A Gift of Family. Mia Ross

one of the remaining roof trusses creaked and shifted, sending decades-old dust down on them.

      “Be careful!” she cautioned as Seth slipped inside.

      She peeked in behind him, watching him wade through pews and hymnals scattered everywhere, then duck under the enormous tree felled by the storm. Tossing aside beams as if they were Lincoln Logs, he made his way to the front of the church.

      As the wind’s howling intensified, more debris rained down, and she lost sight of him. The idea of anything happening to this bewildering, courageous man terrified her more than anything had in her entire life.

      “Seth?”

      “Why are you still here?” he barked as the wail of a siren broke through the screeching wind.

      “I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

      He muttered a few things that should never be said inside the walls of a church, then she heard the word “woman” tacked on the end. She gathered he was referring to her, and not in a nice way.

      “I’m fine,” he growled. “Go tell the EMTs to come in the back.”

      This time, she did as he asked. Lisa scrambled away from the door just before the jamb splintered overhead.

      “Please, God,” she murmured as she ran to meet the ambulance. “We could use Your help down here.”

      * * *

      Choking and squinting against the dust floating in the air, Seth pushed his way through the mess. Near the altar, he found an older man dressed in a gray suit pinned under a fallen rafter. Covered in splinters and dirt, somehow he managed to beam like the cherubs Seth had seen flying around the Sistine Chapel when he’d visited Rome years ago.

      “Oh, praise the Lord! I wasn’t sure anyone would hear me over the storm.”

      “Lisa Sawyer and I saw the roof go in,” Seth explained.

      Despite his own predicament, the trapped man frowned in concern. “She’s not in here, too, is she?”

      “No, she’s safe. The ambulance just pulled in, and she’s talking to the EMTs.” Falling back on relentless training that had become instinct, Seth quickly assessed the situation. Hunkering down beside the frightened pastor, he asked, “Can you move at all?”

      “A little.”

      Ideally, he’d have a couple of guys to help him shore up the pile so it wouldn’t shift uncontrollably and crush either of them. Unfortunately, ideal wasn’t the usual picture for him, so by necessity he’d gotten good at improvising.

      Taking the handkerchief from his back pocket, he said, “This could get messy, and I don’t want you breathing in any more of it than you have to.”

      “What about you?”

      “I’ll be fine. It might take a little doing, but I’m gonna lift this beam up. When you feel things loosen up under there, I want you to slide as far to your right as you can.”

      Clearly fighting his fear, the pastor nodded, determination in his dark eyes. Seth tied the handkerchief into place for him and asked, “Are you ready, sir?”

      “Ready.”

      Seth yoked the beam on his shoulders and braced his legs for a test shove. The pile shifted but nothing big came crashing down, which told him the layers of debris were fairly well-balanced. Applying some more muscle, he managed to lever the beam up enough for the man to slide partway out from underneath.

      “That’s good,” Seth told him as he carefully lowered the stack of splintered lumber. “Don’t move anymore till we can get a backboard.”

      “I won’t.” He held absolutely still, which was a good sign. He was conscious and listening. Most people in this kind of situation wouldn’t be doing much of anything.

      “You’re Ruthy’s nephew Seth, aren’t you?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “She goes on and on about you.” Sighing, he closed his eyes. “I see now she’s been holding out on us.”

      What exactly had she told her friends? Seth wondered. Shaking off the uneasy feeling the question caused him, he focused on getting the pastor out of the church before the building caved in on them.

      Now that their position was slightly less precarious, Seth decided to make some more space for the EMTs to move around in. Bracing his hands on the beam that held up one side of the pile, he drove in with every bit of his strength and shoved the stack away with a deafening clatter.

      The weight of it carried farther than he’d expected, tearing a hole through the side wall. Fortunately, the framing structure held, but it still wasn’t quite what he’d had in mind.

      He traded a look with the pastor. “Sorry about that.”

      “There’s a leak behind that wall, anyway. We’ve been wanting to open it up and fix it for years.” Through the dust hanging in the air, those dark eyes twinkled at him. “We could use your help with that.”

      As innocent as the offer seemed, Seth couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable about being singled out this way. During his time in the desert, he’d been taught to blend in and disappear, so standing out in any way still felt like a bad thing to him. Harland was a completely different kind of place, he reminded himself. The people here were genuinely kind and helpful to each other. This was his life now—he just had to get used to it.

      Something in the way Pastor Charles had phrased his request, making it so personal, made Seth want to agree even though he didn’t know the details. In his experience, leaping before you looked could be deadly, so he hedged. “You need a contractor for a job this big. I’m just a carpenter.”

      “You know, son, I work for a carpenter who did some pretty impressive things.”

      The reference to the faith he’d abandoned made Seth’s skin crawl. Before he could come up with a polite way to decline, two shocked EMTs appeared on the other side of the hole.

      “We thought the whole place was coming down,” one of them said with obvious relief. “You okay?”

      “I am, but Pastor Charles needs some attention. You’ll want a stretcher and a backboard, just to be safe.”

      The guy cocked his head. “You a doctor or something?”

      Hardly in the mood for twenty questions, Seth gave him a stern glare. Fortunately, the EMT backed off, grabbing his partner before hurrying back to the ambulance. Waiting for them to come back would only annoy him, so Seth knelt down beside the injured man.

      “How’re you doing, sir?”

      “A little sore, but I’ll be good as new in no time,” he replied with a grateful smile. “Thanks to you.”

      Seth wasn’t used to being around to get credit for what he’d done, so the praise didn’t settle well. “Just pitching in.”

      Fortunately, the medics showed up and saved him from having to make any more conversation. Because moving around in the wrecked church was dangerous, Seth helped steady things while they got their patient strapped in and off to safety. When the scene was as secure as it was going to get, Seth stepped through the hole he’d inadvertently created. Actually, it was a good thing he had. It was a much safer route out than the way he’d come in.

      As the ambulance pulled away, out of the corner of his eye Seth noticed something that looked out of place. The red-and-blue emergency lights swirled through the vivid colors of a stained-glass window that had somehow survived the cave-in.

      A scene of Jesus surrounded by animals, it suited the small-town setting perfectly. The winking effect made him think of the Christmas lights he and Lisa had strung at the diner the other day. He’d seen more than his fair share of carnage, and there had never been anything beautiful left behind.

      Did