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The Last Bridge Home
Linda Goodnight
Zak To The Rescue Doing the right thing always came easily to firefighter Zak Ashford. So he can't refuse taking in the dying wife he thought divorced him long ago - and watching over her three troubled children. The only person Zak can turn to is his cute neighbor, Jilly Fairmont, who helps him and the children through their loss. And not just because she secretly cares for Zak. Yet it isn't long before Zak realizes what this honest, compassionate woman means to him, too. Can he convince Jilly that his life would be complete if she agreed to share his future? Redemption River: Where healing flows.
Zak To The Rescue
Doing the right thing always came easily to firefighter Zak Ashford. So he can’t refuse taking in the dying wife he thought divorced him long ago—and watching over her three troubled children. The only person Zak can turn to is his cute neighbor, Jilly Fairmont, who helps him and the children through their loss. And not just because she secretly cares for Zak. Yet it isn’t long before Zak realizes what this honest, compassionate woman means to him, too. Can he convince Jilly that his life would be complete if she agreed to share his future?
Redemption River:
Where healing flows….
“You have a wife. You’re married.”
Zak dropped his arms, shoulders sagging, and on a long sigh said, “Yes. Technically, I guess I am.”
Jilly wondered if God believed in technicalities, but figured now was not the time to ask. Zak was more than freaked out. She gripped his forearm with her fingers. He was trembling. Or was that her?
“I don’t even know where she lives,” he said numbly. “Or what she’s been doing for the past ten years. But it’s obvious she doesn’t have much. She’s broke and sick and alone.”
Compassion, usually welcome, rose in Jilly. As much as she hated saying the words, she forced them out. “She needs your help. You have to give it.”
“I know.” Zak took her hand, a casual gesture, though he’d never done so before. He lifted her fingers one by one, traced a spray of freckles across the back, and then gripped her hand with such force, Jilly knew he was about to say something momentous.…
The Last Bridge Home
Linda Goodnight
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
So do not throw away your confidence;
it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere
so that when you have done the will of God,
you will receive what He has promised.
—Hebrews 10:35–36
For Diane in Dallas (You know who you are, girl!), who always reads the ending first
and who can make me laugh with her warm,
witty, encouraging emails.
Contents
Chapter One (#u5f99d433-f80b-50cb-891f-58aabc259f3e)
Chapter Two (#u9b24543b-b528-590b-af2d-e6cc45aaa55f)
Chapter Three (#u1dbc8dbc-edbc-5dc8-9f7b-925226df139d)
Chapter Four (#u1ce77ede-8dad-5ff0-a903-e784cae54400)
Chapter Five (#uafe56d01-34bf-5e47-9fff-fb2f09d7ecd8)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Questions for Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
A guy ought not to look that good in baggy old shorts and a holey T-shirt, but Zak Ashford did.
Jilly Fairmont yanked the rope on the cantankerous lawn mower and tried not to stare at her neighbor, cocked back in his lawn chair, shades in place, taking it easy on a sunny summer Saturday. She was surprised he wasn’t playing baseball.
Yes, she noticed the comings and goings of her single neighbor. They were friends, buddies, pals. If she hollered, he’d come running. If he wanted someone to watch the game with, she’d be there in a flash. Zak didn’t know it, would be shocked to even think it, but his best pal, Jilly, was in hopeless, unrequited love with him.
She yanked the rope again. No luck.
Across the quiet street and the rise of lush green lawn separating her home and his, Zak’s voice called, “Hey, Jilly, need some help?”
No, she needed a new lawn mower. And a life. And she needed to stop mooning over her firefighter neighbor.
“I’m good. Thanks anyway.” She backhanded the sweat from her eyes and yanked once again, muttering words like “trash heap” and “salvage yard” to the old mower. The incantation must have worked because the motor roared to life and shot black smoke and grass flecks from underneath.
With a wave toward Zak, she struck out across the thick, sweet-scented grass just as an unfamiliar car turned down her street.
Certain days in a man’s life should come with warning labels. For Zak Ashford, that particular sunny day turned his world upside down, and nothing—not one single thing—was ever the same again.
He saw the battered old Chevy—a white Cavalier with a dented fender and one brown door—round the corner and rattle down the street in front of his house. Cars came and went. No big deal.
Kicked back in his lawn chair with a cold Pepsi at his side and fantasy baseball on his iPod, he focused on Jilly’s dog of a lawn mower expecting it to wheeze and gasp to a stop at any moment. She’d need him over there pretty quick. Not that he minded. That’s what friends were for.
He set his Pepsi aside ready to jog across the street to Jilly’s just as the Cavalier chugged up the slight incline of his driveway, shuddered a couple of times and died. He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head, leaned forward in the chair and squinted.
“Who—”
The driver’s gaunt, pale face turned to stare at him. His belly went south. An electric current zipped from his brain to his nerve endings.
“No way. No possible way,” he was muttering as he slowly rose for a better look. When he did, three small heads popped up from the backseat. Kids. A tiny blonde girl and two boys with dark hair. Not one of them had a child safety seat.
