Welcome Back to Apple Grove

by C. H. Admirand

  “Sounds like it’ll be a long night.”

  “Dan just got a 911 text from Patrick’s friend Bear. They just tossed him in a cold shower. He should be sober by the time we get there.”

  “I always did love a challenge.”

  “Thanks, Joe.”

  “I’d do anything for my girls.”

  “Maybe I’ll get lucky and our baby will be a girl—just like Cait.”

  Joe laughed. “Be careful what you wish for, Jack.”

  ***

  Joe and Jack arrived in time to see Bear making coffee while Sledge and Mike took turns walking Patrick around the apartment.

  “Jesus,” Joe muttered. “It’s worse than I thought.”

  Bear shook his head. “From what we could get out of him, he’s ruined things between him and Grace—permanently.”

  Joe snorted. “My daughter’s stronger than Patrick realizes.”

  “He said she never said a word when he broke things off with her.”

  Jack spoke up. “I talked to her before coming here. She’s going to sleep on it, but she loves him—she’s not giving up on him, but she’s hurting right now and needs to think about it.”

  Mike’s face lit up. “Can we tell him?”

  Sledge reached around Patrick and smacked Mike in the back of the head. “No. He needs to grovel first to realize just how important it is to have a strong and beautiful woman like Grace in his life.”

  “She’ll be his anchor,” Joe agreed. “But if he messes this up, I will personally dump him in the middle of the Atlantic.” When the men just stared at him he shrugged. “It pays to have friends in the coast guard in high places.”

  Bear handed Sledge a cup. “Bottoms up.”

  They roused Patrick enough to have him swallow most of the coffee.

  Jack and Joe took over for Sledge and Mike, who were headed to the firehouse for the evening shift.

  Bear stayed and filled them in on the sketchy details he knew about five years ago. “Garahan never told any of us the whole story, but each one of us held his head over a bucket a time or two after we helped him empty a bottle, and we got each got a different piece to the story.”

  While the men sobered Patrick up, they got the bare bones of the tragedy pieced together. “He’s got to let go of the guilt,” Jack ground out. “Take it from me, I know.”

  When Patrick’s stomach started to heave, Bear tossed him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and ran for the bathroom.

  The pitiful sound of a man puking his guts up carried down the hallway. “Glad I gave up tying one on in my youth,” Joe murmured. “I’m way too old for that shit.”

  Jack grinned at his father-in-law. “You’re the salt of the earth, Joseph Mulcahy, even if you served as a puddle pirate.”

  Joe smiled back. “I could still whup your ass, navy boy.”

  Jack nodded. “Don’t doubt it.”

  Joe harrumphed. “Watch what you say about the coast guard, then.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain Bligh.”

  They were laughing when Bear walked back into the room with Patrick tucked under one arm. “I think he’s ready to listen to reason.”

  “Am I still having a nightmare?” Patrick swayed as Bear eased up his hold on his friend.

  Joe stood up and glared at Patrick. “For making my baby girl cry, I should be your worst nightmare.”

  Patrick agreed. “It’s your right, sir.”

  “Don’t call me sir,” Joe grumbled. “Makes me feel old.”

  “Hell, sir, um, Joe, you are old!” Patrick wasn’t quite steady on his pins yet, so Bear led him to the sofa and shoved him on it.

  “You might not want to insult Grace’s father, Garahan,” Bear said. “I’m told the Irish have really long memories.”

  Jack and Joe readily agreed. “Now,” Joe said, crossing his arms in front of him, “you’re going to sit and listen to what my son-in-law has to say and then you’re going to be civil to my baby girl when she comes back to talk to you.”

  Patrick’s wobbly legs held when he shot to his feet. “She’s coming here?”

  When he swayed, Joe put a hand to the middle of his chest and shoved him back down. “Not tonight, you thickheaded Irishman. You’re going to listen,” Joe warned him. “And then it’ll be your turn to talk.”

