“County Hospital, I told you. But they’re going to send him to Jupiter Point in a few days. So we can see him then.”
“Screw that.”
Evie startled and pulled away from Suzanne. “Excuse me?”
“I’m going there. Now.” She was already calculating distances and timing. The County Hospital wasn’t too far from the airport. She could get there by mid-afternoon. Maybe he’d be out of surgery by then.
“Suzanne, that’s not necessary. He’ll be here in a couple of days.”
“I’m going. I just have to make a couple of calls first.” She pulled out her phone and dialed Stars in Your Eyes. “Hi, Marlene, I have a family emergency. Can you handle my appointments for the next couple of days, or get them rescheduled? Thanks, you’re the best. Yes, I’ll keep you posted.”
She hung up and dialed another number. The phone at the Realtor’s office rang once, twice.
“But Suz, there’s no point in going. There’s nothing you can do for him yet. I already offered.”
“But you’re not engaged to him.” Another ring. Where was Lisa? She usually had her calls forwarded to her cell.
“Neither are you,” Evie pointed out. She was one of the few people who knew the real story of her and Josh.
“I’m fake-engaged to him, and that’s close enough! If he was my real fiancé, I’d be there in a flash. Of course I’m going! You would too, if—” Finally, the Realtor answered. “Hi, Lisa. I have to cancel on the signing. Can we reschedule? Of course I still want the house, I just can’t make it today! I’ll call you when I can reschedule it.”
She ended the call. Evie was looking at her strangely. “You’re cancelling the Casa di Stella signing for Josh?”
“Of course I am.” Maybe it was crazy, but her need to be close to Josh right now overwhelmed everything else. She didn’t question it. Didn’t question tossing all her plans out the window.
“Come on, Snowball.” She snapped her fingers at the dog, then realized that an emergency room was probably on the list of places she really couldn’t take a dog. “Do you think you could…”
Evie rolled her eyes and took Snowball’s leash. “Somehow I knew I’d end up babysitting this dog.”
“Thank you, cuz.” Suzanne gave her a fierce hug. “I’ll call you from the hospital.”
“Tell Josh I’m praying for him. And give Sean a hug. Tell him to call whenever he wants.”
Suzanne was already out the door.
After throwing some extra underwear and her toothbrush in a bag, she hit the road. She turned on the radio and unfortunately the first news item was about the wildfire.
“Four hundred firefighters are still on the scene of the enormous Yellowstone wildfire in the northern part of the state. Several firefighters have been injured battling the wind-whipped flames. Today, one of the Jupiter Point Hotshots nearly died when a tree struck him as he was carrying a fellow firefighter to safety. Josh Marshall is reported to be in stable condition following surgery on his left leg. The extent of his injuries isn’t known, but it is an important reminder of just how dangerous wildfire fighting can be. Marshall is one of the most experienced members of the crew and a survivor of the Big Canyon burnover. He’s also a universally well-liked member of the firefighting community, known for his joking manner. His crewmates, several of whom were also part of that burnover, were quite distraught.”
Another voice followed. She recognized Jim Baker, Sean’s other assistant. “He’s one of the best guys I’ve ever worked with. During the burnover, we were all scared out of our minds. Then Josh starts joking around about what we’re going to do after it’s over, and that helped get us through it. Honestly, I think he saved some lives that day. If people panic, that’s when the bad stuff happens.”
The reporter took over. “By all reports, some ‘bad stuff’ would have happened this morning if not for Josh Marshall’s bravery. Firefighters say they should have this blaze at least fifty-percent contained by tomorrow, thanks to the increased moisture in the air. But many are working with slightly heavier hearts today thanks to the crisis faced by Josh Marshall.”
Suzanne switched off the radio, remembering how she’d given Josh a hard time about joking around in the shelter during the burnover. As if it was a bad thing. Turned out, it wasn’t a bad thing. It was a Josh thing—and it helped. It saved lives.
