Me: Wait, didn’t he show up today? He said he would sit with her this morning.
Joelle: He was here when I arrived. Said he sat with her all morning. He was quite charming. Still, I feel bad for him that Sara has no memory of their relationship. It’s got to be hard on him.
Me: Not as hard as it is on Sara.
Joelle: They want to move Sara to a rehabilitation facility tomorrow afternoon. I think she wants you here when they move her.
Me: I’ll be there. Do you think she’s ready?
Joelle: She can barely hold up her head, Denver. She still isn’t speaking. It’s scary.
Me: It is. But I guess we need to trust the doctors.
The alarm sounds and all units are called to respond to a motor vehicle accident. My heart thunders as I put my phone away and make my way to the rig. Bass puts the baby into the stroller, and I give Ivy a quick kiss on the cheek on my way by.
Steve gives me a look as we get into the truck. Someone always does. Someone always wonders if I’m going to freeze on the call. Those who know me, like Engine 319, tend to give me the jobs they know I can handle. Like crowd control until NYPD shows up. Or rigging the lines.
I used to be grateful for that, but now I think about what Brett said to me the other day.
“I want in on this one, Captain,” I yell into the front seat.
He raises his eyebrows at me. “You sure?”
I nod.
“What are you doing?” Bass asks.
I look out the window. “I’m going into tall fucking buildings,” I say.
“You are making absolutely no sense,” he says. “Were going to an MVA.”
“I know. But I need to do this. I’m never going to get over this—whatever it is—until I do.”
“I got your back,” Bass says.
As we pull up to the accident, I can see this one will be all hands on deck.
J.D. looks at me when I hop out of the rig. “Andrews, you and Briggs take the SUV, Duck and I will check out the red car.” He turns to Brett’s company. “Squad, check on the truck driver and see if you can pull the truck upright.”
Bass and I grab some gear and run over to the SUV that’s partially under the overturned truck. I take some deep breaths and hope I don’t see my parents when I look into the front seat. But it’s just my damn luck that the two people in the car look to be about the same age as my parents when they died. And blood, tangled metal, and shattered glass is everywhere.
I feel the bile rise up in my throat.
I close my eyes and breathe.
“You okay, man?” Bass asks, climbing up onto the hood so he can reach through the smashed windshield to check on the woman.
I hold a finger out to him as I try to keep myself from throwing up.
“Come on, Denver. We need you.” He nods to the driver. “He needs you.”
I look back in the car and try to get the thought of my parents out of my head. Instead, I try to pretend the guy is Sara, which is damn hard, considering he’s an overweight bald man.
“Sir, can you hear me?” I say, trying the door handle, which I know won’t open.
“My wife!” he cries.
“My partner is getting her,” I say. “Sir, I need you to tell me if you can move your arms and legs.”
“I’m trapped,” he says in a panic.
Images of my nightmares flash through my mind. Thoughts of my parents trapped and cold and dying.
I start to back away as my stomach twists in knots.
“Denver!” Bass shouts at me. “Come on, man. You can save this guy. Put a collar on him. Get the jaws. Pull him out. One step at a time.” He’s on his stomach, reaching in to assess the woman as he yells at me through the shattered driver’s side window. “Look at me! You’ve got this. One step at a time.”
“I can do it,” Debbe says, coming up from behind.
“You can’t do it,” Bass says. “The truck could collapse onto the car any second. Denver is trained for this. It’s his job.”
Debbe holds the cervical collar out to me.
“One step at a time,” I say to myself as I step back up to the SUV and put the collar on him. Then I turn to Debbe. “Can you have someone bring the jaws over here? And I’ll need a blanket to cover him.”
“Sure thing,” she says, running in the other direction.
“Sir, can you move your arms and legs?”
“Yes. My wife, is she okay? I can’t see anything.”
I see he has a pretty bad gash on his head and his face is bloody. Hopefully it’s just the blood from the gash that is obscuring his vision and not a brain injury.
I see Bass pulling the woman through the front window. “We’re helping her, but I need you to hold tight. I need to force the door open.”
Brett comes over with the jaws. “We’ve got the truck secured. We’ll turn it upright as soon as he’s out.” He nods to the door. “You want me to do it?”
I shake my head. “I need to do this.”
He pats me on the back. “I’m right here.”
I set up the jaws and the door pops off; the whole time I feel like I’m going to puke all over this poor guy. “Debbe, he’s coming out, get the backboard,” I shout over my shoulder.
“Got one right here.”
I reach into the car and cut through the guy’s seatbelt, then gently maneuver him onto the ground where we strap him onto a backboard and carry him through the wreckage to a gurney.
I hear the loud noise behind me of the truck being pulled off the SUV.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa—wait!” someone yells. “It’s not holding!”
I turn around to see the large delivery truck crashing down onto the SUV, collapsing the entire front seat and everything in it.
“Oh, shit.”
I stare at the wreckage. I was standing next to that car sixty seconds ago when Bass and the others were still inside. I run to the side of the building on the corner and brace myself against the wall as I lose my lunch all over the pavement.
