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“Welcome back,” said a woman in a blue medical technician’s uniform. “Is Chloe the woman who was with you?”
He nodded, then was sorry as everything whirled around him.
“She’s coming to the hospital with another unit,” the woman said. “She wasn’t conscious when we loaded you, so I can’t tell you anything else.”
Then they were at the hospital. To his annoyance, they carried him in on a gurney like he was severely injured, and he was poked, prodded and X-rayed about four hundred times. He was given an ice pack for his head, and some sadistic nurse cleaned and bandaged an assortment of bums and cuts he couldn’t remember receiving.
He asked about Chloe at least a hundred times but nobody would tell him anything. Finally, after yet another nurse had backed out of his cubicle with a vague promise to check on Miss Miller’s condition, he got off the uncomfortable bed and eased his way into the burned and bloody T-shirt they’d taken off him, then started for the door.
“Whoa, fella, where are you going?” One of his nurses, with a build and a grip like a fullback, snagged his arm.
He jerked himself free and glared at her. “I’m going to find somebody in this damned place who will tell me how Chloe Miller is doing.”
The fullback scowled back. “We’re checking for you. You have to be patient, Mr. Shippen.”
“I’ve been patient,” he snarled. “And now I’m done. So just scratch me off your little list, lady, because I’m getting out of here.”
“Mr. Shippen?” Another nurse came toward them, but he was in a stare-down with the fullback. Finally, with narrowed eyes and a sniff, she looked away first.
Ridiculously pleased at the small victory, he was a little happier when he turned to the second nurse. “What?”
“Miss Miller is undergoing some tests. She’s been admitted to the Critical Care Unit, room 338. That’s the—”
“Tests for what?”
“Routine tests for head injury. She suffered quite a blow to the head, apparently.”
“When she hit the tree,” he said, mostly to himself.
The nurse looked sympathetic. “It could be hours before she is allowed to have visitors other than family. Is there someone who can take you home after you’re released?”
Thad didn’t bother to answer her as he turned and started toward what he hoped was the exit from the Emergency Department into the rest of the hospital.
“Wait, Mr. Shippen!” The nurse’s voice was a panicked squeak. “You haven’t been discharged yet.”
“Tough.” He didn’t look back.
The nurse scurried along beside him, waving a clipboard under his nose. “You’ll get me in big trouble if you leave here without being discharged.”
The note of genuine dismay in her voice was the only thing that penetrated his determination. He halted. “I’ll give you sixty seconds to get a signature on that.”
She hesitated, then apparently realized she didn’t have time to argue. Her jacket flapped behind her as she raced back down the hall.
Thad rubbed his forehead, then swore under his breath when his fingers brushed over the raised lump where he’d hit the tree root. He glanced through the glass windows of the double doors leading from the emergency area, noting a sign directing visitors to the elevators. When he turned back, the nurse was coming down the hall with the doctor who had initially looked him over striding behind her.
The man frowned at him. “We’re busy people around here, Mr. Shippen. I was dragged away from a seriously ill person for this.”
“So sue me.” Thad frowned right back. “If you’d signed me out of here when you saw me, I’d be out of your hair.”
The doctor ignored him, stepping forward to shine a small light into each of Thad’s eyes. “Touch your right index finger to your nose.”
“Give me a break.” But he complied.
The doctor lifted the clipboard and scribbled his name across the paper. “You should be admitted for additional observation, although you don’t seem to be concussed. I assume that hard head protected you. If you have any episodes of blurred or double vision, any feelings of vertigo or dizziness, call your doctor or come back. Change the dressings on those bums tonight and tomorrow. After that you may remove them. See a doctor if you suspect any infection.” He handed the clipboard to the nurse, who immediately dashed away again. “Any problem with that?”
Thad grinned unwillingly. “Nope. Thanks.”
The doctor grinned in return. “Now get out of here and go find your girl.”
Thad didn’t bother to answer as he banged through the double doors and headed for the elevators.
He had just punched the button for the Critical Care Unit’s floor when he heard the commotion behind him.
