him.
He couldn’t think of anything to say.
He started walking again.
Meghan and his family all had personal relationships with God that were enviable for their closeness. He had friends whom he knew in a distant kind of way, enough to call them friends even if he didn’t hang out with them twenty-four/seven. And he had friends like the O’Malleys whom he could count on with absolute confidence they would always be there if he needed anything.
“Which kind of friendship is this going to be, God? I can’t make the choice on Your side. Distant or close? For years I’ve avoided knowing You for the simple reason that I don’t want a distant relationship, struggling to meet Your expectations and never quite feeling accepted. My family expects a lot of me, but they give me plenty in return. You are a high expectations God. I’ve read the verses: ‘Be holy, for I am holy,’ and ‘Love your enemies.’”
Stephen hesitated. Was it okay to be bluntly honest with God? Or were you supposed to be polite for a while and diplomatic? This was not as straightforward as Meghan claimed. All he really knew how to be was himself, and that meant blunt honesty. “I’m afraid to take the step to be a Christian. I know what is expected of me, but I don’t know if I can meet it. So what do we do now?”
It felt odd to talk aloud, alone, as he walked the property, but he remembered his mom praying aloud at dinner, and he’d feel even sillier stopping and closing his eyes. “Kate says she figured out the ground on the other side of believing is safe, that it’s the relationship that makes believing work. I’ll admit I’d like to understand what she means.”
He stopped at the fenced-in area where his sheep were lying down for the night and leaned against the railing, finding peace just looking at the animals. He had come to love them. The baby goat was a splotch of gray with a white streak curled up, sleeping and dreaming if that was what baby goats did at night.
Either he found peace with the God Meghan called her best friend or…what? To stay and let the emotions grow between them when they were at an impasse would just hurt them both. And he couldn’t handle being the one to hurt Meghan. He was falling in love with her.
There were no good options.
He walked back to the house, not sure what he should do next. The house was quiet, and he went through the rooms turning off lights and checking locks, then headed back to his bedroom.
He pushed off his boots and stretched out atop the bedspread and out of habit reached for Jennifer’s Bible. He turned pages in it absently, having already read through Luke. He felt as though he were eavesdropping at times as he read Jennifer’s notes and what she had underlined. Meghan was right. They were echoes of a conversation Jennifer had been having with God.
He turned to where he had left the bookmark in the book of John. He’d spoken his piece tonight, and Meghan said God did His talking primarily through His Word. He didn’t understand what she meant when she said the Bible was a living book, that the words “came alive.” What he’d read so far was interesting, but it was ancient history. Since the New Testament was Jesus’ biography, he started reading in John.
As the father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
Stephen turned the Bible to read Jennifer’s note written in the margin in her flowing handwriting. The great love relationship for eternity; mine; so much joy!
She’d lived her last year with a joy that he’d had a hard time understanding given the cancer she fought. Her note was dated a month before she died. Jennifer’s joy had come from within.
He read again the verse she’d underlined. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. He knew what that verse meant, and more than just theoretically. Of all the emergency calls he had answered as a paramedic, the most heartbreaking were those where someone had died trying to rescue a friend. It spoke of a love so deep that person’s own safety no longer mattered, of a will to help so strong that no obstacle would stop them even if it meant rushing into a burning building or a collapsing structure. It was an absolute love that had no limits. Did Jesus offer to be a friend like that?
Hope stirred.
He rolled onto his back and looked toward the ceiling, imagining the stars above the house and the vastness of that vista he’d been walking under a few minutes ago. “Jesus, I didn’t understand why You would come to the earth, die on a cross, and then walk out of a tomb. But maybe now I’m beginning to. The laying down Your life for another—I understand that. I know in my gut what it takes to put it all on the line to rescue someone else.
“I know for a fact I’m a sinner: I live with me; I know how many times I blow it every day. Was dying for me the only way You could save me? Did You make that ultimate sacrifice on just the hope that we would one day be friends?
