The Men On Fire: A Complete Romance Series (3-Book Box Set)

by Samantha Christy

  Two people have now painted a very unflattering picture of Sara. Yet I can’t help still feeling sorry for her. She lost both her parents. And now she’s alone. I know exactly what that feels like.

  “No, I’m sorry,” she says. “I kind of went off on a tangent. I know that’s not what you asked me. You want to know what she likes.” She gazes back at Sara, this time placing a hand on her arm. I can tell she’s trying to make an effort to be a friend even though she’s no longer considered one. Her face cracks into a small smile. “She liked the Beach Boys.”

  My eyes go wide. “The Beach Boys? Really?”

  “Yeah. Well, maybe it’s not so much that she liked them, but her parents did, and she was pretty close with them. And after we moved to the city, I always knew when she was feeling sad because she’d blare “Kokomo” or “Surfin’ USA” throughout the apartment.”

  “Okay. Beach Boys. What else?”

  “Cats. She liked cats. Neither of us had the time or patience for a dog, but we both loved our cat, Freckles. We got him together as our first purchase when we came to the city.”

  “What happened to him? I hope he’s not stuck inside her apartment.”

  “He’s not. I got him in the divorce. But I can’t say she hasn’t acquired a new one. However, take it from a cat owner, they can go days without their humans.”

  “The divorce?”

  “That’s what I call it. And I tell you, it sure as hell seemed like one. I mean we’d been friends since I moved in down the street when we were five years old. We were inseparable. My husband laughs at the stories I’ve told him about what mischief we used to get into.”

  “Husband?” I ask. “You’re married? What about the whole ‘toying with men for sport’ thing?”

  She admires her wedding rings for a second. “After I left, I realized I never wanted anyone to look at me the way I looked at Sara. I was tired of being a pretentious bitch. So I changed. I got a new apartment. A new job. And I just left my old life behind.”

  “Wow,” I say in disbelief.

  She laughs. “Yeah. It wasn’t easy at first. It’s hard to think of other people when you’ve put yourself first for so long. But then I met Dan. He called me on my shit and refused to let my inner bitch come through.” She rubs her belly, which I’m just now noticing is protruding. “And now we’ve been married for a year and are expecting our first child. Which reminds me, I only have another twenty minutes. I’m on my way to the obstetrician.”

  “Congratulations,” I say. “Well, if we’ve only got twenty minutes, you need to start talking. Tell me everything you can remember.”

  As Lydia shares knowledge of her former best friend with me, I listen intently for anything I could use to help Sara. We enjoy several laughs as she reminisces about their childhood. And by the time Lydia gets up to leave, I feel like I’ve gotten to know the woman lying on the bed.

  On her way out, Lydia looks back over at Sara. I can tell this visit was hard for her. She’s still struggling over their lost friendship. But in my profession, I’ve seen tragedies bring people together. And I hope this isn’t the last time she will visit her old friend.

  After Lydia is gone, I tap around on my phone, and then I turn up the volume as a Beach Boys song plays over my speaker.

  When the first song is over, I swear I see Sara shiver like she did the other day, and again I feel bad that it’s so cold in here. I grab her hand, hoping to offer her comfort.

  “They have to keep you cold to bring your fever down,” I explain to her again. “I hope you can’t feel how cold it is in here, because I’ll tell you, it’s damn cold. As in lips-turn-blue cold. Or freeze-your-balls-off cold.”

  I play another Beach Boys song and it sparks a memory of when I was a kid. I’m reminded of a time when Aspen and I were with our parents in the car on the way to visit our grandparents. Our mom played some of Grandma’s favorite songs for us in preparation. And by the time we arrived at the house a few hours later, we were all laughing and singing along to “Barbara Ann.”

  Out of nowhere, I feel movement in my hand. It surprises me, and I about jump out of my skin. I look at Sara’s face, her expression not having changed. I keep hold of her hand, hoping I wasn’t just imagining things, but she fails to move again.

