To Protect & Serve (38 page)

“Where’d all the files go?” he asked as he followed her in and sat in the chair.

She shrugged. “Ask Sherie.”

“Sherie?” he asked uncertainly. “And you’re all right with that?”

“Hey, I h
ave a place to put my mouse now.” She picked up the gray object and laid it down. “I’d say that’s a good first step. Wouldn’t you?”

“Sounds like it.”

“So, how about you? How was class today?”

“Good. We went over the different kinds of seating in an airplane,” he said as he folded his hands in front of him. “I never knew there were so many. Bi-seats, tri-seats, seven across. Planes with both, different configurations and combinations, and you’re supposed to know what each of them have just by knowing what kind of plane it is.”

“Why?” she asked as if she really cared.

For one second he hesitated, knowing the road that question led down. “Because if one crashes, you have to know where the passengers are, so you know what’s worth going into and what’s not.”

Her gaze fell from his face. “So that’s what this class is about—crashes?”

He nodded. “By next week we’ll be out on the runway doing drills, running scenarios.”

It was clear she was working through what he was telling her. “What about work?”

“I’m on Wednesday and the rest of the week.”

“Isn’t that going to be tough—going to school and working?”

“It’s not so bad. I did it last month, and it was okay. But then…” He pulled himself up with his elbow and looked over at her, hearing the words but not getting them all the way to his mouth.

She looked up at him, puzzled. “Then… what?”

He leaned his head to the side. “Well, I’ve got this other project I’m working on this month, and it’s going to be taking up some time too.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” she asked as if she genuinely had no idea.

“You,” he said softly, gazing right at her, and her gaze swept over him. He looked at her, and the words he had been saying for a month but only in his head tumbled out. “Look, I know what you said that night at the fire station, on the steps, and I know why you said it. I know this isn’t what you expected. And I know I don’t have a choice but to give you one, but I still have to ask if you think we can find a way to make this work… us work? Or are you going to give up no matter what I think?”

For the longest moment of his life she said nothing. Finally she looked at him. “Well, what do you think?”

He laughed softly. “What do I think? Well, I know what I know. And what I know is that as hard as I’ve tried to make myself believe differently, I love you, Lisa. I have ever since the first minute I saw you. I’ve done everything I can to tell myself it’s not going to work, that you don’t need me like I need you, that you’d be better off without me, but the truth is I want this to work more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. I want you in my life, and I want to be in yours. That’s what I know.”

She sat in silence just blinking at him.

“Say something,” he finally said, hoping his heart could take her next words.

“I don’t know what to say,” she finally said. “I thought I did. I thought I would, but now that I’m here, I don’t.”

“Well, what do you want to say?”

Breath slid from her. “I want to say, ‘Jeff, you’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever been with, and I’ll do whatever it takes to make this work.’”

His heart slid through his chest. “But…”

She was still looking at him even as she shook her head. “But how can I be sure love is enough? I mean I want to believe it is. I want to, but I’m not sure I can.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know reality now. I’ve seen it, and it scares me to death. It scares me that I can’t just say, ‘I don’t want this’ and walk away from you. It scares me that every time I see you, I have a hard time holding onto the reality that there might not be a next time. It scares me that I could be right that if I don’t take this risk, I’ll regret it forever. But it also scares me that I could be wrong when I feel like nothing can touch what I feel for you. What if it can? What if I trust this, and it’s gone tomorrow?”

“What if you don’t and it’s gone tomorrow?” he asked. “Will that make it any better?”

She closed her eyes, and he saw her struggle. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I’m so confused. My mind’s all jumbled up, and I don’t even know where to start sorting it out.”

Slowly he stood, stepped around the desk to her chair, and sat on his heels in front of her. For the first time in a forever of hours, he felt completely at peace. Even if she didn’t trust their love, he now did, and he knew it was enough. His fingers brushed over the hair at her temple, and her eyes opened. Her gaze searched into the depths of his heart.

“I’m not asking for now,” he said as he gazed into the fear in her eyes. “I’m asking for when you’re ready. Lisa, I want you with me. I do. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and you need to know that if I have to wait forever for you to be ready, I will because I have no other choice. You’re the one I’m meant to be with, and there’ll never be anyone else. So when you’re ready, I have a ring for your finger and a pillow for your head and a heart to hold yours forever. When you’re ready, they’re all waiting right here for you. Just say the word, and they’re yours.”

As she sank into his arms, peace had never felt so real. She was with him already, whether she knew that or accepted it or not. They were together—tied by an indestructible bond. There was no reason to deny it any longer, and the more Jeff trusted that, the more peace flooded his soul until all of life opened around him. He kissed the side of her hair. “I love you, Lisa, and I always will.”

Being in his arms, it was the surest way to lose touch with all the rationalizations Lisa was clinging to for fear she would inextricably fall through the point of no return. Sure, Eve had said pushing him away would only lead to regrets, and she knew that was true. But still, something in her said losing him wouldn’t kill her if she just held onto the belief that he wasn’t her life, that she wasn’t his—that together they weren’t better than they were alone, that without him, her life could go on.

Although all her scrambled brain waves were telling her this made no sense, her arms wouldn’t let him go. They clung there, holding him, clutching to him. She didn’t want to let go, but if she admitted that… Fear surged through her. She was destined to lose. If she loved him and lost him, she lost. If she didn’t love him and he walked away, she lost. Everywhere she looked was loss and heartache.

“Take your time,” he said as the tears overtook her. “It’s not now or never. It’s now and forever.”