  Patrick looked as if he was going to contradict Joe, but in the end, Grace’s father got his way. Jack took Patrick back in time to relive the horrors Jack faced as a medic—the guilt at not being able to save his friend.

  Patrick listened as Jack described the private hell he lived in after he’d come home to have a series of surgeries on his leg.

  Then it was Patrick’s turn to unburden his soul. When he finished, it was after midnight.

  “You two should head on back to Apple Grove,” Bear said, getting to his feet. “I’m on night shift again tomorrow, so I’ll be up surfing the channels if our friend here wakes up and needs anything.”

  “Have a bottle of aspirin and glass of water ready,” Jack advised.

  Bear chuckled. “I’ve had hangovers before, Doc, don’t you worry. I’ll take care of lover boy for Grace. They need each other.”

  “Yeah,” Joe said, looking down at the man who, if he played his cards right and owned up to his stupidity and then bared his soul to Joe’s baby girl, would be his son-in-law before summer’s end. Joe had put money down on that fact and intended to collect.

  “Come on,” Jack said, tugging on his arm. “I’ll drive home.”

  “It’s my truck,” Joe protested.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “And I’ve always wanted to get behind the wheel of your F1. Come on, Joe. Please?”

  “Hell.” Joe handed him the keys.

  Chapter 23

  Joe stared down at his youngest daughter and asked her again, “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?”

  Grace stopped midstride and looked at her father. That he’d been gone half the night and wouldn’t say where and now asked to tag along when she drove over to talk to Patrick had her Spidey-sense on full alert. “No thanks, Pop,” she said, pushing the screen door open. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Gracie?”

  She paused and looked over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

  “After you have your say, listen to the man—really listen.”

  “I promise. Don’t wait up.”

  “It’s eight o’clock in the morning!” her father grumbled.

  “Gotcha! Be back in a little while.”

  When she shut the door, he chuckled to himself. “Not if Patrick has anything to say about it.”

  ***

  As Grace drove, she thought about everything that Jack had told her yesterday. She’d wrestled with what she wanted to say to Patrick for most of the night after her sister and Jack went home.

  She knew without being told that her father and Jack had paid Patrick a late-night visit. What she didn’t know was why or what had been said. But she intended to find out.

  The hurt was still there, but alongside that was hope. Jack had given her hope that the man she loved wasn’t pushing her out of his life because he’d grown tired of her. He had done it to protect her from the grim realities he faced every time the fire alarm sounded—realities that had forced him to run away from everyone and everything he loved in New York.

  He’d run to Ohio and fate had brought them together. Grace believed in fate, destiny, and that karma could be a stone bitch, but if you lived your life to the best of your ability, treating others with kindness as a rule, then life could be feckin’ awesome.

  The short time she’d spent with Patrick had opened her eyes to what could be, and she wasn’t going toss that aside because her man was too proud to ask for help, too guilty to share the heavy burden—whatever it was—that he carried.

  She raced up the steps to his apartment and pounded on the door. When a sleepy Bear opened the door, she stared up at him. “What’s wrong?” she rasped. “Where is he? What’s happened to him?”


  It took Bear a few minutes to process the fact that Grace was here and pushing her way inside Patrick’s apartment. When it finally registered, along with her mounting panic, he held up a hand and pointed toward the living room. “He’s on the sofa.”

  When she tried to step around him, he caught her hand in his. “Go easy on him, Grace,” he pleaded. “The guy loves you and was only trying to protect you.”

  “From what?” she asked, although she was pretty sure she already knew the answer.

  “Himself.”

  “I promise,” she reassured the big man. “Thank you for being his friend.”

  Bear shook his head and told her he was going back to bed.

  Grace watched him stumble in the direction of Patrick’s bedroom. When she heard the door close, she walked to the living room. Patrick lay sprawled out on the sofa facedown with a bucket on the floor within reach.

  She knelt beside him and gently stroked his brow. When he began to stir, she pressed her lips where her fingertips had been. But he didn’t wake up, so she decided to go with a different approach. She had things to say to the man, and this time, he was going to listen to her. She walked back to the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and approached the sofa.

