Amongst The Flames: A Contemporary Christian Romance (Embers and Ashes Book 1) (10 page)

She cupped her hand over her eyes as she shook her head. “You were reading your Bible… so you think I’ll just come home and everything will be fixed?”

“No… it’s not a magical fix-it. It’ll take some work on both our parts, but I think if we both try…”

“Cole… that’s what you don’t get. I’m tired of trying. I am worn out…” More tears began running down her cheeks, and seeing the hurt in her eyes tore me to pieces. I felt so bad for the pain she had in her. The worst part of it was knowing it was my fault.

“I had no idea how much you’ve been hurting… I want to make it better.”

She sniffled. “I don’t need you to fix me. I need you to accept me.”

“Accept what?”

“That I’m unhappy.”

My jaw clenched as my flesh pushed its way through to the top. It began whispering in my ear, ‘this is the first time she’s ever said anything about being unhappy; tell her she’s stupid!’ I wasn’t able to escape my own selfish thoughts, and I spoke. “If you actually tried to fix things instead of running away from your problems, you might not feel like such a victim! You’re the one who left me!”

Her sad expression and tears shifted to one of anger and defensiveness as her eyebrows furrowed and her tears stopped rolling down her cheeks. “There’s that Cole that I know so well! It’s my problem, my issue and all my fault because I walked out the door, right? There cannot possibly be underlying issues in our marriage that led us to this point. It’s just my fault! Like always! This is why it’ll never work, Cole!” She hung up the video call abruptly, and I threw my phone across the living room. The phone accidently hit the picture frame that held a picture of our family over on the bookcase. The frame went tumbling to the floor and the glass shattered instantly on impact.

“Ugh!” I shouted as I walked over to the shattered glass. Looking down at the frame, the smiles we had as a family were masked by broken shards of glass. Picking the mess all up, I paused for a moment and looked up to the ceiling. “Why God? Why is this happening to me? What are you doing to me and why?” Walking over to the coffee table, I set the picture frame down and went upstairs to my room to lie down.

Megan wasn’t willing to fight for our marriage anymore, and it was up to me to somehow figure out how to piece the broken pieces of our family back together. The fire was growing more intense by the moment.

T
he following morning, on Monday, the drive to the fire station was both terrifying and exciting. Part of me worried about my injured arm getting in my way. It was healed, but I still worried. What if there was some sort of underlying scar tissue left behind that could cause me to not swing my axe as hard as I used to? Or what if the lack of strength in my body from being out of shape caused me to move a little slower? Either scenario could end up killing someone who would have been saved. But I had to get that fear out of my head, so I gave it to God in the form of a prayer on the way into work. Whether it was my marriage problems with Megan or my fears of returning to work, I was dead set on giving it all over to God.

“You owe me twenty,” Rick said to Ted on my entry into the multi-purpose room that had the computers and TV.

“What was the bet on?” I asked, as I took a seat in one of the recliners in near the couch they were both sitting on.

“That’d you show up with a sling on today,” Ted said as he pulled out his wallet and fished out a twenty dollar bill for Rick.

“I couldn’t come back until my doctor signed off on it. That was a bad bet, Sherman,” I said with a laugh, looking over at Ted. He just shrugged.

Rick took the twenty from Ted’s hand and nodded. “Easy money for me.” He put the cash away and adjusted his seat back onto the couch. “So, you okay now, Taylor?”

“Yeah. I’m good. That was the longest six weeks of my life though. I’m glad to be back in the saddle. Where’s Freeman?”

“I think he’s in the kitchen doing dishes,” Gus said from over at one of the computers on the other side of the room.

“Thanks, Vance. You been doing alright?” I asked.

“Yeah, got first place and the two grand on those sausages,” he replied.

“Nice. Congratulations, man.”

“Thanks,” he replied, turning back to the computer.

Heading into the kitchen, I found Micah doing the dishes. I smiled as I patted him on the shoulder and asked, “Want some help with those?”

“Sure,” he said as he gave me the towel that was draped over his shoulder. “Glad to have you back, Taylor. This place hasn’t been the same without you keeping everyone in line. Sherwood tries to keep an eye on the guys, but everyone knows you’re the one that keeps the order around here.”

