by Lacey Silks
“I wanted to do this somewhere else, but I couldn’t pull away.”
“Somewhere else?” I asked.
“You can’t see it from here, but there’s a ladder going up to a rooftop terrace from our bedroom.”
“Our?”
“Yes. Yours and mine. It’s on the east side, so you can wish upon all the stars that cross the night sky.”
My side? Should I have told him that all my wishes had come true? That he was back and I was in his arms again? But I didn’t say anything. Instead, I kissed his lips once more, admiring his cleanly shaved face.
For the second round of catching up, we moved to his bedroom where Nick tested the limits of his king sized bed. I couldn’t get enough and if it weren’t for the urgent knock on the front door, we would have gone for seconds and thirds
The pounding on the door door shook me awake as a feeling of dread replaced the euphoria in my chest.
Chapter 29
Nick put on his jeans and opened the door.
“Carter? What’s the matter?” he asked. The words jolted me out of my delirious state of arousal as I jumped back into mommy mode.
“It’s Mackenzie. She’s missing,” I heard him say.
“What?”
I almost ran naked downstairs, but managed to put on my underwear. Instead of zipping up my dress, I pulled Nick’s t-shirt over my head and rushed down.
“What are you talking about, missing?”
“Jo, we’ve checked everywhere.”
“You couldn’t have, because if you checked everywhere, you would have found her.”
While Mackenzie was an adventurous child, I was sure that Carter hadn’t looked for her thoroughly enough. She once fell asleep on top of Tank in a barn. The bull was younger back then, but still, much larger than Mackenzie. We found them cuddled together. If Tank had shifted, he could have easily crushed her, but the two of them had always gotten along so well that sometimes I thought they were meant to be best friends.
“How did you let my daughter get lost?” Nick accused.
“Wow, hold it right there, Navy boy. No one ‘let’ her get lost.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Which way did you mean it, then? I’ve been more like a father to that little girl than you have.”
“She’s still my daughter.”
“And she’s my niece.”
They were almost nose to nose, testosterone pouring out of their ears.
“Okay, you two. Tone it down. I know you both love her, and I’m sure she’s somewhere.”
Carter looked me up and down, and Nick stepped in front to cover me somewhat, at which point Carter frowned.
“What did she say?” I asked. “The last thing you can remember.”
“She mentioned getting decorations for the special cake.”
“The only decorations she keeps are the stones in the attic. Did you check the attic?”
“No, I didn’t. Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt you two.”
I didn’t remember the last time I’d been so calm about Mackenzie wandering off, but life was finally working out for me, and nothing could get me in a bad mood, except for the awful feeling I got in my stomach. Carter’s phone rang, and then mine. He picked it up, his face going pale.
“Dad?” I asked through my receiver.
“Thank God you’re all right. We were so worried when we heard Carter’s house caught fire.”
What?
I dropped the phone and bolted out the door. They yelled after me, but I barely heard them. Only muffles and sounds squeezed past all the dreadful thoughts that were rummaging through my mind. I ran until my legs ached and my feet bled. I ran like the ground was the only connection I had to Mackenzie, because without it, I couldn’t get there. I ran when I wished I could fly. Carter’s truck pulled in beside me as I was sprinting down the road, in a pair of panties and a t-shirt.
“Get in, Jo.” Nick jumped out of the passenger seat and opened the back door for me. “And put on a pair of pants.”
“Mackenzie?” I asked, pushing my feet through what looked like Nick’s sweats: way too long and way too big, but they’d have to do. I rolled the top band down and the pant legs up.
“No word yet.”
I prayed that she was safe. She was my life, and I’d die if anything happened to her. We weren’t that far from our house, and the way Carter was driving, we’d be there in half a minute.
The sight of smoke billowing from our house stopped my pulse. “No, no, no.”
“Shit!” Carter said, pressing his foot harder on the gas. The engine roared, and I was so grateful that Carter was a mechanic as well as a firefighter and had always kept the truck in pristine condition.
