“Why are you dissing the shirt?”
“Second, I don’t want Vader to leave. I like him. He’s good. Do you know how hard it is to find someone good in this world? No, you wouldn’t know. Everything comes easy for you. Well, it isn’t like that for everyone. Some people are born in a big pile of crap and have to fight their way out and—” She caught her breath in a gulp of air. Nick, his shoulders caved forward, was looking at her with a mixture of bewilderment and hurt feelings. How could he possibly understand? Nick, despite his posing, was a rich kid who wouldn’t understand the first thing about where she came from.
“You know what? I’ll find someone else to do the class. You don’t have to stay.” She bundled him toward the door. “I’ll be home late, so you and Soren can make your own dinner.”
She closed the door behind him, then plopped down onto the polished hardwood floor. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror that stretched across the opposite wall, she gave herself a scolding shake of the head.
Nick was an innocent, if annoying, bystander. And the fact was, he had a legitimate point. She ought to end things with Vader once and for all. She’d tried to end things. But it never seemed to work. Somehow they always ended up together again. And each time it got harder to keep things casual.
Deep in her dance bag, her cell phone rang. She scrabbled through it, found her purse, and reached her phone just before it went to voice mail.
“It’s Jacob.” Right away, she knew something was wrong. Since he’d gone off to college, her brother called only about important things like his breakups and new boyfriends.
“What happened?”
“I got a call from Arkansas. Humility ran away.”
“What?” Humility was the next youngest sister in their family—eighteen, a year older than Cherie had been when she and Jacob had fled Pine Creek, Arkansas. “Did she run away with Robbie Mackintosh?”
“No. But he’s gone too. Apparently their engagement was a sham. They were both biding their time until they could make a run for it.”
“Wow.” Cherie ran her thumb up and down the edge of her phone. Clever trick, she had to admit. In her crazy family—she thought of it more as a cult than a family—early marriages were mandatory. “Has she called you?”
“No ma’am. I was checking to see if she’d called you.”
Cherie shook her head, realized he couldn’t see her, then kept on shaking it as she spoke. “No. Holy smokes. What should we do? What should we do? Oh no, Jacob, Mackintosh is going to be furious. Robbie’s his oldest son and the only one with any brains. What if he comes looking for him?”
“Shhh. Calm down, Cherie. You’re scaring your fairy godmother. Or at least your fairy brother.” She closed her eyes and tried to conjure her beloved brother’s wry smile and twinkling blue eyes.
Instead, Frank Mackintosh’s grimy, whiskered face filled her mind’s eye, the way she’d last seen him, looming over her with a whiskey-slobber leer, smelling of chicken poop and evil victory. Reaching for her, sure he had her cornered, trapped. Then the terrible sound that old pipe had made when she’d flung it at him.
She drew in a shaky breath. It was okay. She’d gotten away, and now she was here. Safe. Sort of.
“Here’s what we do,” said Jacob. “We don’t do anything. Humility knows how to find us.”
“Yeah, but what if she does find us, and Mackintosh follows her here?” She was having a hard time catching her breath. Her throat seemed to have a vise around it.
“If she comes to San Gabriel, and he follows her, then you can get hysterical, ’kay? But not until then.”
As always, Jacob’s lighthearted approach made things look better. She blurted out the first thought that came to mind. “If only I could tell Vader everything, I’d feel—”
“No. We agreed. He’s a fireman, that’s too close to cop for comfort.”
“We can trust him. I swear to heaven we can.”
“Cherie, Mackintosh filed charges against us. You can’t tell anyone. Besides, we promised in blood. Harper family vow, can’t be broken.”
The memory made her shudder. “I can’t believe you made me do that. That was so disgusting.”
He snorted. “Everything will be fine. Call me if you hear anything.”
“Sure.”
But it already wasn’t fine. It hadn’t been fine since she’d fallen for Vader.
“I don’t get you and Cherie,” said Fred from the passenger seat of Vader’s baby-blue Ford 350, as they headed back to the station to return their gear. “You’re either flirting or breaking up. Or getting back together. What’s the story?”
