Trial by Fire (18 page)

W
hen Issie passed out cold at the bar, with her head down between her arms, Joe was surprised. “What she doin'?” he asked R.J. Albright. “She ain't never done this before, passed out cold right here at the bar.”

“Did she drink more than usual?”

“Maybe,” he said, “but Issie can hold her liquor,
sha.”

R.J., who spent as much time at Joe's Place as Issie did, got up and waddled around the bar, tapped Issie on the shoulder. “Issie, wake up. Come on, darlin', wake up.”

She didn't budge.

“So who I'm gon' call?” Joe asked.

R.J. shrugged. In a conspiratorial cop voice, he said, “Well, don't say I told you, but when she wrecked last night, she called Nick Foster.”

“The
preacher?”

“Yeah, and he come as fast as we did. Stayed with her the whole time.”

“Awright, I'll try Nick.” Joe picked up the phone and called information for the preacher's number. He got the number and it rang, then clicked as it forwarded the call.

He waited through eight rings before the old woman answered.
“Hola?”

He pressed a finger to one ear. “Who's this?”

“Aggie Gaston,” she said. “Who d'you want,
sha?”

“Aunt Aggie, ya got Nick Foster there?”

“Who's this?” she demanded.

“Joe, over to Joe's Place. He there, or ain't he? It's an emergency.”

“Yeah, he's here, awright. Just you wait.” He heard her put the phone down and shuffle off.

 

N
ick Foster was sound asleep when Aunt Aggie woke him up knocking on his door. He groped in the darkness and only found a lamp, then felt his way to the switch and turned it on. It was one
A.M.

He must have been in a dead sleep. His sleeplessness of the night before was catching up with him. “Yeah, Aunt Aggie,” he said, getting to the door. “What is it?”

“Phone for you,” the old woman said, clutching the collar of her robe to her throat. “Joe over to Joe's Place.”

Issie,
he thought. Something had happened. He hurried out and grabbed up the phone. “Hello?”

“Nick, it's Joe. I got Issie here passed out on my bar,
sha.
I need somebody to come get her.”

“Passed out?” Nick asked. “What do you mean, passed out?”

“I mean she's out cold.”

“Well, that doesn't sound like her,” Nick said. “Does it? Does she usually pass out like that? How much did she drink?”

“She been puttin' it away tonight too fast for me to keep up.”

Nick looked at Aunt Aggie and waved that everything was all right. The old woman padded back up the stairs. “Well, okay, I'll be right there,” he said.

He hung up and stood there for a moment trying to get his thoughts in order. He looked up and saw Aunt Aggie staring down at him over the banister. “Issie in trouble?” she asked.

He nodded. “Sounds like it. I have to go get her, but she'll be all right.”

As he got dressed, he wondered why Joe would have called him. How had he known that he was staying here with Issie? If he knew, Cruz might know too.

He drove as fast as he could drive without breaking the law, and was in the parking lot of Joe's Place just moments after the phone call had come. He felt ridiculous walking through the door of the notorious bar that his church had picketed when it had gotten its license years ago. He knew that every person in the room would feel either self-conscious or amused that the preacher was there. He didn't even want to look around and see how many of his church members were in here boozing it up.

Awkwardly, he stepped inside and saw Issie there with her head flat down on the counter. Dreading the confrontation, he limped over to her and touched her hair. “Issie, wake up. Come on, Issie.”

She didn't budge.

He shook her. “Has anybody tried to wake her up?” he asked Joe.

“R.J. tried,” Joe said. “She didn't want to come around.”

He pulled her hair back and felt her neck for a pulse. It was slow, but still beat against his fingertip.

He put her arm around his neck and tried to raise her up, but her legs were limp and her head hung heavily in front of her. He pulled Issie back from the bar and tried to lift her head. Her eyes half opened and she looked up at him, then tried to lay her head back down.

“Come on, Issie,” Nick whispered. “People are staring.”

He managed to get her to her feet and pulled her arm around his neck. Her legs didn't offer much support at all, but he managed to get her out to the car. He propped her up against the back door, then holding her there, fished in his pocket for his keys, unlocked the passenger door, and slid her in. She immediately wilted over onto his seat.

He lifted her shoulders up and got in. Her head fell against the door. He started the car.

“Issie, wake up,” he said. “Come on. Wake up. I'm taking you home.” But she was out cold.

He thought of bypassing Aunt Aggie's and taking her to her apartment, since he didn't want to start any gossip when the old woman saw her condition. But then he realized she wouldn't be safe there, and he couldn't stay there all night watching her. Deciding Aunt Aggie's was his best hope, he drove back to the old house.

