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  Katy, who had been sitting there welded to her seat, screamed as she realized Jace had lost it, that he was out of control. She rammed the sliding door of the van open. “Joe, stop him, stop him!”

  Joe was already behind Jace, desperately trying to wrestle his arms behind him and pull him off his downed opponent.

  “Jace!” Katy screamed. “Jace!”

  She knew he didn’t hear her. His murderous fog shut out everything but his fury as he hammered blow after blow like some relentless battering machine, Joe’s arms binding him no more than twine on a wild horse. The young tough was flat on his back now, Jace straddling him, the guy’s bleeding nose slanted at an impossible angle. Jace raised a fist to deliver a final blow to his opponent’s fading consciousness.

  Then he stopped. He leaned back on his heels and looked at his hands as if they were strangers. He stumbled to his feet and backed away, shaking his head as if coming out of a daze. The young tough frantically crawled away, leaving a trail of blood from his shattered nose.

  People were gathering now, asking each other what was going on, and someone yelled to get the police. Katy pushed through the crowd. Heat waves shimmered on the hot concrete. The drops of blood shone like evil jewels. “We need a doctor!” she cried.

  The three young toughs were not waiting for medical attention. The two manhandled their buddy to his feet and half-walked, half-dragged him to an old blue car at the curb. They screeched off in a burning squeal of tires. Jace shook his head when Joe asked if he needed a doctor.

  A police car arrived. Jace was up front about what had happened, that he’d thrown the first blow, but Ramsey’s bloody knees and scraped hands attested to why Jace had defended him. With the three guys gone, no neutral bystanders clear about what had happened, and no one interested in pressing charges against anyone else, the police finally just told everyone to disperse.

  Jace went to the restroom to clean up. Joe, visibly sagging, herded the boys to the van. Katy slid into the front seat beside Joe. He clutched the steering wheel in what she knew was an effort to hold his hands steady. The boys huddled in their seats, uncharacteristically subdued, obviously shocked by what had happened. But no more shocked than Katy.

  Ramsey came up to peer between the seats. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.” Katy squeezed his arm reassuringly. She reached into one of her bags and handed him a fistful of bubble gum. “Here. Pass this around. Everything’s okay now.” She glanced at Joe, the unspoken question in her eyes: was everything okay now?

  Joe nodded, but Katy wasn’t convinced.

  “Joe, what happened here?” she asked, her whisper frantic but pitched low so the boys in back couldn’t hear. “Do things like this happen often?”

  “No!” Katy heard the fierce protectiveness in Joe’s voice. “Nothing like this has happened for a long time.”

  “But it has happened before?”

  Joe hesitated, his long, appraising look doing nothing to calm Katy’s nerves. She almost felt as if she were on trial as he studied her.

  Finally he said, “I guess you were never a football fan.”

  “I wouldn’t remember it if I were. I have amnesia,” she reminded him bluntly.

  Joe’s bony hands flexed around the steering wheel. “Jace had a lot of trouble with his temper back in his football days,” he said reluctantly.

  “On the field or off?”

  “Both. Once, when he was mad about some against-the-rules stuff the referee missed in a game, he stormed into the opposing team’s locker room and took out half a dozen guys before the rest of the team brought him down. He got in barroom and street fights and had run-ins with referees and TV cameramen. The sports reporters took to calling him Fast-Fist Foster. Once he spent a week in jail for punching out a sportscaster who made some comments he didn’t like. He got fined or suspended from the team I don’t know how many times. But he was such an outstanding player that he got away with it for quite a while. Another team was always willing to take a chance on him. But eventually, after he hurt his knee. . .”

  Joe’s low-spoken words trailed off, but Katy understood. By then, with a bad knee, Jace was more trouble than he was worth. She leaned back in her seat, shocked. Jace had told her he had a temper, even that it had been part of why he’d left professional football. But she hadn’t realized how raw that temper was or what a decisive factor it had been in his leaving football.