The smoke plumes got higher the closer we got, and I could see fire spewing out the front windows.
“God, please no.” I covered my mouth with my hand.
“We’ll get her, Jo. I promise.”
Carter was focused on the destination, his nerves as calm as I’d ever seen, but I knew that he must have been dying on the inside. If anything had happened to Mackenzie… no, she had to be okay.
Captain Clark was running toward the house just as we pulled up. The half a minute it took us to get here felt like a lifetime. A few other firefighters wearing their full suits were affixing the hoses they’d carried on their backs, or maybe drove over in another car, to the fire hydrant.
Neither Carter nor Nick waited for instructions as Captain Clark called out to them as if they were part of the crew. I rushed behind them toward the house.
“Jo, stay back.” Carter stopped me.
“She’s my daughter.”
“And I love her like she’s mine as well. If she’s in there, I promise to get her out.” By that time, Nick was next to me, holding my arms. I was ready to bust through that fire without looking back.
“You can’t go in there,” Nick said. “Not without me.”
“Wait, you can’t both go in.” I looked from Nick and then to Carter, and before I got a chance to protest, Nick took ahold of my hands. “You need to stay here for Mackenzie. If something happens, our daughter will need you.”
“Nick…”
“I love you.” He kissed me quickly, and they both headed for the front door before Captain Clark was able to stop them. I doubted that a hundred men could have stopped them.
“Where is the fire truck?” I asked.
“It’s being serviced,” Captain Clark answered, then called out to his crew. “Joe, Andrew – my stupid heroic son just went in. You better get that water going.”
But as they turned the hydrant on, air hissed out, along with a few stray drops.
“Shit! Carter! Nick! Get out of there!”
“Two minutes later, Nick came outside, carrying Mackenzie’s limp body in his arms.”
“Oh, my God!”
We quickly moved away from the house, and he set her on the ground. “Carter found her hiding in the attic. She was still conscious.”
I knelt next to her, checking for any sign of breathing, but she I couldn’t find any, and so I gave her mouth-to-mouth and began chest compressions.
“Come on, baby. Breathe!” A window burst in our direction with only a crackle of the glass as a warning when the cooler air collided with it before it shattered.
Nick was panting from exertion himself, but I couldn’t look at him now. As I blew the next breath into Mackenzie, her eyes fluttered a little and she took a breath.
She coughed out a lungful and my heart soared with happiness. “I wanted to bake a cake for Daddy,” she gasped.
“My son?” I heard Captain Clark ask.
“Baby, you’re okay now. You’re okay.”
“Daddy? Where’s Uncle Carter?” she asked, and we both looked to the burning house, just before Nick dashed back through the front door. As soon as he disappeared, flames swallowed the entrance. I pressed Mackenzie’s head to my chest, blocking her eyes. If God forbid s
omething happened, I didn’t want her to remember this scene.
“Stay still, Mackenzie. We’re going to give you some special air, okay?” Captain Clark placed an oxygen mask over her face just as Doctor Burke’s car pulled up. “Will somebody please get my son out of that house!” he screamed.
“Mommy?” Mackenzie asked through the mask. “Is Uncle Carter okay?”
“Yes, Daddy went to get him. They’ll be out in a moment.” I wanted to believe my words, but looking at the flames spitting through the roof and a house that resembled a burnt skeleton with every passing minute, it was difficult. The next few seconds happened in slow motion. When Andrew, one of the firefighters, heard the first crack, he stepped away from the front door. He must have sensed it — Carter had told me that all firefighters sensed that moment. The trusses burned through and collapsed, then the walls and our home turned into a dragon’s never-closing mouth. The flames and the heat pushed Andrew face down to the ground, and I felt it burn my lungs as I gasped in a breath of despair.
“No!” I stood up screaming, holding Mackenzie tightly against my body, away from the billowing flames. “No!”
