by Lexi Post
She looked up. “You’re wasting light.”
She was right, so he ran up to save time. “What are you doing?”
“I’m adding my dirt to yours. This way you can have a bigger bed, and I can sleep on you.” She stared at her handiwork, but when he didn’t respond she looked at him uncertainly. “If that works for you.”
Worked for him? It worked way too well. He tamped down his pleasure. “That makes sense.” He moved to where she’d built up the bed but still left the rails showing. She probably didn’t want to roll past them. She stood to the side as he lay down then joined him after turning the light out and putting it in her back pocket. Copper, not to be far from her, lay at their feet.
The added dirt was somewhat comfortable, but with her lying next to him, it wouldn’t have matter. It felt so right, he had no doubt he’d sleep well.
Her hand lay on his chest, her head on his shoulder, his bare right arm behind her. It was the perfect setup.
“Thanks. I feel safer this way.”
Surprised she’d admit it, his chest warmed. He wanted to say he’d always keep her safe, but that wasn’t his place. “I’m glad I can help.”
Before he realized what she had done, the top button of his shirt was undone. He grabbed her hand. “What are you doing? You’re going to hurt your fingers.”
“No, I’m not. Your buttonholes are plenty big. And don’t worry, I used a rock to grind down the sharp edges of my nails. They were driving me crazy.”
He wasn’t worried about her nails.
“Are you going to let my hand go now?”
All his feelings of contentment disappeared. “Why did you unbutton my shirt?”
The smile was back in her voice. “So I can lay my hand on your chest. Why else?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
He felt her shift so she had to be looking at him though she couldn’t see him. “What are you afraid of. I’ve already seen your scars. They don’t bother me.”
No, what she’d seen was the least of it. What she hadn’t seen was what had scared off every woman he had thought might like him enough to ignore them. He was wrong. No one could ignore them. “They’re not something you need to subject yourself to.”
“Wait, I can have sex with you but can’t touch you?”
He grimaced. It did sound odd when she put it that way. “Are you sure?”
“Listen, you’ve seen most of my scars. In fact, you’ve seen more of them than anyone else including the Army shrink. I think I can handle yours in the dark.”
It had been two years since a woman looked at his scars and couldn’t hide her revulsion. At least in the dark, he wouldn’t have to see Riley’s expression, but he would know by the tone of her voice exactly what she thought.
“Well?”
He had no decent excuse to give. “Fine, but let me unbutton my shirt so you don’t hurt yourself.”
“Thank you.”
Reluctantly, he unbuttoned the next three buttons. “Okay, you can lie down now.”
She laid her head back on his shoulder and with unerring accuracy, slipped her hand inside his shirt. At first, she moved it to his left side which was mostly normal, but as she moved it closer to herself, he tensed.
“Will you relax. It’s not like I’m going to scratch you. I told you, I scraped my nails down.”
Realizing she’d done that for him, he tried to breathe normally.
Her hand moved across the major burn scars on his right side. Not once did she stop the movement, trailing her palm across his ragged skin before coming to rest over his heart. “There, that wasn’t so terrible was it?”
Her words surprised him. “No.”
“So how did you get so badly burned. You said it was a wildfire, but many of you Hot Shots fight them and don’t get burned. Why you?”
“Because I lost sight of what was important.” The bitter words came out of their own accord. He hadn’t told anyone that was how he felt, but here in the dark with a woman he could have spent the rest of his life with if not for his rash act, they just spilled out.
“You said life was more important than structures.”
“It is. And no lives were in jeopardy…of the fire. I should have just pulled back when it got dangerous.”
“But you didn’t.”
He shook his head even if she couldn’t see him. “No, I didn’t. We were building a fire break between the forest and a small cluster of ramshackle homes. I just needed to get one more tree down, so I told my crew to pull back while I finished that final tree. I never saw the burning pine falling toward me until it was too late. I heard a shout and looked up. I held my arm up to cover my face and turned away just before I was knocked over.”
“Oh God. That must have been excruciating.”
“Not at first. When I fell, I hit my head on a stump and lost consciousness. When I woke up in the hospital, l I hurt, but had no idea how bad the damage was with all the pain medication I was on. It wasn’t until my family came to see me after the doctor got me stable that the pain seeped through. I had third degree burns on almost half my body.”
“That was only the beginning though, right. I’ve known soldiers who were badly burned from grenades and IEDs. There’s skin grafts and surgeries and stuff.”
“Yes, and stuff.”
“How many weeks before they were done fixing you?”
“They had to do multiple grafts at different times. It took five months.”
“Shit.” She remained quiet and for that he was thankful. Just remembering the pain of the burns had his stomach rolling.
“Tell me. You don’t seem like a cocky man who makes rash decisions. Why did you stay to get that last tree down if no one’s life was in danger?”