Her phone rang. She answered without checking to see who it was, then groaned when Logan answered. “Hey, babe. Just had my last exam.”
“Congratulations.”
Silence.
“Don’t you want to hear how it went?”
“I assume you aced it. Do I need to know any more? We’re through, remember? Remember the text you sent me?” When was that, last week? It seemed like a million years ago. None of it mattered anymore, not compared to Josh being hurt.
“I was under so much pressure then. I needed a break. Everything feels different now that I’m done.”
“Well, good for you, but Logan—” And suddenly it hit her, with the force of a thousand suns. No matter what happened with Josh, she could never go back to Logan. “It really is through. We shouldn’t get married. It was a bad idea to begin with.”
“A bad idea? What the hell are you talking about? We want the same things. We’re perfect together.”
“But our entire relationship was based on selfishness. Would you give up anything for me? Anything?”
“I was going to give up my freedom.”
“You were going to. After you got the free pass.”
“So it’s back to that again.”
“No! It’s not back to that. It’s not about the free pass. I was selfish too. It was all about me and my plans and my perfect dream life. But now—”
Now she was willing to let Casa di Stella go because Josh might need her. And it wasn’t even a hard choice. This thing with Josh was so different from her relationship with Logan. He entranced her, entertained her, supported her, made her absolutely nuts, and she wanted to be with him more than she wanted anything else in life right now.
“I think there’s someone else.”
“What? You think there’s someone else? Is there or isn’t there?”
There is someone else. I don’t know how he feels about me, but he’s all I can think about and now that I’ve met him, I can’t possibly be with anyone else. Not now.
“It’s a little complicated. Look, Logan. You’re going to have an amazing, successful career and life.”
“But I lo—”
“No, you don’t. You wanted me. But you never really loved me. Let’s be real. You wanted a tall blonde who would look good at your law firm Christmas party. You wanted a certain type of wife. There are a million more just like me.”
Even though it hurt her pride to put it that way, she believed it. Logan had never seen her. He’d never looked past her surface, and she’d never asked him to.
“I don’t know, Suzanne,” he mumbled. “I’m pretty sure you’re one of a kind and I fucked up.”
“Goodbye, Logan.”
As she hung up, she passed the exit for the airport, which happened to be the place where she’d last seen him. Goodbye, Logan, she repeated silently as she flew past the off-ramp.
She kept going, on to the hospital.
15
Josh’s emergency shelter was gone and he was all alone, exposed to the wild heat and wind of the firestorm. Tree branches were dropping from the sky and slamming into his body. A fire tornado picked him up and whipped him through the air. The voices, the shouting, two people yelling terrible things at each other…the heat…
Was he dead? Was this hell?
No, he was back in the Big Canyon burnover. Back in his shelter. Facedown in the dirt listening to the world burn down around him. There was something he needed to remember. Needed to do. Where were the others? Sean! Rollo! He tried to call out to them, but his throat was so raw he stopped right away.
Tim. The kid from Jupiter Point running r
ight into the forest. Slurry slashing through the trees. Dead weight on his shoulders. Something striking him from behind.
He woke up with a start. He wasn’t in the forest with Tim, or back in the burnover, or hiding under his bed. He was in a quiet hospital room. A monitor beeped. Some kind of mechanical hum pulsed in the background. A soft snore sounded from inside the room. He lifted his head and saw Sean sprawled in a chair backed up against the wall. His head rested against the window sill, his mouth half-open. A quarter inch of dark stubble covered his jaw.
Sean was a good friend. The best kind of friend, the type that saved your life. He wanted to thank him, but first he had some more sleeping to do. Josh let his head fall back on the pillow.
No more burnover flashbacks, he told himself. How about something more fun. Maybe some Suzanne flashbacks. That would be a one hundred percent improvement.
