Ten Plagues (42 page)

Keren’s arm, where the chisel had stabbed her, was healing.

The lieutenant had put her on sick leave, but she’d prevailed on him to let her do something, using the argument that she would go out of her ever-loving mind if she didn’t keep busy.

For now she was assigned to desk duty. She’d been forbidden from anything active until her doctor released her.

The long days and short nights caught up with her as she kept her bedside vigil.

“Keren?”

Keren’s eyes flickered open. Her vision was filled with Paul. She hadn’t seen him for days.

“How’s the arm?” His movements as gentle as his voice, he lowered himself into the chair beside Keren.

“Fine, if I’m careful.”

“Which you never are.” Paul sounded grumpy, but he didn’t have much room to talk. He’d stayed with her at the hospital until she’d been treated, then he’d vanished. It had been four days.

Keren straightened in her chair and ran a hand over her face in case she’d been drooling in her sleep. She couldn’t imagine what a mess her hair must be.

Which reminded her… “You put a tracking device in my hair tie?”

“Yeah.” He smirked, completely unrepentant.

“Why didn’t you just tell me it was there? Why the sneaking around?”

“You’re stubborn, and it was pretty obvious that Caldwell had decided to come for you and Rosita at some point. I gave Rosie the necklace and told her to keep it on at all times.”

“Why didn’t you do that for me?”

“I didn’t trust you. You’re kind of bent on taking care of yourself.”

“When did you put it on me?”

“That morning.” Paul rubbed both hands over his face. “I thought I had time. I knew you were at risk, but I was being a coward. I was hiding. I had the tracker, but I hadn’t even given it to you yet. I almost left it too late.”

“Just that morning?” Keren’s eyes narrowed. “When you kissed me? You kissed me as an excuse to get close enough to—”

“No, I didn’t kiss you for any other reason than because I wanted to. But I’d intended to get it to you somehow that day. I’d have just flat out told you if I couldn’t figure out a way to sneak it into your barrette. I had it made so it matched one of the pins that held the barrette in.”

“Why didn’t you have one on?”

“I did.”

She fell silent at that and stared and thought how much she’d missed his faith and support, and even his strange split personality.

“What?” he asked.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You smiled.”

“Oh, did I?” Keren said in a sleep-roughened voice. “I was just thinking of Pastor Jekyll and Detective Hyde.”

Paul furrowed his brow. “Who?”

“You. How are you doing with your split personality? Did you get yourself back? Did you ever figure out who ‘yourself’ is?”

Paul sprawled back in his chair. “It took some doing. I spent days in prayer, trying to rediscover the calm, unselfish Pastor P.”

“Any luck?” Keren knew she couldn’t be with the calm, unselfish Pastor P. Her life would destroy him. And she didn’t want to be with Paul the cop. He was a jerk.

Paul leaned forward to brace his forearms on his knees and turned his head sideways to look at her. “I never exactly found him. I don’t know for sure if I really wanted to.”

“Why not?” Keren crossed her arms and relaxed back into her chair with her legs stretched out in front of her.

Paul quit looking at her and stared at the floor between his splayed knees. “I refuse to believe that Pastor P wasn’t real. He was. I needed to serve with my whole heart for a while after I left the police force. But all this taught me there is strength in my anger. You remember when I came charging into that room with you and Caldwell?”

“Yes, my knight in shining armor, racing to my rescue.” Keren grinned.

Paul turned to look at her with a squinty-eyed glare. “Except Higgins got there first. Higgins saved you—what a grandstander.”

“I kind of like him. I mean, he did save my life.”

Paul shook his head. “I had your gun.”

“I noticed.”

“I picked it up in that room where you dropped it.”

“Excuse me,” Keren said with a stern frown. “It was knocked out of my hands. I would never
drop
my gun.”

Paul nodded and tried to look serious. “Of course you wouldn’t.”

“Don’t forget it,” she growled.

“I wanted to use it. I was frantic, furious, completely insane worrying about you.”

“Poor baby.”

“And on the way to rescue you, O’Shea gave me a little talking to about how terrific you were and how deeply you embraced your faith.”

“O’Shea said all that?” She thought of her taciturn partner.

“Well, yeah. He said it in about five words, with a lot of grunting, but I got the message.”

