Page 19 of The Baxters
Especially on a stormy day like this.
Landon tightened the laces in his shoes and set out. He was about to start his senior year and he’d made a decision. He wasn’t going to be a teacher. Ashley had pointed out a number of times in the last three years that Landon was too safe. Too predictable. Too much like her parents. Too much like his.
In some ways she was right. Nothing was going to change Landon’s faith in God. Not even his love for Ashley Baxter. But she had a point about his predictability. His father was a respected teacher, and for that reason he would admire teachers as long as he lived. Maybe one day when he was older, Landon would follow in his father’s footsteps and get his teaching credentials.
But for now he was going to take his friend Jalen’s lead. When Landon graduated next May he was going to come home to Bloomington and do something he neverdreamed of doing until recently. Something he hadn’t told Ashley or her parents. Only his mom and dad and Jalen knew the truth.
Landon was going to fight fires in Bloomington. The bigger the better.
Being a firefighter was an admirable profession, of course. But it wasn’t safe. Nothing predictable about waiting for the next local disaster. Running into a burning building when everyone else was running out… that was the epitome of danger.
Which was exactly what Landon wanted now. He picked up his pace. Not just because the girl he loved had accused him of being too safe. But because it seemed like the right thing to do. Helping people. Risking his life so that someone else might live.
Up until now, the only risky thing Landon had ever done was fall in love with Ashley Baxter.
Faster,he told himself. The competition to become a firefighter was intense. Next year at this time he would have to be in the shape of his life if he wanted to get hired. Fire departments loved applicants with a college degree. He knew that much.
But that was only the starting point.
He hit the one-mile mark and looked at his stopwatch. Seven minutes, fifteen seconds. Down from twelve minutes a year ago. All those seasons of football had done nothing to make him faster. But working out with Jalen had changed his fitness level entirely. This summer he was in the best shape of his life—and still he had to improve.
Landon jogged the next lap. Being a fireman meant he’d need to run up flights of stairs carrying a seventy-five-pound sandbag while wearing a weighted vest. He’d have to pull a heavy hose more than two hundred feet and kick down a locked door.
Something he hadn’t been able to do with Ashley, by the way.
He let loose a sad, quiet chuckle.
Focus, Blake. Make it count.Spending the past few semesters getting ready for the host of physical and mental tests ahead had been good for Landon. It took his mind off the girl back home. The one he was going to see in a couple of hours. He kept jogging. Another four laps and he’d wrap up the workout. He was staying with his parents this summer, the way he had since he started at Baylor. They supported his new dream of fighting fires for Bloomington.
But they weren’t fans of his feelings for Ashley.
More times than Landon could remember, his mother or father—sometimes both—had sat him down to talk about Ashley. “How many times does that girl have to break your heart, Son?” His mother would shake her head, concern in her eyes.
Just a few weeks ago when he came home from school, his dad said something similar over breakfast. “You need to let her go, Landon.” His dad looked genuinely worried. “Tell us about the new girl. Hope.”
The new girl.
Landon lifted his face to the stormy sky and slowedhis pace. Hope Hale was a rising senior, just like him. Jalen’s twin sister. The three of them met their freshman year and they’d spent most of their free time together ever since. Just a group of friends making their way through college.
Until a year ago. When his feelings for Hope grew.
He was back at the starting line. Time to cool down. Landon walked to the nearby grassy field and ran through a series of stretches. Being limber was also very important for a firefighter.
But today he didn’t want to think about rushing into flaming buildings. He didn’t want to think about going back to Baylor or Hope or his adult life just ahead.
Today, after too many months, he was going to see Ashley Baxter.
He breathed in deep and moved into the next stretch. As he did, the months and years peeled away and he was eighteen again. Sitting next to Ashley in his brown Camaro, taking her home from their senior prom.
The night of their first kiss.
He would’ve done anything for Ashley, lived anywhere, promised her the moon and found a way to get it. From the moment he saw her in Mr. Garrett’s fifth-grade class, Landon had told himself this much: He would marry her someday. It was a commitment he planned to keep. And that night after senior prom, Landon was sure he was going to make good on it.
Three years had passed since that kiss, and every time summer came around he and Ashley were fartherapart. More like strangers. No matter how Landon tried to help her find her way back, nothing worked.
And he could trace every mile of that distance to the accident.
Landon took a deep breath, bent at the waist and eased his hands to the ground. He could still see it all.
