Walk Through the Fire

by Calle J. Brookes

  He didn’t need to be worried about the city.

  Carl had enough on his plate.

  “Thanks, Turner. I—”

  “Look like hell. I’ll stay here. You head home for a bit—take a shower, grab some breakfast. Jason and I will watch TV when he wakes—not Storm Bombers, even though that’s everyone’s favorite right now—and talk about the ladies. I hear they have really hot nurses in this wing.” He winked at the nurse who had just stepped into the room in time to hear his comment. Izzie just snickered in return. “I can confirm that personally, as of this very moment. Hey, Super Iz.”

  “Hey Mayor-Man,” Izzie said quietly as she checked one of the machines next to Jason’s bed and unplugged it to slip it out of the room.

  Carl almost slumped. “I think I’ll do that. Thanks, Turner. It’s appreciated.”

  “I know. Which makes it no problem at all. You’d do it for me. I’ll stay around here until you get back. We’ll hit the meeting together. I won’t let him wake alone, ok?”

  Turner waited until the man was gone before turning toward the nurse who’d returned. “You doing ok?”

  “I’m fine.” She shot him a wicked look out of those ridiculously powerful brown eyes of hers. “But I don’t think it’s me you’re really asking about.”

  “Of course, it is. You stole my heart, you little heart-thief.” It was true, in a way. Izzie reminded him of his cousin Powell in attitude. Vulnerable hedgehog. It made him want to protect her, all the while razzing her as much as he possibly could.

  Kid sister. If he had one, she probably would have been a lot like Izzie. Or Powell.

  “Sure, I did.” She finished pulling a second piece of equipment from behind the sleeping teenager. “She’s upstairs. And not too happy this morning.”

  “Why?”

  “Her physicians aren’t letting her out of here as fast as she wants. I think she’s bored. And worried. She always overworks herself when she’s worried. Annie doesn’t sit well. She’s always got to be taking care of something. Lifelong habit.”

  Turner made his mind up in that instant. “I’ll head up there in just a bit. See if I can take her mind off what happened.”

  He wanted nothing more than to do just that.

  Turner was still determined to make everything better for her that he could.

  19

  “Now, honey. It’ll all be ok.” Dennis Lee patted the woman on the back awkwardly. Except for his daughters, he’d never been much good at comforting women. And that had been tough at first, too. They’d been so small. But he’d gotten better at it.

  Big, dark eyes stared up at him.

  They were going to bury her nephew Raymond soon. More than a week after the storm.

  Dennis Lee had never cared for the fool that much, but he’d come in useful when he or Jenny had needed something done—off the books, so to speak.

  Still, there were others out there who would be just as useful. And half as dumb.

  Her nephew had been dumb as a stump, and a sick pervert, too.

  Jenny had always made excuses for Raymond. Mostly about how he was so disadvantaged.

  Hell, Raymond hadn’t known what disadvantaged was. Jenny and that fool husband of hers had pampered that boy from the time he was in grade school.

  When Dennis Lee had been in grade school, he’d gotten strapped by his daddy if he didn’t come home with enough money to buy dinner for the family. By the time he should have gone into middle school, he was on his own, taking care of himself.

  Disadvantaged, Dennis Lee’s old wrinkled ass.

  There was nothing disadvantaged about how Jenny had raised her nephew. But he knew better than to say something like that to her.

  He liked Jenny.

  Liked having her in his bed, for one thing. For a fifty-eight-year-old woman, she had a nicely toned body and parts that hadn’t sagged too badly over the decades. She looked ten years younger than what she was. He felt damned good when he slept with her.

  The woman had a razor-sharp brain behind those gorgeous eyes of hers.

  “Will it?” She looked at him. “I don’t know if I can keep up the pretenses, Denny.”

  Dennis Lee fought a rush of irritation. Jenny’s section of the city was a nice, shiny part of his business plan for the next three years. He couldn’t afford her getting squirrelly. His hand tightened around her pale throat. “You have to.”

