Joy in His Heart (12 page)

He held on and she could feel him willing her to look into his eyes. She looked up and had to blink back tears. He cared. He really did. And that made the whole situation so much worse. She didn’t blame him anymore. He couldn’t help what he needed from a woman anymore than she could help not being able to be what he needed. They were who they were. And what they were.

Wrong for each other.

B
rian knew the second Joy realized how he’d come to feel about her, and not because her defiant expression changed. It didn’t. Her eyes lit with fire, she said, “Don’t, Brian. It’s no good and you know it.”

“I don’t know what I know—except that I need you to start trusting me again. Just try. And let me help you. I can’t stand seeing you struggling and in pain.”

“No.”

“Why not? I’m not going to make fun of you for needing help. I can’t go back and change what a rotten kid I was. That’s in the past. I can only promise not to do it again. Please. Let me help you.”

She bit her lip and nodded. So without another word, he took the crutch and slid to her side to brace her hip against his, taking the weight off her knee and ankle. Then after circling her waist with his arm, she nodded and he started them moving forward. The boys and Candy were a good way ahead, having continued trudging on without them.

Their little troop made slow but steady progress. And the rain just kept on coming down. The trail soon looked more like a murky stream and the footing got even worse. Candy quickly tired again so Brian hoisted her onto his other hip and carried her, too. His arms felt as if they were breaking by the time an early dusk fell thanks to the heavy storm clouds that hung somewhere overhead above the treetops. And if he felt that bad, he didn’t want to think how the others felt, Joy at his side or the boys carrying Dan.

At last they broke through the trees into a meadow that was bordered on two sides by forested land. Ahead, directly across the meadow, rose a foreboding, almost perpendicular wall of rock. To the right the land seemed to fall away. It was as if they’d arrived on a terrace in the sky.

A terrace Brian was very afraid went nowhere.

He’d thought this would be the level where they’d find the plane. They’d been headed for a hole in the canopy like this one, but mountain trails were deceptive and could wind you around a mountain as easily as take you straight upward.

Brian let go of Joy and handed her the crutch, trying to hide his worry as best he could. “Wait here,” he said putting Candy on the ground next to Joy. “I’ll be right back.”

He jogged across the meadow, his feet splashing in puddles created by the day’s torrential downpour, the pack on his back chafing his shoulders. As he drew closer to the end of the meadow, he slowed his pace and his heart sank. The land didn’t just fall away gently. It
fell off abruptly into a cliff as steep as the one that boarded the meadow. Brian looked over the edge. Though he couldn’t see anything because a thick, gray fog floated just below his feet, he knew it was a long way down.

The din of the heavy rainfall rose up in a nearly deafening echo from the deep crevasse before him. He backed away. Shaken. Dispirited. Unless the deer track continued somewhere through the forest off to the left of where he’d left Joy and the kids, he’d brought them all this way for nothing.

Had there been another way to the area where Joy had seen the plane going down? A way not accessible from where they were now?

With a heavy heart, Brian turned back the way he’d come, but his gaze fell on the towering cliff that rose above him. And then, as if it had been carved just for them, he saw a dark blotch in the cliff wall hiding behind a web of vines. Drawn to it, he hoped and prayed it was a cave. A sanctuary for the night.

He had to pull down the network of vines that guarded the five-foot-high entrance. Though the tendrils holding them to the rock gave way easily enough, the effort still pulled open the new skin growing over the blisters he’d gotten climbing the tree to rescue Joy days ago.

Once the entrance was clear, Brian carelessly wiped his hand on his wet slacks, leaving a trail of blood. He wondered absently what his colleagues would think of his triage technique if they could see him now. With a careless chuckle Brian unhooked the flashlight from his
pack, anxious to explore his find. He had to duck, hunching his shoulders as he moved forward at the mouth of the cave. After about six feet, the five-foot-high entrance opened up into a wide, deep cavern with about a twenty-to-thirty-foot ceiling. The deafening roar of the storm suddenly faded. Inside the haven, the raging storm felt like a distant memory.

Brian flicked his flashlight into every corner of the large room, relieved to find it was uninhabited by any winged or four-footed creatures. Although, someone had camped in there at one time leaving the remains of an old campfire and some leftover wood stacked against one of the walls. Which was fortunate since any wood they might have found that day would never burn. He took a deep experimental breath and found the air relatively fresh thanks to a slight draft that flowed through the cave. That meant a fire wouldn’t smoke up the cavern.