The adrenaline jacking through his blood centered on that one thought. No matter who the driver, she was irresponsible. And she was breaking the law.
The brown door of the white Chevy groaned open before Zak reached it. A too-thin woman with short, curly hair—dirty blond—gripped the door and levered herself to a stand.
“Zak?” she said. “Zak Ashford?”
His belly did that dipping thing, like the time he’d fallen down a flight of stairs into the belly of the beast, a roaring fire. This could not be who he thought it was.
“Yeah, I’m Zak. Who’s asking?” And why don’t you have those kids in child restraints?
As he started around the car ready to give his fireman lecture, the woman met him at the headlights. “Remember me? Crystal?”
So it was her. She looked different—older, harder and more desperate, if there was such a thing—but here she was. His most humiliating moment.
Suddenly, the subject of car seats was not paramount.
Before he could open his mouth to ask why she’d come for this unexpected visit, she took two steps in his direction and crumpled like a wet paper sack.
With driveway concrete looming up fast, Zak’s paramedic training kicked in. He lurched forward to stop her fall but missed. She collapsed against his bare knees and slid down to the top of his Converse All Star slip-ons. Gently, he eased to a squat and turned her over, going through the ABC protocol. Airway, breathing, circulation.
“Crystal. Crystal, can you hear me?” he asked, his hands and eyes assessing. Pale and gray, she looked like warmed-over death. A cloud passed between him and the sun. He shuddered, vaguely aware of car doors opening and people moving around him.
A small voice said, “Mama’s dead.”
The statement yanked Zak’s attention from Crystal to a thin-faced boy. Maybe eight or ten, he stood solemnly, almost passively in front of Zak, staring down at his mother.
“No,” Zak reassured. “She fainted. She’ll be fine.”
“Nu-uh,” the boy insisted in that same tired, matter-of-fact voice. “She has cancer.”
The word slammed into Zak’s head as all the tumblers rolled into place. Crystal’s ghastly gray color, her skeletal body, the ultrashort, curly hair all pointed to someone who’d spent recent time on chemo. Lots of chemo.
Another boy, this one a few years younger, started to howl. Weirdly, not one of the three kids standing in a semicircle touched the woman lying on the concrete. The third, a tiny blonde girl with wispy ponytails, stared with undisguised interest at Zak.
By now, Jilly had arrived, panting and breathless. “What happened?”
“She passed out.”
“I saw that much.” She leaned forward, hands on her knees to stare at his patient. “Should I call 9-1-1? Anything?”
“I am 9-1-1. Give me another second.” He hitched a chin toward the kids. The yowler had escalated to something just short of siren velocity while the little girl had wandered off toward the street. “The kids.”
“Oh, sure.” Good old Jilly herded the toddler back to the fold. With one hand on the little one’s arm, she hunkered beside the yowler and stroked his back. “It’s okay. She’ll be okay. Zak’s a fireman. He’ll take care of her.”
The yowler wasn’t impressed. The older boy was. His flat expression livened up a tad. “A real fireman?”
“Real deal,” Jilly said. “He rides in a fire truck and everything.”
Too concerned about his patient to bask in firefighter adoration from a grade-schooler, Zak checked Crystal’s pulse again. Her eyelids fluttered. “She’s coming around.”
With a moan, Crystal opened her eyes and blinked blankly at her surroundings. She licked dry lips and managed a whisper. “What happened?”
“You passed out.”
As she struggled to sit up, Zak offered his strength. At six feet three and one-eighty-five, he could have shot-put Crystal across the street. Careful lest he break her matchstick arms, he assisted her to her feet. She was light. Scary light.
“We should get you to the hospital.”
She made a face. “Absolutely not. I’ve had my fill of those.”
He turned her loose. She wobbled. He reached for her again. “Hey.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, and I’m a unicorn.”
She rubbed a shaky hand over her forehead. The three children, all corralled by Jilly, stared up at their mother. The yowler had stopped crying and was now sucking his thumb. The little girl had a very baggy diaper.
“Bella’s wet,” the oldest boy said, a hint of annoyed resignation in his voice as he headed toward the beat-up car. The passenger door opened with a groan and Mr. Serious dragged out a diaper bag, scraping it across the concrete as though it weighed a ton.
Zak’s head buzzed on overload. What was Crystal doing here in his driveway after all these years? How had she found him? And why? She was sick, obviously, but what did that have to do with him? Now that she’d fainted in his front yard, what was he supposed to do with her? He couldn’t stick her back under the steering wheel and send her out into traffic in this condition with a carload of kids. And no safety seats.
The older boy tugged on Crystal’s hand while studying Zak with suspicious brown eyes. “Is this him, Mama?”
“Yes, Brandon. That’s him.”
Him what? Zak wondered, but his conscience kicked in. The woman, regardless of who she was, was sick and weak and shaking like one of Jilly’s rat terriers at bath time.
“Come in the house for a minute,” he offered. “I’ll get you something to drink while you get your bearings.”
