by Amy Knupp
“Shift ended this morning—7:00 a.m.”
“Then what…where have you been for twelve and a half hours? Scott, please talk to me. You’re scaring me.”
“I’ve been…walking. Along the shore.” He checked the dashboard clock. “Didn’t know I was gone so long.”
“Who’s lost, Scott? Talk to me.”
“He died in my arms. Two years old.” His voice seemed to short out and became a whisper. “I couldn’t bring him back. Couldn’t save him.”
Oh, God. She couldn’t imagine. Actually, she kind of could—her mother had died as Mercedes held her hand. But…a child so young. With the added weight of feeling responsible, of being the person who was supposed to be able to give that boy a chance to live…
She brought his hand to her lips, squeezed her eyes shut. Her instinct was to throw her arms around him and pull him close, but the front seat of a sports car made that a challenge.
“That’s terrible. I’m so sorry.” Inadequate, useless words. She wove her fingers with his, his hand unresisting, unmoving. “This was at work?”
She took his nonresponse as an affirmative.
“I’m sure you did everything you possibly could, right? But such a little one…that’s extra hard to swallow.”
He didn’t give any indication that he heard her. Mercedes searched her mind for something to say, some way to soothe this hurting man.
“You’re one of the very best at your job, Scott. Faith told me this.” She waited for him to nod, urged him to acknowledge that truth, but he just sat there.
“Medicine can’t fix every single thing. You of all people know that. It can’t save every life.” She rubbed her hand up and down his arm. “You can only do so much.”
“It was Brad Gilbert’s son. Elliott. Cutest little man. Big blue eyes…”
A sick feeling rolled through Mercedes’s gut. He’d known the boy? “Who is Brad Gilbert?”
“Firefighter. My colleague.” He squeezed his eyes tightly shut as if fighting off a powerful emotion. “I couldn’t save my friend’s boy.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
OH GOD, OH GOD, OH GOD. How could she ever make him feel okay?
Mercedes looked around frantically, as if there was any kind of answer out there for how he could handle this. How she could help him. The clock on the dashboard reminded her she needed to get food to Gram, who was probably alone by now as Charlie was on an overnight trip to Austin, and Yoli’s shift was over. She was almost an hour late with Gram’s dinner, and she needed to take some of her pills with food.
She made a split-second decision and jumped out of the car, back into the heavy rain. She ran around to Scott’s door and opened it. Ducked her head inside.
“Move over,” she told him. “Climb to the other seat, Scott. Hurry, I’m getting soaked.”
He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“I’m not leaving you, but I have to get to Gram. You’re coming with me.”
Seconds ticked by and her shirt became so wet she could wring it out. “Just do it.” She pushed at his upper arm.
Without his expression changing, he hoisted himself over the small console between seats, moving like a half-dead man, then dragged his legs over. She wasn’t sure he could fit until he pushed the passenger seat back all the way. She wasted no time in climbing in and slamming the door on the storm.
Scott’s keys were in the ignition and Mercedes turned them till the engine started up smoothly. She reached for the gearshift and realized the car was a manual. Of course. What overgrown boy would buy an automatic sports car? She’d learned to drive a stick-shift car—sort of—years ago, when Nadia had had one for about six months before she totaled it. Saying a little prayer, Mercedes put one foot on the brake and shifted into Reverse.
The start wasn’t smooth, but she didn’t stall it. Glancing at Scott sideways, she figured if he didn’t notice, she hadn’t done too badly.
The two-mile drive was on the adventurous side, but Scott didn’t comment. She pulled into the carport to get the car out of the rain.
“Come on in,” she said, grabbing her purse.
He didn’t move. “You live here?”
It didn’t seem the right time for a smart-aleck response. “I need to get my grandma’s dinner and pills, but then we can talk.”
“I don’t need to talk.” He said the words with a hint of venom. At least that was a sign of something besides numbness.
“Then you can come in and we won’t talk. You can eat if you want to, or stare at the wall, but you’re coming inside.”
