The Fireman's Homecoming

“Burn off chocolate cake, actually.” Melba was surprised to find a smile creep onto her lips. Nothing was going to solve itself anytime soon, so she was going to have to learn to cope while knee-deep in uncertainty. Uncertainty over what to think, what to do, where to find the answers she sought. And most of all, uncertainty over how to deal with the revelation that she was now certain was true—that Dad wasn’t her father after all. She needed time to think, to pray, to start pulling at all those knots in front of her, and she did that best while running.

Chapter Four

Chad Owens kept jogging. “Forget about it. What do a bunch of old ladies know?”

Clark held out a hand to halt Chad’s steps as they jogged together on the river bank path. He wanted Chad to take more offense at what he’d just heard. “Those old ladies know how to make a fuss, how to complain to other people, and probably how to write letters to the editor of the town newspaper. I’m going to pay for the fact that they aren’t happy about the idea of me as fire chief.”

Chad shook his head and kept running. “The town council’s already voted. You’re already hired. You’re in uniform. You formally take over in a month. It’s just noise.”

“I go to that church.” Clark dashed to catch up. “I spent three hours mopping out the basement from the last flood. Why do they still think of me as some kind of hooligan?”

Now it was Chad who stopped. “You can’t tell me you didn’t see this coming.” He wiped his forehead with one sleeve. “You didn’t exactly leave here Prince Charming. Did you think everyone would come around in the first month?”

Clark didn’t really have an answer. “I suppose I figured once the hiring became official, that’d be the end of it.”

Chad put one leg up on the park bench beside him and stretched a calf muscle. “Come on, Clark, I didn’t even grow up here and I could have told you this was going to happen.” He looked straight at Clark. “You have some pretty big fire boots to fill.”

“Tell me about it.”

Chad cuffed Clark’s shoulder. “He’s been fire chief around here for ages. You’d constitute a big change even if you were identical to him.”

It wasn’t much of a help.

“And you’re completely different from him,” Chad continued as he stretched the other leg.

Clark started running again. “Thanks for the vote of confidence there.”

“Hang on.” Chad caught up. “What I’m trying to say is this is an uphill battle no matter who steps in as chief, so don’t worry about a little bit of friction.”

“Oh, so I suppose that’s why you didn’t step up to take over as chief? Didn’t want to take the hit but happy to watch me go down in flames?” Clark didn’t really feel that way, but life didn’t offer up too many chances to rib Chad Owens, so he had to find his targets when he could. It had gotten a bit easier since he’d married just before Clark came back to town.

“I’m too busy to be chief.”

“Too busy playing the happy newlywed. You’ve put on a few pounds being married to the candy store lady.”

Chad smirked. He smirked a lot more since his wife, Jeannie, and stepson, Nick, had come into his life, and Clark was truly happy for the guy. “I can handle it. And what about you?”

“Oh, that’s the last thing I need right now. I’ve got to play the straight-and-narrow for a while. One hundred percent work and no social entanglements for the first six months, that’s my plan.”

“Funny thing about plans...” Chad said.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it before, but this is Gordon Falls. I’m safe. I’ve been here three weeks and so far the only single woman I’ve met is Melba Wingate.” He tried to put disinterest in his voice, but the truth was Melba’s chocolate-brown eyes and cascades of hair entered his memory far too easily.

Chad turned and jogged backwards in front of him, raising a teasing eyebrow. “Melba Wingate, huh?”

Clark reached out and nearly pushed him over. “Her dad’s sick—she’s got enough on her plate. And besides, you know I don’t go for the artsy, esoteric types.”

Chad stumbled but caught his footing. “I seem to remember athletic blondes being your specialty. In alarming numbers.”

“Before,” Clark corrected a bit too sharply, but it was a sore spot and Chad knew it.

“Before you cleaned up your act.” Chad stopped and caught Clark’s shoulder. “And you have. Look, you’ve pulled the biggest U-turn of anyone I know, Clark. I respect that. Everyone else will, too, you just have to give them time to see the change I’ve seen. Come on, even your dad came around. You’re supposed to be here. Some old stories from who you were ten years ago aren’t going to change that.”

It was as much of a speech as Clark had ever heard from Chad. He clasped Chad’s hand on his shoulder, thankful for their friendship. “Thanks.” Before things got too gooey, he ducked under Clark’s arm and started running at a faster pace. “But you’re still fat and married.”

“Yeah, well, you’re still skinny and obsessive.”

“Lean and focused,” he called as he turned a corner of the riverside path, “lean and focused.” He turned back to see Chad was not following him. “What?”

“I’m done for the morning. You take that final mile on your own.”

Clark pumped his fists in the air victoriously. “Because I can.”

“Because you need to. See you at the station at two for the meeting with P.A. Crimson.” They had a meeting with a safety equipment company that afternoon—Chad was seeing to it that Clark met all the vendors and suppliers.