Fire was everywhere, consuming the air I was trying to breathe, burning away my hopes and dreams. I fell to my knees as my father ran down the street. Marge was close behind him, out of breath. She froze when she saw me collapse.
“No,” I sobbed, rocking Mackenzie back and forth in my arms. Just when I thought I had them both back in my life, they were taken away from me. I looked at the horrid black smoke taking away our precious memories when a familiar silhouette broke through the grey cloud: Nick was carrying Carter’s lifeless body around the side of the house, where Carter’s garage used to be. He was still within the flames’ reach, and heat seared at them both. Nick’s body, including his face and hair, were covered in soot. His pants and shirt were burnt through in random spots, showing red gashes of burnt flesh underneath.
Someone helped him with Carter’s body, laying it in the shade.
“Honey, stay with Grandma and Grandpa. I’m going to check on Daddy and Carter.” I left Mackenzie with Marge and my father.
I dashed to Nick and Carter and when I saw them up close, I froze. Carter’s shirt was completely gone, burnt right off his body, and the left side of his torso was blistered in red, blood spewing from the skin that was nowhere to be found. Black, crispy spots dotted his face. Nick looked up at me, fear covering his eyes: a fear that he was too late.
I shook my head. Nick stood up and walked right into me. My body pressed to his and my arms would around him as I hid in his embrace, denying the possibility that I could lose Carter.
“I’m sorry, Jo. I really tried. He got trapped after he passed me Mackenzie from the attic.”
“He saved Mackenzie?”
“We wouldn’t have found her without him.”
“Is he going to… ” I couldn’t even say it without the word getting stuck in my throat full of sorrow.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
I saw Molly’s car pull up. She jumped out and rushed to Carter’s side, helping Doctor Burke to revive him.
“We need to get him to the hospital,” I heard one of them say.
They didn’t see me watching their expressions. The fear and desperation to work faster when they were already doing everything in their power said it all. I knew that he wouldn’t make it. It felt like everyone in town was here now, and most were gathered around Carter. Mrs. Gladstone made the sign of a cross in the air over him. No one was fighting the blaze as it consumed the remainder of what used to be our home. The buckets full of water I’d seen some neighbors carrying were being thrown at the side of the house so that the flames wouldn’t jump to Mrs. Gladstone’s farm.
Andrew brought over what looked like a surfboard, except it had holes for handles at the sides. They carefully rolled Carter on top of it and then carried him to Doctor Burke’s van. I ran back to Mackenzie, who was sitting with Marge and my father, the oxygen mask over her face. I felt Nick right behind me.
“Mommy?” Mackenzie’s eyes were full of tears.
“Yes, honey?”
“I wanted to bake a beach cake like the one you showed me in the picture when Daddy baked one for you, and I told Uncle Carter I needed special decorations and I went to the attic and when I came down Uncle Carter left and I smelled smoke but the door was locked.”
He must have thought that Mackenzie had left the house to get the decorations. I took her in my arms and held her close. “It’s okay, baby. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“But our home is gone.” She gently laid her head on my shoulder and pulled in a sniffle.
“You know what, this town is our home.”
Nick crouched beside us, smoothing his hand over her back. “Uncle Carter is a strong man, probably one of the strongest men I know.”
“Where will I sleep now? My room is gone.”
“If you’d like, and if it’s okay with your Mommy, you can stay at our house.”
Mackenzie may not have caught the “our”, but I did. I set Mackenzie down and my father took her hand, saying, “Let’s go get some cupcakes for the firefighters.”
“We should take her into the hospital, just in case,” Marge said.
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.”
Besides, I wanted to be close to Carter. I needed him to know that we were praying for him.
“You’re hurt.” I touched Nick’s face. He leaned into me, whispering, “I’ll be fine, but if something happens to Carter… I’ll never forgive myself.”
For the first time since Nick’s return, I felt like we truly needed each other to survive.