“Not really up for meeting your family.”
“I get that. Charlie’s gone. Gram is most likely in her bed waiting for me to bring her some food. She won’t know you’re here if you don’t want her to. Please, can we go? She needs to take her medications.”
He deliberated silently for a moment then went for the door handle. Thank God. Though she didn’t have the faintest clue what she was going to do with him.
She hurried through the rain to the front door, with Scott trailing more slowly behind her. Gram was in her room, as Mercedes had guessed.
“You can wait on the back porch if you don’t want to meet Gram. There’s a refrigerator out there. Help yourself to a drink, whatever you want.” She caught her mistake too late. “Not whatever you want. There’s pop.” Leave the beer alone, she willed him.
She pointed toward the kitchen as they entered the house and he headed in that direction. Mercedes followed him and flipped the oven on to reheat leftover casserole for Gram.
Scott hesitated at the table. Watching him from behind, she wanted to wrap her arms around him. He looked like a lost boy. Without a word, he walked to the back door and went out on the porch.
Realizing her wet clothes were dripping all over the tile floor, Mercedes hollered out a hello to Gram, then clambered up the stairs and changed into dry jeans and a shirt in record time. She took a towel to her hair, knowing it was a lost cause but not wanting it to soak her dry shirt. She twisted it into a sloppy bun, off her shoulders. Then she headed to Gram’s bedroom.
“I was worried about you,” Gram said as Mercedes bent down to hug her.
“I was worried about you.”
“You got wet?”
“Little bit.” Mercedes smiled. “Sorry I took longer than I expected. How long ago did Yoli leave?”
“She stayed about fifteen minutes later than usual. We got to talking.”
“I’ll have dinner ready in twenty minutes for you. I’ve got some stuff to take care of. Do you want to stay in here to eat?”
“That’s just fine, sweetie. I’ve just been reading away.”
She held up a paperback book and Mercedes did a double take. Gram had the same book she’d seen on Scott’s stack in his bedroom.
“Good book?” Mercedes asked as she headed for pill central in the bathroom.
“I enjoy the travel descriptions, but this guy is full of baloney when he gets to going about his philosophy.”
Mercedes grinned to herself, expertly doling out the right medications into her hand.
As soon as Gram had downed her pills, Mercedes put the casserole in the oven and set the timer on her cell phone. She went out to the porch, relieved to see Scott sitting there in the near darkness, though she didn’t know what she’d expected. The steady rain outside the screens insulated them from the world. Normally she’d find the sound soothing, but tonight the air was too tense. Though there’d been no thunder or lightning all day, the atmosphere seemed full of danger. Tragedy.
Scott sat stiffly on the wicker love seat, one hand on the arm of it, the other in his lap. Staring straight ahead, out at the pool. It seemed too much for her to sit right next to him, so she pulled one of the chairs closer to the love seat.
Scott frowned and watched Mercedes settle into her chair, propping her feet up on an ottoman. It was the first time he’d really looked at her today. He’d only been half aware of her when she’d climbed into his c
ar uninvited. Now she was shadows and shades of gray, as she’d had the sense not to turn the overhead light on. Though he couldn’t say what she’d been wearing before, her clothes were now dry, so he guessed she’d changed them.
“Why am I here, Mercedes?”
She’d been fluffing a throw pillow and stopped, setting it in her lap, and touched his forearm. “You’re upset. I didn’t want you to be alone.”
He looked at her hand on his arm, registered the hot-pink shade of her nails. Alone was how he got through things. Alone with a bottle.
He didn’t know why the hell he’d let her strong-arm him and force him to come with her. Actually, he hadn’t let her do anything. Hadn’t realized what was going on, he’d been so absorbed in the horror of the evening before. Seeing Elliott’s blue eyes filled with terror, seeing his lifeless body. Hearing Brad’s inconsolable cries when he’d arrived at the hospital.
“What can I do, Scott?” she asked, placing her hand on the arm of her chair. “Will you tell me what happened?”