“That’s him! Hey, Mr. Shippen!”
“Thaddeus Shippen?”
“Mr. Shippen, give us your version of what happened in the gas explosion today.” A woman with sharp features and frosted hair stuck a microphone under his nose.
Another man raised his pencil in the air. “I’m from the Valley First Edition. Is it true that you reentered the building to rescue the church’s secretary?”
“Mr. Shippen, what were you doing at the church? Are you personally involved with Miss Chloe Miller?”
Thad sagged against the wall, wishing the elevator would hurry up. He hadn’t even thought about the press, but he guessed something like this was a national story just as that plane that had crashed right into a house over in Waynesboro a few years ago had been. He might as well get this over with or they’d only get more intrusive. The last thing he wanted was this crowd following him up to Chloe’s floor.
He smiled at the woman reporter. “This will have to be brief.”
“Certainly.” She was smooth and way too polished for him as she launched into her first question. As he answered, everyone around her was nodding and scribbling in little notepads.
“When did you first realize there was a gas leak in the church?”
He took them through a short version of what had happened. From their questions, it was obvious they had talked to the elderly woman he had escorted out before he’d gone back after Chloe.
“How does it feel to be a hero, Thad?” The newswoman lightly squeezed his arm.
Thad pulled himself away as the elevator opened. “I wouldn’t know. I just did what anybody else would have done. Sorry, folks, gotta go.”
He turned his back on the reporters and stepped into the elevator, then pushed the button for the third floor. When the door opened, he sprinted down the hall to where signs directed him to Critical Care. He wondered where the nurses’ desk was. Hospital architects must all take the same course in How to Confuse the Public. He’d never been in a hospital yet that was easy to get around.
As he turned the next corner, he came face-to-face with Reverend Miller.
Great. Mr. Holier-than-Thou.
Behind Miller was a group of people with grave-looking faces. He recognized the man who had hired him for the job at the church, as well as the woman he’d led out of the building before it blew.
“Young man!” she twittered. She leaped to her feet with amazing speed and came over to drape herself all over him. “Thank you, thank you. You saved my life!”
Thad could feel his neck getting hot. Damned if he wasn’t going to blush! “Chloe saved your life,” he corrected. “I just helped out a little bit.”
The lady didn’t miss a beat “Well, thank you, anyway, dear boy. If it hadn’t been for you, I’m sure Chloe never would have made it out of there.”
The other man, Hastings, he thought his name was, extended a hand. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Shippen. Nelda here tells me Chloe was gathering up church documents when you found her.” He indicated the bag the old gal was holding up. It was the bag Chloe had been stuffing full of discs and papers when he’d dragged her out of her office.
Thad almost smiled at the memory, but he was too worried about Chloe. “Yes, she was. Can someone tell me how she’s doing?”
Reverend Miller stepped forward. “We haven’t heard much yet. They’re doing some tests and they will let us know as soon as they know anything.” He cleared his throat and glanced away, then extended his hand to Thad. When their eyes met again, Thad could see the sheen of tears in the older man’s eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Shippen, for saving my daughter’s life. I heard that you risked your own life to go back in after her and that you carried her to safety. Chloe’s mother passed away years ago. She’s all I have. If she hadn’t gotten out...”
“What are the tests for?” Thad couldn’t take the man’s obvious grief. It reminded him too much of another time in another hospital.
“Head injuries, among other things,” Mr. Hastings said gently. “Would you like—”
“Mr. Shippen has been through quite an ordeal of his own,” Chloe’s father said. “He needs to go home and rest.”
“I’ll run him home,” Benton Hastings said.
“Just take me back to my truck,” Thad requested. “I can drive from there.”
Reverend Miller gave him a sober look. “Your truck was parked in front of the church. It was destroyed.” He put an arm around Thad’s shoulders and turned him toward the door. “Don’t worry. Our insurance will replace it for you. Thank you again for saving Chloe. Someone will call you tomorrow and update you on her condition.”
Thad started to protest, but everyone was nodding. Mr. Hastings took him by the elbow, and before Thad knew it, he’d been escorted to the man’s car for the short ride home to the old trailer in which he lived.