  “But that was all a long time ago,” Joe said fiercely. “He found the Lord and he changed. Today was just a one-time thing, and you can’t blame him for protecting Ramsey.”

  Katy could believe Jace was indeed on a longer fuse than he had been back in those hard-brawling days. She had seen his good-natured patience with the boys. She had today seen him ignore the harassment of offensive taunts and having his hat knocked off. Yet under the strain of the injustice against Ramsey his temper had finally exploded.

  She could understand and even sympathize with his anger today. She’d lost her tolerant attitude toward the three guys the instant she heard the lewd remark directed at her. But the savage fury of Jace’s reaction when his temper finally snapped, the violence of it—!

  Maybe it hadn’t happened for years, as Joe claimed.

  And maybe, she thought with a shiver in spite of the heat, it had. In her mind’s eye, she saw the florid wine stain on a bedroom carpet.

  Joe scowled at her lack of response, but all he said was, “And you can bet, if this was the old days, he wouldn’t have backed off when he did. But now, God spoke to him, and he quit. Just like that. You can also bet he’s talking to God about all this right now, asking for his forgiveness and help. And one or two slips don’t cancel out all the good Jace is doing.” Again his voice was low and fierce.

  One or two slips. What did that mean?

  Jace yanked the door of the van open. His hair glistened wetly, as if he’d held his head under the cold water in the restroom. Both his eye and upper lip were already swollen, the eye darkening. He slid into the seat behind Joe.

  “You can sit up here,” Katy offered.

  “No, this is fine.” He jerked his head to signal Joe to head for home, then slumped forward with his face in his hands.

  Katy rubbed a shaky hand across her forehead when they finally reached the freeway. Her hand came away wet with the perspiration running down her face, and sweat welded her blouse to her back. She realized now that the van was no longer cool. It was, in fact, a moving oven. Joe whipped the air-conditioner controls back and forth, but nothing happened.

  “It’s on the blink again.” He slammed his palm against the vent in frustration. “I’ll have to look at it soon as we can find a rest area. Though what we probably need is a whole new air-conditioning system.”

  Jace leaned between the seats, but his manipulation of the controls was no more effective than Joe’s. “What we need is a whole new van,” he muttered.

  They opened all the windows, but the moving air was only a blast of searing wind, and heat boiled up through the floorboards from the sizzling freeway. Katy slipped off her shoes and swabbed her face with a tissue, going more limp by the minute.

  At the rest area, the shady parking spots were already taken, and Joe had to park the van in the open sun.

  “You okay?” Jace leaned forward to ask Katy.

  She nodded, although she felt rather less than okay. The shock of what had happened in Redding, the heat, the salsa with her taco burning like an open campfire in her stomach, the strange, apprehensive thoughts about Jace swirling like some ominous abstract painting in her head. . .

  He squeezed her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Katy.”

  What was he apologizing for? Inviting her along? The heat? The broken air-conditioner? What he’d done today? What he’d done in the past? What he might yet do in the future if his temper snapped again?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jace set Katy’s shopping bags b
y the door. With an odd detachment, Katy watched her own hand tremble as she reached for the doorknob.

  He put his hand over hers. “Please don’t be upset with Joe. He feels terrible about what happened. He couldn’t see you and had no idea you were behind the van. He thought you’d gone to the ladies’ room.”

  Joe had apologized. Profusely. But it wasn’t his frantic apology that now echoed in Katy’s ears. It was his earlier words. I guess I’d do most anything for Jace. Had he almost done something for Jace today?”

  No. No! Of course not. That kind of thinking was wild and irrational and paranoid. Heat wilting body and mind, salsa flaming in her stomach, bruised body aching, shock rattling her nerves – she just wasn’t thinking straight. Because if she thought what had happened today at the rest area was not an accident. . .

  Again she rejected that wild thought and its shattering implications.

  Mrs. L. opened the door before Katy could turn the knob. She looked pale, obviously still not feeling up to par, her usually neat gray hair sticking out at odd angles, but her concern was all for Katy. “Katy, Sweetie, what happened to you?” she gasped.