  She almost whimpered. Then she nodded her consent.

  Hell, she didn’t mean it. She was just losing control of herself. She’d lost one of her babies in that damned twister. It was no wonder she was rattled. Raymond may have been a stupid fucking ass, but he’d been the kid Jenny had raised. The hand he had around her throat loosened. He slipped it around her waist and pulled her closer.

  Jenny sure did like to snuggle. It was one of the things he loved about her. Dennis Lee wasn’t much of a cuddler himself, but with her…it was hard to resist.

  “It’ll be ok, baby. I promise. And when we’re done, think of all the money we’ll have. You can give that boy of yours everything you’ve ever wanted to give him.” Dennis Lee held open his arms and gathered her into his arms. “Come on, now, get it out. Just let it go, baby. Then we’ll go to this damned meeting of the mayor’s and decide what we’re going to be doin’ next. We’ll make this work for us, honey. I promise.”

  He sat in the armchair and just held her on his lap while she cried.

  20

  Annie was sleeping. Turner stood next to the door and looked at her for a moment. She was hooked up to an IV and a monitor of some sort, but she looked ten times better than she had the last time he had seen her. Just as beautiful. Probably more so now that he knew how courageous the woman was.

  He wanted to touch her, but figured that was a bit weird. They were basically strangers to each other, after all.

  “You can’t go in,” a feminine voice said quietly behind him. “Not unless she’s awake. Hospital regs, pal.”

  Turner turned, seeing familiar red hair and a gorgeous face with big, whiskey-brown eyes. “Hey, Jillian the Villy-un. You look tired.”

  “I am. We’ve been pulling shift-and-a-halves in my department. We’re down a few nurses. Annie, and another who lost a leg in the storm. And one was killed at home with his son. That’s just our department.”

  “I’m sorry.” Turner winced. He’d never be able to count how many times he’d said those words over the last week or so. He studied her quickly.

  “Me, too.”

  “Death toll is still rising. We lost another to bacteria this morning. Eighty-three years old.”

  “I heard.”

  She was busy, and he was wasting time here. Turner knew it. He could be better utilized out there with the people of his city. He looked at the woman in the bed again.

  It wasn’t finished between them. He’d be coming back to see her the first chance he got.

  “Take care of yourself, Jilly. You’re no good to anyone if you wear yourself down.”

  “The same could be said to you. Now, go home. First, stop off and get you something to eat. You look like you’ve run yourself ragged. Don’t make me call Mel.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll do that.” With one more look at Annie, Turner left.

  He had things to do.

  But he would be back.

  21

  Carl pulled in a breath and bit back the irritation at the compiling list of problems he had to face. Soon, but not now. He needed to be with Jason. The two hours he’d taken this morning for a shower and breakfast hadn’t been enough.

  Exhaustion was threatening to take hold.

  Carl pushed it away. He’d been tired before. He would be again.

  They didn’t have time for this posturing. Not with everything that had happened. What Turner was asking for wasn’t that unreasonable. They’d discussed it over the lunch they’d grabbed at the hospital cafeteria. It was a damned good plan, with more heart and guts than anything, but it would work. Carl
would bet a million on it. Hell, he’d front a million dollars himself if that’s what the boy asked of him now.

  Turner was doing what had to be done for the city. How could anyone argue that? Especially those around them that were getting a bird’s-eye view of what the mayor was doing.

  Idiots. Half the lot of them were idiots.

  Carl stood and cleared his throat.

  The twenty-two people in the room—a mix of the mayor’s staff, city councilmen and women, and assistants, plus a handful of reporters—looked at him.

  “Deputy Mayor Buchanan, you have the floor.”

  Carl cleared his throat again, searching for the words he needed. When he decided to just go with his gut, his eyes landed on the one person in the room who he knew supported him completely.

  Jennifer nodded; her support was clear in her big, dark eyes.

  She was there for him, and Carl knew that. Knew how much she meant to him.

