The Last Bridge Home

“You sent her away,” she said, blue eyes sad and dismayed.

“What else could I do? I’m not their father. I don’t even know her.”

“But now that she’s gone, you’re having second thoughts.”

“Yes, of course I am!” What kind of man would he be if he didn’t? He dragged both hands down his face and blew from his lips like a horse. “She’s dying, Jilly. I feel like a piece of scum for refusing her anything. At the same time, I’m not the person for the job. I can’t be a father to three strange, grieving, needy children. I don’t want to be. I can’t be. The whole idea is nuts.” He was starting to get hysterical. Zak Cool, the pitcher with ice water in his veins and fire in his left arm, was teetering on the edge.

Jilly pushed Satchmo off her lap. “Go lay down.”

“I wish I could,” Zak said and when Jilly rolled blue eyes at him, he grinned a little at his joke. “Dogs are lucky. When something upsets them, they can go to sleep and forget about it.”

Jilly wasn’t amused. If anything, she’d gone even paler. A tiny, worried pulse beat in the hollow of her throat. “You’re not a dog. You can’t go to sleep and forget about it. So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I gave her some money. She was broke, exhausted, sick.” He scrubbed his face with both hands, not that it did a bit of good. “Man, I’m a jerk.”

Jilly pushed at Satchmo who tried to regain her lap. “Was she going back to her home?”

He hadn’t asked. He’d been so busy getting her out of his house, his driveway, his life that he hadn’t asked what she would do or where she would go. “She looked tired. I suggested she go to a motel.”

“Kitty’s place?”

“Yeah.” He’d soothed himself with the thought that Kitty Carter ran a clean, safe, reasonably priced motel. “Maybe I should call Kitty and ask her to keep an eye on them.”

“I don’t know, Zak. This doesn’t seem right to me.”

“Nothing is right today. I want a replay.”

“I’m sure Crystal does, too.”

“Thanks for kicking me in the teeth,” he said wryly. “I deserved that.”

“Maybe you should go over there and bring them back here.”

“Here? To my place? Are you nuts?”

“Regardless of the particulars, regardless of when or why you married her, she’s legally still your wife.”

“What if she’s lying?” he asked, desperate to be free of this problem.

“Wouldn’t that be easy to check?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe she’s only saying this because she remembers me as a soft touch.”

“Zak,” Jilly admonished softly.

“I don’t want to be married, Jilly. Not to anyone, but certainly not to a woman I don’t remember very well who is dying of cancer and wants to give me three kids.” He could hear how shallow and selfish he sounded, but this was his life she was talking about!

“That’s exactly the point. Crystal is dying. She needs you right now. Don’t you think it’s terribly, pathetically sad that she has no one else in the world to turn to but a man she’s not seen since college?”

Put that way, Crystal’s plight looked even worse than it was. And it was bad. “I told her I’d help her. In some way. We can ask at church. Maybe someone will take her in. Maybe someone will want the kids. Or I can hire a nurse to stay with her.”

Jilly put a hand on his arm. “I don’t know, Zak. Something about that seems wrong to me.”

“I can’t move her in here. I don’t even know her. I have a life, too. What are people going to think if I move a strange woman into my house?”

“What about the kids? Where do they go? What happens to them? They can’t care for a dying mother.”

He closed his eyes, blew out another breath. “There’s the kicker. They have no one to turn to and no place to go.”

Jilly bit her bottom lip and he could see the wheels turning inside her head. “Look, all of this has happened too fast. You’re reeling from shock. Maybe you need some time to think it over.”

“I don’t think Crystal has the luxury of time.”

“Oh, Zak.” She swallowed, pretty face tragic. Jilly was a woman with a heart as big and warm as the sun. She took in all kinds of strays and rejected animals, nursed them to health and found them homes when she could. But three children weren’t puppies she could fatten up and farm out. “She’s in a desperate situation.”

So was he. “I know.”

“Can you live with yourself if you don’t do something?”

He wished the answer was different but admitted, “I don’t know. Probably not. God help me.” And he meant that voiced prayer with every cell in his weak brain.

“She’s dying, Zak. She must be scared. For herself. For her kids.” She squeezed the back of his hand. “I can’t imagine how terrible her life must be right now.”

“You’re killing me.”