“No story. I’m done.” Vader steered his truck past Engine 1 and waved at Double D in the driver’s seat. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
Fred fussed with a bag of ruffled potato chips he’d found in the backseat. All the firefighters knew Vader kept a stash of staples in his truck: chips, energy drinks, a case of beer buried beneath that. “You aren’t going to distract me with mockery, Vader. I’ve known you for like, eight years.”
“How quickly they grow up.” Vader gave a mock-sob. “Seems like just yesterday I was waving you off to firefighter kindergarten.”
“Funny. Now back to the topic of our conversation, are you and Cherie really through? For real? Like I could ask her out?”
Vader felt his entire body go rigid. He loved Stud like a brother, but at that moment he would have cheerfully tossed him out the window. “If you go near Cherie, they’ll have to urban-search-and-rescue you.”
Fred was training to join San Gabriel’s new Urban Search and Rescue Squad. Vader was all for it, but that didn’t mean he’d pass up the chance to ride him about it.
Fred let out a hoot. “You don’t scare me, big guy. You don’t fool me either. After all this time, you’re still hung up on Cherie.”
Vader honked, long and hard, at a driver who had veered too close to his lane. In his opinion, horns had been invented to help drivers release their frustration. “I am not ‘hung up’ on Cherie. I only want one thing from her now.”
Stud gave a snort.
“You have such a dirty mind,” Vader said piously. “Does that mean you’ve gotten to first base with someone by now?”
Fred muttered something under his breath. Vader caught the words “Not rising to his bait, not rising to his bait.” He hid a smile. Fred was a constant source of entertainment.
“Fine,” he finally said, through gritted teeth. “What one thing do you want from Cherie?”
“The truth.” It came out more grimly than he’d intended. But when he thought about everything Cherie had put him through—the hot and cold, in and out, back and forth—he knew he deserved the fucking truth.
He felt Fred’s surprised gaze and scrambled to paper over the too-serious moment. “And one more bone for the road.” He winked.
“You don’t fool me, Vader,” Fred said. Vader stared straight ahead, refusing to give away any more. “You haven’t fooled me for a while. You know what you should do?”
“If it has to do with Cherie, don’t bother.”
“It’s nothing to do with her. It’s about you. You should go for captain.”
“What?” Talk about left field. In his shock, Vader turned too quickly and shaved the curb on the way into the station parking lot.
“Captain Kelly’s retiring. Captain Brody said he’s giving it one more month and then he’s going to be fulltime at the Academy. A couple of guys on the B shift already took the exam, but neither of them passed. You’re the man, Vader. Besides, you’d be a good captain.”
“I would?” Vader twitched his head, feeling like a dog shaking off water. He thought the guys all saw him as a muscle-bound, gym-obsessed party boy. How did Fred get from there to captain? He pulled into his parking spot in the lot alongside San Gabriel Fire Station 1. It was a tidy brick building with a flagpole and red geranium-filled planters out front. Its lawn was immaculately mowed and unnaturally
green. Every other lawn in San Gabriel was brown this time of year, but the firefighters of Station 1 had devised a sprinkler system that kept the grass a sparkling, almost obnoxious teal.
“Yeah, you would. If you don’t believe me, ask around. You’d be surprised, Vader. Don’t sell yourself short.”
With that, Fred jumped out of the truck, grabbed his gear from the backseat, and loped into the firehouse. Vader stared after him. Captain? Was he for real? Then again, why not? He was a good firefighter. Damn good. He knew the job inside and out. He could practically fight fires in his sleep. He’d never thought about going for a promotion because . . . well, other things had taken up his time. Things that were a lot more important than advancing up the firefighter career ladder.
As if on cue, his cell phone beeped; text message coming in. As he read it, the blood drained from his face. It was from his mother.
Fell off my throne. I’m ok, but hurry pls.
Chapter Three
Vader tossed his cell phone onto the passenger seat, put his truck into reverse, and floored the accelerator. Ginny Brown was the master of putting a brave face on things, but falling out of her wheelchair couldn’t possibly be good.