  He could have lost her. It had been sheer luck the house she was showing the day of the storm had a storm shelter. Otherwise, he could have lost her.

  The rest of the room quieted.

  Carl looked around again. The mayor was at the center of the table, directly across from Carl. Jennifer was directly on Carl’s left.

  That blustery idiot Dennis Lee was on her left. It was his opinion that always burned through Carl. The man was no more than a crook. No doubt the storm would mean an increase in old Dennis Lee’s pocket change. Men like him always benefitted from others’ misfortunes. “What are we doing here?”

  He paused and looked at each face one by one. “We were all hurt by this. We’re lucky the mayor is alive, as well as the young woman with him. Have any of us in this room not been touched by the storm?”

  Carl reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He pulled a snapshot free. It was Jason’s school picture. “He almost died. He’s facing weeks of surgery and recovery. I should probably be there with him right now. We don’t know…don’t know if his best friend Jimmy will survive.” He pulled out a second photo and handed it to Jennifer. “That’s him there. The little carrot-top with the braces. He wants to be a firefighter. That won’t happen now. He’s lost his leg from mid-thigh down. And we’re sitting here arguing what distributor of bottled water to go with.

  “Let’s think here, people. We have people without any water at all. They aren’t going to wait for the company that’s cheaper but takes two extra days to get it here. It’s not about the money. FEMA is handling things, yes, but what are we doing? There’s a limit to federal aid. We all know that. This is our city. FEMA won’t be able to meet our needs forever.

  “Stop the arguing. Quit thinking of our pocketbooks. Our city is hurting. We’ll find the money somewhere. We need to stop. Quit rushing the decisions. Help guide our people so shysters and con men don’t step into the gaps.” He manfully avoided looking at Dennis Lee. If there were any hucksters among the group, Dennis Lee would be at the top of the pile.

  “We need to ensure everyone is registered with FEMA that needs to be. And other charities that are rising to the fold. We all know the scammers will be coming with hands outstretched.”

  Like Dennis Lee Arnold.

  The man was as crooked as they came and had been since their years together in elementary school.

  Carl had to look away.

  The man disgusted him.

  “We need to find a way to make real progress here,” someone down the table said. Carl didn’t look at them.

  What else could he say?

  Fifty-seven thousand people were dependent on the ones in the room to make sure Finley Creek pulled through this disaster. Somehow.

  He didn’t have much faith in the people surrounding him. Jennifer and Turner were about the only exceptions to that.

  22

  Dr. Nikkie Jean Netorre was on a mission. She had had over a week off after the storm, and no one could find a single reason why she’d lost consciousness in the middle of the storm. She didn’t have a concussion. Her blood pressure hadn’t just dropped.

  She half-suspected she’d been unconscious before the storm had hit. She just didn’t know why. She’d asked Layla Kaur, her obstetrician, to run one more additional blood test. To look for sedatives. Something wasn’t adding up.

  Nikkie Jean was going to keep that little thought to herself for a while. Until she knew for sure.

  She was starting to remember things that weren’t making any sense.

  Like a car. She kept dreaming about Wallace Henedy’s car.

  It had had charcoal gray interior. And had smelled like strong perfume. Nikkie Jean had always avoided perfumes—too strong scents had always made her ill.

  She’d woken screaming the night before. About a car and getting out of it.

  Now that she had had that blood draw done, she was going to spend the rest of the day with Annie. Her friend was itching to get out of that bed.

  Nikkie Jean understood. Annie had a life out there, specifically three little men, who she needed to get back to.

  Annie was in the bed when she walked in. The physician in Nikkie Jean immediately gave her friend a once-over. “Ok, how do the wounds look?”

  “I haven’t exactly looked,” Annie said, tossing the television remote on the table. “I want out of here, Nik. Make it happen.”

  “If I could.” Annie wasn’t her patient—and she was technically off the clock—but Nikkie Jean was a surgeon through and through. “Let me see. Front first.”