  I sit and talk to her about everything Lydia told me. Then I tell her I lost my parents, too. I tell her we are a lot alike. I was alone, just like she is. I was alone for a long time, unable to leave a place where everyone hated me. I wasn’t technically behind bars, but Kansas City was my prison.

  An hour later, when the doctor makes his rounds, I tell him about the movement. He checks her over and tells me to expect more of the same as the sedation meds slowly exit her body. But he also reminds me how serious her injury is and that anything could happen.

  After dinner, when they take her for the MRI, I decide to go home and get some sleep before my next shift. But on my way out, I realize all I really want to do is hold her hand and pray to feel her pinky move again.

  Chapter Six

  “Fran, are you okay?” my father asks after the car comes to rest at the bottom of an embankment. “Fran, can you hear me? Francis!”

  My mother’s hand comes up to touch the cut over her eye. “Ouch. What happened, Conrad?”

  “I hit a patch of ice. Skidded clear off the road.”

  “Are you okay, dear?” Mom asks him.

  “Jammed my leg pretty bad. And the airbag hit me hard. My neck feels it. But I’m more concerned about that gash on your head.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” she says, putting the passenger-side visor down to look in the mirror. “I think my hand was in front of me when the airbag deployed, and my ring cut into my forehead.”

  “Let me have a look,” he says, unbuckling his seatbelt and angling himself towards my mother. He takes a tissue from her and dabs the corner of it on his tongue before cleaning the blood running down her face. “There, good as new and pretty as the day I met you.”

  My mom smiles. Then she turns and looks out the back window. “Oh, Conrad. We’re pretty far from the road.”

  My father studies the landscape behind us. “I figure we slid a few hundred feet down from the road. We’re damn lucky we didn’t roll over. Although, I’m pretty sure we won’t get her started again—just look at the hood, it’s smashed to high heaven.”

  “I’m not sure we could drive out of here even if the car would start,” my mom adds.

  “I think you might be right,” he says, getting his phone out of his back pocket. “Let’s just call Triple A and let them figure out how to get the damn thing out.”

  He taps around on his phone. “I can’t make a call on mine. Can you check yours?”

  My mom fishes around on the floor in front of her, searching for her phone. “Got it,” she says. “But I don’t have any bars. I think we’re out of the service area.”

  “It must be the gulley we’re in,” he says. “I’ll just head back up to the road. I’m sure I can get a signal there.”

  “But your leg,” Mom cries. “Conrad, let me do it.”

  “Darling, if you think I’m letting my wife climb up the side of a snowy embankment, then you married the wrong man twenty-three years ago.” He nods to his leg. “It’s probably just a sprain, anyway. I’ll be fine.”

  He leans over and kisses my mother. Then he tries to open the door, but it won’t budge. “Damn, looks like a tree is blocking the door. I’m not even sure I could get out the window. How about your side?”

  Mom looks out her window in horror. “It’s a steep drop off this side. I’m afraid to open the door.”

  “Try the window,” he says.

  She fiddles with the controls. “The window won’t work.”

  Dad looks more than a little concerned. “Francis, the next time I insist on renting a sporty two-door in the winter, have my head checked, will you?”

  My mother starts crying. “We’re trapped, aren’t we?”

  “
We’ll figure it out. I’m sure we’ll be able to make a call soon. Maybe the nearest tower is temporarily down.”

  Her cries turn to sobs and she starts to hyperventilate. “Oh, my God, Conrad. We’re stuck in here. We can’t get out. We’re a hundred feet from the roadway with no way to call for rescue. We’ll freeze to death. We’ll starve. What will they tell the kids?”

  “Calm down, Fran. I won’t let it come to that. I’ve always taken care of you. This is no different.”

  “But, Conrad, we’re trapped. You can’t save me this time.”

  He hugs her. Then he turns to me. “Why didn’t you save us, Denver?”

  I startle awake, drenched in sweat, my mother’s sobs still echoing in my ears.

