Marta Perry - Hearts Afire

Silence, dead silence. Jake stared at the chief of staff, appalled. Jake had every reason in the world to say no, but he had no choice.

He straightened, trying to assume an expression of enthusiasm. “Of course I’d be happy to take this on. Assuming Ms. Flanagan is willing to work with me, naturally.”

Terry might be infuriated at being given a supervisor, but she had no more choice than he did. “Yes.”

Jake glanced at Terry, his gaze colliding with hers. She flushed, but she didn’t look away. Her mouth set in a stubborn line that told him he was in for a fight.

He didn’t mind a fight, but one thing he was sure of: Terry Flanagan and her clinic couldn’t be allowed to throw his career off course. No matter what he had to do to stop her.

has written almost everything, including Sunday school curriculum, travel articles and magazine stories in twenty years of writing, but she feels she’s found her home in the stories she writes for the Love Inspired line.

Marta lives in rural Pennsylvania, but she and her husband spend part of each year at their second home in South Carolina. When she’s not writing, she’s probably visiting her children and her beautiful grandchildren, traveling or relaxing with a good book.

Marta loves hearing from readers and she’ll write back with a signed bookplate or bookmark. Write to her c/o Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279, e-mail her at marta@martaperry.com, or visit her on the Web at www.martaperry.com.

Marta Perry

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

—Hebrews 12:1

This story is dedicated to my granddaughter,

Ameline Grace Stewart, with much love

from Grammy. And, as always, to Brian.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Questions for Discussion

Terry Flanagan flashed a penlight in the young boy’s eyes and then smiled reassuringly at the teenage sister who was riding with them in the rig on the trip to the hospital.

“You can hit the siren,” she called through the narrow doorway to her partner. Jeff Erhart was driving the unit this run. They had an unspoken agreement that she’d administer care when the patient was a small child. With three young kids of his own, Jeff found a hurt child tough to face.

The sister’s dark gaze focused on Terry. “Why did you tell him to start the siren? Is Juan worse? Tell me!”

“He’s going to be fine, Manuela.” She’d agreed to take the sister in the unit because she was the only family member who spoke English. “You have to stay calm, remember?” Naturally it was scary for Manuela to see her little brother immobilized on a backboard, an IV running into his arm.

The girl swallowed hard, nodding. With her dark hair pulled back in braids and her skin innocent of makeup, Manuela didn’t look the sixteen years she claimed to be. Possibly she was sixteen only because that was the minimum age for migrant farmworkers to be in the fields. The fertile farmlands and orchards that surrounded the small city of Suffolk in southern Pennsylvania were a magnet for busloads of migrant farmworkers, most from Mexico, who visited the area for weeks at a time. They rarely intersected with the local community except in an emergency, like this one.

“Juan will need stitches, yes?” Manuela clasped her little brother’s hand.

“Yes, he will.” Terry lifted the gauze pad slightly. The bleeding had slowed, but the edges of the cut gaped.

The child looked up at her with such simple trust that her stomach clenched. Lord, I haven’t forgotten anything, have I? Be with this child, and guide my hands and my decisions.

She ticked over the steps of care as the unit hit the busy streets of Suffolk and slowed. She’d been over them already, but somehow she couldn’t help doing it again. And again.

She knew why. It had been two years, but she still heard that accusing voice at moments like this, telling her that she was incompetent, that she—

No. She wouldn’t go there. She’d turn the self-doubt over to God, as she’d done so many times before, and she’d close the door on that cold voice. The wail of the siren, the well-equipped emergency unit, the trim khaki pants and navy shirt with the word Paramedic emblazoned on the back—all those things assured her of who she was.

She smiled at the girl again, seeing the strain in her young face. “How did your brother get hurt? Can you tell me that?”

“He shouldn’t have been there.” The words burst out. “He’s too little to—”

The child’s fingers closed over hers, as if he understood what she was saying. A look flashed between brother and sister, too quickly for Terry to be sure what it meant. A warning? Perhaps.

She could think of only one ending to what Manuela had started to say. “Was Juan working in the field?” It was illegal for a child so young to work in the fields—everyone knew that, even those who managed to ignore the migrant workers in their midst every summer and fall.

Alarm filled the girl’s eyes. “I didn’t say that. You can’t tell anyone I said that!”

The boy, catching his sister’s emotion, clutched her hand tightly and murmured something in Spanish. His eyes were huge in his pinched, pale face.

Compunction flooded Terry. She couldn’t let the child become upset. “It’s okay,” she said, patting him gently. “Manuela, tell your brother everything is okay. I misunderstood, that’s all.”

Manuela nodded, bending over her brother, saying something in a soft voice. Terry watched, frowning. Something was going on there—something the girl didn’t want her to pursue.

She glanced out the window. They were making the turn into the hospital driveway. This wasn’t over. Once they were inside, she’d find out how the child had been injured, one way or another.

Jeff cut the siren and pulled to a stop. By the time she’d opened the back doors, he was there to help her slide the stretcher smoothly out.

They rolled boy and stretcher quickly through the automatic doors and into the hands of the waiting E.R. team.

Terry flashed a grin at Harriet Conway. With her brown hair pulled back and her oversized glasses, Harriet might look severe, but Terry knew and respected her. The hospital had been afloat with rumors about the new head of emergency medicine, but no one seemed to know yet who it was. All they knew was that the new appointment probably meant change, and nobody liked change.

She reported quickly, in the shorthand that developed between people who liked and trusted each other. Harriet nodded, clipping orders as they wheeled the boy toward a treatment room. This was usually the paramedic’s cue to stay behind, unless the E.R. was shorthanded, but Terry was reluctant.

She bent over the child. “This is Dr. Conway, Juan. She’s going to take good care of you.”

She looked around for Manuela, and found the girl near the door, her arms around her mother. Two men stood awkwardly to the side, clearly uncomfortable with the woman’s tears. One, the father, turned a hat in work-worn hands, the knees of his work pants caked with mud from kneeling in the tomato field.