“It speaks volumes about Your character if You did, and it blows me away with its generosity. If You’re willing to die for me, I should be able to trust You.” He flexed his fingers and watched the veins move on the back of his hand. “You know trust is not something I easily give, but this feels real.
“My family and Meghan have been trying so hard to get me to see the truth. And I think I just saw a bit of it. But what now, Jesus? I don’t have much to offer You in return.” He thought about the last decades of his life. “Not much at all. I’m a burned-out paramedic who’s a decent carpenter.” He picked up the Bible and tried to read through the rest of the page where the bookmark rested but couldn’t concentrate on the words. He closed the Bible.
He didn’t have much to offer at all. And the baggage of his past was still there. A tear built in the corner of his eye. So much baggage. “Is Peg happy in heaven?”
Twenty-three
Meghan shifted pharmacy sacks in her satchel Friday afternoon. The number of holes in the attached punch card was her system for identifying them. She made rounds with Ashley delivering medicines and doing follow-up care visits, but errands like this to drop off supplies like gauze strips or diabetic blood sugar test strips was something Meghan could do on her own.
Craig Fulton was a borderline diabetic. Add to that the fact he had a drug addiction he didn’t want to beat, and his health was fading fast. He’d missed his last two appointments with her dad, and the supplies were an excuse to stop by, check on him, and encourage him to make a third appointment. If she let him give up, there would never be a recovery.
She walked up his porch steps and opened the screen door. She knocked on the main door, startled when it moved under her hand. “Craig? It’s Meghan. I brought you more supplies.”
Blackie lunged forward in his harness, whining. She held him back and raised her voice. “Craig, are you home?”
Blackie came close to pulling her off balance. “Okay, boy, okay. Take me to a person,” she urged, opening the door wider. He tugged her inside.
The smell of oil, burnt toast, and rotting garbage came from all directions. Blackie pulled her forward to her right. Under her feet she could feel places where the carpet was worn and frayed. Blackie sat and whined.
“Craig?”
Her searching hands found no furniture turned over. Blackie pushed at her knee nearly buckling her. Her foot touched something hard that gave. She reached down and her hand hit flannel and warmth and…deadweight. She jerked back and her elbow collided with the side of Blackie’s head. The dog yelped. Her hands searched in front of her and encountered rough denim, and she struggled to figure out h
ow Craig had fallen. “Craig!” His body began to shake—he must be having a seizure.
She grabbed for her phone and scrambled to push the right buttons.
Stephen pushed through the narrow doorway into Craig’s apartment, carrying the gray medical supply case. The weight of the case rubbed against jeans still muddy from work rebuilding the water piping from the old well on his farm. He’d managed an eight-minute response to get here, and from the look on Meghan’s face it hadn’t been fast enough. “I’ve got the backup kit, Bill.”
“Bring it over.”
Stephen shoved a card table out of his way and stepped over Blackie to squeeze in beside Meghan’s father. Stephen looked at their patient, then turned startled eyes toward Bill, who shook his head. It was hopeless. Craig’s eyes were still open, but life was gone. Bill was doing CPR, but it wasn’t for the patient he was attempting to treat.
No…not this. Stephen closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and steadied himself. He reached over to rub Meghan’s shoulder. “You need a hand?” She was rhythmically squeezing the air bag.
“I’ve got it. I found him on the floor where he had fallen. His pulse was racing; he was still breathing. Seizures, three of them, hard.”
“Okay. Slow down, honey. We’re here now.”
He tugged on latex gloves and studied Craig. There were signs of seizure-induced bleeding: muscles locked and blood vessels ruptured behind his eyes. Stephen scanned the room. The drugs on the dresser and the trace on the floorboards marked the cause. He didn’t need a chemical test to tell him the powder was cocaine and overly pure. He’d seen this death before—the overdose had exploded his heart. Craig was a dead man the moment he inhaled the drug, taking it straight through the back of the nasal cavity and rapidly into the brain. Even a doctor with the full suite of drugs available couldn’t have stopped it.