  I sit up on the side of the bed, my head in my hands. At least this wasn’t one of the bad ones. They’re all bad, but most of the time, I watch them die. My mind has pieced together the bits of information given to us by the police, and different scenarios play out in my dreams.

  Then a horrible feeling washes over me.

  I pick up my phone and call the nurses’ station at the ICU. I don’t even feel bad that it’s one-thirty in the morning. They get Tiffany, the night nurse, on the line.

  “Tiffany, it’s Denver Andrews. I just wanted to check on Sara. Is she okay? Nothing happened after I left, did it?”

  “Get a bad feeling, did you?”

  “Uh …”

  “It’s okay. We get calls like yours all the time. Sara is the same. They have some procedures to do tomorrow after they review the results of the MRI, but other than that, she’s still being weaned off the Propofol.”

  I breathe a heavy sigh of relief. Then I ask, “Did her boyfriend happen to show up after I left?”

  “No, sorry.”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Okay. Thanks, Tiffany. Sorry to bother you.”

  “No bother, Denver. Call anytime.”

  I spend the rest of the night in a fitful sleep. What will the MRI show? I’ve done some research on brain injuries over the past few days, and from what I can tell, if the damage is extensive but her body is still strong enough to keep her alive, she could be hooked up to machines for the rest of her life, unable to walk, talk, or breathe.

  And based on what I’ve read, even the best-case scenario would likely mean some kind of damage, whether it be to her cognitive ability or her physical ability. Suddenly, I get a sick feeling in my gut. What if she can never paint again?

  I won’t be able to see Sara until after my shift. My twenty-four-hour shift.

  And somehow, I have the feeling that the next day will be one of the longest of my life.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Hey, convict,” Steve Hanson says when I walk into the firehouse.

  I roll my eyes. It hasn’t gone unnoticed that, technically, I’m a felon. Well, I was until I was cleared of all charges and exonerated last year. But they’ll never let me live it down thanks to the one drunken night I spent out with Engine 319 a few months ago.

  “Hi, Duck,” I say, calling him by his nickname that he earned by not being able to walk with his feet straight.

  “I hear we’re stuck with you until Auggie gets off desk duty.”

  “That’s the word,” I say, putting my turnout gear by the rear door of the truck.

  “Well, you know your way around. Go drop your shit in the bunk room. We designated one for you since you’ll be here a while. The rest of the company should be in shortly.”

  I pass by some other guys I know from a different shift. One of them lifts a chin at me. The other doesn’t even bother to acknowledge me.

  “Well, hello to you, too,” I say sarcastically.

  Lt. Brett Cash comes around the corner. “Don’t let them get to you,” he says. “We’re happy to have you fill in for Noah.”

  “Thanks,” I say, walking up the stairs to the bunk room. Cash follows behind me and sits down on the bunk next to mine.

  “I wasn’t so different from you, you know.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I lost my mom on 9/11.”

  “I know, man. Bass told me. I’m sorry.”

  He nods his thanks. “She was a nurse working at a hospital less than a mile from the World Trade Center. She and several other nurses and doctors she worked with ran into the south tower. I wasn’t quite twelve years old and was still asleep when she left for her early shift. I barely remember my mom saying goodbye. She used to kiss me on the forehead every morning when she left for work, even if I was sleeping. I remember grumbling at her because she woke me up.” He shakes his head. “That’s the last interaction I ever had with my mom—my complaining about her wanting to kiss me before she left the house.”

  “You were eleven,” I say. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  I don’t tell him that I don’t even remember the last interaction with my parents. Kendall and I had only been dating a short while and we were consumed with each other. Everything was about her. Us. I remember telling my parents to have a good time on their trip, but all I think about when I recall the last time I saw them is wanting them out of the house so Kendall could come over and have sex with me.

  “I know that. But sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d just woken up to say goodbye. Maybe I could have stopped her from going to work. I know that seems silly, because nobody knew what was going to happen that day. But my mind goes crazy thinking of all the different scenarios. What if her train had been late that day? What if my little sister had one of her asthma attacks and my mom had to stay and help her before going to the hospital? There are so many things that could have happened that would have kept her with us.”