  After a thorough check herself, Nikkie Jean gave her the bad news. “I…I’m sorry, kid. I’m not sure Allen’s going to let you out of here anytime soon.”

  “Infection? It was starting to burn back there.”

  “Infection. Not uncommon after these types of injuries. I mean, how old was that metal stake of doom? If you were a vampire, you’d have been dusted in a heartbeat.”

  “Great.” Annie’s eyes filled.

  Nikkie Jean climbed on the foot of the bed. “You can go ahead and cry if you want. Go ahead.”

  “I’m running out of time, Nik. I can’t move the boys until after the hearing. And I don’t have time to go look for a place to live.”

  “I know the feeling.” Her own house needed a new roof. She was staying with Caine right now. It was taking her time to get used to that too.

  Nikkie Jean pressed the call button to bring the nurse on duty. She wanted Allen fetched as soon as possible. She hadn’t told Annie the full story.

  The wound on her back was starting to look worse than it should. It was time for Allen to up the antibiotics.

  Annie wasn’t going anywhere. Not for a while, at least.

  23

  “Dennis Lee is almost gleeful,” Jennifer said quietly. Carl had offered her a ride home after the latest meeting of the council. Turner had them meeting daily to go over how their districts were faring. Carl knew it was an inconvenience to some—that damned Dennis Lee headed that list—but if Jennifer could make it after losing the nephew she’d raised from the age of seven, then Dennis Lee could suck it up. They’d been elected to run the city for a reason. A massive time of crisis like this was at the head of those reasons. It was time to get the job done. “I think he’s profiting from all of this.”

  “No doubt. He always has been a damned shyster.” Carl held out a hand to her. Jennifer’s fingers wrapped around his. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m ok. Ray had his problems, but he…was loved. We all loved him. I’m just glad he didn’t suffer.” Jennifer stared out the window for a long moment. “Thanks for the ride, Carl. I appreciate it.”

  Her car had been lost in the storm. Carl was making a point of being the one to get her where she needed to go—when he could.

  He was torn between her and Jason right now. She’d insisted he belonged with Jason first. But Carl was making time for her as he was able.

  He loved her so damned much. Seemed like he always had. Carl wanted to tell the world. Hopefully, soon
, he would be able to do just that.

  She’d been obsessive about Wallace Henedy not knowing about their long-term affair. So it appeared platonic on the surface. She’d said several times Wallace didn’t deserve to know what made her happy now.

  Carl had been mollified by that. He made Jennifer happy.

  But…since the storm, he wasn’t so certain that was what he wanted any longer.

  He wanted to tell her exactly how he felt about her. More than that, he wanted to tell the entire world how he felt about her.

  But she wasn’t ready for that. Maybe in a few months, when the world settled around them. Maybe.

  “I…How’s Jason doing?”

  She had met his grandson several times. Had even slept over with him when Carl had had an emergency gall bladder removal two years ago. But Jason had never put it together that she and Carl were involved. At least not that Carl was aware of.

  Jennifer was a very motherly woman. She’d loved her nephew just as much as she had her son.

  Raymond’s funeral was scheduled. They’d had to wait—she’d insisted on using a particular funeral home and church. But the storm had delayed them, as well.

  Carl waited until they were in the car. “He’s…he’ll get through. As soon as his friend is in the clear.”

  “That poor boy. Is there any more news?”

  Carl shook his head. “Not that I know. They took his leg. Now it’s infection. There was so much bacteria, and Jimmy’s always been a sickly thing.”

  He was fervently praying for that boy to recover. Jimmy’s entire life was ahead of him. He didn’t deserve to be taken by the storm.

  “I’m sorry. It…the storm…” There was a wild grief in her words, but Carl said nothing. Jennifer always wanted to appear strong. Always had.

  They were silent as they traveled the partially cleared streets. There were utility trucks everywhere, repairing as much of the infrastructure as they could with what limited time, weather, and resources were available.