“I’m trying to put myself in her position. What would I do? What would I need? How hard would it be to ask a near stranger for charity? You can’t turn your back. Even if the marriage is on paper only, the two of you are connected. You made a vow to her, even if it was ten years ago. You have an obligation, under God and the law.”

Jilly was his best friend. She wouldn’t steer him wrong. She wanted the best for him and she wasn’t any happier about this than he was, but her head was clearer. His was as tangled as spaghetti. As a Christian, he wanted to do what was right. As a single man, he wanted to jump in his Titan 4x4 and hit the road.

“I can’t take on three kids. I won’t.”

“It’s a huge decision.”

“Exactly. Those kids need a family. They need someone who wants them and can give them the attention kids deserve. That is not me.”

Jilly patted his shoulder. “You’re a good guy.”

“No, I’m not. I’m struggling.”

“You’ll do the right thing.”

He turned his head to look at her. “Why weren’t you around ten years ago to say that?”

She smiled a funny smile. “I wish I had been.”

Zak figured he should do some serious knee time, but God hadn’t gotten him into this mess in the first place. If he’d been living right back in college, he might have been smarter. Or not. The fact remained, he hadn’t been.

“A motel room is no place for a sick woman and a pack of rug rats,” he conceded.

“She can’t stay there indefinitely, and if she has nowhere to go… You need to find out, Zak. Does she have anywhere else to go?”

“I’ll talk to her again.”

“And then what?”

He sighed, weary and confused, a load of responsibility bearing down with colossal weight. “I don’t know.”

As a Christian, his conscience said he had to help Crystal, even though their relationship ended years ago. If helping meant bringing her into his home where she could be at peace for her remaining days, maybe he could do that. But the arrangement was temporary. Only temporary.

Maybe, just maybe, a miracle would happen and a family would be found for three orphaned children.

Because he couldn’t keep those kids. No matter what.

Chapter Four

Even though Zak spotted Crystal’s battered car parked near one of the tidy, flower-rimmed motel units, he stopped at the office first. Call it stalling, call it cowardice, but he wasn’t ready to talk to Crystal again. His head was still as muddy as the Redemption River on a rainy day.

The little bell tinkled above the door as he stepped into the cool, rose-scented office, nerves jittery. The blond proprietress, Kitty Wainright Carter, came around a souvenir display counter with a cheerful smile.

Zak spoke first. “You’ve changed things in here.”

The office had once been a memorial to her late war-hero husband. Now, the depressing military shrine had been replaced with whimsical souvenirs of the Oklahoma Land Run and the Old West.

“What do you think?”

“Looks good.” A small beagle-type dog came from behind the case to greet him. Zak bent down and scratched the floppy ears. “Hi, Milo.”

“Redecorating is fun,” Kitty said, “though I’m not doing much of it anymore. Harvey and Faye run the desk for me now full-time. I only came in today to put up the schedule and check on things.”

“I heard you were going to sell out.”

“We are at some point, but so far, no takers.” She widened her eyes and laughed. For a small woman, she had a big laugh. “Imagine that. No one wants to buy a tiny old motel in a small town.”

“They don’t know what they’re missing.” He tapped a cowboy bobble head wielding a lasso and watched it flop around. “So how are you feeling?”

Yes, he was doing some serious stalling. Idle conversation with a woman he saw every week at church was easier than offering his home to a dying stranger.

So was jumping off a cliff.

Kitty blushed a pretty pink and patted her barely pregnant belly. “Wonderful.”

“How’s Jace holding up?” Jace Carter, the local builder she’d married last summer, doted on his wife. Even though Zak didn’t get the whole daddy attraction, he recognized Jace as a man who would embrace fatherhood with fear, trepidation and pleasure.

Kitty laughed. “Not nearly as well as I am. He makes at least one trial run to the hospital every day. Yesterday, he had the time down to seven minutes flat.” She laughed again. “And I’m only four months along!”

Zak smiled. Jace Carter was quiet and deep, a decent guy who’d loved his wife for years before she knew it. “You’ll be great parents.”

“I hope so. We’re ready. Scared but ready.”

He understood the scared part. The ready, not so much. He was an emergency responder, trained to handle stress and to plunge into life-and-death situations. As a pitcher, he could face the toughest batter in the state with bases loaded and nobody out, and blow past him with a curve ball. In the case of Crystal, he was out of his league.

