Faith (Rescue Me, A Contemporary Romance) (2 page)

Handing it over to Emily, she gave her another once over with the practiced eye of a mom with a clumsy son. Liam was always getting banged up it seemed, so over the years Faith had perfected her ability to sense or spot a medical emergency even when nothing was obviously broken or bleeding. Thankfully, the girl seemed fine. Mentally disturbed obviously. A
fraid of her strict parents, obviously. But nothing physically wrong. Not that she could see. Nothing that Emily was volunteering.

“Okay, well I guess we’re all set here, huh. Is your car okay to drive?”

When Emily didn’t respond, Faith looked up from where she was replacing her insurance card into the folio Mac always insisted they keep the car registration and insurance organized with and stored in the glove compartment. She noticed that Emily was staring past her. Over her shoulder and through the windshield of her car, straight into Liam’s frantic eyes.

Neatly stepping in front of her so as to cut off her view of Liam – she didn’t like how ‘Emily’ was staring at her son --Faith said again with forced politeness, “Are we all good then? You can drive
right?”

“Yeah, okay.” Emily conceded. She started to turn around and then with a quick pivot she came up to Faith and whispered hotly in her ear, “You ought to be
more careful. You and him need to be real careful.”

Automatically Faith put up a hand to push Emily back and away from herself. This girl was too close for comfort and her breath steamed and stank in the air between them.
At this close range she could see the pockmarks of old acne scars in her skin and her eyes had a peculiar flat sheen to them that didn’t look normal or natural. She wondered if she was on drugs or something and without being entirely sure why, she was suddenly afraid of her.

She wished she hadn’t just handed over her address and phone number, even though it was the responsible thing to do, she wished she hadn’t done it.
She felt the fear rise up in her throat like a sick, bitter liquid and she swallowed hard as she stepped back again, putting more distance between herself and this strange girl. Emily.

“Drive carefully,” Faith shot back and she backed up toward her own car. She didn’t want to turn around, not yet. She didn’t know why but the thought of turning her back on Emily made the hair on her neck stand on end.

She couldn’t let Liam see her face yet. He would know that she was scared and it would frighten him. He had a natural ability to read people as easily as if he was reading one of the historical nonfiction books he loved and she didn’t want him to read her. Not now. Not before she had a moment to compose her features and act like everything was normal again. That girl – Emily – had really caused a strange reaction, she had to admit. She wasn’t normally spooked, and certainly not by teenagers not much older than Liam, but that girl was off. Just off.

Emily didn’t respond. Just stood by the open driver’s door and watched her back away with a curious look in her eye. Later Faith would remember that look. She would remember how Emily stood there by her battered Toyota with the cheery bumper sticker in the almost dark. Her breath panting in and out in chilled bursts in the cold December air. Her face resigned and sad, clutching the scrap of paper Faith had given her as impatient drivers swerved and honked and maneuvered around their vehicles.

“Okay. All set? Everything’s good, let’s get home. What do you say?” Faith could hear her voice – forced and cheery – as she hustled back into the car. “Out of the driver’s seat Mario Andretti.” She nudged Liam over so she could get behind the wheel. “I’d say you had all the driving practice you’re going to need for a while. At least with me. Maybe your dad can take you out in a couple of days.” She forced a laugh to cheer him up, but one look at his face told her he was buying it.

“Mom, why was that girl so pissed?”

“She was just shook up and frightened. She’s probably never been in a car accident before. Don’t worry about her Liam, she’s fine.”

“Yeah, but she looked really crazy mom. Like
…her eyes, you know. There was something wrong with her eyes.”

“Hey buddy.” Faith turned in her seat to look at him before she started the car. “
Getting in an accident is a really scary thing and it makes people act in ways they wouldn’t normally act. I’m sure that once she’s had a few minutes to relax, she’s going to feel calmer and probably really embarrassed that she acted so badly.”

“It’s not your fault,” she repeated at his silence. “It’s not your fault.”

“Well, yeah, it was mom. I mean thanks for trying to cheer me up, but of course it was my fault.”

“Okay, fine,” she laughed – genuinely now. “It was your fault technically, but it’s not like you were trying to hurt anyone. You’re learning to drive. Mistakes are inevitable. If you want to blame someone then blame me. What kind of responsible parent tells her son it’s okay for him to drive home in rush hour traffic? An un-responsible parent, that’s who!”

“Un-responsible isn’t a word mom.” Liam teased her, begrudgingly coming around to his normal happy self.

“There’s my brilliant, book learned, son who’s going to go to college and make something of himself and keep his loving parents in high style when they’re old and grey,” Faith joked and she started the car. Finally time to get the hell out of here, get home and put this behind them. And yes, she was definitely going to let Mac take over drivers training in the
foreseeable future. After this night, she didn’t want any part of being a passenger in a car driven by a nervous 15-year-old.

“Yeah, I’m going to be so successful that you and dad can have your pick of old folks homes,” Liam joked right back, following their usual routine. “But, seriously mom. Are you and the nugget okay?” He looked pointedly at her baby bump.

She put one hand over his as she put her turn signal on. “Liam my love. Mom, baby, and best son in the world are all okay. Don’t worry about what happened another second, okay? Promise me?”

He squeezed her hand in answer and leaned back in his seat, turning his head to watch the lights of
Ketchikan, Alaska’s fourth largest city, its “First City,” according to the history books, go past as they made their way through the city’s small but picturesque downtown towards home.

Mac came bustling into the kitchen as he did everything –
large, loud, and merry. At 6’4” and 205 pounds with jet black hair and sparkling blue eyes, he wasn’t anyone’s idea of a diminutive Irish man; but Irish he was. Black Irish as he never failed to tell people if they had the nerve to openly wonder about his heritage within his earshot.

