The Isaac Project Page 9

  “Have you tried rekindling it?” I asked, exasperated that he was going to give up on yet another marriage. “Even when a flame goes out, there are still hot coals. All you need is a little fuel, and you can have a roaring blaze again.”

  “I know you’re a fireman and all, son, but relationships don’t work like that.”

  “How would you know? You’ve never stuck around long enough to give it a try.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Facing the far side of the narrow apartment, I let my head hang, my forehead resting on the sun-warmed glass of the sole window in the studio. Deep down I still carried some hurt over my dad leaving. We’d talked it through and had built a relationship in spite of the past, but it didn’t erase the pain of growing up without a father when I needed him the most. Or the agony of watching my mom’s heart break because her husband had decided he didn’t love her anymore.

  “That’s not fair.” My dad’s voice boomed in my ear.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You’re right. I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. It’s just that you seem to fall in and out of love more times than a kid who has his shoelaces untied. Did you ever stop to consider that love is a choice you make every day?”

  “When you get married, you can give me advice, all right?” he snapped.

  I swallowed the lump of dread lodged in the back of my throat.

  “Actually, Dad, that was one of the reasons I called. I’m getting married.”

  “Married?” The surprise in his voice was evident. “I didn’t even know you were dating someone.”

  And here was the tricky part. “Well, I’m not…I wasn’t…exactly.”

  Dad huffed into the phone, causing static. “What are you talking about? How are you getting married if you haven’t…aren’t…dating someone?”

  “It’s a rather long and complicated story,” I said and proceeded to give him a condensed version, bracing myself.

  He started to laugh. I’d been expecting a lecture or a tirade, not the uncontrollable chortles of a man who deemed himself God’s gift to women.

  “I’m sorry, son,” he said when he was finally able to contain his mirth. “But it’s never going to work. Marriages are hard enough when you start out already in love. Begin one with someone you don’t even know, much less have no romantic feelings for, and it’s doomed from the start. Trust me. I’ve been married three times.”

  ***

  “Let me get this straight—you’re giving me your notice, and you don’t even have the decency to tell me why?” Chief’s booming voice resonated across the desk separating us. If I’d been a rookie, I would’ve been tempted to cower like an abused puppy, but I’d been around long enough to know that Chief’s bark was much worse than his bite. That, and it had never been in my nature to cower.

  “It’s personal, Chief.”

  “Personal,” he mumbled under his breath as he shuffled around some paperwork. “Can you at least tell me where you’re going?”

  “California.”

  He snorted and leaned back in his chair, interlocking his fingers and resting his clasped hands over his ample belly. I never did understand how Chief could do the daily physical training with the rest of the crew and still have the pooch around his middle. Granted it was rock hard, and a man could probably break a hand if he ever attempted punching Chief in his gut, but it was still a curious phenomenon.

  “I like you, Masterson. Have always liked you. And so I’m going to do something that I wouldn’t do for just any man out there in the bay.” Sitting back up, he rummaged through his papers again until he found a small ledger-type book. Opening it, he took out a memo pad and started writing. He offered me the small piece of paper. There was a name and number written on it.

  “That’s the name of a good friend of mine in California. He’s a captain of a firehouse out there. Now, California’s a big state, so I don’t know if that will even be useful to you or not. And as you know, firefighters can’t just make transfers, but you tell him I sent you, and he’ll find a place for you.”

  “Thanks, Chief.” I stood to leave.

  “One more thing, Masterson. This personal thing you’ve got—is it urgent?”

  “Fairly urgent, sir.”

  “Finish out the week, and I’ll cover your shifts for the rest of the month.”

  I couldn’t stop the smile that spread on my face, nor did I want to. Firmly gripping the chief’s hand, I thanked him and walked out of his office. My mind reeled with all the things I would need to accomplish in a short amount of time. Number one on that list being a call to Becky to tell her the news.

