Rejoice (32 page)

Ashley held her breath. She wasn’t sure where the conversation was going or how she’d feel when it got there. “Okay . . .”

His eyes were deep, and they looked into a part of her heart no one else ever saw. “So this time, instead of talking, I did something about it.”

“What?” She searched his eyes, his expression, looking for signs. When she saw none, she reminded herself to exhale. “Landon, you’re talking in circles.”

“I’m sorry.” Sorrow filled his face. His free hand came up, and he framed her jawline with his fingertips. “Three days ago I took a call and an hour later six men were dead. One of them was my buddy Barry, remember him?”

“Landon, no . . .” Ashley was on her feet, staring at him, terrified, reminding herself that whatever horrible thing had happened, the man talking with her wasn’t a ghost. Six men might have died, but Landon was here, alive. Her mouth hung open, and she waited for him to finish.

“It was a warehouse fire, fully involved. We were told to rescue four men from the roof, and—” he looked a foot to the side of her, his eyes distant as he remembered—“and everything fell apart.” His eyes found hers again. “The roof caved in, Ash. Eight guys fell into an inferno. It’s a miracle two came out alive.”

“You were . . . you were up there? on the roof?” She was breathless picturing it. How would she have survived if she’d lost him? Even though she’d planned to never see him again, she couldn’t have gone on if something happened to him on the job.

“I was on the ladder.” Landon stood and faced her, taking hold of both her hands. “I held on, but Ash . . . I came close. Very close.”

“Landon . . .” She pulled him close, hugged him, grateful in so many ways that he was here, alive and strong, his body next to hers. Things could’ve been so different.

He eased back and searched her eyes. “When I got home that night, I found out about Irvel, and I made a decision.” His voice was tender, a caress against her face. “I called the captain the next day and quit, Ash. I told him I couldn’t give the rest of my life to the FDNY, not when I would spend every day wanting to be here in Bloomington with you.”

Her head began to spin and the sidewalk buckled beneath her feet. “You . . . you quit your job?”

“Yes.” His eyes shone again. “I gave them two weeks, but after what happened at the warehouse, they told me I could collect my things and be done. They understood.”

Ashley was glad Landon was holding both her hands. Otherwise she was sure her knees would have given out and she’d fall in a heap on the ground.

“I’m tired of talking about it, Ash. You’re all I want. Sick, healthy, broken, whole. I don’t care. For six months I’ve let you talk me into staying away from you.” He drew her slowly to himself and spoke with his lips barely touching hers. “Not anymore, Ash. You can’t make me go now.”

He kissed her then. Not the kind of kiss they’d shared on New Year’s Eve, when every desperate moment felt like their last. But the kiss of hello and possibility and forever, all mixed into one.

After a while, when she had her bearings and she was sure she wasn’t somehow dreaming or imagining the past fifteen minutes,  she leaned away and studied him. “You really quit your job?”

“In New York, yes.” He gave her a mischievous smile, one that tugged hard at her heart. “But I start work in Bloomington a week from Monday.”

“What?” The story grew more unbelievable with each passing second. “Landon, are you serious?”

He kissed her, longer this time, and drew back only long enough to tell her yes, he was serious. Then he led her back to the park bench, and he pulled a familiar velvet box from the pocket of his denim jacket. “Ashley . . . I asked you before and you turned me away. But this time you must know one thing.”

Ashley wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. She pressed her fingertips to her lips and waited, alternating her gaze from his eyes to the velvet box and back again.

Landon allowed himself a lopsided smile at her reaction. Then he held her eyes once more and continued. “This time I’m hanging around, Ash. I’ll be at your house every Saturday morning so Cole and I can watch baseball games, and when you show up at your parents’ for dinner, I’ll already be at the table.”

“How can you love me so much? After all I’ve done . . .” Fresh tears nipped at her eyes, and she hung her head for a minute. She had tried everything she could to grant freedom to the man sitting beside her, freedom and a life without worry, without risk. Not because she didn’t want him.

She did. With every part of her being she wanted him.

She’d sent him away time and again because she’d wanted to do the right thing. Only now . . . now he was telling her he didn’t want the chance to be away from her. He wanted her. Whatever tomorrow might bring, he wanted her and Cole and however long God gave them together.

“I’m not finished, Ash.” He lifted her chin and found her eyes again. “This time I’m giving you the ring.” He opened the velvet box, took the ring from inside, and held it out to her. “Marry me, Ashley. Whether we have a moment or a lifetime, please . . . marry me.”

Her answer filled her to overflowing, spilling from her heart and soul and eyes until she couldn’t help but share it with him. “Yes, Landon. Yes, I’ll marry you.” She held her hand out to him and saw that her fingers were trembling.

“Good.” He eased the ring over her finger and grinned at her. “You were getting the ring either way.”