What could she do? He strained his mind, aching to come up with something that would give him relief from the nightmare. The search was futile. Struggling to swallow around the lump in his throat, he shook his head slowly.
He leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, giving thought to getting the hell out of here.
Mercedes’s phone beeped and she stood. “Gram’s dinner. Want something?”
The thought of food made him sick to his stomach. He shook his head again.
“Don’t go anywhere,” she said as if his thoughts were written on his face. “You’re better off here than having Gemma throw Twenty Questions at you. Besides, I have your keys.” She put her hands in the front pocket of her jeans and jingled them as proof, then walked past him and back into the house.
Trying to convince her to give him his keys sounded like a gargantuan task. The idea of walking all the way home was unfathomable. He hadn’t slept, hadn’t even tried to close his eyes and pass out, since two nights ago. His arms and legs felt as if they’d tripled in weight and he ached all over. Besides, if he did go home, he’d immediately give in to a drink.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
Neither, it seemed, were the incessant images, the memories, even the sounds of the fourteen-minute call last night.
Fourteen minutes. Fourteen crucial, unchangeable minutes that altered so many lives forever and ended one.
Scott jumped up. Unmindful of the downpour, he stormed out the porch door to the backyard. Without considering, he whipped his shirt over his head, kicked off his shoes and shed his pants. His boxers were soaked from the rain before he even jumped into the pool, but he didn’t care. He dived into the warm water, surfaced and broke into freestyle. It took him only four strokes to reach the opposite end but that didn’t slow his pace.
He didn’t give any credence to the soreness or the heaviness of ten minutes before. The water took some of the weight away, gave him something else to focus on. If he could make his muscles hurt from swimming, that was power. Control. He’d much prefer causing his own pain than having it inflicted upon him by something, anything else. Especially some kind of cruel fate that he wanted no part of.
Lap after lap, he pushed himself. Gloried in the fire in his lungs when it hit. The rain splattering on the surface of the water gave the pool an otherworldly, surreal feel and he became gradually distanced from the horror of the past twenty-four hours.
More time passed. Maybe fifteen minutes? Twenty? It didn’t matter. He ceased the laps abruptly and pushed off the side of the pool, floating on his back, letting the rain pound down on him. Wash it away.
He opened his eyes at the same time the porch door flew open. Mercedes rushed into his line of vision and stood at the edge of the pool, hands on her hips, rain pelting her. She raised one hand, palm up, as if to question what in the world he was doing. Or maybe when he’d lost his mind. He didn’t respond.
She looked toward the house, then turned back to him and stared. Crossing the ten feet or so to the patio table, she took her phone and his keys out of her pockets and stuck them under the table out of the rain. When she straightened, she peeled her now-wet jeans down her legs, folded them in quarters and placed them on top of her phone. The alternate-reality feel of the moment intensified as, her back still to him, she unbuttoned her shirt, tugged it off and threw it on top of the pile.
The image of her when she finally faced him was burned into his memory permanently. The curve of her breasts were partially covered by ivory-and-black lace. Her body narrowed at her waist, then curved out again into sexy, feminine hips. Skimpily cut panties matched her bra. Her breasts rose with her arms as she unclasped whatever was securing her hair and let her long mane cascade down over her shoulders.
An hour ago, he’d felt dead, but now his body had a faint glimmer of life. Very faint. That said a lot about how messed up in the head he was, because that body of hers warranted full-out flames.
Mercedes walked to the side of the pool and jumped in without hesitation. Perfect time to close his eyes and shut out the world again, to prevent her questions or at least postpone them.
She let him get away with it. He felt her swimming around him, skimming along the bottom beneath him, pausing at the side of the pool to rest.
As the rain slowed to a sprinkle, he started to come out of the numbness he’d managed to attain by swimming. He took in a slow, deep breath and pushed himself to the bottom of the pool, letting the silence and the isolation wash over him. He sat there until his lungs were empty, then pushed off to the surface.