Two
He didn’t sleep well. Bumps and bruises in places he hadn’t even realized he had nerve endings made themselves felt throughout the night, courtesy of the blast that had thrown him to the ground. His head ached, despite the ice pack he draped over the largest lump. The spots on his back where superheated bits of debris had burned through his clothing stung and, sore as he was, he could barely reach most of them to put on the ointment from the hospital. His favorite T-shirt, washed and worn to the ultimate in comfort, had to be tossed out.
And on top of it all, he still hadn’t heard how Chloe was doing. He should have made sure she was behind him when he’d first found her in the gas-filled building. Who would have thought anybody would be dumb enough to go back into that building after a bunch of files?
Well, he had work to do. He resisted the urge to snatch up the phone and call the hospital. He’d hear soon enough how she was doing. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Either way, no big deal. He was only interested because she was a fellow human being. She might have tripped his switch a bit more than any woman he’d met in a long time, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t live without her.
Going to the card table that served as his desk in the tiny living room, he flipped through his calendar. Now that his work on the church was a moot point, he could take on a new project.
Would the church elders still want to pay him for the work he’d done? It would probably be tacky to ask for payment, he decided regretfully. The best thing to do was to get on with another job. He called the woman who was next on his list and explained that he could start her fireplace mantel restoration sooner than expected, but she wouldn’t hear of him coming over.
“Take a day or two and rest, Thad. I’m sure you must be a bit shaken up after coming face-to-face with death. How about we start on Wednesday? And if you aren’t feeling up to it that soon, you just let me know, and we’ll postpone a bit. I feel almost guilty taking advantage of the church’s misfortune, after all.”
All right. Fine. He washed up his breakfast dishes and set them in the drainer, then made a beeline for the small cinder block garage he used for a workshop. If nobody wanted him to work, he’d spend the day on his own projects.
When the telephone on the wall rang just before lunchtime, he leaped for it. Maybe it was Chloe calling.
“This is Joseph Miller. May I please speak to Thaddeus Shippen?”
“Speaking.” Disappointment sliced through him and he covered it with flippancy. “Hi, Rev. I guess you don’t need me to work today.”
“Hardly.” The minister’s tones sounded cooler than yesterday, when he’d been falling all over himself to thank Thad. “I’m calling to inform you of Chloe’s condition, as I promised.”
“So inform me.” But his heart leaped into his throat. Wasn’t she okay by now?
Miller went on, though he sounded like he was speaking through gritted teeth. “Chloe regained consciousness yesterday. She’s doing well and is expected to leave the hospital today. There’s no need for you to make a special trip just to visit.”
The message couldn’t have come through more clearly. Chloe didn’t want to hear from him and had sent her father to let him know. She’d woken up yesterday and hadn’t bothered to let him know. He guessed he couldn’t blame her. Miller had probably told her about what he did to young, innocent girls, and she’d decided to heed the warning. Oh, well. She was too much of a Goody Two-shoes for him, anyway. He preferred his women ready and willing, the kind who could look out for themselves. No more virgins for him.
“Thanks,” he drawled, “but you didn’t have to call. I figured I’d hear about it if she up and died.”
There was a moment of shocked silence from the other end. He heard Miller draw in a breath, and in a very final tone, say, “Thank you again for your courageous assistance in rescuing my daughter and Miss Biller, Mr. Shippen. They would have been a great loss to our parish and to the community, as well as a personal loss to me.”
Unlike you. The unspoken message came through loud and clear.
Thad sat for a very long time with the dial tone buzzing in his ear before he slowly lowered the receiver and moved to hang up the phone.
“I’m not even allowed to dig around a little to see if anything is left?” Chloe stood, disbelieving, on the scorched grass near the twisted rubble that had been the church. Her parents had been married here when her father was just a young seminarian. She’d been baptized here and confirmed, as well. When her mother had died, the funeral service had been held at the church. Afterward, all the ladies of the parish had contributed mountains of food for the reception.