“Good to be back.” I grabbed a plate from the second sink and began drying it. “I did some more reading in my Bible last night and talked to Megan a little bit.”

Stopping from washing the plate he had in his hand, Micah said, “That’s great to hear!”

Shaking my head as I put a plate in the cupboard, I said, “Yeah, the reading might have been good, but she seems pretty confident that she’s done with us.”

He continued washing the dishes. “You just gotta keep fighting that fight. This is your marriage, Taylor.”

“I don’t think it’s like that. She said she’s done trying to make this marriage work.”

“Has she filed for divorce?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.”

“Then you still have time.” He smiled. “Women need us dudes to lead them and our families. Even if they come across as not wanting it… they need us to be strong and lead.”

“It just seems so impossible now…” I sighed.

“That means God can start working.”

I laughed. “He’s more than welcome to step in and start making things happen.” I set another plate into the cupboard. “Did you guys come in early and have breakfast this morning?”

“Nah, the last crew just got off and I let Colson go home. I volunteered to do his dishes. He looked tired.”

“That was nice of you.”

“I’m always on the lookout for ways to serve others. It’s the Christ-like thing to do. Sharing Jesus through my actions yields better results than sharing Him through my words alone.”

“You always amaze me, Freeman. You have such a passion for the Lord.”

“It wasn’t always like this. There was a time in my life where I didn’t care about anything other than myself and my own agenda.”

“Before you became a Christian?”

“No,” he said as he set another plate into the sink. “I was a Christian, I just wasn’t aware of what being one
really
meant.” He paused for a moment. “You know how I worked at station 42 before I came here, right?”

“Yeah?”

“I lost a good buddy of mine in a fire.”

“What happened? I never knew about that…”

“I tend not to tell a lot of people about it. But what happened was a fire hose went out of control and the pressure from the water killed him.”

Shaking my head, I said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s okay. He’s in a better place now. But why I’m telling you this is that after he died we had a funeral for him. Pretty normal, but get this… Person after person got up and talked about how wonderful he was.”

“That’s pretty normal.”

“Wait, I’m not done yet. People I hadn’t ever met were saying good things about this guy. And not only at the funeral, but the reception afterwards. Around the food tables I heard about how he was always there for others and how it really impacted those lives he touched.”

“That’s powerful,” I said, with my eyebrows raised as I dried off another plate.

“It was.” Micah nodded. “That man was a walking testimony for Christ. He’d talk about God also, but it was his actions that spoke the loudest. Nobody said anything about getting browbeaten about the Bible… Every word they uttered was about the actions he took. Sure at the funeral in front of everyone they had to say nice things… but they weren’t obligated to afterwards without a microphone in their face.”

“That’s amazing. Wait, so this whole friendship and funeral was long before you and Denise had issues…”

He nodded. “Yeah, the Denise drama went down only a few years back. Just because we walk in the spirit and do things for Christ doesn’t make us immune to hardships in the home. In fact, the more I started walking with the Lord, the more issues I had at home. You see, the devil doesn’t want you to enjoy the Christian walk and life. The last thing he wants is you to be walking with God and having a good marriage at the same time. He wants to destroy the Christians and their love of God. So people can point fingers and say ‘see? Christians are no different than the rest of us.’ ”

Rick strode into the kitchen and got into the fridge. When he opened the door, I saw my picture plastered to the front of it. “What’s this?” I asked, tossing the towel over my shoulder and ripping the picture down.

“A hero,” Brian said, striding in a few paces behind Rick.

Shaking my head, I said, “I’m not a hero.” I crumpled the picture up and threw it into the trash.

“That little girl turned out to be the Mayor’s daughter. She was over at a friend’s house when the fire happened. You didn’t see the news?” Brian asked, looking across the room at everyone’s faces.

“No, I stay away from the news. Too much negativity for me,” I replied on my way out of the kitchen. As I left, I could hear Micah talking to the rookie.

“Don’t do that kind of thing. Taylor, just like all of us, views this as our duty… We don’t think of ourselves as a hero nor do we want to be treated as such.”

Coming into Tom’s office, I said, “Captain.”