  First, though, I had to finish my shift. Most people thought firefighting was a glorious and heroic job. All the movies and TV shows portray it that way, anyway. But most of the stuff we did was pretty mundane. I didn’t remember the last movie about firefighters I’d seen that showed a brother or sister in uniform bent over the toilet scrubbing urine stains from the porcelain or pushing a mop around the tiled floors of the kitchen area. We didn’t have a maid to come in and do those chores. Every day we were assigned some kind of cleanup detail. We had to keep the station in top-notch shape.

  Thankfully, I’d already done my housekeeping detail for the day. The common room was tidy, and the carpets sported that nice just-vacuumed pattern.

  Grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, I ambled over to the weight room. We also had physical training scheduled during each shift as well as time for studying. There were some at the station who were taking courses to be EMT certified, and others were working on different classes such as search and rescue, water rescue, and wildfire containment. We didn’t want to be caught unprepared in any situation.

  Richard and Betty were doing some reps with the free weights in the corner, so I decided to get some bench pressing in before someone else showed up and stole the bench.

  I checked the weights on the bar and added twenty pounds on each side. Straddling the bench with my back to the bar, I slowly lowered myself down until my back was flat against the bench and the bar was horizontal to my body. Gripping the bar firmly with both hands, I lifted it off its holder and brought it down a hair’s breadth above my chest. I raised the bar and weights fairly easily when I straightened my arms. This wasn’t the max I could press, but I wanted to work on endurance with the number of reps, and my arms would feel the strain after a few sets. I was just starting to feel the burn in my muscles when the tones rang throughout the firehouse. I rushed to the bay, running straight into my turnout gear.

  ***

  Rebekah

  “Hi, Poppy, it’s me, Rebekah.” I held my grandfather’s aged hand in my own. His fingers seemed to have gotten longer with each pound he lost, making his hands look like skin stretched loosely over bone.

  Poppy’s eyes were closed as he napped. His even breathing was accompanied by a whistling in his nose.

  “I have some good news. I’m going to get married. Can you believe it?” I forced a laugh, but it came out strangled. “I know it’s something you always wanted, so you have to hang on a little longer, you hear me? I’m not going to walk down the aisle without you by my side. His name is Luke Masterson, and he’s a firefighter. I know you’ll love him.”

  Whether I loved him or not wasn’t important. The only thing that mattered was the man lying in the bed beside me.

  “So you have to start eating better, you hear? You have to be strong and fight.” My voice cracked, and I let the tears flow unchecked down my cheek. “Please fight, Poppy. I’m not ready to lose you.” I bowed my head, sandwiching his hand between my own.

  Moments later, a rustling of the covers brought my head up, and I caught Poppy’s eyes watching me. Eyes that once lit with mischief and shined with life now stared back at me dull and listless. His other hand came up and cupped my cheek. I leaned into his touch.

  “I love you, my Rebekah Anne.” His voice barely carried, but a soft smile crinkled his eyes before they drifted closed once again.


  13

  Rebekah

  THAT WEEK HAD been both the longest and shortest of my entire life. Luke had called on Monday to tell me the news. I still couldn’t believe his boss was actually letting him leave without the customary two weeks’ notice. My stomach twisted with the looming arrival of the man who would soon become my husband. There could be no second-guessing, no turning back. I just needed to keep Poppy in the forefront of my mind. Let his image be the reminder of why I was doing this in the first place.

  Thankfully, Luke’s call had come while I was driving home from Grandview. Seeing Poppy’s health decline tore me apart. Every time I left him, the sand in the hourglass of time siphoned to the bottom—I was running out of time.

  When Luke said he could be in Meadowlark in little over a week, I wanted to cry with relief. At least initially. My anticipation that Poppy’s wish was going to be fulfilled, that I wasn’t going to be too late to do this last thing for him, gave way to a gnawing anxiety that drove me to the pharmacy for some over-the-counter antacids.

  Too many thoughts plagued my mind. What if Poppy took a turn for the worse and Luke didn’t make it in time? What if Poppy saw right through the ruse? What if Luke came all the way to California, took one look at me, and hightailed it back to the Midwest? What if he married me like he said he would and then came to regret his decision later? Which, let’s face it, was very likely. What if I ended up falling in love with him and he didn’t love me in return? What if I lived my entire life and never got the chance to fall in love because I’d married a complete stranger? What if he turned out to be a criminal, a robber, or a psychopathic killer?