Clark began thinking of all the ways he could kid Chad for “going soft” as he kept running. It wasn’t hard; Chad was an easy target these days. Once a somber, serious loner, Chad had fallen hard—and completely against his will—for Jeannie Nelworth and her young son. Now the three of them were the poster family for happy endings, all sugary happiness and love-struck smiles. It was nice, in a make-your-teeth-hurt kind of way. Chad had known a lot of pain in his life, had lost a fiancée to a fire and shut down for too many years. It was fun to rib him for his newfound light-heartedness.

The perfect taunt had just come to Clark, and he was actually laughing out loud as he turned a corner on the jogging path and nearly tripped over Melba Wingate. She was sitting on the path clutching one ankle and he almost tumbled over top of her but managed to catch himself to stumble alongside.

“Whoa....you okay?”

Melba looked up at him with the same eyes he’d seen that first night at the hospital. Strained, weary, hanging on by a thread. And now, physical pain laced her expression as well. “That depends on your definition,” she winced.

* * *

“Well, then, let’s see.” Melba watched Clark kick into first-responder mode, tugging at the sweatshirt now tied around his waist to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He crouched down beside her, lifted her ankle and gently removed her shoe, then tucked the bunched-up sweatshirt under her leg to cushion her foot as he set it back down. She tried not to wince, but ended up sucking in her breath sharply when he ran an assessing hand over her throbbing ankle.

“Ouch.” She hated how weak and wobbly her voice sounded. She hated that she was on the verge of tears. Not because her leg hurt that much—although it was painful—but because it was a last straw of sorts. She’d thought the run would clear her head of her problems, but all it did was add another one on top. One more ding in an already battered-feeling life.

“No break, but you’re swelling a bit. I’d say ‘ouch’ is justified.”

Somehow, it was the exact wrong thing to say. Melba’s fragile emotions took it as permission to overflow. She tried to hold it back, but a small sob escaped from her tight throat. This is a really bad place to lose it, she told herself, but the admonition only made things worse. She looked away, pointlessly trying to hide the tears that stole disobediently down her face.

“Hey.” Clark’s voice dropped its clinical tone completely. The warmth of it only made things worse. That kind of tone always got to her these days. The best nurses in Dad’s hospital—the ones for whom crisis caring was a true gift, not just a job—could bring on tears just with a hand on her shoulder. “Whoa there, you just turned an ankle, you’ll be...” He stopped and sat down beside her. “Well, I was gonna say ‘fine’ but I think maybe that’s the wrong word here.” He paused for a moment before asking, “Running from, huh?”

“What?” His odd question made her turn and look at him. It broke the tension of trying to keep her emotions in check—there was no hiding the tears once she turned. There had been no hiding them earlier, really, but the trick served to loosen the knot in her throat. Clark’s eyes were full of compassion, without a hint of judgment. Why must Clark Bradens always find her at the end of her rope?

He sighed and rested his elbows on his knees, as if ready to stay a while. “My fire chief in Detroit said that when you run, it’s best to know if you’re running to or running from. He had a theory that you never got hurt running to something, you got hurt running from something.” It was an odd thing to notice at the moment, but Melba could see that rescuing was deep in Clark’s nature. The urge to help—either here or at the hospital vending machine or on the street corner yesterday—seemed to leap from him without effort. This Clark was a bit of a shock—it felt so much at odds with the careless trouble-seeker the high school Clark had been.

“From.” She pointed to her ankle, surprised to find a damp little laugh bubbling up from the tide of tears. “The theory holds.”

“That’s been my experience.” He offered a half-hearted shrug. “Done my share of ‘running from,’ too.”

Melba waited for Clark to ask her what she was running from, but he didn’t. They sat there for a moment, quiet amid the pale green of the Gordon River’s waking spring. She hadn’t even noticed before now that it was a pretty morning; her thoughts had been inwardly focused. The chief’s theory made plain and painful sense. She sighed and flexed her foot, feeling foolish. It startled her that some part of her wanted Clark to pry, to give her an excuse to blurt out the storm of questions brewing inside her. They wouldn’t surface on their own—raw and deep as the pain and uncertainty were—but they wanted to be pulled out of her. Running from. It seemed almost inevitable now that she tripped and turned her ankle.

Clark picked up a twig and began spinning it in his fingers. “You’ve got a lot chasing you.”

It was a perfectly phrased comment, opening the door for her to say more but not requiring it. The urge to tell him everything—to open up about leaving Chicago and the torture of her fading father, about disappointment and postponed travel plans and the bone-deep suspicion that she wasn’t who she thought she was—pushed at her like a sudden squall. The tears burned behind her eyes again. “Yeah.” It was a gulped whisper, a last-ditch effort to hold it all in. She nodded—twice—rather than attempt any more words.