Chapter 6 #3
“But I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re hypothermic and about to collapse.” Frank’s weathered face softened. “Miriam’s got coffee on. But we talk first. How’d you get this far?”
“Sir?”
“You tracked them here. Through that storm. That takes training. And motivation.” Frank’s eyes narrowed. “So we’re going to have a conversation about exactly what kind of danger your girlfriend is in.”
“Lots, maybe. Or none. I don’t know. I just know she was in that train wreck and is now mixed up with this James fellow.” He left the international-terrorist part out of the story.
“All right. Let’s go.”
“I can’t. I have to keep moving.”
Frank did a poor job of stifling a laugh. “Son, one look at you says that you wouldn’t make it a mile.” He clamped his hand on North’s shoulder. “Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let someone help you.”
He turned and headed through the soggy yard toward the farmhouse.
Smoke curled from the chimney. Warm light glowed in the windows.
Right. Okay.
North’s knee nearly buckled as he stepped up the stairs. Frank caught his arm, grip strong.
“I’ve got you, son.”
He looked at Frank, not sure what to say.
Inside, little Amy sat at the kitchen table, hugging a teddy bear, her eyes widening as he came in. He caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror by the door.
Oh boy. Yeah, no wonder she’d screamed. He wore mud and sweat and grime and blood on his face, his shirt wrecked, a look of vagrancy about him.
“We’ll get you cleaned up.” This from the woman from the barn.
“My wife, Miriam.”
She stood at the counter, worry etched on her face. She looked like the kind of woman who hugged freely and kept cookies in a jar and wouldn’t let a man bleed on her floor without doing something about it.
“Frank?”
“It’s okay.” Frank guided North to the kitchen table. “He’s too weak to get ornery.”
North gave a wan smile at that.
The house smelled like coffee and cinnamon and safety. And yes, inside, voices screamed at him to keep moving, to find Selah, to stop whatever James had planned. But his body betrayed him, trembling with exhaustion and cold.
The coffeepot burbled on the counter, and Miriam pulled down a mug painted with yellow daisies.
“They came in this morning with my grandkids. My son and his wife were in the train wreck. Had to be life-flighted to Seattle. Your girlfriend took the children under her wing.”
He walked over to Amy and put a hand on her head. “But there was something about James I didn’t like from the beginning. Then I saw the truck.”
“What happened?”
Frank glanced at his wife. She stood at the counter, swallowed, looked away.
Something…
“Amy, why don’t you go upstairs and check on Tommy?”
Her eyes widened, but she slid out of the chair.
Frank watched her go. Turned to North. “I tried to persuade them to stay.”
North arched an eyebrow.
“I just wanted to secure them while I called the sheriff. So…” He sighed.
North stiffened, suddenly terribly aware of Miriam’s strained expression.
“You do what you have to do to protect your family.”
North cocked his head. “Did you hurt—”
“No,” Miriam said. “Of course not. He’s not that kind of man.”
But he recognized the truth in Frank’s eyes.
He was that kind of man. The kind that did hard, terrible things.
“They, uh, escaped.”
Escaped. “How?”
“Took my ATV.” He sighed then, his hand on the table. “Listen. I got the sense that she wasn’t being coerced.”
North just stared at him. “She doesn’t know.”
Miriam had come over to them, holding that daisy cup of coffee. She set it down in front of him. “What doesn’t she know?”
Right. “The man she’s with just might be…”
“A murderer.”
North nodded. That was one word for it.
“I think he murdered my buddy,” Frank said. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep him here.”
North didn’t know what to say to that, especially since that would’ve included imprisoning Selah too.
Still. “It’s okay.”
“He meant well,” Miriam said.
North nodded. “Which way did they go?”
“Through the trees—the old logging trail. It leads to a forest service road, and my guess is that they probably headed south, down the mountain. They’re probably already back to civilization by now.”
“I’ll get you something to eat.” Miriam got up.
North pushed back from the table. “I need to—”
His knees buckled. Miriam caught his arm.
Frank too. “You need to sit down before you fall down.”
“You’re not going anywhere until you warm up and eat something,” Miriam said, her tone changing.
“I can’t wait—”
“Yes, you can. Frank will drive you to town as soon as you’re warm and dry and fed.” Miriam’s eyes softened. “You’re in no condition to help anyone.”
North sank back into his chair and reached into his pocket. “My phone’s dead.”
“I’ll find you a charger cord,” Frank said. “But it won’t do you any good. We don’t get good service up here. Especially in a storm.”
Perfect.