His next breath was a relieved sigh. The cave would be a sanctuary from the storm and it was certainly a gift from God. “Thank you, Lord, for delivering us,” he said, dropping his pack.

As quickly as possible, Brian started a fire to light the way through the entrance tunnel and into the cavern. The kids and Joy couldn’t get much wetter, after all, but the cave could warm up while he went to get them.

Minutes later Brian hurried back out into the storm to shepherd Joy and the kids to the welcome safety and comfort of the cave. The rain was so heavy when he emerged that at first he couldn’t see them across the
meadow. The wind had picked up and temperature was dropping rapidly, too. The rain felt like icy needles striking his face as he sprinted toward where he’d left them. Heart pounding, Brian dashed across the field only spotting them when he was yards away.

“There’s…a cave,” he called breathlessly, motioning them forward. He reached them and, after taking Adam’s pack, pointed the boys in the right direction, though he could no longer see their promised sanctuary through the downpour and swirling fog.

He’d just about reached Joy when lightning split the leaden sky, spearing toward the ground just beyond where the meadow abruptly fell off the end of the terrace. The ground shook as the bolt struck the bedrock of the cliff below the meadow. Its accompanying thunder rolled toward them with a deafening roar. Candy squealed in fear and ran toward him, practically leaping into his arms.

Brian cradled her head against his shoulder and smiled sadly at Joy as he stepped to her side. He wasn’t taking no for answer. She was dead on her feet and the sodden earth of the meadow would never support her crutch tip. She needed him.

“Where did you go?” she wanted to know, thankfully not arguing the point, but falling into their earlier rhythm next to him. “It looked like the rain had swallowed you up. You just disappeared halfway across the meadow.”

She sounded worried and it made him grin in spite of his exhaustion and discomfort. “I found a cave. I built a fire and we can warm up, dry off. In a few minutes we’ll all be high and dry and comfortable.”

“Aren’t there bears in caves?” she asked, missing a beat in her steady if uneven gate.

“And bats,” Candy added, helpfully.

“Bats?” Joy’s head snapped to stare up at him, rain lashing her face. She had to squint because of the heavy downpour but he could still read fear in her narrowed eyes.

“Don’t worry. We aren’t dispossessing any furry creatures from their home. I didn’t see evidence of any wildlife at all. We won’t be the first people to camp there, though. Someone else was through here and even left firewood. They seem to have stayed there without incident. The wood they left should see us through the night. No animal would likely come near with the smell of a fire. I promise, ladies.”

It wasn’t until they reached the mouth of the cave that Brian suspected how very afraid Joy was. She stopped dead in her tracks. He put Candy down and the child ran toward the campfire. “Take the ponchos off before you go near the fire,” he shouted, then turned to Joy.

“It’s okay. I checked it out. It’ll be fine.”

He’d felt her stiffen and her spine went rigid. “Of course it will.” She put her crutch under her arm and started forward alone.

Brian felt such despair at that moment that he was tempted to give up trying to find out whether the Lord had sent them there to find each other or get over each other. But as he’d come to believe, if all this was part of the Lord’s plan, he had to find the answers he was supposed to or risk misery for the rest of his life.

Using Dan’s litter as a screen, Brian set up a private
place for every one to take turns changing into the clothes they’d washed and dried while in the valley. Luckily Harry Merrick had packed not only an extra pair of jeans and a shirt, but a pair of sweats to sleep in according to the boys. He gave the sweats to Joy and changed into the other clothes the pastor had worn that first day.

With everyone warm and dry, they ate the already cooked fish they’d brought along and then settled in for the night. Brian took out the pastor’s guitar and played a few praise tunes he’d taught the kids. The hymns always seemed to settle them down at night, and one by one, exhausted from the difficult day, their sweet voices faded as they each relaxed into sleep.

He’d surreptitiously watched Joy since they’d arrived at the cave. While she did sing along, she’d hardly moved a muscle from the moment she’d settled on a sleeping bag next to the campfire. Now, he realized that waves of tension rolled off her. He walked over, crossed his ankles and sank down next to the fire, facing her.