Bass comes over, patting me on the back. “You okay?”
“I almost got him killed,” I say. “Hell, I almost got you all killed.”
“How do you figure that?”
“I hesitated.”
Bass waves his arms around the scene. “I don’t see any dead people. Do you see any dead people?”
“If that truck had fallen two minutes sooner …”
“That wouldn’t have happened, Denver. They had it secured. It only fell when they were trying to right it, after we had the victims out.”
“Still. I hesitated.”
“And then you did your job.”
“What if next time, my hesitation costs someone his life?”
“You’re not going to let that happen. Are you?”
“Shit. I don’t know, Bass. You tell me. Sometimes I just freeze. It’s like I can’t move and my feet are cemented to the ground. It’s like everything is going on around me and I’m not there.”
He puts an arm around my shoulder. “You’ll get past this, brother.”
“What if I don’t?” I ask. “What if I can’t?”
“Well, I don’t really think that’s an option now, is it?”
Steve yells at us from the road. “You ladies want to get your asses over here and help us clean this mess up?”
An hour later, we’re heading back to the firehouse. I think about calling Reverend Feldworth. His words ring in my head. Talk to someone you trust. Someone who won’t judge you.
He’s not the one I want to talk to, however. The only one I really want to talk to is the one person who can’t talk back to me. She may be the only one who can really understand. Because she was there. She was in the car with me. I was in the car with her. It was like my dreams where I’m in the back seat of my parents’ car after their accident. Only this time, I was really there. And those eyes, they don’t judge me. I trust them. I trust them even when I have no reason to. Just like she has no reason to trust me. Y
et she does.
Chapter Twelve
Oliver is waiting for me in the hospital cafeteria when I arrive with two bags of food. I texted him on my way over to see if I could bring him lunch and save him from the cafeteria food. I also figured having a meal together might help us get past our argument the other day.
“Smells good,” he says when I pull out a few Styrofoam containers.
“It is good,” I tell him. “It’s from Mitchell’s. Have you eaten there before?”
“No.”
“Well, you need to start. The restaurant is run by some friends of friends, and it’s one of my favorite places.”
We make some small talk about the weather and our jobs while we eat. I notice he uses idioms from both the US and the UK. And that, along with his moderate accent, has me wondering.
“How long have you lived in the States?” I ask.
“I suppose it’s been about eleven years now. I moved here after university.”
My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. I knew he was older than me, but not by that much.
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-four.” He eyes me curiously. “You think I’m too old for her.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just that you don’t look that old.”
He laughs. “Thanks for calling me ‘old,’ mate.”
“I didn’t know you Brits were so touchy,” I tease.
I close my food container, too full to finish my meal. I wish I could take it to Sara. Lydia told me burgers were her absolute favorite meal growing up. I wonder if Sara longs for solid food. I know she’s only been awake for a few days, but the thought of being fed by some kind of liquid smoothie being pumped into my stomach is so not satisfying.
“Do you and Sara travel together often?” I ask.
“Only sometimes. She travels for work and I travel for work, and occasionally we can plan it so we’re at the same place at the same time.”
“Have you shown her any pictures of the two of you yet?”
He nods. “This morning. We only got through some of them before she nodded off.”
“Did she recognize any?” I ask hopefully.
“No. But that shouldn’t come as a surprise. The doctor told us not to expect her to remember anything.”
“I know. I guess I just want to believe they could be wrong. So did you tell her you live together?”
He looks down at the table, shaking his head. “I didn’t want to overwhelm her,” he says. “I’m hoping she warms up to me.”
“Give her time. It’s got to be difficult waking up and finding out three years of your life are gone.”
“She’s taken to you,” he says.
“Only because I sat with her every day. Once she gets used to you, the same thing will happen I’m sure.”
Oliver looks at his watch. “I’ve got to take off. I was able to do some work in her room this morning, but I’ve got clients I need to meet with.”
“You’re not going to be here when she moves to the rehab facility?”
“Sorry, mate. Duty calls. Not all of us have the luxury of working two days a week.”
“Two twenty-four-hour days,” I say.
“Touché,” he says, gathering up our trash. “I told her I’d visit her at the new facility tomorrow.”
I hold out my hand. “Thanks for meeting me. I feel like we got off on the wrong foot yesterday.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he says, shaking my hand. He looks at our surroundings. “All this was a lot to take. I … I don’t want to lose her.”
I nod in empathy. “I know you don’t. And I’ll do everything I can to help.”
“I appreciate that. Can you give me a buzz if anything changes with her?”
“Sure. Uh, does that mean send you a text?”
He laughs. “It means call me. But, yeah, a text would be okay, too.”
“See you tomorrow, then.”
“That you will, mate,” he says before walking out the door.
When I approach Sara’s room, I see there’s someone new sitting with her. Krista comes up behind me. “That’s Jason, her speech therapist.”
“I thought she wasn’t speaking yet.”
“She’s not. He’s evaluating her ability to swallow. They want to get her eating solid food as soon as they can.”