When he got to Aunt Aggie's garage, he tried to rouse Issie again. When his efforts failed, he carried her up the steps. What had gotten into her?

He'd heard a lot of things about Issie, things about her promiscuity, things about her binge drinking, things about her reckless behavior, but he had never heard of her passing out in public before.

He got her to the front door and pulled her inside, flipped on the light and looked around, praying Aunt Aggie was sleeping soundly and wouldn't come down to check on Issie. He lifted her in his arms and carried her up the stairs to her bedroom and laid her on the bed. She curled up in a fetal position.

Worried, he bent down beside the bed and put his face close to hers. “Issie, can you hear me?” She didn't stir. “Issie, wake up.”

She wasn't responding, so he took her pulse again, found that it was slow, weak. He went to the easy chair in the corner of the room and sat down, trying to think clearly. Should he take her to the hospital to get her checked, just in case?

After a few moments, he got up and went to the bed again. She had balled even tighter, and he realized she was cold. He looked in the closet and found a handmade quilt, then covered her with it.

What now? Should he go back down to the guest room, far away from where Issie slept, and trust that she would wake up in the morning with a horrible headache and little memory of what had happened tonight?

The thought of leaving her here like this seemed unacceptable to him, so he decided to lean back in the chair and try to relax. Maybe she would stir soon.

As he sat alone in the room, he looked around at the meager belongings she had brought here with her. Just some clothes, a bag of makeup, a toothbrush. Nothing that revealed anything about her.

That seemed to be the story of Issie's life. Nothing personal. That string of one-night stands she'd been known to have was nothing personal. Her nightly visits to Joe's Place were nothing personal. Even the passion she showed in her job was nothing personal. And the flirtations she showed him on rare occasions…Again, nothing personal.

He couldn't explain it, didn't know why it happened, but suddenly his heart ached for her, and he wanted very much for her to know something personal, something that could change her life, fill it up, give it purpose.

He decided to pray for her instead of sleeping or fleeing. One hour passed, then two as he laid this whole confusing mess on the altar of God.

Suddenly, she sat up and bolted off the bed, staggering toward the bathroom.

“Issie?” She disappeared, leaving the bathroom door open behind her. He stood there and waited, wondering if he would be needed…

Then he heard her retching into the toilet.

He went to the door, not knowing whether to offer her help or stand back and let her have this time alone.

“Issie, it's me. Are you all right?”

“Come in,” she said weakly.

He looked behind the door and saw her sitting in the corner on the floor next to the toilet, her knees drawn up to her chest. Her face looked ashen, and dark circles underscored her eyes.

“I don't feel so good,” she said.

He eased down the wall—careful not to hurt his legs—until he was on the floor across from her in the tiny bathroom.

“Joe called me,” he said. “Do you remember my coming to get you?”

She shook her head, then winced as if the movement caused her great pain. “I'm so embarrassed,” she whispered.

“Don't be. It's just me.”

“Jus' you?” she slurred. “Jus' the preacher.” She shook her head and slid her fingers up through the roots of her hair as if clutching her head together. “Head feels like it's gonna explode.”

“I could get you some Tylenol.”

“No, I'll jus' throw up again.”

“That might be a good thing,” he said. “You probably need to get it out of your system.”

“No,” she said, reaching out for him. “Help me up.”

He reached for her hands. She was shaking as she took his. He tried to pull her to her feet, but her legs were too weak. Then she got that sick look on her face and dropped back to her knees. In seconds she was heaving over the toilet again.

He backed out of the room, trying to give her some privacy as she retched. He hadn't bargained for this. This was too intimate for him, something he hadn't expected. What would people say if they knew he was in the bathroom off of a bedroom in the middle of the night watching Issie heave into a toilet?

Then he chided himself for putting the approval of men before Issie. It made little difference what people thought. His church was burned to the ground. Soon they would have his resignation and his congregation would be scattered and it wouldn't matter what people thought of him anymore. It was what God thought that mattered, and God had put him here with this woman for some reason he couldn't fathom, and he had drawn him into this bathroom where she was sick. How could he walk away without helping her?

He had to stay, if for no other reason than to let her know she wasn't alone. It seemed critically important that he get that message through to her.

When she finished throwing up, he stroked her hair again. “Issie, do you want to go back to the bed?”

She nodded, and he helped her up. When she almost fell again, he steadied her and walked her into the bedroom. He helped her onto the bed, covered her with the quilt, then backed away.