  Katy’s fingers automatically went to the raw scrape on her chin. Mrs. L. leaned over and gasped again at the blur of tire tracks on Katy’s loose shirttail and the smudges of asphalt on her pants.

  Jace answered for Katy. “Little mishap. I thought she should see a doctor, but she refused, so I did what I could with the first-aid kit. Let’s get her inside. We’ve been sweltering without air conditioning all afternoon.”

  Jace’s strong grip on Katy’s upper arm guided her to the breakfast nook. The house felt deliciously cool, a log bubble of paradise. It almost made her aching body feel less battered and bruised.

  “Katy, I’m sorry,” Jace said again. “It’s been a terrible day for you. I have to get the boys home now, but I’ll check on you later, okay?”

  Katy nodded and a few moments later heard a spurt of gravel as the van lurched out of the driveway, the transmission still jerky. Mrs. L. brought her a glass of iced tea and a flood of questions.

  “Katy, what happened? Your face is all skinned up, and your elbow, too! But you always were one to get all scraped up.”

  Without waiting for answers she bustled off to collect a basin of hot water and first-aid supplies, and while she cleaned and disinfected and applied ointment, Katy told her what had happened. As best she could. Everything was a little blurred, as if heat waves still shimmered in her head.

  They’d stopped at the rest area, and Joe had jumped out to look at the air-conditioning unit. Jace distributed soft drinks from the ice chest, and the boys raced for the shade. Katy took one but couldn’t drink it, her stomach still queasy. Jace followed the boys. Katy sat glued to the hot vinyl seat, needing to use the restroom but dreading the scorching walk to it.

  Finally she psyched herself up for it. It was a long step out of the van, and her leg wobbled when her foot hit the asphalt. Joe’s head was buried in the engine compartment. She had to go around behind the van to get to the restroom, but she suddenly felt dizzy, as if her stomach might go into full rebellion. She slumped weakly against the rear bumper.

  A few moments later the van’s engine started, but before Katy could move, the van jerked backward. She lost the details then. Hot black asphalt rising to meet her. Hands and knees and chin hitting the harsh surface. Tumbling, rolling, kaleidoscope of blue sky and blazing sun and forested hillside. Monster of the van looming over her, huge tires, the jagged black ruts of the tread filling the landscape of her vision, sure knowledge that she was about to be crushed.

  Screams and yells, strong hands pulling her to safety.

  “Jace pulled you out of the way before the van could run over you?”

  No. Not Jace. A middle-aged stranger who’d seen a disaster about to happen had hammered on the van to stop Joe, then grabbed Katy and dragged her to the grass.

  Jace came running then. So did the boys and Joe and more strangers, everyone peering down at her as if she were inside some strange flower with petals of human faces. She remembered Joe leaning over her, leathery skin ashen, stammering a distraught apology.

  “I didn’t know you were back there! A parking space opened up, and I was just going to move the van over in the shade!”

  Jace bringing the first-aid kit and a glass of cold water.

  “Well, my goodness, I know Joe’s been grumbling about the van, but how could he have been so careless!” Mrs. L exclaimed, her tone outraged.

  Careless? Or calculated? If that stranger hadn’t seen what was happening. . .

  ***

  Mrs. L. made a cool, refreshing fruit salad for supper. Katy told the housekeeper about her peculiar reaction to the medical clinic and the reappearance in her mind of a single crying shadow, but Mrs. L. doubted it was meaningful.

  “Most likely just some subconscious reminder of the hospital in Oregon where you regained consciousness,” she suggested.

  Katy, on reflection, decided that was probably true. Perhaps the crying figure was simply herself, lost and alone.

  Mrs. L. put Katy to bed with a sleeping pill. “Nothing powerful, just a little something I use when I can’t sleep. And I’ll just have a word with Joe. That man is going to get a piece of my mind!”

