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The elders hadn’t specified what hours he was to work, but Thad knew the office opened at eight-thirty. And that meant Chloe Miller would be sliding out of that tiny car again this morning, pushing her skirt modestly down over her shapely legs and blushing when she saw him watching.
He wouldn’t miss it for the world.
She was very pretty beneath all that sedate courtesy, was Miss Church Secretary, though she didn’t appear to be aware of it. She must have been a few years behind him in school, but he didn’t remember her. Of course, if she hadn’t hung out at parties with a beer in her hand, waiting for a ride with any guy who had an itch to scratch, he doubted their paths had crossed.
He hadn’t paid much attention to the good girls.
Until Jean.
His hands stilled for a moment over the chisels he was selecting, then resumed their work. His mind, however, wasn’t so easily managed. It wandered back eight years in time, back to the day Jean had come banging into his kitchen, where he used to keep his business in the early days.
“I’m pregnant, Thad,” she’d announced, red hair flying in agitation. “My father’s going to kill me.”
Jean had indeed died, he thought sadly, but it hadn’t been at the hands of her disapproving father. Thad still visited her grave occasionally, though the headstone her family had chosen, with its depiction of a woman cradling an infant in her arms was almost more than he could take. It was still startling to see “Jean Lawman Shippen” inscribed on the stone.
So what was he doing, lusting after this prim little church secretary? he asked himself. He was poison, with a woman’s life on his conscience. Not to mention an unborn baby, who had never even had a chance to draw breath.
He didn’t allow himself to watch as Chloe walked into the church a few minutes later, and he was working industriously when the Reverend Miller came out a while later and drove away in his gray sedan. Around ten, he could feel his fingers getting stiff, and he decided to take a short break, maybe walk down to Main Street for a cup of coffee.
He was still climbing down the ladder when Chloe banged open the front door of the church, racing over to him in a way that seemed most unlike her. As she got close, he realized that her face was white, and the wide golden-brown eyes he thought so pretty were huge and strained.
“I smell gas,” she said breathlessly. “Get away from the church and call 911.” He instinctively put out a hand but she shrugged it off and turned, running back into the church before he could get out a single word.
“Damn!” Suddenly his heart was thumping a hundred miles a minute. He sprinted to the street and grabbed the first man he saw on the corner. “Get to a phone and call 911,” he shouted into the fellow’s startled face. “There’s a gas leak in the church and there are still people inside.”
As the man nodded, Thad turned and ran back to the church. Yanking open the door, he plunged into the main hallway. The odor of natural gas hit him full in the face, and his pulse racheted up another notch. Sprinting down the hallway toward the office, he nearly knocked Chloe and an elderly woman to the floor as they came out of an adjacent room. Chloe gave him a brilliant smile of relief when she saw him.
“Help me get her out of here.”
“Is there anyone else inside?”
“No.”
Satisfied, Thad hustled the older woman out the door. As he turned to see if Chloe was all right, he realized with a sick feeling of shock that she wasn’t behind him.
Dammit, she was still in the church!
Frantic now, he ran back again. The gas smell was even stronger. He sure as hell hoped she was right, that there was nobody else in the church. Any number of tiny electrical functions could ignite gas, not to mention a match or a cigarette. He saw her immediately through the glass window in the office, grabbing computer disks and files and everything else she could find, stuffing them into a large canvas bag. He nearly pulled the door off its hinges getting in.
“Come on, we’ve got to get out of here!” It was a command, but she didn’t even look up.
“I’ll be done in a minute. You go.”
“You’re done now.” He grabbed the bag from her and seized Chloe around the waist, dragging her toward the door. She struggled for a moment, then began to run with him. They cleared the office and ran down the hallway hand in hand. He kicked open the front door, and they raced through it and down the stone steps, out across the wide lawn. At the far edge of the street, policemen were pushing back the crowd of onlookers who had gathered.
Thank God, he thought, meaning it—
Behind them an immense blast shook the world. Instantaneously, what felt like a huge fist slammed into him from behind, tearing Chloe’s hand from his, tossing him forward like a rag doll and rolling him across the ground. His head banged across a tree root, but he staggered to his feet, looking wildly around for Chloe.
She lay a few feet to his left, crumpled at the base of an old oak tree. Leaves and debris rained down around them, and as a stinging sensation penetrated his dazed senses, he realized that the tree was burning above them.
Dropping to Chloe’s side, he shielded her body with his, feeling tiny bites across the back of his neck from the rain of fire. She had a bleeding gash at one temple, where he guessed she hit the tree, but he got a pulse in her neck. He had no choice; he had to move her.
Lifting her carefully into his arms, Thad staggered away from the tree, on toward the street and the knots of shocked people watching him approach. He could hear sirens shrieking, careering closer. Two men darted forward. One reached out and took Chloe from him, the other put a supporting shoulder beneath his arm. “C’mon, buddy, you’re almost there.”
But he couldn’t. His knees wouldn’t lock, wouldn’t hold him up. As he slowly sank to the ground, his body twisted. The last thing he saw was a giant bonfire as the church was engulfed in flames.
He heard the technicians talking; before he opened his eyes he knew he was in an ambulance. One look confirmed it. He knew why, and he knew what he needed to know before he could relax. “Is Chloe okay?”
“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.