Man up, Ashford.

He shifted, stared at something in the display case called tornado in a can and said, “A woman and three kids checked in today.”

Now, that was a tornado he wished he could keep in a can.

Kitty nodded. “I noticed her last name was the same as yours. Is she a relative?”

Heat rushed up his back. Crystal had used his name? Right here in the town where he lived and worked and was well respected? Oh, man, what was he going to do if she let the cat out of the bag? He didn’t want his friends and neighbors knowing about the dumbest thing he’d ever done.

“Sort of. I saw her car in front of one of the units.”

“Unit four. Are you going over there?”

Only if I have to. “Yes. Thanks, Kitty.” He pointed at her belly. “Take care.”

She laughed her jolly laugh as he exited the building and headed down the path toward Unit Four. The warm afternoon air had suddenly become oppressive and heavy, choking off his oxygen. The overly sweet scent of Kitty’s red, white and blue flowers turned his stomach. A black gnat buzzed his nostrils. He swung and missed.

Palms sweaty, he lifted his fist and knocked. From behind the shiny gold number four came the sound of television cartoons.

“Mama, someone’s knocking.” The raised voice was Brandon’s.

Zak didn’t hear Crystal’s reply but the door opened. Brandon’s narrow face peered up at him, serious as a car wreck. The boy swiveled his head toward the inside of the darkened room and said. “He’s here, Mama.”

A mumble came from Crystal before Brandon opened the door wider and said, “Come in.”

Zak controlled the urge to flee. He wasn’t a coward, never had been and he wouldn’t start now. He stepped over the threshold and into a small room lit only by the television set. Brandon joined the other two children at the foot of one bed, eyes glued to SpongeBob. Crystal lay on the other, a washcloth draped across her forehead.

The sight made him uncomfortable. He didn’t belong in a strange woman’s motel room in any capacity other than professional.

Crystal reached for the washcloth, letting it fall to the pillow, and struggled up to one elbow. “Sorry. I’m too tired.”

“I can come back another time.”

“No.” She tried a wan wave of her free hand. “Too tired to get up.”

Oh. Pulling his paramedic cloak around him, Zak crossed the short distance to the bedside. “Can I get you anything?”

Her hollow eyes accused. “You know the answer to that.”

Zak licked his lips, gone as dry as chalk dust. “That’s why I’m here.”

She brightened just a bit. “My kids?”

“I can’t do that, Crystal, but I can offer you a place to stay while other arrangements are made. I’ll help you with those, too. We’ll figure out something.”

She sighed, eyelids falling shut. Her bird chest rose and fell in a shallow breathing pattern. She was quiet for a while and he wondered if she’d fallen asleep.

Feeling awkward and anxious, pulse drumming in his brain and his inner watchman shouting alarm, Zak glanced at the three children. Engrossed in a fantasy world of television, they seemed oblivious to the fact that their futures hung in the balance. Ignorance was bliss. But he wasn’t ignorant.

Finally, Crystal spoke in a weak and whispery voice. “I don’t know what else to do.”

Grimly, he admitted, “I don’t, either.”

Zak’s wife moved in the next day. Jilly knew this because she’d arrived home from church to find Crystal’s car in Zak’s driveway and three unsupervised kids playing “kick the can” in the middle of the street.

“Would you look at that? Good lands, Jilly, those kids are going to get killed.” Jilly’s mother motioned toward the curb. “Pull over. I’m going to give them a talking to.”

“Don’t get your blood pressure up, Mom. I’ll take care of it.”

“Who are they and what are they doing at Zak’s house? Did he say anything about that woman? Who is she? I hope you haven’t fooled around and missed your chance with that cute fireman.”

Jilly swallowed back a frustrated reply.

“Mom, this is Zak’s business, not mine.” She pulled into the driveway, hoping Mom would hurry inside to start Sunday dinner. She hadn’t quite decided how to break the news of Zak’s marital status.

Mom jerked the straps of her straw bag higher on her arm. “His business will be scraping a child off the pavement if someone doesn’t get them out of the street.”

“I’ll do it.” Before her mother could say anything more, Jilly popped her seat belt and hopped out of the car. Traffic in the residential area was light, but Mom had a valid point.