He g
ot his coloring from his dear mom and his size from his dad. His boisterous nature and sense of humor was all from Mother Ireland, he liked to say. As quick to laugh as he was to use his fists, Mac rarely found it necessary to prove that his temper was typically Irish as well.

Luckily his sheer size helped him avoid confrontations, but on the fishing boats where he made his living it was common for flare-ups to happen between the men. Mac was usually the peacemaker, but there had been times—few and far between—that he had to let his Irish temper loose and settle some disagreements the only way the men involved would understand – with his sizeable fists.

But nothing like that had happened in months. In fact, nothing much of anything had happened in months. He mulled the thought over as he pulled open the fridge searching for a Stella, his favorite beer. Prime fishing season in Southeast Alaska was generally considered to be May through July. Salmon, the most sought after fish, was caught in that time and it was every Alaskan fishermen’s busy season, no doubt about it.

Lesser fish were caught up until October at the latest, but after October it was every man for himself.

Many fishermen elected to collect unemployment from November through May, but the thought of being on the government dole—no matter how deserved or needed—was upsetting to Mac. He hadn’t come to America from Ireland as a teenager and then moved his lovely wife and son from Maine to Alaska all those years ago to take handouts, he thought, not for the first time.

Faith’s job as an administrative assistant at the Visitors Bureau helped them pay bills, especially during his slow season, but now that she was pregnant with their second little one, he smiled as he thought about it, she wouldn’t be able to keep working as much as she had been now that Liam was in high school and practically a grown man.

Where was Liam and Faith anyway? He knew that she had taken Liam with her to run some errands. She had said that she had some last minute Christmas shopping to do before the holidays were well and truly upon them two weeks from now and thought it would be a good chance to give Liam some practice time behind the wheel. But, how long were they planning to be gone?

He wasn’t one of those men that demanded his dinner on the table by 6pm, but most nights Faith made it a point to get supper on by then if she could. Her supervisor at the tourist center had three kids of her own, and she made it a point to allow Faith, her favorite employee, plenty of
flexibility so she could be home to look after him and Liam. Not that either of them really kept regular hours. When Mac was on the boats or in the cannery he could be gone for days at a time or up before dawn and home after dark.

Now that Liam had started high school, he’d gotten involved in afterschool clubs like drama and chess, or he spent time with his friends at the mall or at their homes. His whereabouts changed according to his mood and the day of the week, as far as Mac could tell.

He
loved his son, but his boy’s distaste for sports made him shake his head in wonder. When he was a boy he loved anything that involved physical competition. He was the first one at bat for cricket or on the court for basketball. He loved the camaraderie of playing with his mates and indulging in good natured ribbing when he beat them in the game. It was probably why he was such a great fishermen.

He never shied away from a fight with the net or the line. When
other men let the demanding pace of the boats break them down, Mac rose up. He was proud of his ability to stand tall when other men would crumble, but Liam, his only son was completely different. Soft, like his mother, he thought with a patient sigh. And where were they, anyway, he thought again.

He checked the digital clock on the microwave sitting on the counter. 6:30pm. Strange, he thought again. He would call her, but Faith
didn’t believe in cell phones. In fact, she considered them ‘electronic chains that kept people from interacting with each other.’ Not to mention, how expensive the monthly service bills were; the real reason she refused to carry one or give one to Liam, he knew.

Right now he wished he would have insisted that they each carry one. In such a small town as Ketchikan, Alaska, it seemed unlikely that an emergency would ever come up that would necessitate a cell
phone; but, just as his dear mom used to say growing up, the man that’s sure of his fate spits in the eye of the devil. Or, as his darling wife would say, better safe than sorry.

Unaccustomed to a moment alone, Mac wandered through the modest home looking for something to fix, oil, or build. Just something to keep his hands busy so he would stop worrying. Because worry he was. In fact, he was starting to fear a cold wave washing over his back and up into his spinal cord. He thought of his mother again; she always said someone was ‘walking over your grave’ when you felt this particular fear and never before had he appreciated how correct that saying was.

It truly felt like something was coming. Something dark was heading towards him and for the life of him, Mac couldn’t figure out how to keep his family out the path of the harm he felt might be headed toward them.

“Holy crap!” Faith exclaimed as she made a right turn onto their street. “Is that the time? Your father is going to be crazy with worry!”

She could not believe it was almost 7:00 at night. Long after the time she usually had dinner in front of Mac and Liam. Ketchikan was small, but it was expansive. It took almost 30 minutes to get from the shops of downtown back to their modest home at the foot of the hills that rimmed the bustling fishing village. The commute combined with the unfortunate accident set them back almost two hours, much longer than she would have believed.

“Well we’re home now mom. See there’s dad on the porch!” Liam said, pointing. “He must have heard the car or seen the lights. Wow, he does look worried.”

He did, Faith thought, he definitely did. It wasn’t a normal expression to see on the face of her big, strapping husband and it bothered her. Bothered her almost as much as the strange sad expression she’d seen on the face of that girl. Emily. What a day for unexpected and disturbing facial expressions, huh Faith. Her feeble attempt to joke herself out of her uneasiness fell flat, even if was just to herself.

She waved as they pulled closer. Mac didn’t wave back. In fact, his face took on a distinctively darker edge. Uh oh, Faith thought. Her husband was famous for his easy grin, but when he was upset or afraid he went from a bear cub to a bear, period. She’d have to do some fast talking. She didn’t want Liam getting the brunt of his father’s concern and losing any confidence he might have left to get behind the wheel again.