“You gonna be okay?” he asked.

She didn't say a word, just closed her eyes as if she was sleeping again.

He tried to kneel beside the bed, but the pain in his shins stopped him. Instead, he bent down and touched her face with the back of his fingers. “I'm going downstairs,” he said. “But you call if you need me. I'll be right here, okay?”

She nodded but didn't speak. Slowly, he left the room, but left her door open so he could hear her.

W
ord about Issie's condition at Joe's Place spread like pollen, coating the conversations of everyone in Newpointe by noon the next day. And even greater news was the fact that Nick Foster had been the one who'd come to get her.

Issie had been the subject of gossip before and tried to ignore it the best she could. But as always, it did bother her. She hated herself for making such a spectacle of herself, and wondered what had made her do such a stupid thing. The fact that Cruz hadn't come along when she was vulnerable was sheer luck, she told herself. If she kept it up, she wouldn't be able to get Aunt Aggie or Nick to help her anymore.

Jake still hadn't been found, and Cruz and his buddies were still at large. Despite her hangover, she couldn't stay at home, not with somebody out to kill her and nothing to do about it. She might as well be working. Her seven-to-three shift came too early to endure with a hangover, but she managed to function. Steve was bad about swapping shifts to accommodate his softball games, his hunting, and his fishing. Some days he wanted to work late, others he wanted to work early. Issie tried to keep her schedule matched with his, because they were so used to working together.

Fortunately, today was a slow day. Forced to sit in their rescue unit at the Walmart parking lot—a central location in town from which they could reach most locations quickly—she and Steve usually passed the time listening to music and making up stories about the people walking by.

But today, Steve was more interested in Issie's story of the night before. “So what are you trying to do?” he asked. “Ruin the preacher?”

She shot him a look. “What do you mean?”

“I mean everybody in town knows that he practically spent the night with you last night.”

“He did not spend the night with me,” she said. “We were both guests in Aunt Aggie's home, on separate floors, for Pete's sake.”

“And you just happened to be drunk, and you want me to think that you didn't throw yourself at him?”

“Throw myself?” She wanted to get out of the rescue unit and hitchhike home, but she knew she had to stay. “I can't believe you said that.”

He leaned his head back on his seat and stared out the windshield. “Issie, I know you love living dangerously, but stay away from the preacher. A lot of people value him in this town. The last thing those people need after losing their church is to lose their preacher too. Or even their respect for him.”

“They're not going to lose respect for their preacher,” she said. “He's a nice guy. He was helping me.”

“Find somebody else to help you, Issie.”

Issie fought the anger boiling inside her. “You know, you really ought to mind your own business,” she said. “This has nothing to do with you. It's not even your church. He's not your preacher so you don't have to defend his honor.”

“All I'm saying is that I know how you work. Nick Foster is not who you need to be chasing.”

“What makes you think I'm chasing him?” she asked.

“The rumor is that he's the one they called to come get you last night.”

“Well, I didn't have anything to do with that decision.”

“There's also a rumor says you called him yourself when you got shot at and had that wreck.”

That was true and she couldn't deny it. “I felt like I might be dead by the time the night was over. You'd call a preacher too.”

“I just hope you don't have anything up your sleeve. Remember Mark Branning?”

“Nobody's ever going to let me forget that! I don't have anything up my sleeve, Steve! Who did you want me to call? You? You were probably at home watching the
Brady Bunch
with your cute little wife and your darling little children. You probably would have checked the caller ID and seen that it was me and decided not to answer.”

“I wouldn't do that,” Steve said.

“Of course you would,” she said. “Every time I've ever called you at home I've gotten the machine.”

“I'm a busy guy.”

“I called someone that I thought would be home and I thought would respond. And I was right. He did help me. He stayed with me the whole time and solved the problem of where I was going to stay. What's wrong with that?”

“What's wrong with it is that Nick Foster has enough problems without you in his life right now.”

His scathing indictment crushed her. She tried not to cry. “So what am I, a piranha?” she asked.

“No offense,” he said, “but a lot of people do think of you that way.”

“Oh, give me a break,” she said. “I thought you were my friend.”

He stared at her, silence passing between them, then finally he said, “I am your friend, Issie. That's why I'm giving you good advice. I hope you'll take it.”

“I don't need your advice about Nick.”

A call came through on the radio, and they both came to attention. There was a wreck on Jacquard Boulevard and someone was claiming whiplash.

Steve started the unit and radioed that they were on their way. There wasn't more time to talk, and Issie decided to push her anger to the back of her mind. She didn't have a defense after all, and she knew that Steve was probably right.