“That sounds like him,” Keren said fondly.

“Anyway he said enough. And I knew the truth of those words I’d said so many times, ‘To live is Christ and to die is gain.’ I gave you up to God. I quit worrying. We still drove at top speed, don’t get me wrong. But the point is, I still felt all the strength of my anger, but it wasn’t out of control. I need to respect it, even use it once in a while. I had finally healed enough that I could quit fearing that part of myself.”

“I’m glad.” Keren leaned forward until she rested her forearms on her knees in a replica of Paul’s pose. She turned her head to look at him. They were inches apart.

He erased those inches when he kissed her.

A very sweet minute later, Paul said, “You did lean close like that so I could kiss you, right?”

“Right,” Keren whispered.

“The thing is, I’m always going to run the Lighthouse. It’s a calling, and I can’t turn my back on it.”

Keren nodded. “And I’m always going to be a cop. It’s a calling,

and I can’t turn my back on it.”

“But I wouldn’t necessarily have to
live
above the shelter. There’s a really beautiful little Christian school about three miles from the mission. I’d like our kids to go there. And if we lived close to the school, that’d be more convenient.”

Keren’s smile widened until she laughed just a little. She never took her eyes off him. She was afraid if she blinked, her dreams might disappear.

He laughed back, just a little, and he kept his eyes on her, too.

“If that is a marriage proposal, it’s the worst one I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh yeah? Well, how many of them have you heard?”

She waited and watched and loved. “A couple. One was really romantic.”

“The guy who dumped you when he found out you had a spiritual gift he didn’t like?”

“Yeah.”

Paul arched one eyebrow. “A lot of good all his romance did you. You want poetry? Marry Robert Frost.”

“I don’t want him, I want you.”

Paul reached across the inches between them and clasped her hand in his. He looked at her until she felt like he had taken her inside of himself. He lifted her hand and kissed it. “I love you, Keren. I’ve been waiting until I got myself centered in my faith before I came to talk to you.”

“Your faith was never in danger, Paul.”

Paul gave a quick jerk of his head. “Absolutely not. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t get pretty mixed up for a while. Not about believing in Jesus. But about where I was meant to be, what I was being led to do with my life.” He bounced their hands gently between them. “What I was supposed to do with you.”

“Had trouble with me, did you?” she asked.

Paul shrugged and let go of her hand and reached into the pocket of the dark blue sweatpants he was wearing. He pulled a little velvet box out of his pocket. “Not so much trouble that I didn’t go out and get you this.”

He handed her the box and she glanced from the box to him and back to the box about five times before she regained control of her eyeballs. Then, she still wasn’t in control of them because they started leaking.

He brushed his thumb across her cheek and murmured, “I hope those are happy tears.”

“V–e–ry.” Her voice broke. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Very happy.”

“Will you marry me, Keren? I love you. I think you’re so wonderful. The perfect woman for me. But more than that, I think God had you in mind for me from the moment of our births. I feel like I’ve found the other half of myself. I can’t imagine my life without you.”

“That’s the most beautiful proposal I’ve ever heard.”

“Really?”

Keren nodded. “You’re really getting better at it.” She took a swipe at her tears. “We’ll probably fight. We have been almost from the moment we met.”

“What we were fighting was this.” Paul leaned over and kissed her again. A real kiss, the kind of kiss a Christian man shouldn’t give a Christian woman if he wasn’t planning to marry her.

Her arms went around his neck. He lifted her off her chair and settled her on his lap. He pulled away first, to give her a chance to open the velvet box.

She smiled and opened it.

“It’s not very big, Keren. I’m not a rich man and I never will be. But we’ll have enough. The Lord will provide.” He lifted the solitaire diamond out of its velvet bed. “And it’s offered with love.”

She extended her hand so he could slip it on.

He said, “Not yet. You haven’t said the words yet.”

Keren looked away from the beautiful ring and smiled at him. She said with a sassy arch of her eyebrows, “And exactly what words are those, Rev.?”

“How many times have I told you not to call me Rev.?”

“Try ‘I love you,’“ a groggy voice broke in.

Paul and Keren jerked their heads up and looked at the source of that advice. LaToya, her eyelids heavy, gave them a weak smile.