His instructions to his subconscious must have worked. He dreamed about Stargazer Beach this time. Suzanne was playing in the water with Snowball. Her long hair flew in the air like a bright kite. She wore the lacy bra and boy shorts that he loved so much. Water sparkled on her long limbs; she seemed to be covered in diamonds. She ran toward him, a huge smile illuminating her face and everything around her. She tackled him and he crashed back into the ocean. It should hurt—it did hurt, in a distant way. But he didn’t care because she was in his arms, whispering to him.
“Hi, Josh. It’s Suzanne. I’m right here.”
His eyes tried to open but they were so heavy. Was this real or not? He couldn’t tell.
Another voice spoke, a deeper one. “I’m sorry, Miss. Who are you? Evening visiting hours are for family only.”
“I’m Suzanne Finnegan, his fiancée,” Suzanne answered. “We’re engaged to be married.”
Josh coughed. Fiancée. Wait… What? The coughing fit wouldn’t stop, the spasms kept shaking his body, but at least it woke him up. He opened his eyes, wide, to keep them from falling shut again.
Then he blinked, because it turned out she was real. Suzanne sat right where Sean had been sitting, lighting up the drab hospital room like a sunny bouquet of daffodils.
“Josh!” She jumped to her feet and hurried to his side. “Doctor, he’s awake.”
“I’ll need to ask him some questions. I think you should go now.” The doctor, a small, white-haired man with square tortoiseshell glasses, pulled his stethoscope from around his neck.
But Josh grabbed for Suzanne’s hand. He didn’t want her to go. He wanted her right where she was.
“She’s…my fiancée,” he told the doctor. His throat didn’t hurt anymore. That was good. How long had he been here? “She should stay.”
Suzanne pulled a triumphant face, as if she was one step away from sticking her tongue out at the doctor. That made him laugh. She always made him laugh. He kept hold of her hand and turned his attention to the doctor. “What…happened?”
“You have a crushed femur with a secondary sprain of your anterior cruciate ligament. Possible concussion, bruised ribs, and a few other minor injuries. Overall, you were extremely lucky. It took ten hours of surgery to reconstruct your leg.”
“It has six pins in it,” Suzanne told him. “You’ll never be able to walk through an airport metal detector again.”
“I love it when the TSA gets frisky.”
Suzanne gave him a delighted smile, but the doctor frowned. “These are very serious injuries. We’re recommending that you stay here at least two more nights so we can monitor your concussion and make sure there’s no more internal bleeding. Then you can go home and commence physical therapy.”
“Home?” Did the doctor mean the hotshot base? He wasn’t looking forward to recovering on a cot.
But he had it all wrong. The doctor checked his clipboard. “Texas, correct? We notified your parents. They should be here shortly.”
“What?”
All of a sudden the monitor went crazy—which made sense since his heart had turned into a racehorse. He sat bolt upright and started to rip off the wires, sensors, whatever attached him to that hospital bed.
“Mr. Marshall!” The doctor strode to the bed and tried to push him back down. “You must stay in the bed. I can’t allow you to leave.”
Several nurses crowded into the room, one of them carrying a loaded syringe. “Suzanne,” he gasped. “Please.”
Even though she looked just as confused as the nurses, she didn’t hesitate. She stepped in front of the male nurse holding the syringe. “That’s not necessary.”
The nurse, a burly black man, looked at the doctor for guidance.
“I can’t permit him to hurt himself,” the doctor said.
“If I have to see my parents, I will hurt myself,” growled Josh.
Suzanne gave him a shushing, “I’ll handle this” gesture. “I’m his fiancée and I’ll make sure he doesn’t get out of this bed. You have my word.”
Josh reinforced that statement with a death glare. Not that he wanted to stay in bed, but he definitely didn’t want to be tranquilized when his parents showed up. On the other hand…
“Can you leave that syringe in case I need help getting through this?”
The doctor appeared to have no sense of humor at all. “We don’t allow our patients to self-medicate,” he said stiffly. He beckoned the nurses toward the door. “Someone will be back to check on you every half hour,” he warned.