  I think about the dream I had last night. Maybe it’s the same for everyone who has lost somebody.

  “Anyway, I knew immediately after she died that I wanted to be a fireman. I was convinced that I could have helped her, or people like her, on 9/11 had I been there. And so that’s what I worked toward from that day forward. And I did it. I became one of the youngest candidates in FDNY history. But that didn’t mean I was any good at it.”

  “You weren’t good at what? Being a firefighter?”

  “I was a good guy to have around if you needed someone to do CPR for an hour until a rescue squad could get on site. And I was the man you wanted on the front line in a house or small structure fire. I would run in, guns-a-blazin’, and put out the fire before the second team arrived.” He shakes his head in disgust. “But if you put me in a building over ten stories tall, I would freeze. I got claustrophobic and felt it would collapse down onto me and everyone around me.”

  My eyes go wide. “But half of our training was in a ten-story structure.”

  “It was training, Andrews. In a controlled environment. I killed it at the academy. Graduated at the top of the class. And then I fell flat on my face the second week of the job when I walked into the real deal.”

  I look at him in disbelief. “But last fall, I distinctly remember you dissing me at the bar when Aspen told everyone I was useless during car crashes.”

  He shrugs a guilty shoulder. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. After being on the job as long as I have, we tend to forget where we came from and what we had to go through to get here. But Bass has been talking a lot about you lately, and it just brought everything rushing back.”

  “What’s that asshole saying about me?”

  “It’s not important,” he says, getting up off the cot. “Or maybe it is. But listen, I’m not here to counsel you or blow smoke up your ass. I just wanted you to know you can come to me if you need someone to listen. I may understand more than a lot of guys around here.” He nods in the direction of the guys from last shift.

  “Thanks, Lieutenant.”

  “My door’s always open,” he says before walking away.

  “Hey, Brett?”

  He turns around. “Yeah?”

  “What did you do to get over it?”

  He laughs half-heartedly. “Went into a
lot of tall fucking buildings.”

  Bass and the captain walk up the stairs just as Brett is leaving. Whereas Brett is the officer in charge of Squad 13, Sebastian Briggs and Captain Jim Dickerson, better known as J.D., are on Engine 319 with Steve and me.

  “Welcome back,” Captain Dickerson says.

  I stand up and shake his hand. “Thanks, Captain. I’m glad to be here.”

  “You settling in?”

  “I am.”

  “Last shift left some breakfast for us if you’re interested,” he says.

  Then the alarm sounds and we all stop talking and listen. “Engine 319, Squad 13, EMS 64, respond to a residential structure fire at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Fifty-Third Street.”

  J.D. heads for the stairs. “You know the rule, right, Andrews?”

  “Fifty-two seconds,” I say, following right behind him.

  The three of us fly down the stairs and pull on our turnout gear consisting of our boots, pants, and coats. Then we put on our helmets and hoist ourselves into the rig.

  “About fucking time,” Steve says, already in the driver’s seat.

  “Duck lives to show us all up,” Bass says from the seat next to mine.

  “You better watch it,” J.D. tells Steve. “Or I’ll cut that time in half.”

  I look out the window of the rig as we drive down the street. We fly past cars that have pulled over to the side of the road. J.D. pulls the cord to blare the horn as we barrel through intersections. We all wave back at kids who stop and stare longingly at the shiny big fire truck.

  Damn, I love what I do.

  I just wish I was better at it.

  ~ ~ ~

  On the way back from our call, which turned out to be a small garage fire, we pass what’s left of a car accident that another company responded to. The smashed-up car is being hoisted up onto a wrecker. My hands are on the window and my eyes are glued to the car as we wait our turn to pass. The car looks like it got wrapped around a pole just behind the driver’s seat.

  I feel my heart start to pound as all the possible outcomes flash through my mind. Then as we drive away, I finally begin breathing again. My head slumps over and I put my elbows on my knees as I take in some deep breaths.