“The stove. It was acting up before. This wasn’t your fault.”
“I should have been quicker. I could have been, but the flames…” Nick appeared to be lost in his thoughts, as if his mind had traveled to something in the past I wasn’t aware of.
“We need to take Mac to the hospital. We can get an update then.”
Everyone drove down the one road leading out of our town toward the city. And all the way there, I couldn’t help but wonder whether I’d lose another friend.
Molly was pacing the hall as Mackenzie and Nick got checked in. They’d go for chest x-rays to make sure there was no damage to their lungs. Mackenzie was sitting in her gown, right beside Nick’s gurney, sucking on a Popsicle and smiling, playing a hand game with her father. The doctor said she should be fine since she didn’t seem to be coughing or spitting up soot.
“How’s Carter?” I asked Molly, once both Mackenzie and Nick settled in. Captain Clark sat in a corner, pulling his fingers through his hair, the way Carter always did, while trying to comfort Mrs. Clark. Molly pulled me away, out of earshot.
“He’s still in surgery. He didn’t regain consciousness, and the burns… they’re pretty bad.”
I took her hand into mine. “Carter’s a fighter, Molly. He’s got this. I know he does.”
He has to.
“I’m worried, Jo. They won’t tell me much because I’m not technically family, just a friend, so I can’t get any info, but they haven’t updated them either.” She looked back to Mrs. Clark, whose eyes were so puffed up from crying she had difficulty opening them. She was holding a rosary in her hands, rolling the beads between her fingers after each Hail Mary.
“Come to x-ray with us. It will take your mind off Carter.”
She released a breath and nodded. We spent the next hour wheeling Mackenzie around on a gurney and then a wheelchair until she was cleared by the doctors, along with Nick, before we returned to the waiting area. When the doctor came through the door, everyone stood up.
“He’s in intensive care right now. The surgery went well, but with the third-degree burns he sustained, we had to remove a lot of dead tissue. There’s a lot of skin missing, and the chances of infection are high.”
“Is he breathing on his own?” Captain Clark asked.
“Yes, his lung
s will recover. He’ll need skin grafts soon. We’ll get started on that as soon as his vital signs improve. His body is still in shock. There was a lot of fluid loss and we’ll be monitoring him for edema, but if he does improve, we’ll go ahead with the grafting as soon as possible.”
“That’s good news, isn’t it?” Mrs. Clark asked. From the look on Molly’s face, though, it didn’t sound like so.
“Transplanting larger areas of skin could cause shock to his body.”
“What if you had a matching donor?” Nick asked.
“Yes, that would help.”
“Take me, then.”
What?
“If I’m a match, take whatever skin you need to help Carter.”
Mackenzie must have overheard us and raised her hand calling out from where she was sitting with Dad and Marge. “Me too. I want to help Uncle Carter too.”
I smiled. Knowing there were so many people here praying for Carter gave me hope, and hope had brought Nick back into my life. If there was anyone who could pull through this, it was Carter.
Chapter 30
Four months later
It didn’t hit me that we were homeless until we returned to Hope Bay. The first two nights, I stayed at Dad and Marge’s house. On the third night, Nick was released from the hospital. He was a match for Carter after all, so the doctors transplanted skin from Nick’s thigh and buttock to his friend. It only made sense for me to take care of him, so I moved to the barn house with Mackenzie to take care of her father while he recovered. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and somewhere along the line we became a family again. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment, but I knew the first time I stepped over that threshold with Mackenzie that we were home.
“How’s my favorite woman?” Nick snaked his arms around my waist from behind, kissing the side of my neck.
“Perfect now.” I turned around and met his lips, certain that no matter how much I kissed him, I couldn’t get enough. They were tender, and over the past few months I’d grown to need them every day.
“And how is our little one?” He rubbed my belly, then crouched, kissing it though my dress. The baby kicked, and he smiled.