  The breath in my lungs reached up and wrapped its murderous fingers around my throat. Everything around me seemed to hyper-focus as my eyes widened in panic. The colors were more vibrant, the lines sharper. I couldn’t take it all in. My head spun. I reached out and grabbed the top plank of the arena. Squeezing my eyes shut, I blocked out my surroundings, focusing instead on drawing in even breaths. A paper bag would’ve been handy.

  My hands climbed down, plank after plank, until I was squatting, my head in between my knees. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

  Slowly the tightness in my chest loosened, and my head stopped pretending it was a toy top.

  No use getting yourself all worked up. Too many of those what ifs were out of my control anyway. And Lisa would have never approved someone who was a criminal, robber, or psychopathic murderer.

  God has a plan for your life, Rebekah. Get it together. A plan that includes good things like prosperity and hope.

  I had to believe that He was the one who planted the idea in my head in the first place. I considered again the story that had started this whole thing spiraling. It was comforting to know God had brought Isaac and Rebekah together. That the two strangers fell instantly in love when they met. If it happened once, it could happen again, right? Perhaps? Possibly? It was a fledgling hope, but I held on to it with a tenacious grip.

  One thing Luke and I had going for us that Isaac and Rebekah didn’t was the advantage of modern technology. Luke and I might have never met, but at least we’d had the opportunity to talk on the phone a few times. The conversations were always a little awkward, but it did allow me to get to know him somewhat. And every time we talked, it helped chip away at my fears. Although there was still that little annoying voice in the back corner of my mind. Didn’t friends and family of serial killers always say they would never have thought the person was capable of such a thing? I immediately tried to squash that voice.

  Luke had texted a picture of himself, and he didn’t look like a criminal. Granted, I couldn’t see much detail on the four-inch screen, but the man in the picture didn’t have any resemblance to Timothy McVey or Jack- the- Ripper.

  In fact, he looked rather nice. He wore a navy-blue T-shirt with a fire-station logo stamped over his heart. The muscles in his arms bulged against the restraint of the fabric, and I couldn’t help the little smile that turned up my lips, thinking of all the hay bales arms like that could help me lift. His stormy gray-blue eyes were only intensified by the contrasting frame of his short, cropped dark hair and five o’clock shadow along his chin and jawline. A dimple in the right cheek unsuccessfully played hide-and-seek with the man’s stubble.

  After one glance at the picture, I knew I didn’t have to worry about being attracted to the man who was going to be my husband. Any woman with a heartbeat and active brain waves would think he was good looking.

  I was a little nervous about what he would think of me though. Would he find me as attractive as I found him? Lisa told me she’d shown him a picture of me, and I racked my brain to think which one that could have been. Hopefully it was at least a little flattering, although it couldn’t have been too bad. After all, he agreed to marry me after he’d seen it and not before. That ruled out the photo from last year’s pie-eating contest when my face was covered in blueberry pie. Thank goodness. No one needed to see that picture.

  Luke told me to go ahead and make arrangements for the wedding, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it yet. I wasn’t going to back out of it. I couldn’t. I loved Poppy too much to disappoint him. But I still wanted to give Luke the chance to change his mind after he met me. I didn’t want to rope him into anything he didn’t want to do, and the added pressure of booked venues and wedding details seemed a little like coercion to me. Depending on Poppy’s health, a wedding at Grandview might become necessary, and that wouldn’t take much to set up.

  The words set up snapped me out of my musings, and I pushed off the rail of the arena. I’d always been susceptible to daydreaming, my mind going a thousand miles a minute. But I needed to get in gear and set up the arena for Faith’s riding lesson. Tucking a couple of ground poles under each arm, I dragged the long pieces of wood across the sandy ground and placed them parallel to each other, spacing them a few feet apart.

  Lady’s barking, combined with a horse-induced raucous in the back pasture, drew my attention.

