Take a Chance on Me(104)
“And Evergreen Resort?”
His mother stood in her bathrobe, her arms folded over her chest, her mouth a tight line.
His dad glanced at her, back to Darek. “We trust the Lord for His protection. I’ve heard you mention at least once that the best thing for Evergreen Resort would be to set a torch to the old cabins and rebuild.”
“I wasn’t serious, Dad.”
“We might not have a choice. But the truth is, we can’t hold on to something so hard that it destroys everything else we love. Like our town. We have to trust the Lord to save us, Son, even if it means that He has to burn away the old.”
Darek stepped away from the table. He was probably littering dirt along his mother’s wooden floor. He stared out at the lake, the dawn spreading across it like flames. “Okay. I’m going to head over to the pasture behind Gibs’s place, start cutting in a line.” He turned. “Casper, you get on the horn to Jed, tell him to send a crew down to the line. We’ll need to set a back burn as soon as I have the fire line built.”
He waited for some smart remark like “Roger that, Captain,” but Casper only nodded.
“Mom, you pack up and get out of here. I don’t know how fast this fire is coming, but you and Gracie and Amelia need to leave.”
“I’m not leaving without your father,” Ingrid said.
“Casper and I are going to wet down the house, Ingrid. And I don’t want you anywhere near danger.”
“Thank God Tiger isn’t here,” Ingrid said. She glanced at Darek. “I’m sorry, Son, but I’m just glad he’s safe.”
He hadn’t exactly seen it like that, but maybe right now he could be thankful his son, so prone to getting underfoot, lost, or hurt, was safely asleep at his grandmother’s house.
Small glimpses of grace, perhaps. But after that moment in the dirt, when the burn inside him had finally, truly died, Darek intended to hold on to glimpses of grace.
“I’m taking this walkie,” Darek said. “Keep me posted. Stay safe.”
He took off down the road, back to the dozer left by the fire road where the property line crossed the Gibson place. He’d take the dozer down the road, then cut in behind the Gibsons’ and start by laying a line across the pasture. Then he’d tackle the forest.
He could use some help. Like someone with a chain saw. Someone who knew how to work with him. Someone who had fire training.
Someone like Jensen.
He climbed aboard the dozer, fired it up.
He’d nearly killed his best friend that summer when Jensen abandoned Darek in Montana. Not abandoned, but . . . Yeah, abandoned. Just like Jensen had abandoned Darek when he moved to Minneapolis—even if he hadn’t had a choice.
Jensen had missed all those moments Darek shared with others. Like days upon days of backbreaking, honest work, hiking into the mountains to mop up a fire, watching it burn itself out, embers glowing in the darkness. He’d missed seeing the aurora borealis while sleeping under the stars in Washington State, swimming in a glacial lake in Montana.
Jensen’s friendship felt closer than his brothers’, and yet . . .
Yes, Darek missed him. Maybe if he hadn’t been so angry about Jensen leaving—so selfish—he wouldn’t have so easily wooed Felicity into his arms. Wouldn’t have taken silent pleasure in winning her heart away from Jensen.
He owed Jensen an apology. But they were so far beyond that now, he hadn’t a clue how to fix it.
Dawn turned the field to shadow and fire, and as he came into it, the smoke cleared long enough for him to see the low red ball on the horizon, spilling out to melt away the darkness.
He lowered the scoop and began to plow the earth, furrowing it down to bare soil.
Please, let this be enough to push back the fire.
The truth would set her free to love.
Ingrid’s words fueled Ivy as she stood on Nan’s doorstep, balancing two coffees, breathing out the last of her sanity.
Talk about a breach of ethics.
But Ivy had been up all night, pacing through her decision, and she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t try.
God’s not impartial. . . . God operates almost entirely on emotion—love.
It had taken her a trip down to the beach, where the waves combed the shore under the moonlight, to scroll through her life and discover that, yes, God might have shown up a little. Like rescuing her from her mother. And giving her a warm bed, even if not a family. Putting Daniel in her life to believe in her, and then . . . and then Darek. Tiger. Ingrid and the entire Christiansen family.
Maybe it was time to give Him a chance.
She’d let that truth sink into her heart, let herself believe.