Jilly’s heeled sandals poked holes in the damp grass and slowed her progress as she headed down the incline toward the street.

“Tell Zak I’m frying chicken,” her mother called. “He’s welcome to come over.”

Jilly waved a hand. Mom was still trying to reel Zak in with food, but at the moment, her next-door neighbor was in over his head. Impromptu invitations between his house and hers were likely a thing of the past.

The notion settled in her stomach, heavy and dismaying. Zak was married. She’d struggled to sleep last night, had finally gotten up to read her Bible and pray. Considering her prayers were selfish pleas for God to erase the problem, she’d felt worse instead of better.

“Hi, kids,” she said as she stepped onto the paved street.

Brandon, the older boy, gave a soup can one more kick before looking at her. The younger boy ignored her to chase the bouncing, rattling can. The little girl—Bella, wasn’t it?—had plopped down in the middle of the street to play with rocks. Her face was dirty and if her hair had been brushed this morning, Jilly couldn’t tell.

Over the clatter of can against concrete, she asked, “Why don’t you play in the backyard?”

Brandon shrugged. “This is better.”

She tried a different approach. “Does your mother know you’re out here?”

Brandon’s face was a mix of disdain and annoyance. “She don’t care. She’s too busy dying.”

Said with such nonchalance, the phrase was obscene. “She does care, Brandon. She’s just too sick right now.”

His face tightened. “She has cancer.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” She wanted to put a hand on the boy’s thin shoulder but refrained. He didn’t seem the snuggly type.

Jake sailed the bent can toward his brother. Jilly stepped in the path to intercept.

“Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” She scooped up the can and the little girl. This kid business was harder than she’d imagined, but she knew a thing or two about hurt things. For certain, these kids were hurting. “Come on, let’s go inside for a minute.”

Brandon shrugged. “Bella’s wet anyway.”

Jilly had already figured that one out. The evidence sank warm and wet against the side of the peach floral dress she’d bought for Easter. “How old is she?”

“I tree.” Bella shoved three short fingers into Jilly’s face.

Wasn’t three old enough to be out of diapers? She’d have to ask her mom or sister. With two kids, Amber would be up to the minute on toddler parenting.

She gently pushed Bella’s fingers out of her face and led the way to Zak’s front door. Brandon and Jake went right in. Jilly knocked anyway.

A harried-looking Zak appeared. He pushed the door open. “Hey.”

“The troops were on the loose,” she said. “In the street. Mom’s having apoplexy.”

“Sorry. They’re like ants, always moving.”

Jilly put Bella down. “She’s wet.”

He rolled his eyes. “Not in my job description.”

“If you’ll show me where her diapers are, I’ll do it.”

“Could you?” His relief was evident.

“It’s not rocket science, Zak. A diaper’s a piece of plastic with sticky tabs. All you have to do is make sure you get the legs tight enough.” She made a face. “I learned that the hard way with Amber’s boys.”

A noise erupted in the kitchen. Zak whirled like a cornered tiger. With Jilly following, he loped into the kitchen.

“Put those down,” Zak demanded.

Jake howled like a wolf while he and Brandon wrestled over Zak’s Chips Ahoy! They paid no attention to the two adults in the room.

The yowling escalated.

Zak collared them both, one in each strong hand. The arm muscles he’d developed for baseball easily overcame the small boys. “Cut it out, you two. Your mother is asleep.”

Brandon dropped the bag. Zak dropped the boys in favor of the cookies. “If you’re hungry say so, but don’t fight. Just tell me.”

Both boys looked stricken. The youngest popped a thumb into his mouth.

“Looks like you’ve got your hands full.” Jilly looked around the messy kitchen. Zak was a neat freak, compliments of his firefighter job. A place for everything and everything in its place. Not so today.

Zak groaned. “Bases loaded. No outs. A-Rod at the plate and my arm is spaghetti.”

If she hadn’t known Zak for years, she’d be lost in his baseball jargon. But she heard him loud and clear. He was in over his head.

She went to the fridge and pulled out baloney and cheese. “You, kids, go wash your faces and hands. Sandwiches coming up.”

The pair dashed out of the kitchen.

Zak wilted against the refrigerator door. “They’re here three hours and I’m out of my mind. I can’t do this.”