“I guess you could say it was an emotional decision instead of one of the logical ones we’re all trained in. As we reached the staging site, I was waiting for the update when the people who lived in the small cluster of homes drove slowly by. Some of the vehicles looked like they wouldn’t make it to the next town. In one of them was a little girl with a blue stuffed animal. She looked at me, her eyes wide with fear as she sat on her mom’s lap. Her mother held her, tears streaming down her face.” It still amazed him how clear their images still were.
“They were sorry to leave their homes, but they must have been relieved to get out in time.”
Riley’s observation was the same he had. “That’s what I thought, until I saw the homes. These weren’t nice log cabins or fancy adobe homes. Once we got our orders, we drove by the small community of shacks. I have no other word for it. I understood then why the mother was in tears. Those shacks were all they had. The only thing standing between them and living on the street.”
Riley shifted again and her voice came from slight above him. “You wanted to save their homes.”
He nodded before remembering she couldn’t see him. “Yes. I was determined, and only one tree stood between myself and my goal, but I knew it was dangerous. It was why I sent my men back. I’m just glad the only person’s life I endangered was my own. The only person’s life I ruined was mine.” It had been a stupid decision, and he’d paid the price. He’d been trained better and didn’t deserve to be a firefighter, never mind a Hot Shot.
“Did it work?” Her voice was soft. “Were the homes saved?”
“I don’t know. I never asked. I never went back. They had the fire eighty percent contained when I woke up, but I was in my own hell. It didn’t matter anymore.”
“I’m sure it did to those families. What if they were able to go home because of what you did?”
He’d thought about that over the last few years. “And what if they didn’t. I would have ruined my life for nothing. I’d rather not know.”
“You keep saying you ruined your life.” Her voice was normal now. “You don’t seem ruined.”
He blinked. He lived with it for so long, he thought it was obvious to everyone. “You felt my chest. My leg, my a
ss, even my foot are nothing but a mess of scar tissue and skin grafts. Most of those coming from my inner thighs and back. No one wants to live with someone who looks like me.”
Riley snorted. “Seriously? You need a reality check. I can name seven men right off the top of my head that came home looking a lot worse than you do. Their wives just happy they were alive.”
“And what about the ones who had no wives to come home to? Have they met someone who can live with who they are now?”
To her credit, she didn’t answer right away. “I know three like that. Last time I saw them, one was engaged, one had a girlfriend and the third was still very single.”
“I guess I’m in the final third then.”
Her hand moved over his chest again, making him tense. “Have you actually ever let a woman see these scars.”
He swallowed. “Two women have. It was too much for them.”
Riley swore. “Bitches.”
His hand caught hers on his chest. “No, they weren’t. They were good women. They couldn’t help their reaction. No woman should have to look at this every morning.”
“Bullshit.” Her anger was burning so hot, she couldn’t seem to find any real words. Furious with the prisses who couldn’t see the heroic man beneath the scars, she pulled her phone from her pocket and turned the light on before he could react.
“Stop.”
“No.” She moved her hand out from under his and sat up, pulling the right side of his shirt with her.
He grabbed her hand with the phone, his own large one shutting out the light. “Don’t. You don’t need to see it.”
She jerked her hand out of his and shined the light on his chest. She let her eyes roam over every inch of patchworked skin. Was it pretty? No. He was right, it was a mess of scars and bumps. The skin wasn’t all the same skin tone either. It had to have hurt like the devil. He was lucky he hadn’t gone crazy from the pain.
Was his chest horrific? No. When she’d seen her fill, she angled the light to the ceiling. “So what? You have some scars. I’ve seen far worse. Hell, there are those of us whose scars don’t even show, but we are far more messed up than you. At least you lived.”
He had turned his head away from the light, but now he faced her. “Are you going to try to tell me it’s a pleasant sight?”
It was the first time she’d heard sarcasm from him. Though it surprised her, she understood where it came from. He had his limits, and she’d pushed him beyond. But as far as she was concerned, it was for his own good. “Hell no. It’s ugly. But some people are born ugly and have no brave tale to tell. You were lucky.”
“Right, fucking lucky.”
If she could have crossed her arms and held the light, she would have. “You are. Only half your body was burned. Most of it you can cover up to hide it if you want to, though I’d dress for comfort and screw everyone else and what they thought. Plus, your face is unmarred. I know a man who only has one eye and half a nose. Hair won’t grow on half his head so he shaves it every day. You’re a handsome man and people don’t turn away from you in the grocery store.”
“You think I’m handsome?”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s what you decide to listen to?”
He shrugged. “It’s not like I could tell. We’ve been in the dark most of the time. And by the way, I think you’re beautiful.”
“You need your eyes checked.” She turned the light off and stuffed it back in her pocket.
“Come here.” His voice had a smile in it.
She liked that she could make him smile. What was with that? Still, she willingly lay back down and ran her hand over his chest. “If a woman really cared about you, she wouldn’t let you get away just because of this. You just haven’t found the right woman.”
“Or maybe I have, and she just doesn’t know it yet.”
His voice was soft, but still it sent a shiver through her. She was no good at caring for people. In fact, she sucked at it as her mom often told her, but it took war for her to finally get it through her thick head. “I think you’re delirious from lack of food. You better go to sleep.”