“LaToya.” Keren jumped off Paul’s lap, not all that sure how she’d gotten there.

Paul rounded the bed so they were on opposite sides of her.

LaToya said, “Don’t let me interrupt. I was enjoying being a Peeping Tom. Then you started getting sidetracked, and I thought you needed help.”

“You’re awake.” Paul reached for her hand. He held it gently. “We’ve been so worried about you.”

LaToya’s eyes fell shut. “You didn’t look all that worried to me.”

“Where’s the C
ALL
button? We need to get a doctor in here.” Paul looked along the side of the bed.

“I’ll go find someone.” Keren disappeared out of the room.

“She seems nice.” LaToya squeezed his hand.

“Yeah, and I was about to have her all sewn up, when you started talking.”

From behind him, Keren said, “Don’t give up. You can sew me up, yet.”

Paul turned just as two nurses came rushing into the room. He let himself be shoved out of the way.

“You’d better hand over the ring,” Keren said. “Before we forget what we were talking about.”

“We won’t forget.” Paul turned to her and pulled her into his arms. “I think I’m going to enjoy shutting that smart mouth.”

As his head dipped to kiss her, she gave him the words he’d been fishing for. “I love you, Paul. I want to marry you and send our children to that little Christian school. I want that ring.”

“It’s not big,” he warned.

“It’s a beautiful ring.” Keren poked him in the shoulder. “I don’t ever want to hear a word against it.”

“Yes ma’am,” Paul said.

“I want to spend my spare time helping at the mission.” She thought they might as well talk a few things through.

“I’d really appreciate that.”

“But the thing I really want is … you.”

Paul hesitated long enough to get the ring on her finger, then he kissed her.

Rosita chose that moment to appear for her daily visit. When she saw Paul and Keren in each other’s arms and LaToya awake, she looked like she didn’t know who to talk to first.

Keren stepped away from Paul.

“Don’t quit on my account,” Rosita said, with the first genuine smile Keren had seen on her face since she’d been kidnapped.

“Do you have any interest in a long engagement, Kerenhappuch?” Paul asked.

“Not on your life.” Keren shook her head. “I’d like my folks to come and I’d like my pastor to marry us.”

“How about this Saturday?”

“That’s four days!” Keren shouted.

Rosita said, “LaToya ‘n’ me wanna be bridesmaids.”

One of the nurses said, “You can get a blood test right down the hall.”

The other nurse said, “Kerenhappuch?”

Keren slugged Paul for that. He gently rubbed Keren’s sore arm as if worried that punching him might hurt her.

“When will Rosita get out?” Paul asked the nurse.

The nurse gave him a stern look, but a smile lurked behind her glaring eyes. “If she’s not out by Saturday, it wouldn’t be the first wedding we held at someone’s bedside.”

Paul looked at Keren. She said, “Oh why not? I guess I can be ready by Saturday. Can O’Shea come?”

Paul said, “I already asked him to be my best man.”

“You talked to O’Shea about this before you talked to me?” Keren snapped.

Paul kissed her quiet, and, when she had forgiven him—or maybe forgotten what was the problem—the two of them turned to smile at their friends.

Keren said as she looked at LaToya’s smiling face, “The plague has really finally ended.”

“Not the way we’d have hoped. It sounds like you led Francis as close to the Lord as anyone can,” Paul said with a solemn shake of his head.

“He had to make the last step himself.” Keren frowned. “And even now, even seeing what I saw, I can dance around in my head and hope God gave him one more last chance before his soul departed his body.”

Paul looked at Keren.

She read such love in his eyes that her heart pounded and her knees went weak and she had to hold on to him tight.

“ ‘It is not good for the man to be alone.’“ Paul planted a kiss on her temple, then her nose, then her lips. He quit just when it was getting good. “That has never been so true as it is for me right now.”

Keren smiled at the ancient words that were God’s blessing on the first marriage. The room and all its distractions melted away. “ ‘I will make a helper suitable for him,’“ she added with a sassy smile. “That’s me. I’ll help you, Rev.”

“I’m counting on it,” Paul said. “Let’s go call our parents. And we’re getting married whether they can come or not.”

“Getting us married’ll be the first thing I help you with.”