She’d always assumed that someday she would walk down the aisle on her father’s arm to her waiting groom. Her eyes burned at the thought, but she fiercely shook away the tears. A church is not the building where worship occurs, she told herself. A church is all the people who worship God together.
Thanks to Thad, no part of the true church had been lost. It was a test of faith to make herself believe that, as she mourned for the loss of the building before which she stood. The structure had been reduced to an impassable, jumbled mound of brick, blackened wiring and ash. Fire following the initial explosion had quickly decimated anything that remained, including her car and Thad’s truck, which had been parked directly in front of the building. Thank Heaven the church had been set well away from the street in the middle of an enormous lot. Even so, she’d been informed that only the quick actions of the fire company had prevented the fire from spreading to surrounding buildings. Yellow tape completely encircled the jumbled mess, prohibiting the public from getting too close.
“I’m sorry, honey.” Her father put a comforting arm around her. “The fire chief said everything would be too smoke and water damaged to salvage. Let me take you home to rest.”
“Everything...everything is gone. I still can’t believe it.”
Reverend Miller shuddered. “I can. I was four blocks away when it blew, and it felt like it was right next door. The vibration knocked Mrs. Murphy’s knickknacks right off the shelves. I thank God you weren’t in there.”
Thank Thad, you mean, she thought. Thinking of who had dragged her out dampened her spirits even more. A sob pushed its way into her throat, and she swallowed it, fiercely narrowing her eyes to prevent threatening tears from falling. She was in shock, overly emotional, that was all. It had nothing to do with Thad Shippen.
He hadn’t even stuck around to see if she was all right. When she’d regained consciousness, her first question to her father had been about Thad. He’d assured her that Thad was all right, that he’d been treated for minor burns and bruises and released already. Tears threatened again, and she swallowed hard, willing them away as her father escorted her back to his car and headed home.
She had no business mooning over Thaddeus Shippen. He might have rescued her, but deep down he wasn’t a gentleman, and she had firsthand experience to prove it.
Laying her head against the back of the seat, Chloe let her mind drift back to her first days home in Geiserville after her graduation from the all-girls Christian college where she’d received her teaching degree. Coming home to live hadn’t been easy after having her freedom for four years. It wasn’t that she’d been wild or undisciplined, but she wasn’t used to having to explain where she would be every time she walked out the front door.
Then, only weeks after she’d come home, the church secretary had resigned when a brother who lived on the West Coast had a stroke. Dear Elizabeth, who had served the church faithfully for over twenty years, went to California to nurse her brother, and Chloe had agreed when her father had asked her to fill the position on a temporary basis until the elders could find a suitable replacement.
Chloe had intended to use the summer to begin preparations for the preschool she hoped to open. Instead, weeks dragged on into months, and not much was said about hiring another secretary. Each time she mentioned it to her father, he told her how capably she had filled Elizabeth’s shoes and how lucky they were to have her.
One day she had been filing documents when one of the elders walked out of her father’s office. “Let me be the first to welcome you officially. I’m delighted to hear you’re going to be staying,” the man had said.
Chloe stared at him, wondering if he was speaking to the right person.
“Er...staying where?”
“Why, here at the church.” Mr. Barlow beamed. “Your father just told me that you will be glad to continue working as the secretary, and I don’t mind telling you how pleased I am. I’m sure there will be no problem making it official. You have filled Elizabeth’s shoes so capably we’ve barely noticed she’s gone.” The man reached for her hand and shook it enthusiastically. “Couldn’t have worked out better, could it? You have a good day now.”
As the elder sailed out of the office, Chloe turned her head and stared at her father’s closed door for a moment before starting across the room. She felt like screaming, like throwing something, but she forced herself to turn the knob and step into the inner office without slamming the door behind her.
“Hello, dear. I didn’t hear you knock.” Her father glanced up from his desk.
“That’s because I didn’t.”
At her tone, Reverend Miller’s bushy white eyebrows lifted. “What’s the matter, Chloe?”
“Daddy...” She was so angry she was shaking. “No one asked me to fill the secretary’s position permanently. Why did you tell Mr. Barlow I’d accepted?”