“I’ll bet she can’t wait to get that tube taken out of her stomach.”
Krista shakes her head. “They won’t be able to do that for a while. The wound from the surgery needs six weeks to heal before the tube can be removed, or there’s a possibility the stomach could collapse.”
“So, she’ll be stuck with it for a while.”
“I’m afraid so,” she says. “In case you haven’t figured this out by now, waiting patiently is the name of the game in cases like Sara’s.”
“Yeah. I guess it is.”
“We’re going to miss you around here, you know,” she says.
“We?”
Krista rolls her eyes. “Tiffany, you know, one of the night nurses, she, uh—” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a note— “she told me to give this to you. I know it’s unprofessional, but she reminded me that Sara’s not your girlfriend, so …” She holds out the note.
“I’m assuming that’s her phone number?”
She nods.
I push the note back to her. “Please tell her I have a girlfriend.”
Krista looks surprised. “You do? I mean, you spend so much time here, we all assumed you didn’t.”
“I don’t. But it’s better than telling her I’m flat out not interested, isn’t it?”
Krista laughs. “Yeah, I guess it is. Okay, I’ll let her down easy.”
“Thank you.”
I step into the room and wait off to the side to watch Jason with Sara. He’s got a tray of food with him and is spoon-feeding her what looks to be applesauce and diced fruit.
She sees me walk in and her eyes brighten. I give her a wave. “Having lunch, are we?”
She smiles.
“We’re trying,” Jason says.
I watch Sara take a few bites. She seems to chew and swallow without difficulty, so I’m surprised when Jason pulls me aside on his way out.
“I’m concerned that Sara’s not swallowing properly, so before she leaves tonight, I’m going to order a swallow study. We’ll have her swallow a barium drink and then we’ll watch with a machine similar to that of an x-ray to see where it ends up. If all goes well, she’ll be cleared to start back on solid food.”
“Thank you.” I turn to Sara. “I predict you’ll be knee-deep in cheeseburgers in no time.”
She gives me a thumbs up and I can see that she raises her hand off the bed more than she did a few days ago.
Progress.
I sit in the chair Jason vacated. I know she must be tired after all her therapy sessions, but I see if I can push her anyway. I pull the card out of my back pocket and show it to her. “Are you ready to play?”
She nods eagerly.
I grab the cards from the side table and deal some face down onto her lap. She looks at me in confusion.
“You know Go Fish, don’t you?”
Her lips twitch into a smile.
“Here, I’ll help you get set up. Don’t worry, I won’t cheat and look at your cards. But you should know, I’m very competitive.”
I pick up her left hand and fist it for her, then I fan out the cards as I place them into her hand. When I do, I notice something: a big sparkly something on her ring finger.
I remove the cards and hold up her hand. “Wow, that’s some rock.”
She looks sad as she shakes her head. It’s not the look of a woman who’s happy to be engaged.
“I know this must be scary for you, Sara. But I’m glad you’re giving it a chance. Well, I think you are, otherwise you’d have taken it off. You don’t want to take it off, do you?”
She looks at the ring and shrugs.
“This is a good thing, Sara. Oli
ver is a nice guy. I just had lunch with him.”
She looks at me, surprised.
“What, you didn’t think two chaps from opposite sides of the pond could get along?” I look at her thoughtfully. “Do Brits say ‘chaps’?”
She shrugs again. Right, she probably doesn’t have any idea.
“He loves you. This is hard on him, too, you know. Try to put yourself in his shoes. The woman he loves—the woman he loves so much that he asked her to marry him—that woman suddenly doesn’t even remember he exists. For a year, he’s loved you. We all understand you don’t remember, and that’s not your fault. But you obviously loved him, too. That’s got to count for something. If you are meant to be together, you’ll find a way. Even if you never remember.”
She fiddles with the ring, swirling it around her finger.
“Look at it this way. Most of us only get to fall in love once in a lifetime. You’ll get to do it twice.”
She narrows her brows at me.
“Okay, fine, so you’ll only remember it one of those times. But he will have those other memories. And he can remind you of them every day.”
She nods to the cards, making me laugh. “Okay, okay. Let’s play.”
~ ~ ~
Later in the afternoon, they take Sara to do the barium swallow test. I use the time to call my sister.
“What time do you get to town tomorrow?” I ask.
“Early, I think. Are you coming to the game?”
“No, but I can meet up with you after.”
“You’re not still sitting with that girl, Sara, are you? I asked Bass about it a few days ago and he said I should ask you.”
I contemplate lying to her, but what good would that do? She’d probably know anyway. She can usually see right through me. “As a matter of fact, I’m sitting in her hospital room right now. She’s being moved to a rehab facility today.”
“That’s good news, right? If she doesn’t have to stay in the hospital anymore.”
“It’s progress, but she still has a long road ahead of her. She can’t eat, can’t walk. Can’t get out of bed and pee.”
“The poor girl. So you never got in touch with her boyfriend?”
The Men On Fire: A Complete Romance Series (3-Book Box Set) Page 39