Besides, there was nothing like working an accident to get her mind off of her own problems.

When they got to the scene of the accident, Issie was surprised to see Nick there. She hadn't expected to see him there with those bandages still on his legs. But there he was, dressed in complete uniform, helping Mark, Dan, and George assess the damage to the car.

The passengers were all standing on the sidewalk, and it was clear from her first glance that no one was injured. Still, she got out of the unit with Steve, found the woman who claimed her neck was sore, and began to evaluate her symptoms.

When she'd gotten the neck brace on her, she looked up and saw Nick watching her. She hadn't seen him this morning. He'd been gone when she'd gotten up, and now she had trouble looking him in the eye.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

She shrugged and stood up. “Oh, a little mortified. And my head feels like it's been run over fourteen times.” She looked up at him, trying to change the subject. “What about you? I didn't think you'd get a medical release until your lungs and burns healed.”

“I'm just on office duty,” he said. “I came on the call in the capacity of chaplain. There are some things I can still do.”

“Well, you be careful,” she said.

“I will. But what about you? You're not planning a trip to Joe's Place tonight, are you?”

She blinked back the mist in her eyes and looked into the wind. “Nick, I don't even know what to say. I'm so sorry. And no, I'm not going back tonight. I'm ashamed to show my face.”

He just stared down at her as if processing that thought, and she wondered what he was thinking. Dan called from the fire truck a few yards down the road, and Nick waved.

“Well, guess I'll see you a little later. You take care, okay?” He dipped his face to her ear, and whispered, “And next time call me
before
you get into trouble.”

She looked up at him, and their eyes met and held for a moment, a moment that was full of unspoken words. Issie wondered if his thoughts were anything like hers. She was getting too attached to him, and that was dangerous. As Steve had said, the last thing Nick Foster needed in his life was Issie Mattreaux. Maybe she needed to do what he said and back off. Maybe the greatest act of gratitude she could offer him was to cut all ties with him before her heart was any more entangled.

Then she told herself that she was kidding herself if she thought Nick had given her a second thought. She wasn't his type, and she never would be. Nick was one of those rare white knights, but white knights never went for damsels like her.

 

A
s the firefighters drove back to the fire station, Mark, Dan, and George were quiet. Nick knew what they were thinking, but he didn't want to give them the chance to voice it.

Finally, as they pulled into the truck bay at midtown station, Dan looked back over his shoulder. “You're playing with fire, Nick.”

Nick had seen it coming, so he didn't flinch. “Dan, there's nothing going on.”

“I
saw
something going on,” Mark said. “I saw the way she looked at you. Don't underestimate her power, Nick. She's trapped me with it before.”

“Oh, man!” Nick said. “You trapped
yourself
. You got wrapped up in lust and started going to the bar with her and the next thing you knew, your marriage was on the rocks.”

Mark looked at him as if he couldn't believe he had said those words. Nick had never been that bold with him. There had been many conversations between them about lust and temptation, but Nick had never looked Mark in the eye and told him he had been to blame.

Instantly, Nick regretted it. “I'm sorry, Mark. Look, I know you never had an affair with her. I know you rectified things before they got out of hand. But I'm just telling you that it's not all her fault. She's been a victim some too.”

“I thought you didn't believe in victimhood,” Dan said. “If I recall, you've said that people make victimhood an excuse for sin.”

“I don't believe in overlooking sin so that we can justify anything we ever choose to do,” Nick said. “But I've prayed a lot about her. I've wanted to reach her. I've never been able to. And lately she's been through a lot. For some reason, I'm the one that keeps getting called to help her. Now, you tell me. As a preacher, as a Christian, as a human being, what would you do if someone called you and told you they were in trouble?”

“If it was Issie Mattreaux,” Dan said, “I think I'd pass.”

“Well, I can't pass,” Nick said. “I've thought about what people would say and what they would think. And then I've realized that I have to care more about her soul than my reputation. And if people want to think the worst about me, then they might as well go ahead. It's not like I have a lot to lose.”

“Of course you have a lot to lose,” Dan said. “You're still our preacher. We didn't fire you.”

“No, but someone fired the church,” he said. “It's not there anymore, guys. Wake up.”

“There's still a church,” Mark said. “There are still people who want to worship. They want you to lead them in that. You're our shepherd, Nick. Don't let her lead you off in another direction. You aren't immune just because you're a man of God.”

Nick didn't say anything. He just got out of the truck and slammed the door as he went into the station.