Her father pushed his chair back from his desk and spread his hands. “Why, honey, I thought you’d be pleased. It’s a measure of how well you’ve done that the committee is eager to have you here permanently.”
“I spent four years training to teach. Just because I can do this well doesn’t mean I want to.”
Her father sighed. “This is my fault, I guess. If you want to be mad at somebody, be mad at me. I’ve been selfish. I missed you while you were away at school. Your lonely old father’s been a happy man since you came home again, and we made such a good team I just forgot you weren’t wild about the idea.”
Chloe struggled with the guilt his words evoked. Oh, she recognized manipulation when she heard it, but it was hard to resist, coming from her own father. Resentment rose, as well. Every time they disagreed, her father undermined her anger with his apologies and his gently worded reasoning. Even though she knew his feelings were genuine, she still disliked the way he always made her feel like she was the one who should apologize.
“Well, I’m not wild about the idea,” she said, not caring if her voice was sharp. “Whether or not I’ve liked working with you isn’t the issue. What I want to do with the rest of my life is.” She turned and walked out of the inner office, closing the door behind her. Picking up her purse, she started for the main door.
Her father’s door opened behind her. “Where are you going? It’s past lunchtime.”
“I’m taking the rest of the day off,” she had said without stopping or turning around. “I need to think about what I want to do with the rest of my life.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Chloe closed the drawer of the desk at which she sat. The local business and community associations had worked long hours to arrange help for the burned-out parishioners over the weekend.
By Monday, another local church had offered to change their times of worship so that Reverend Miller’s congregation could use their facilities on Sundays. A temporary office had been located rent free in an empty storefront on Main Street. An assortment of donated office furniture had been used to furnish it, and she even had a computer and a copier with a fax machine on loan from an office equipment firm.
She’d spent the day doing little but checking the disks she’d saved from the explosion, purchasing necessary supplies and planning how to reestablish an office routine. It was 4:30 p.m. now, the time the office closed, and she was so exhausted she could hardly wait to lock the door and go home.
But first she had something she had to do.
In the parking lot, she climbed into the rental car she’d picked up on Saturday. Before setting her purse on the seat, though, she pulled a slip of paper from it and examined the address she had copied from the telephone book earlier in the day.
Driving out of town through the green countryside, she told herself that a phone call simply wouldn’t have done the job. Thad had risked his life to save her. She certainly owed him a personal thank-you. As she crossed the creek and turned onto a narrow road that led past a hog farm, she wondered again why he hadn’t come to see her, either in the hospital or since.
Then she remembered the way her father had treated him in the office just last week. Thad probably didn’t want to run into that kind of attitude again. Suddenly she felt much better. She ignored the little voice inside her head that reminded her that Geiserville was a very small town, and like most towns of its size, it would have been extremely easy for Thad to find out when her father was visiting and when he left.
Past the hog farm, she entered a small wood. She was looking for a house, so she almost missed the rusting metal trailer tucked back in a clearing. As it was, she had to reverse and check the mailbox again to be sure she had the correct address.
Could this be right?
The trailer once had been an odd shade of aqua and white, but decades of neglect had faded the white and dulled the aqua unevenly where some patches had received more sun than others. Rusty stains of orange and brown oozed dry rivulets of corrosion from every seam. The pathetic structure’s only saving grace was the well-maintained landscaping that surrounded it. She recognized the swollen glory of forsythia about to bloom, the variegated leaves of the mountain laurel, lilac, rhododendron and pussy willow catkins. Shoots poked from the ground, signaling the advent of iris, tulips and bushes of sweet-scented peony. Even this early in the year it was obvious that someone cared for things that grew.
Chloe checked the numbers on the mailbox one more time. Yes, this was definitely Thad’s address from the telephone book.
Turning left off the road, she directed the rental car onto the rutted lane that disappeared around the other side of the trailer. A smaller building, hidden by the trees, came into view. Beside it was parked a late-model truck and she realized the pickup she’d seen Thad driving when he was working on the church probably had met the same fate her car had.