CHAPTER ONE

DR. JOHN BAXTER RECEIVED NEWS of the fire the moment he arrived at St. Anne's Hospital that afternoon. An emergency-room nurse flagged him down on his way back from rounds, her face stricken.

"Stay nearby; we might need you. An apartment complex is burning to the ground. A couple of families trapped inside. At least two fatalities. And we're already shorthanded."

John felt the familiar rush of adrenaline that came with working around disaster. He filled in only occasionally at the hospital emergency room—in the summers when he didn't have classes to teach, or when a disaster of some sort demanded extra personnel. But for him the excitement of ER medicine never lessened. It was as quick and consuming now as it had ever been.

He glanced at the others making preparations and then back to the nurse. "What happened?" Already sirens were blaring across Bloomington.

The nurse shook her head. "No one's sure. They're still working the blaze. They lost track of two men, firefighters." She paused. "Everyone's fearing the worst."

Firefighters? John's heart sank to his waist.

He followed her into the back, where a flurry of medical personnel were preparing for the first victims. "Did you get their names? The missing men?"

The nurse stopped and turned around. "It's Engine 211. That's all we've got so far."

John felt the blood drain from his face as he launched into silent, fervent prayer. He prayed for the people fighting the fire and the families trapped inside—and for the missing men of Engine 211.

He pictured them lost in an inferno, risking their lives to save mothers and fathers and children. He imagined them buried beneath burning rubble or cut off from all communications with their chief.

Then he prayed for one of Engine 211's men in particular. A strapping young man who had loved John Baxter's middle daughter, Ashley, since the two of them were teenagers.

The money was running out.

That was the main reason Ashley Baxter was out looking for a job on that beautiful summer morning—the type of blue-skied, flower-bursting day perfect for creating art.

The settlement from her car accident four years ago was almost gone, and though she'd paid cash for her house, she and little Cole still needed money to live on—at least until her paintings began to sell.

Ashley sighed and ran her hand through her short-cropped, dark hair. She studied the ad in the paper once more:

Care worker for adult group home. Some medical training preferred. Salary and benefits.

As mundane as it sounded, it might be just the job she wanted. She'd checked with her father and found out that caregiver pay tended to be barely above minimum wage. She'd be working mostly with Alzheimer's patients—people with dementia or other age-related illnesses, folks unable to survive on their own. She would have wrinkled bodies to tend, hairy chins to wipe, and most likely diapers to change. The job wasn't glamorous.

But Ashley didn't mind. She had reasons for wanting the job. Since returning from her sojourn in Paris, everything about her life had changed. She was only twenty-five, but she felt years older, jaded and cynical. She rarely laughed, and she wasn't the kind of mother Cole needed. Despite the heads she turned, she felt old and used up—even ugly.

Paris was partly to blame for who she had become. But much of it was due to all the running she had done since then. Running from her parents' viewpoints, their tiresome religion, their attempts to mold her into a woman she could never be. And running from Landon Blake—from his subtle but persistent advances and the predictable lifestyle she'd be forced into if she ever fell in love with him.

Whatever the reason, she was aware that something tragic had happened to her heart in the four years since she had come home from Europe. It had grown cold—colder than the wind that whipped across Bloomington, Indiana, in mid-January. And that, in turn, was affecting her only true passion—her ability to paint. She still worked at it, still filled up canvases, but it had been years since she did anything truly remarkable.

Ashley turned off South Walnut and began searching for the address of the group home. In addition to bringing in a paycheck, working with old people might ward off the cold deep within her, might even melt the ice that had gathered around her soul over the years. She had always felt a kind of empathy for old folks, an understanding. Somehow they stirred a place in her heart that nothing else could touch.

She remembered driving through town a week ago and seeing two ancient women—hunched-over, gnarled old girls, probably in their nineties—walking arm in arm down the sidewalk. They had taken careful, measured steps, and when one started to slip, the other held her up.

Copyright © 2003 by The Smalley Publishing Group, LLC, and Karen Kingsbury.