Josh fell back on the pillows again as soon as all the medical staff had cleared out of the room. “Can someone take me back to the fire lines?” he groaned. “I’d rather be there when those crazies show up.”
Suzanne pulled the chair next to the bed and sat down. “I can’t tell how serious you are. I mean, these are your parents. You haven’t really mentioned them much. But it’s nice that they’re coming, right? I’m sure they’re worried about you.”
“You don’t understand.” He lifted his eyes to the ceiling, which, being made of acoustic tile, offered no help at all. “They care about one thing. Both of them. The same thing.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad.”
“All they care about is beating the other one at whatever’s going on. It could be…harvesting the first tomato. Or seeing their grandbaby first. Everything is a battleground to them. I bet I know exactly what happened.”
“What?” She still looked as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or call the nurses back.
“One of them got the call first. Probably Mom. She snuck off the ranch so she could get here first. Then Pop found out about it because they both have spies who tell them what’s going on, see. So Pop decided there was no way he wanted to be left out. So now they’re both coming, and they’ll be at each other’s throats the entire time and seriously…where’s Sean or Rollo? They can get me out of here.”
“Shhh.” Suzanne settled herself closer and stroked his hair back from his forehead. Despite his state of panic, he had to admit it felt good. “That sounds completely nuts. I thought my parents were odd, but this is…kind of…off the charts.”
“You don’t believe me?” The way she stroked his hair felt so good it ought to come with a prescription. He relaxed by small, incremental degrees, until finally he was able to fill his lungs with a complete breath.
“When it comes to crazy parents, I believe just about anything. But you can’t leave the hospital. So what are we going to do?”
That “we”…he liked that. He really did. It made the panic subside just a little more. “Talk to someone official and convince them not to let anyone with the last name Marshall through the door. If they won’t do that, then find Sean and Rollo. Or Tim, he owes me big time. It’s his fault I’m in here like a sitting duck. Tell them to barricade the door. Whatever it takes.”
Suzanne bit her lip, laughter filling her eyes. “I don’t think any of those things are possible. You know something, Josh? I’ve never seen you like this. If your parents can turn confident Josh Marshall into a babbling idiot, they must really be something
.”
He shook his head at her, even though it hurt to move any muscle of his body. “Traitor.”
“I promise I’ll be by your side the entire time. Does that help?”
“Why, so you can take notes on how to drive me crazy?”
“No.” She stroked her fingers down his cheek. “I already know how to do that.”
Her soft stroking made him relax even more. “That you do,” he murmured.
“I’ll be here to step in whenever you need. I know—pick a panic button word. Something you can say when you want a rescue.”
He wanted a rescue now. Before they arrived. But maybe Suzanne was right and their visit would be easier to endure with her standing by to step in. “Okay. I choose the word…” He cast around for something perfect. “The.”
She burst out laughing. “You are amazing, Josh. You really are. With everything you’ve been through, you still have your sense of humor.”
“I wasn’t joking.” But he couldn’t hold on to his straight face and relaxed into a smile. “Okay, I was joking. How about Snowball? That isn’t a word that comes up a lot in conversation. If I start talking about Snowball, you’ll know I’m in trouble. Also, if my face turns red and steam comes out of my ears.”
“Come on. Is it really that bad?”
“I guess you’ll see for yourself.” He gave an evil chuckle, then let his eyes drift shut. “Now unless you’re ready to give me a naughty sponge bath, I should sleep.”
“Dream on, buddy.”
“You can also give yourself a naughty sponge bath. I wouldn’t mind that either.”
16
Even as Josh’s supposed fiancée, Suzanne wasn’t allowed to sleep at the hospital. She found a hotel room close by, but came back to the hospital before visiting hours started again. She stopped in the cafeteria for a coffee and bagel, and there she ran into Sean and Rollo. Neither of the two firefighters looked as though they’d slept—or shaved—much over the past few days.
Burn So Bright Page 13