He gave her a little squeeze. “Yes, Ma’am.”
She shook her head against his chest. He was a good man. The kind she respected, which just made it more dangerous for her to be around him. She should be sleeping in a completely different tunnel if she were smart, but there was no way she was leaving his side. He made her feel safe. He respected her in turn, and he gave her hope. Right now, that was the only thing keeping her alive.
Plus, he’d made her body feel better than it had in years. Closing her eyes, she smiled. Hopefully, her dreams would be filled with him. After all, they were only dreams.
~~*~~
The next morning, she woke refreshed. Not a single bad dream entered her mind. She was going to start thinking of Garrett has her nightmare blocker.
After their usual routine, though it was depressing that they had one, they grabbed their tools and moved back to the cave-in. Garrett had mentioned checking her arm, but she’d distracted him. There was no doubt in her mind it was infected. She had ibuprofen, but only one dose. She planned to take it when the pain got too bad. Right now, it was just hot and it stung a bit.
He moved the light to shine on their progress from the day before. With the dense dirt, he had moved forward at least twelve feet. She wasn’t sure, but she estimated the cave-in had happened fifteen feet inside. The problem was that the mudslide could have changed everything.
Garrett climbed up on the mound of dirt. She looked for Copper but found him lying on the earth where they had slept. After giving him a little water and forgoing her own, he’d settled there. He wasn’t doing well. He had a lot less fat on his bones and the lack of food was making him weak.
She voiced her fear. “I don’t think Copper can hold out many more days.”
Garrett looked over her shoulder at the dog. “No, he can’t. We better start digging then.”
Climbing up behind him with her gold pan, she set her position directly behind him.
When he saw she was ready, he faced forward, dug his shovel in, and turned out the light. There wasn’t much battery life left on her phone now either. In her cave, there had been little tufts of straw paper packing material from the boxes of guns and ammunition that had been stored there. She lit those when her phone had died.
If they were forced to, they could bring wood up from the transfer area they’d found, but she wasn’t excited about burning up oxygen.
At first, they worked in silence, but she knew she had to talk to keep him pointed in the right direction. “Why did you buy a house here if all your family live in Prescott?”
He pushed a shovel full of dirt behind him to his left. She leaned forward and dragged it all the way out to send it down the small hill they had made. The movements became automatic. Their tunnel had to be at least twenty feet now. Getting the dirt out took longer.
“I needed a change of scenery and since I’d worked at the Canterbury fire station for a couple of years, I figured this area was as good a spot as any. Close to family but not too close.”
That made sense. He wanted to stay away from his smothering sister. “Will you join that station again?”
He didn’t respond right away and when he did it was so quiet, she almost missed it. “No.”
Knowing how he felt about getting burned on the job, she dropped it. “Is the station around here a good one?”
As she expected, he launched into a description of the men he’d served with. Most of his stories were funny as it seemed they liked to play pranks on each other. But some were poignant about the people they’d saved.
Suddenly, he stopped working, and more importantly he’d stopped talking.
She leaned forward into the tunnel he’d created. “Everything okay up there?”
“Shh.”
She froze. Did he hear something? Was it people outside? A hawk? Water? She wanted it to be people. She’d never heard
what it would be like to have people rescue her. The anticipation and hope were almost too much.
“We’re here! In here!” Garrett’s yell sounded loud in the silence.
She clapped her hands over her ears. When she pulled them away, gravel eas trickling down the wall. “Did you hear someone?” Her heartbeat raced at the possibility. Would they actually have help getting out? Would she be rescued this time?
“I think so. We need to be louder. Here, take the phone and find me a spike. I’ll tap it against the shovel head.”
Quickly, she lit the area and scrambled down to snatch up a spike from where it leaned against the wall. When she crawled back up behind him, she patted his tight butt. “Here.”
He took it from her and started banging the shovel head with it. He struck five times and stopped.
This time she definitely heard a voice, though it still sounded far away.
“Did you hear that?” He looked back at her.
“I did.” Now that rescue could actually happen, she was afraid to hope. Afraid they’d move on. “Strike it again.”
He did and this time they heard a distinct shout, closer now. Garrett yelled again. “In here!”
This time the voice was clearer and a low rumbling could be heard.
Garrett crawled backward out of the tunnel and the two of them moved off the pile of dirt and waited, their eyes focused on the tunnel.
“Garrett, Riley, we’re coming for you. Where are you?”
That was Cole! She grabbed the spike from his hand and banged on the shovel with all her might. “We’re here!” Fear that Cole would give up collided with her excitement.
“Wait.” Garrett covered her hand with his own.
The silence scared her. They were going to leave. It was too hard to find them. Her hands became clammy and she pulled hers away from Garrett’s. Pressure on her left leg distracted her. Glancing down, she found Copper looking up at her, his one eyebrow higher than the other as if to say, what the hell is going on?
She scooped him up, happy to have him to hold.