He lived about ten minutes away from the firehouse. He’d bought the house because of its proximity to the station, not wanting to be too far away in case something happened while he was on shift. But his mother had a bad habit of refusing to bother him when he was working. As much as he’d lectured her about it, she’d put up with a lot before she notified him.
Which made him even more worried right now.
He screeched to a stop in the driveway of the pleasant ranch-style house draped in his mother’s favorite magenta bougainvillea, a color so intense it appeared to vibrate. He parked behind the blue Suburban van specially modified for his mother’s wheelchair.
“Mom?” he called, bursting through the door.
“I’m in the living room,” she called in her usual cheerful voice. “Don’t blow your top, I’m okay, hon.”
She didn’t look okay, Vader thought when he reached the living room. She lay on the hardwood floor next to her wheelchair, both legs bent under her. His first instinct was to panic, but that wouldn’t help anything, and she hated it when anyone made a fuss.
“Geez, Mom.” He crouched next to her. “What’d you do, take a corner too fast?”
“You know me and my speed demon ways.” She raised her arms so he could lift her back into the wheelchair. He put his forearms under her armpits and maneuvered her gently into the seat, taking care to keep her legs from bumping against the wheels. She wouldn’t feel it, since she’d been paralyzed below the waist for seventeen years, but he couldn’t bear to see her hurt.
She’d lost weight again, he noticed with a pang. Sometimes he thought she deliberately tried to shed pounds to make things easier on him. He’d have to start sneaking flaxseed oil or coconut milk into her smoothies.
“There, that’s better,” she said with a bright smile. “Now tell me everything, hon. How’d the photo booth go?”
He gave her a swift once-over, ignoring her effort to change the subject. “You have a bruise on your cheek.”
“I do?” Her hand flew to the side of her face. “Hmm.”
He gently pulled her hand away so he could get a better look. She had a stubborn set to her mouth that told him all he needed to know. “What happened?”
“Izzy and I were racing and—”
“Don’t blame this on the cat.” As if he knew he was being discussed, Izzy, a fat, orange pasha of a cat, rubbed against Vader’s shin. Absentmindedly, he reached down to scratch between his ears. “Besides, Izzy’s nearly a hundred in cat years. He couldn’t run if a mouse was doing a tap dance in front of him.”
His mother fussed with her hair, which had gotten rumpled from her fall. Her hair was the same brown as his, a rich espresso shot with bronze. She refused to cut it, even though a shampoo girl had to come wash it once a week. Vader didn’t have the heart to argue. She’d lost the use of her legs, and soon thereafter, her husband. Who was he to deny her one remaining vanity?
“Come on, Mom. I won’t tell you anything about the fair until you give me the complete incident report. I’m an EMT just arriving at the scene. What do we have?”
His mother gave in. She loved anything to do with firefighting. “We have a fifty-five-year-old woman who lost consciousness for unknown reasons. She believes she was out for about ten minutes, but has no recollection of what caused her collapse. Pulse is racing, but blood pressure is probably normal.”
“You fainted?”
She hadn’t had fainting spells since the first year after the car accident, when he’d been fourteen and completely freaked out. At the time, the doctors had said that the results of her level of brain trauma were unpredictable. They’d said she shouldn’t be left alone.
That had apparently been his father’s cue to take a hike. Vader had been left alone with the duty of never leaving his mother alone.
“We need to call Dr. Swenson.”
“Please don’t.”
But Vader already had his phone out. While keeping an eagle eye on his mother, who still seemed shaky, he explained to the nurse what had happened. She instantly put him through to Dr. Swenson. Vader did a thorough assessment of his mother’s condition while she listened closely; she’d had seventeen years of hearing her body discussed in impersonal medical terms.
As a trained paramedic himself, Vader knew what to look for. After all these years, he and Dr. Swenson had a kind of shorthand together. He quickly communicated the fact that his mother seemed rattled but not disoriented, her pupils were not dilated, and the only apparent damage was the bruise on her cheek. He listened to what the man had to say, thanked him, then clicked off the phone.
“He wants you to come in for an MRI sometime in the next couple of days.”