Mercedes was at the edge of the pool, her elbows hitched on the concrete deck, her back to him. Steeling himself, he joined her, standing on the ledge that ran around the perimeter about four feet down. She glanced at him but didn’t say anything. They rested there for several minutes, watching the raindrops splatter in the puddles. Scott continued to fight off images of Elliott Gilbert.
“It was a peanut,” he said eventually.
Mercedes turned her attention to him expectantly.
“Smaller than my little fingernail. One chocolate-covered peanut that the little guy didn’t even like.” His voice was rough, raw. “An undiagnosed peanut allergy.”
He heard Mercedes suck in air and expel it loudly.
“I asked what he’d eaten when we arrived on the scene. All his mom could tell me in her hysterical state was that he’d had chocolate. No known food allergies. It wasn’t until later, much later, that they figured out the culprit.”
He closed his eyes, tried to let the sound of the gentle rain soothe him, but there was no comfort.
“Not that it mattered what it was. Knowing that wouldn’t have changed anything Rafe and I did. It wouldn’t have reversed the outcome.”
Mercedes moved her arm toward him and touched his. Squeezed his upper arm and didn’t take her hand away. For some reason, that little gesture gave him the strength to continue.
“Brad was on duty, too. Any other time, he would’ve been there on the call with us, but by random bad luck, the engine had another call at the same time we did. He wasn’t there when his boy…”
The lump in his throat pulsed painfully and he fought the emotion threatening to drown him.
“That’s terrible, Scott. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t know how I’ll ever look Brad in the face.”
“He of all people should understand. He faces the same kinds of things himself, right?”
Scott didn’t answer. There was no “same kinds of things” for losing your child. He couldn’t really begin to imagine what Brad and his wife were going through right now, although hearing them from the hallway in the minutes after the doctor had called the boy’s death gave him a sample of the soul-deep pain.
“I don’t know how you do the job you do,” Mercedes said quietly. “You guys are heroes, Scott. Think about the lives you save.”
Greg Wolf, the newlywed and father-to-be, came to mind, but Scott push
ed him away. No life they’d managed to rescue canceled out the one they hadn’t saved last night.
“Nineteen more days,” he said, more to himself than her. “Six more shifts. I don’t know if I can do it.”
“You have to. You don’t want to let that one be your last shift, the one that stays with you.”
He considered that. Nodded vaguely. Then his thoughts returned to Elliott. “He was still conscious when we got there,” he said hoarsely. “His mom called 911 pretty quickly. I got the IV in on the first try, pushed epinephrine through his little body. Rafe got the oxygen going right away. We might as well have been putting water through him for all the effect it had.” He shook his head helplessly.
Scott recited every procedure he and Rafe had done. The results—or lack thereof—of each. He remembered every detail as if some kind of hypersensitive memory had kicked in. Forgetting Mercedes was there, he poured it all out.
“The second ambulance got there as we were loading him in the back. One of the other guys drove our rig to the hospital while Rafe and I kept working on Elliott in the back.” He’d actually been kneeling on the gurney, still trying to get a heartbeat, as Rafe wheeled them into the emergency department.
“There was nothing else you could have done,” Mercedes said when he stopped talking.
He finally looked at her straight on. “That’s what makes it so damn hard to swallow.”
Scott pulled himself out of the pool with his arms and sat on the side, his legs dangling in the water. He leaned on his hands behind him and angled his face to the darkening sky. The light sprinkle of rain intensified at that moment and he let the drops wash over him, as if it could cleanse him. The wind had picked up and the rain was now cooler than the water in the pool.
He pulled the night air into his lungs, relishing the crispness of it. As the minutes passed, he began to feel marginally better. Less heavyhearted. Deep, even breaths became almost therapeutic, as had, apparently, pouring it all out, putting it out to the universe.
Mercedes moved sideways in the pool so she was directly in front of him. She lifted her arms to his thighs, just above his knees, and braced herself there instead of on the pool wall. Her touch seemed to center him.
