The Fireman's Homecoming

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Allie Pleiter. The Fireman's Homecoming

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Black Sheep Son

Nothing about going home to Gordon Falls is easy for fireman Clark Bradens. His role as local bad boy is firmly established, though he’s determined to use his newfound faith to change people’s minds. But Clark isn’t the only one coming home to hard times. When Melba Wingate came home from Chicago to help her ailing father, she wasn’t expecting to unravel a family secret. As Melba wades through the past to find the truth about her father, Clark becomes an unlikely ally. And while neither can change the past, the future is theirs to shape.

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The phrase never failed to bring a broad smile. “Just us pals now.” He looked around the room as if he’d just entered instead of been here three days. “Let’s go home. I don’t need all this junk.”

“All this junk” was Dad’s catch-all term for everything medical, and he had lots of “junk” these days. Too much. She’d spent nearly a year ignoring the red flags of warning that began a while after Mom died; the missed date here or the lost word there. A few months ago those flags refused to be ignored as it became clear Dad wasn’t just pushing sixty, he was sick. Getting sicker. Packing up her Chicago life to move back home felt like diving into a bottomless black pit, but she’d known it was the right thing to do. More than just “honor thy father,” she loved him, shared his loneliness now that Mom was home in Heaven. Sure, it was difficult—and so painfully early for a man as vibrant as her father—but Melba never doubted the choice. She was exactly where she was supposed to be. From now on, it was going to get harder. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she’d think of this day as “the day it started getting worse.” Her stomach rolled and she felt ill instead of hungry.

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