Ashley stared at it, white gold with a glistening round solitaire in the center. For the briefest instant, she doubted herself again, and she winced as she looked at Landon. “Are you sure? There are no—” she searched for the right word—“no guarantees.”

“I don’t want guarantees, Ashley Baxter.” He kissed first her lips, then her hand, and finally the place where his ring shone from her finger. “I want you. As long as God gives us each other, I want you.”

They kissed again, and after a while, Landon whispered against her cheek, “Here’s something strange. It wasn’t the men at the fire that got my attention. Really, it was Irvel’s death. Knowing that her entire life was all about loving Hank.” His lips moved briefly against hers. “The way my life is all about loving you.”

Ashley admired her ring, the way it caught what was left of the sunlight and splashed it across her hand. Nothing about the day was real, but Ashley didn’t care. She’d never felt so much in a single day. “I thanked God for Irvel earlier, because she taught me how unforgettable love could be. How it can consume a person and change a person and bring light to a waning life, even until the last breath is drawn. Irvel showed me that.”

“She did, didn’t she?” He took her hand and rubbed his thumb in light circles over the ring.

“The way Irvel loved Hank, the way he loved her—that kind of love kept her warm inside years after life grew cold.” Ashley met Landon’s eyes again. “Theirs was a love worth remembering, a love worth celebrating.”

“And one day, my precious Ashley . . .” Landon eased her to her feet. For a few brief seconds, they came together and swayed to the music of all that tomorrow suddenly held.

“You were saying?” She breathed the words against his neck, intoxicated by the nearness of him.

“Yes. A love worth celebrating.” He nuzzled his face against hers. “One day that’s exactly what people will say about us.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Brooke parked her car in a lot adjacent to the hiking trail and peered out the front window.

Other than her sedan, the parking lot was empty, and suddenly she wasn’t sure if she’d read the card right. It had come on a bouquet of yellow roses and white carnations delivered to her house the day before.

“Happy anniversary, Brooke. Meet me at the rock at noon tomorrow.”

Brooke was touched. Obviously the card was from Peter, and it could only mean he wanted to talk with her again, maybe even find a way to love her the way he had before everything had gone so bad. They were in counseling still, twice a week now, and the counselor had hinted that it might be time for her and Peter to have a trial run at living together again.

“That’s the goal,” the counselor had said at their last meeting. “I think we’re getting close.”

Brooke had mixed feelings. Part of her couldn’t wait to have Peter home. He’d been drug-free since the hospital had checked him into rehab, and these days he was wonderful with Hayley. He stopped in several times a week and worked with her, massaging her muscles and stretching her so she stayed limber while her brain tried to remember what to do with her arms and legs.

Still . . .

She wanted to love him the way God wanted her to love him. Honoring him, putting him first, building him up as a doctor. But that would only come as she trusted him, and she wasn’t sure he was ready for that kind of love again. Mostly because he hadn’t said he was ready.

But in the message at the bottom of the card, he’d written something that took her breath away. Something the old Peter would’ve said to her: “Meet me at the rock at noon tomorrow.”

The rock was a midpoint in a hike they’d taken a hundred times when they were in med school. The path veered off from the campus and wound its way into the hills that surrounded the university. Two miles along the path stood a boulder-sized rock, a place they’d come back to on every one of their first four anniversaries. In order to reach the top of the rock, they would climb up one side, using ledges and grooves in the stone.

It took several minutes, but the view from the summit was well worth it.

The summit—a plateau really—was just large enough for two people, and it was Brooke’s and Peter’s favorite place. The view covered miles of sprawling, rural Bloomington, and the two had spent hours there, talking and watching dozens of sunsets. But after they had the girls, life became too busy for hikes or rocks or breathtaking views from little-known summits.

So much time had passed since they’d visited the rock, Brooke wasn’t even sure he’d meant this one, the one on the hiking trail near campus. Maybe he meant for them to meet at a rock near the rehab center. Or one that stood as part of their landscaping at the home where Brooke and the girls were living.

But just in case, in case maybe he’d started back on campus and hiked the whole thing, Brooke made her way onto the path and walked the short distance from the parking lot to the rock. And there it was, tagged with simple graffiti: “Jaime loves Jake” and “IU girls rock” and the like.

Brooke studied it, the slope of it and the height of the summit. It was smaller than she remembered. But still it remained. Brooke leaned against it, savoring the feel of it and all it represented. She stood waiting, looking around and remembering every good memory she and Peter had ever shared here.

For a moment she listened, hoping to hear Peter’s voice or footsteps. Maybe this wasn’t the place he’d referred to on the card. She checked her cell phone. Five after twelve. Peter must’ve meant a different rock, and why not? It had been years since they’d been here. He probably didn’t remember this old rock at all. She was about to turn away when she heard someone call her name from down the path.