She made a face. “Him and his tests. They never actually tell you anything.”
He couldn’t disagree. And the tests cost a fortune. “Still, we should do what he says. He’s kept you alive so far.”
“No.” A sheen of moisture glimmered in her eyes. “You’ve kept me alive.”
His mother rarely got weepy. She must be really shaken up. He shifted into “Vader” mode. “Aw Mom! Don’t start with the tears. Are you forgetting I’m a guy? You’re trying to kill me, right? Just cut to the chase and drop me into a vat of battery acid. Or throw me in a . . . a bouncy castle with a . . . man-eating lion. Lash me to a TV playing nonstop shopping channel.”
Finally she laughed. Reassured, he straightened up and put his hands on the handles of the wheelchair. “Now do you want to see the video I shot at the fair or what? You can check it out while I get you some ice for that bruise.”
For the past couple of years, he’d been taking his video camera to work and documenting the crazy antics that went on at Station 1. He never managed to shoot any actual fire footage, since he was always in the thick of that. But practical jokes, goofing around, handball games, firehouse dinners were all fair game. To his mother, those videos were better than a million soap operas or episodes of Bones, her second favorite form of entertainment.
The guys at the station had no idea they’d become a sort of long-running TV show in the Brown household. They didn’t even know about his mother. As far as he was concerned, she was his responsibility, and he didn’t want anyone feeling sorry either for him or for her.
“Fred said something funny today,” he said as he wheeled her into the living room, which was dominated by a large flat-screen TV. Ginny spent a lot of time in this room, either watching TV or working out with her Wii. A desk in the corner of the room held a computer at just the right height for her. That was where she wrote her daily blog, “Cripple Creek,” in which she offered advice to other wheelchair-bound people, and surfed the Internet for everything that caught her attention. Since the accident and his father’s departure, she’d preferred to stay at home unless he dragged her
out for a walk or a spin in the Suburban. These days, her friends were online instead of down the street. Vader shuddered to think what her life would be like without the Internet.
“Isn’t Fred always saying something funny? He’s such a cutie-patootie.”
Vader gleefully pictured Fred’s face if he heard that one. “Not that kind of funny. He actually said I should take the promotional exam.” He crossed to the TV to hook up the cable of his video camera. “It’s the exam you take when you want to be promoted to the next level. Captain I, in my case.”
She gripped the arms of her wheelchair, nearly lifting herself off in her excitement. “You’d be the captain of Station 1, like Captain Brody?”
“Steady now. No more accidents. If I passed, and they gave me the job, I’d be captain of the engine company. On the A shift. But I’d have to be a Captain I for two years until I could be Captain II, like Brody is.” Even saying the words made him uncomfortable. Captain Brody was a legend in San Gabriel. How could a goofball like Vader Brown ever take his place? “Ah, forget it. I thought it was funny, that’s all.” He cued up the clip from the event.
“It’s a good idea,” his mother said firmly. “Don’t you laugh this off or you’ll be needing ice for that thick head of yours instead. Of course you should be captain.”
Aw hell. He should have known she’d latch on to this idea like a toddler with a teddy bear. “Here’s the best part of the entire event. This is Double D in the dunk tank.” He played the clip. On the screen, the big-bellied veteran was taunting the kid who was trying to unseat him. He put his thumbs in his ears and waggled his hands. “Wait for it, wait for it . . .” Finally the kid hit the target and Double D went down with a massive splash. “Shazam!”
He used the momentary distraction to disappear into the kitchen. “I’ll be right back with that ice.”
“Vader!” his mother called after him. “We’re not through with this!”
Cursing under his breath, he slowly banged his head against the freezer door. He should never have mentioned this to his mother. Big mistake. No one was more persistent than a proud mama stuck in a wheelchair with not enough to distract her. How could he tell her that she was the reason he couldn’t consider the captain gig? Captains had a lot more responsibilities than the guys at his level. The studying to become captain would take up huge amounts of time. How was he supposed to take care of her and commit to such a big change?
Four Weddings and a Fireman Page 3