She didn’t bother to remind him that he already had. “What’s the plan?”

“I’m looking for alternatives—anything—but I can’t do much until Tuesday. I’m on twenty-four-hour shift tomorrow. Maybe I can make some calls then if we’re not too busy. Until then…” He shrugged.

She resisted the urge to offer assistance. This was Zak’s situation. He should make the calls. He should decide how all this would play out. “How’s Crystal?”

“She’s been asleep since they got here.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Those kids are wild. They’re into everything and they don’t bother to ask permission. They do what they want.”

“I guess she hasn’t had the energy for discipline.”

He slid into a chair and banged his head on the tabletop. “I told you I’m not cut out for this.”

Bella, sitting on the floor next to the back door, giggled. Jilly patted his back, feeling sorry for him while wondering if she should even be here with a man whose wife was in the other room. Something about that seemed inappropriate. “Mom’s making dinner. I have to go.”

He lifted his face, looking really pitiful. “Can I go with you?”

Two days ago, she’d have loved that question and would have jumped at the chance to spend Sunday afternoon with him. “Sure.”

“Can’t. I have to figure out why my life exploded and how to get it back.”

She’d known he would say that. Crystal’s arrival had changed everything, from Zak’s lifestyle to the dynamics of a neighborly friendship.

Finished making three sandwiches, Jilly wiped her hands and started toward the door.

“Aren’t you going to change Bella?” Zak’s expression was desperate.

“Oh, right. Come here, precious,” she said, taking the girl by the hand. Bella’s diaper, the plastic dirty from sitting outside, sagged. “Where are the clean diapers?”

He pointed to a plastic shopping bag on the end of the counter. “I made a diaper run this morning. Crystal ran out.”

Jilly found the package and worked her magic, thankful for the times she’d babysat her nephews. “We sometimes put diapers on dogs at the clinic. They work just like this. We use them on squirrels and raccoons, too. Little tiny ones.”

Her effort to make him smile failed.

She stood the child on her feet and discarded the soiled diaper. “Don’t you have a game today?”

He jerked away from the table, eyes wide. “What time is it?”

“Mom and I stopped at the store after church, so it’s probably close to two.”

Zak yanked his cell phone from a pocket and glared at the screen. “Oh, man, look at that. Six messages.”

Jilly came up behind his chair and leaned in. “Why didn’t you hear them ring?”

“Too much going on, I guess.” He whopped his forehead with the phone. “How could I forget? This was an important game. I was supposed to pitch.”

“Is it too late?”

“Yeah, it’s too late. Look at that. Smitty texted me six times.”

Jilly read aloud as he scrolled through the texts, one at a time. “Where are you, dude? You’re pitching. Are you coming? We’re doomed. Taylor’s pitching. Batter up. Dude, where are you?”

Zak stroked his left arm. “My arm feels better than it’s felt since college. I was so ready. How could I have forgotten?”

She’d watched him last night in his backyard, firing fast balls through the center of a tire hung from a limb of the giant ash tree. He was smoking hot and deadly accurate. She had always wondered why he hadn’t made it into the pros.

“Was this a big game?” she asked, aware that any game was important to a baseball junky like Zak. “For a particular reason, I mean.”

“Yeah, a tournament in Tulsa.” Shoulders stooped, he pushed up from the chair and stared blindly out into the backyard. “The all-star committee is supposed to be there.”

Her sympathy gene kicked in. Baseball was the love of Zak’s life. In season and out, he lived and breathed it, played and studied it. The dream of playing professionally still lingered.

“The all-star committee?”

“They’re putting together a state exhibition team to play around the region. I want on it.”

“Was this the last chance?”

“I don’t know.” He took a milk carton from the fridge, popped open the spout and took a swig. Wearing a milk mustache, he said, “I can’t believe I forgot about a game this important.”

“You’ve had a lot on your mind. Once you figure out exactly what’s needed with Crystal and the kids, this should get easier.”

“I keep telling myself that, but only a few hours in and I think I’m lying.” He took another swig of milk. Funny how a guy could do that and look appealing.

The two boys came back in, faces shiny clean. Jilly handed each a sandwich. Baloney in possession, they turned and started toward the living room. Jilly stopped them with a hand on each shoulder. “Sit down at the table to eat, so you don’t make a big mess. You want some milk?”