“Brooke . . .”

Peter’s voice. It was his voice, and her heart soared the way it hadn’t in far too long. He was coming for her, and that meant yes, he’d walked the entire two-mile trail. But more than that—far more than that—he’d remembered.

He rounded the corner then, and the moment he saw her he stopped. “Brooke . . .”

“You . . .” She took a few steps toward him. “You remembered our rock.”

The path was empty except for the two of them. Peter searched her eyes, and in his she saw a depth that hadn’t been there in years. He came to her slowly, his eyes never leaving hers. “You’re so beautiful, Brooke.” He took her hands in his. “How come I stopped seeing it?”

She’d never answered that question in counseling. But here, now, being honest with him seemed the most right thing to do. Because the problems they’d suffered were not only his fault.

They were her fault, too.

“Brooke . . .” He studied her, and she liked the image he made. He’d gained back some of his weight, and he looked almost as good as ever. As if the nightmare of the past five months had never even happened. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“It was my fault, too, Peter.” Her stomach felt suddenly nervous. “Because I stopped needing you.”

There. She’d said it.

And as she did, she winced. How wise was it to have this conversation with Peter now, on their anniversary, and without the assistance of a counselor? This was the first time they’d been alone since Peter had been admitted to rehab. What if something went wrong and they lost ground? She closed her eyes for the briefest moment and thought of the Bible verse she’d clung to these past months.

The words ran over in her head:
“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! . . . Do not be anxious about anything.” Thank you, God. . . . Help me rejoice even now.
She opened her eyes and looked at him.

“You stopped needing me?” He cupped her elbows with his palms, looking at her eyes, wanting more information.

Brooke let loose a sad sigh. “I think so. I’ve thought about it, and yes—” she squinted at him—“I think that’s what happened.”

He was quiet, waiting. Finally he lowered his brow and his voice at the same time. “And now? Do you need me now, Brooke?”

“Yes.” Her answer came so quickly it took even her by surprise. She pictured him working with Hayley on the floor of their living room, pictured him reading to Maddie. And mostly the way her heart hurt when he said good-bye at the end of a visit. “Yes, I need you, Peter. I need our family back together, the way it was.”

He lifted his hands and eased them alongside her face. “I need you, too, Brooke. That’s why I had to come here.”

He led her to the side of the rock and helped her start the climb. They weren’t as smooth as they’d been last time they were here, but in a few minutes they were both on the summit, sitting side by side looking out over Bloomington.

“You see all that.” Peter stretched out his hand and fanned it across the width of the horizon. “Between Ryan and you and the counselor, God’s let me see how that’s our future. Wide-open, full of beauty, and spread out before us.”

He turned to her and took her hand again. “I’m so sorry, Brooke. You’re a wonderful doctor, an amazing mother, and if I’d give you half a chance, a beautiful wife. I need you, Brooke. I want to come back home and try again. Please.”

Brooke’s heart thudded hard against her chest. This was the moment she’d waited for, the one she’d dreamed about long before Hayley’s accident. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He kissed her then, the first time he’d kissed her in a year. “The months away from you have shown me that I never want to leave again. I love you and the girls so much, and after Hayley . . .”

She tightened her grip on his hand. “Don’t do that to yourself, Peter. It wasn’t your fault. It could’ve happened to anyone.”

“The blame is mine, but that’s okay.” He held up his hand. “Ryan’s teaching me that it’s okay to feel that kind of pain, to see Hayley and know she may never walk normally. That’s the valley of the shadow of death, and God doesn’t promise to take us around it.” Peter’s voice fell some. “He promises he’ll walk us through it.”

They kissed again, and the feel of his lips on hers, the breeze against their faces as they sat on the rock’s summit, was more than Brooke could believe. “Happy anniversary, Peter.” She raised an eyebrow. “So, how soon are you thinking about coming back?”

The answer she wanted was something she didn’t dare hope for, so she waited instead, watching him process the sensation of their being together.

Peter smiled at her and looked at his watch. “Well, the funny thing is, I have this truck back in the university parking lot, and inside . . . well—” he shrugged and gave her an easy grin—“inside the truck is everything I own.”

Again her heart took wing, because at that moment she understood. “Everything?” She smiled, playing with him.

“Yes, indeed.” He looked at his watch. “So actually, I was thinking about moving back home today. You know . . . in a few hours. You know . . . in time for that anniversary dinner.”

“Anniversary dinner?”

“Yes. The one I’m taking you to this evening.”

Brooke giggled. “Okay.” He’d had the whole thing planned; that was the only explanation. “I think we could use a little celebrating.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Peter held her hand, his eyes locked on hers. “But this time, I promise you, Brooke, the celebration will never end.”