“Meanwhile, you go take a shower in the guest room.” Miriam squeezed his shoulder. “Clean clothes in the dresser—Frank’s old things should fit. I’ll warm up some chili.”
He could eat.
“One hour. You’ll be good as new.”
Hardly, but he’d need that long for his phone to charge. “Okay.”
She showed him to the bedroom—a homey slice of their lives in the pictures on the walls. The en suite bathroom was small, but he didn’t care as he turned on the shower.
His reflection in the mirror had scared him—two days of stubble, dried blood crusted at his temple, hollow eyes that belonged to someone else.
Truth was, maybe he was tired of this life. Always pushing himself, needing to be the guy who got it done.
But he didn’t know any other way.
He stepped into the shower. The hot spray hit like needles against his frozen skin. North braced his hands against the tile, letting warmth seep into tired muscles.
Steam filled the bathroom.
He closed his eyes. An old Bible verse filtered into his head. When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
Trust. Such a simple word for such a difficult thing. Except, most of the time it wasn’t difficult. Because most of the time, life was in control. Life was organized and, sure, dangerous, but he was prepared for that.
Not for the moments when his girlfriend—ex-girlfriend—did crazy things.
Or witnessed him doing…brutal things.
He turned and washed his hair, scrubbed the ache and grime off himself, and then just stood, his face in the spray.
He emerged alert, renewed, and grateful for the borrowed clothes he found in the drawers. He pulled on a pair of worn jeans, a flannel shirt, thick wool socks.
He looked like a farmer. Or a logger.
Frank sat at the weathered table, nursing a cup of coffee. “Better?”
“Yes, sir.” North’s body still ached, but the bone-deep cold had eased. The flannel shirt smelled like cedar—the kind of thing a father might loan a son.
Weird, that thought. His father wasn’t the type to own a flannel shirt.
“Sit.” Miriam set a fresh mug of coffee by the empty chair, and then a bowl of thick chili piled with cheese, sour cream, and chives. “Your phone is charging.” She pointed to the phone plugged into the wall.
North sank into the chair. His head twinged, but the hot shower had helped that too. “Thank you.”
Frank considered him. “You want to tell me what’s really going on?”
“It’s classified.” The word came automatically.
“Son, I’ve read more classified information than you’ve had hot meals.”
North held in a laugh. “Let’s just say that we fight a different kind of war these days. The world is still a dangerous place.”
“Of course it is. The Lord hasn’t returned yet.” Frank let Miriam refill his coffee. “That’s why we need dangerous gentlemen on duty.”
“Dangerous gentlemen?”
“Men who love compassion and mercy but aren’t afraid to do the hard things to stand up for the lost and broken and scared.” He met North’s gaze.
North stirred his chili, took a bite. He might have even moaned with the way it nurtured his bones. Now Frank’s words soaked in too. He nodded. “I grew up as a pastor’s son. He wanted me to go into the ministry. I wanted…to do something more hands-on.”
“Oh, I can think of many preachers who are plenty hands-on, son. But I get that.”
“I joined the Navy. Became a SEAL. And maybe along the way, I sort of forgot the mercy part.”
Frank cocked his head at him. “Really? You have nightmares, son?”
North’s mouth opened. “Um…” He lifted a shoulder. “Some.”
“That’s because you care. You’re not without mercy, or grace or compassion. If you were, you wouldn’t be haunted.”
Okay, so maybe he liked this guy, despite the man’s being a little rough around the edges. Could be that North was too.
“Took me years to understand my nightmares,” Frank said finally. “Why they kept coming. Why I couldn’t shake them.”
North took another bite of chili. “What did you figure out?”
“That they came because I wasn’t a stone-cold killer. Because somewhere inside, I still cared.” Frank’s weathered hands wrapped around his coffee cup. “A true monster sleeps easy at night. It’s the men with consciences who wake up screaming.”
Oh.
“How did you…” North’s voice trailed off.
“Learn to live with it?” Frank smiled slightly.
“Miriam. She found me one night, out here in the kitchen at 3:00 a.m. Couldn’t sleep.
Couldn’t close my eyes without seeing faces.
” He paused. “She sat down right where you are now and said, ‘Frank Hendrickson, you did hard things because someone had to. Now do better.’”
“Do better?”
“Live with mercy. Find grace. Remember why I did what I did—not for the killing but for the protecting.” Frank’s eyes met North’s. “The nightmares didn’t stop. But I learned to forgive myself. Started living in grace instead of guilt.”
“Does Miriam…” North swallowed, cut his voice low. Miriam had gone upstairs, maybe to check on her grandchildren. “Does she know everything? What you did over there?”