  Katy heard vague, diluted sounds before she drifted off to sleep. The little click the bedroom phone made when the other phone was used. The sound of a car engine. Voices. Mrs. L. scolding Joe? Jace checking on her? It all seemed oddly distant.

  By morning, when she showered, she found an impressive display of bruises on her body. She still ached all over, and the sleeping pill had left her feeling sluggish both physically and mentally.

  Jace came over that evening. Katy was stretched out on the sofa in the living room, and Mrs. L. let him in. His eye was smoky black now, but he somehow looked attractively mysterious rather than blemished. And, even with a puffy upper lip, he could still win any handsome-hunks contest.

  He handed her a folded sheet of heavy blue paper. “The boys made this for you.”

  It was a clever get-well card they had made on the computer. Katy laughed at the instantly identifiable cartoon figure of herself they had managed to create, tall and lanky, with bright yellow, close-cropped hair and a slightly cross-eyed expression. “Tell them I appreciate it very much.”

  He took off the new straw hat and dropped into a cross-legged position on the floor beside her.

  “Is Ramsey okay?” she asked. “His knees and hands also took a beating.”

  “Ramsey’s fine.” He tenderly ran his fingertips along the line of her jaw, carefully skirting the scraped area on her chin. They small-talked about the patch-up work Joe had done on the van’s transmission today and how fast the boys were progressing on the new computers. Mrs. L. brought iced tea and cookies. Finally Jace smiled ruefully. “I guess we can’t avoid talking about it indefinitely, can we?”

  “Talking about what?” As if she didn’t know.

  “What happened yesterday.”

  “It wasn’t entirely unwarranted,” she said. “If you hadn’t jumped in, that big thug might have done worse than he did to Ramsey. I have a feeling the N word came into it somewhere too.”

  Jace nodded. “But that’s no excuse. There are better ways to handle ugly situations than beating the pulp out of someone.”

  Katy ran her thumb along the folded edge of the card. Without looking at him she asked, “When was the last time something like this happened?”

  “Events during my drinking, brawling days are a little hazy, but I think it was back when some guy crowded into a parking space I was headed for. It didn’t take much to set me off back then. I’m ashamed of those days,” he added flatly. “And I’m not proud of yesterday’s miserable exhibition, either.”

  “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” She said the words absentmindedly, without thinking, then realized Jace was staring at her. She shrugge
d. “I guess I must have heard that somewhere.”

  “I wonder where.”

  “Maybe I saw it on a T-shirt. Or a bumper sticker.” She felt defensive, as she always did when one of these unlikely statements popped out of her.

  He twisted the beginning of a curl of her blond hair around his finger. “Katy, I don’t know what to do about you.”

  She raised up on one elbow, vaguely alarmed. “Do about me? What do you mean?”

  “I’m falling in love with you. And I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  She dropped back to the cushion, emotions jumbled by this mixed message about his feelings. “Not a good idea because I don’t share your Christian commitment? Or not a good idea because of my memory problems? Or maybe because you remember what I was like before?” She paused reflectively. “That’s a rather daunting list, isn’t it?”

  “I’m falling anyway. Actually, I guess I might as well admit it. I’ve already fallen.” He leaned over and kissed the tip of her nose. His puffy lip felt strange but not unpleasant against her skin. His face hovered over hers, as if he were torn between wanting to kiss her, a kiss that went far beyond a brush of lips on the nose, and thinking that wasn’t a good idea. She smoothed the heavy line of his left eyebrow. “You’re not saying anything,” he finally added lightly. “Do you have a daunting list of your own?”

  She nodded slowly, not elaborating on the list even to herself. “But I’m falling in love too.”

  They looked at each other, studying, wondering, as if a door had opened between them but neither was sure about stepping through.

  “Shall we just leave it at that for the moment?” Jace finally said huskily. “And see where the Lord leads us?”

  Instant retorts shot across her mind. What did the Lord have to do with this? He just sits up in his heaven and doesn’t care! But she left the words unspoken, at least for the moment, and just nodded. Jace kissed her again, gently, on the forehead.

  ***