“Want to talk about it?” he asked.

She looked up from the fire. “Talk about what?” she almost snapped.

He shrugged. “Whatever you want. How about that I missed you all these years?”

“Run out of puppies to kick?” she asked sardonically.

Please, Lord, give me the words You want me to say.
“Okay,” he said reasonably. “Maybe I deserved that. Let’s talk about it. You’ve told me I’m forgiven but it keeps coming up. The sad part is that I never knew why I teased you. Until you were fourteen I didn’t even
know the things I’d said hurt you. My mother pointed it out and, after sulking because she’d ruined my fun, I realized she might be right, so I quit doing it.”

“I’d always wondered why the insults stopped.”

“I really hadn’t realized it did more than make you mad. The odd thing is that until I saw the way Kevin treated Candy and the look in his eyes when she reacted, I never even knew why I’d done it all those years. Now I’m feeling ashamed all over again.”

“It was a long time ago,” she said, staring at the fire, then she angled her head to look at him. “But just out of curiosity, why did you?”

Brian reached over and set another log on the fire. “I fed my ego by making you feel less than you were.”

Now she stared openly, her disbelief plain to see even in the low light of the cave. “You? Brian, you’ve been brilliant your entire life. How could you need help with your ego? Especially from me. I was at best a B student.”

He winced but was determined to come clean. “My brilliance as you call it, set me apart. And it wasn’t that I felt inferior to you. No, I was a lot more cowardly than that. I was older so I felt superior already. You were an easy mark. It was simple to get a rise out of you. An easy victory, you see. You’d get upset and confirm my vast superiority.”

Joy frowned and stared into the flames. “Bri? Why bring this up now? I thought we’d forgiven each other a long time ago for all those stupid battles.”

“I know you said you had, but then we broke up and I think all the anger came back.”

She stared at him for a long moment then sighed. “Thus the kick-the-puppy statement a little bit ago. Okay. You’re sorry. I’m sorry. That’s the end of it.”

He took her hand and ran his thumb over the back. “I hope so because I really have missed being your friend. But I’ve hated being your enemy even more. And since realizing how much all those years probably formed who you are, and how much my lack of confidence in your abilities hurt you, I’ve been thinking that all the wild, daredevil chances you’ve taken might have been your way of proving yourself. If anything happens to you because of me, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Joy could feel her heart stutter. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t be his friend. Not with love for him just about choking her in an effort to reveal itself. But how could she say no and not give her feelings away? His touch was just too much on top of his honesty.

“I told you before I don’t have a death wish,” she said flippantly, taking her hand back. “And I don’t take as many chances as you think I do. I’m a good pilot and I know my limitations. But if it’ll make you feel better, we’ll be friends so you’ll know I’m not taking chances.” She’d just avoid him the way she’d done for most of the last twelve years. It was something she’d grown quite adept at.

“Then how about you start trusting me,” he said, pinning her with a shrewd look. “Tell me what’s wrong. What’s been wrong since before we bailed out? Why did I practically have to shove you into this cave?”

So he did know! She shrugged sheepishly. They hadn’t even gotten off the mountain before he’d seen the
truth. He wouldn’t have belittled her for her fear, but she had kept it from him and only now did she realized she'd done it to use as a buffer.

But this cave, with its dark walls and dank smells, must have dissolved all her stubborn intentions. This was just too much. She felt as if the walls were creeping ever closer out of the darkness just beyond the circle of light cast by the campfire. “I’m afraid,” she said, her shaking voice betraying the depth of her terror.

“Joy, its perfectly safe. This cavern has probably been here since Noah was sitting at his drawing board.”

She clenched her hands together and shook her head almost violently. “Don’t you see. I don’t
do
this. I fly
over
this. I rescue people
from
this. I drop smoke jumpers
into
this and fire retardant
on
this. I don’t sleep in it! Not in shelters or in caves. And I sure don’t get licked by baby bears or eat cute little bunnies for dinner.” Her voice broke and she swallowed hard. “I just want to go home!”

Brian nodded and scooted closer, then squeezed her good shoulder, clearly trying to comfort her. “I thought so. I’m sorry you didn’t feel you could trust me enough to confide in me because of the way I treated you when we were kids. I’m sorry you didn’t think you could count on my friendship.”