But all she could think was, if only it were so easy.

That night as Lisa lay in bed, rolling until the blankets were in knots around her, she reached the point of the cracking of her sanity. “Ugh! Why is this so hard? I thought love was supposed to be easy.”

“You’re making it hard because you won’t trust,” a voice from the darkness said.

“I know, I know. Step out of the boat, but how can I do that? The boat is safe. Out there isn’t.”

“Don’t let it fool you, Lisa. The boat’s in the waves too.”

In her mind she looked around. The voice was right. The little boat she was so furiously clinging to was being smashed at on all sides by the winds and the waves. “But I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to trust like that.”

“Let go. Just let go, and believe I’ll be enough to hold you up.”

Her body hurt. Searing pain screeched through her as she held on, fighting to right her world on her own.

“Until you trust, love is just an illusion. Love can’t live where there’s no trust.”

“But what if I fall?”

“If the possibility of falling were not there, trust would not be necessary. If you could do it all on your own, love would not be necessary. If trust and love were not necessary, there would be no need for other people
or for Me. But those things are not true, and you know they aren’t. They are manufactured beliefs that you thought would keep you safe. But they won’t. You know that now, so let go of them.”

“I’m trying.”

“No, trying is not doing. Doing is doing. Let them go, Lisa. You can’t hold onto them and be free. It doesn’t work that way.”

Squeezing her eyes closed against the shards of pain slashing through her, her own words drifted back to her. “Torturing yourself by holding onto fear and pain is keeping you stuck right where you are.” And where she was, was in a sinking boat, clinging to beliefs that were holding her back from really living. Slowly her stifling grip eased from the fear she had held so close to her heart for so long. It was the fear that said people would always let her down, that she could trust no one, that alone was better than being hurt. But as she let go, she realized that alone hurt, too. That fear wasn’t keeping her from getting hurt it was keeping her in the hurt—permanently.

The handhold on the boat slipped from her grasp, and after one small drop down, she was floating, sustained by a power that was not her own. On her own she had struggled and fought to make life safe for herself, never really feeling the safety she so desperately sought. On the wings of this power, however, she was safe. She could feel it even now. It wasn’t a mere feeling. It was a part of her. Simple as that.

“And Jeff?” she asked, knowing the answer would be there.

“What does your heart say?”

Her spirit laughed. There was no question about that.

Lisa called him the next morning the moment the sun broke through her window, but he was already gone for work. She called him at the station when she got to work, but they were out training. That was all right, she thought as she laid the phone in the cradle. Some things are meant to be said in person anyway. All day she thought about him, and all day her thoughts were not those of fearing for his safety, but of knowing that he was with her no matter what.

So, when the clock wound around to after five, she gathered her things and drove home to get ready. It wasn’t a date, but it felt like the biggest one of her life. With her hair down and the soft, pastel blue dress, swirling at her ankles, Lisa took one more look in the mirror. Accepting at a fire station wasn’t exactly her idea of romantic, and yet in a strange way it made more sense than accepting anywhere else.

As she drove through the streets, she remembered the day she had run away from this life, but it wasn’t with the guilt she had thought she would feel. To be where she was now, out walking on the waves, it was necessary to have been in that boat first. Without trust there is no love, and without risk, love would mean nothing. Without the wind and the waves, walking like that would not be the miracle she now felt it to be.

She checked her watch when she got out at the fire station. 7:22. Stand down time. With a snap she opened the station door and stepped into it. However, in the next breath she realized the station was empty. No trucks, no people.

“Hello?” she called, but no one answered. Her gaze dropped to the waves at her feet, and for one moment the fear returned. “No,” she told herself firmly, “Jeff’s worth trusting, and so is God.” Resolutely she looked back up. That’s when she heard the door open down the hallway. Her feet carried her forward. “Hello? Is somebody there?”

“Yeah,” the voice said from depths of the hallway. When he broke into the station, Dante smiled broadly. “Well, if it isn’t Lisa. How are you doing?”

“Good. ” She reached up and wrapped her hair over her ear. “Where are the guys?”

“Call out on Bayland Street—a residential. I’ve been listening to the radio. It must be pretty bad. It’s taken a couple houses out already.”

Determined to keep her newfound faith with her, Lisa kept her gaze up off the waves as she nodded. “Is everyone okay?”

Dante shrugged. “Far as I know, but they don’t usually broadcast injuries over the scanner.”

“Oh,” she said as her heart begged her to go see Jeff. “Where did you say that was again?”

“Bayland. But I’m sure it’s all blocked off by now. You won’t get within a couple of blocks
of there.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “That’s okay. I was just wondering.” She smiled at him. “Well, take care.”

“You too.”

Quickly Lisa strode out into the late October air that now seemed cooler than it had before. Her hands wrapped around her bare arms. It was a fire—like all the rest of them. Bad, kind of bad, really bad. Did it really matter? They all held tragic possibilities for the men called to fight them. In her car, she tried to tell herself to go home. Dante was right, she couldn’t get within a couple blocks anyway. Yet her heart said Jeff was there, and he didn’t know what she now did.

Driving through the streets slowly, Lisa thought about him as she stopped at a red light. In front of her car, people streamed into the street, dutifully obeying the Walk sign, oblivious to the fact that it was now flashing Don’t Walk. They hadn’t even noticed. She hadn’t noticed. But he had. He. Jeff. The man who had turned her whole world upside down and then rearranged it into a pattern she would never have thought possible.