  What was that all about?

  Leaving the poles where they lay, I dashed across the arena and ducked under the fence. I wasn’t sure what had caused the commotion, but it was better to check now than have an injured animal later.

  The new mare, Miracle, was back there with some of the other horses so she could get the most opportunities to graze. I’d chosen some of the calmer horses hoping they wouldn’t challenge her as a new member of the herd. If one of them decided to show her who was boss… I quickened my pace. The poor little thing had been through enough already.

  Raising a hand to shield the sun’s bright rays, I squinted at the field. My heart leapt to my throat when I recognized the glossy black coat, dished nose, and high, arched neck of a purebred Arabian.

  What was he doing there?

  I sprinted the remaining distance, hoping I wouldn’t be too late to avoid disaster.

  One of the mares grazing on the late summer grass was in heat. That wasn’t supposed to be a problem, because the only stallion on the ranch, Artemis, was safely in his stall in the barn. Except he wasn’t. He was standing right in front of me, nipping at the mare’s rump and about to get a hoof in the face in return.

  Huffing and puffing, I slid through the slits in the fence. If anything happened to Artemis, any little scratch marred his shiny black coat, I wouldn’t hear the end of it from Mr. Lockhart. Artemis was the only full-paying boarder I had, and even though his owner could be extremely tiresome, I needed the money.

  “Now, Artie,” I crooned to the lovesick four-legged beast as I approached. I didn’t want him to bolt once he knew my plans to separate him from his lady love. “How in the world did you get out here? C’mon boy. We need to get you back to the barn.”

  Artie didn’t put up much of a fuss as I snapped the lead rope on to his halter and led him away. He nickered as if his heart was breaking but faithfully plodded along by my side. Once he was safely returned to his stall, I checked him over to
make sure he hadn’t suffered any repercussions for his forward behavior toward the mare. I breathed a sigh of relief at the lack of evidence of his little escapade.

  Securing the latch on the stallion’s stall, I looked for clues. I had shut the door properly when I’d fed the horses that morning, so how did Artie get in with the other horses? It was a mystery. Artie wasn’t an escape artist. I definitely couldn’t see him jumping over the pasture fence to get in. As much as Mr. Lockhart thought Artie a king because of his bloodlines, he was a bit on the lazy side. Probably because of all the baby treatment he received from his owner.

  Glancing down at the watch on my wrist, I skedaddled back to the arena. It would have to remain a mystery for now because I didn’t have time to play detective. I had to finish setting up for Faith’s lesson. She was scheduled to arrive any minute.

  I rolled one of the large blue plastic barrels, which had been used in yesterday’s session with Jessica, across the arena. A second barrel and a few more ground poles crisscrossed on top made a small makeshift jump. I couldn’t wait to see Faith’s reaction when she saw it. She’d been begging me for something other than simple ground poles. The girl had worked hard, and she was ready for a new challenge

  When she first started taking lessons, it was because her mom had forced her. A year before she’d had her left leg amputated below the knee, and she’d become one very angry thirteen-year-old. Her mom had confided in me that I was her last hope.

  After her first lesson, I doubted I could do anything to help her. She wasn’t responding to me or the horse I’d paired her with. The next time she came out, I didn’t even bring out a horse for her. In fact, I was already in the arena riding. I had a couple jumps set up and a few barrels. Samson and I flew over the jumps and raced around the barrels and finished off with a few impressive dressage moves just to show off a bit.

  Then I rode Samson right in front of her and, without saying a word, slipped my feet out of the stirrups. I pulled the iron up and crossed them over the pommel, letting my legs dangle on the sides of my mount. I turned, and Samson and I went through the course again. When I came back around the second time, I’d asked Faith’s mom to let me have a minute alone with her daughter. I told Faith that I knew she was probably feeling sorry for herself, but that it was her and not the loss of her leg that was holding her back. I told her that if riding horses was something she wanted to do, then it didn’t matter if she had two legs, one leg, or no legs at all—I could teach her. She’d been riding with determination ever since.