He set the newspaper down in his hands and took off his reading glasses. “Taylor.”

“We okay?” I asked in the hopes of easing the tension I knew existed between us.

He stood up from behind his desk and narrowed his look at me. “No. I’ll be trying to get you off this crew every minute of every day. I have no tolerance for disrespect in my station and the way you carried on the other day at my house is grounds for removal. I just need a reason to get rid of you now that you aren’t on medical leave. So please give me one and I’ll take care of the rest.”

Fear shook me as I stood there staring back at my heartless father-in-law. He had no respect for my marriage to his daughter or my position at the station. Now he was gunning to cut away the one last shred of life I had left, my life at station 9. “It was you. It was all you from the beginning.”

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb with me! You were the one who encouraged her to leave me!”

“I wouldn’t do that…” he said, letting the tips of his fingers graze the top of his desk.

“Taylor,” Micah said from the doorway, interrupting our discussion.

“Yeah?” I asked over my shoulder.

“Come here,” he said.

I turned and went up to Micah in the doorway and he said into my ear, “Don’t give him a reason to get rid of you.”

“See ya later, Cappy,” I said back to him and left the office with Micah. I knew he loathed the nickname that the chief gave him after his promotion.

“Thanks,” I said, as we went through the kitchen into the dining hall.

“No problem. He’s out to get you, so you gotta be careful.”

I nodded.

A call came in requesting trucks down at a car accident later that day. When we arrived at the scene, I saw out my window that a car involved in the accident was smashed badly on the driver side. When our truck stopped, Kane and I made a dash over to the vehicle, while Greg joined the others from the engine crew over at the truck that was also involved.

Broken glass littered the intersection as we approached the mangled hunk of metal. Seeing the blood on the woman’s head, my heart felt like it was going to pound right out of my chest.

“Ma’am, can you move your legs?” I asked.

She cried out as she shook her head, “No, I can’t feel them at all!”

Grabbing the door handle, I tried to yank it open, but it was jammed. Turning to Kane, I said, “Get the Jaws.” Turning my attention back to the woman, I reached through the broken out window and put my hand on top of hers. She was shaking and scared.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Monica,” she replied as she looked up into my eyes. “You?”

“I’m Cole, and we’re gonna get you out of here, Monica.”

She began crying harder. “My legs… why can’t I feel them?”

“Just try to remain calm the best you can Monica. Try not to move around.” Glancing over at the truck, I saw Rick and Ted retrieve a male driver out of the truck and the paramedics began treating him. He looked like he was going to be okay from what I could tell; a few scrapes and bruises, but nothing serious.

Soon enough all the firefighters were over with me at the car as we tried to rescue Monica. Rick stayed back with a hose, ready to spray if the car began burning. Monica began hyperventilating as Kane got into position with the Jaws of Life. Leaning in the window, I said, “You can trust me. I’m here for you Monica, every step of the way.”

She nodded.

Pulling back, I watched as Kane worked to rescue the woman. A man from the crowd behind me said, “I was just walking down the sidewalk and heard a car flying down the road.” I turned to him and nodded as he continued, “Then… I like, looked up and bam! The truck flew through the intersection and smashed into the car! Dude, it was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen!”

“Have you talked to the police?” I asked.

“No, I wasn’t sure if I needed to do that,” the guy replied whipping his unusually long and braided hair back behind his shoulder.

“Go give them a statement; that’d be helpful.” I turned my head and looked over at the fire trucks and saw Tom on the radio as he looked my direction. It was a brief look, and then he turned away as he started talking with one of the paramedics.

Seeing they were about to pull Monica out, I dipped down through the window and shouted over the sound of the equipment, “I’ll be right back.” She nodded.

Jogging up to Tom and the paramedic, I said, “I’m going to grab a gurney.”

“I’ll help you with that,” the paramedic said, joining my side on the way over to the ambulance.

Pulling it out from the back doors, we dropped the wheels to the pavement and wheeled it towards the car Monica was in. “Some wreck, huh?” he said over to me.

“Yeah, pretty intense for the first time back on the job,” I said.

“McCormick said you were coming back today. Were you pretty nervous coming down here for the accident?”