  Leaning close to his ear, she called him name again, but he didn’t move. “Time for Pop’s water torture.” She flicked water in his face. He grimaced but didn’t wake up.

  She spent half the night sorting out what she wanted and what she was willing to put up with in her head—and now he wouldn’t wake up? She was starting to get steamed. “We’ve got things to talk about, and I’m tired of waiting,” she grumbled. He didn’t move, so she tossed the rest of the glass in his face.

  Patrick roared and shot to his feet. “What the hell—Grace?”

  Bear came running down the hall. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  Grace had her hands on her hips. “I wanted Patrick to wake up so I could talk to him and he wouldn’t,” she explained. “So I used Pop’s patented method of waking us up as kids—Mulcahy’s water torture.” She crossed her arms in front of her. “It usually only takes a few flicks of water to the face, but you were more difficult and I got tired of waiting.”

  Bear shook his head and laughed. “She’s all yours, Garahan. Since I’m awake, I’ll head on over to the firehouse and see if I can catch breakfast.” He paused in the doorway and frowned at them. “Fix this. You two belong together.”

  “He’s right, Grace. I’m sorry about yesterday. I should have listened.” Patrick reached for her hand and tugged her toward the sofa.

  “I was just so shocked that you were ready to push me out of your life. It took me a while to work around to being mad at you.”

  “We’ll come back to that, but I need to tell you that I was afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “That you wouldn’t be able to handle the pressures of my job. My ex walked out when I was hanging on by a thread—that night, the last fire I fought in the Projects.”

  She squeezed his hand and waited.

  “Watching them work on that little boy to revive him, it hit me that he was the same age and size as my nephew Michael. My gut scraped raw at the thought of not being able to save that boy, but my head got it all mixed up a few hours later, and all I could see in my mind’s eye was Michael—lying so small and still. That night, the nightmares started and every damned night, the boy’s face would morph into Michael’s. It was tearing me apart; sometimes I’d dream that it was two of them—and I was never able to save either of them.”

  Grace didn’t bother to wipe the tears from her face; she didn’t want to let go of Patrick. Her grip like iron, she asked, “Did you ever tell anyone that part of your dreams?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t want them to think I was crazy.”

  She sighed. “My grandmother used to hear voices in her head—but she wrote short stories and my grandfather said she had so many to tell, her characters used to wake her up nights until she wrote them down.” She smiled. “We never thought she was crazy.”

  He tugged until she scooted closer. He pulled her onto his lap. “For a long time I wondered if I’d gone over that line from sanity to madness, but then the nightmares would ease up, and I’d be fine until the stress built up again.”

  “Do you think you’d be able to try something different—like talking to me about your day? Maybe it would be as easy as that to deflect some of the stress before it builds up and starts to snowball.”

  He rested his chin on the top of her head. “It’s a hard existence, Grace, but it’s what I’m meant to do.”

  “I know.”

  “Old habits die hard,” he warned, “but I’m willing to give it a try if it means that you’ll still be in my life—even if we have to start over.”

  “No do-overs,” she grumbled, pushing back in his arms.

  “But—I thought?”

  “Life’s kind of like the street I grew up on—smooth in some sections, potholes in others. But if you want something badly enough, you learn to navigate around those pesky potholes. You don’t need to start over.”

  “So I’m like a hole in the road?” His baffled expression was endearing.

  “Better to be a pothole than a sinkhole,” she warned.

  “Hell.”

  “We’ve all got our private hells, Patrick. Mine is the image of my mom in that hospital bed—broken beyond repair and dying.” Her voice broke. “Yours is that nightmare with both little faces haunting you. But if we never experienced hell, how would we know to recognize heaven?”

  “So I’m a heavenly pothole?”

  She chuckled and they both started to laugh, easing the tension in the room. “Something like that.”

  His expression grew serious again. “So what changed your mind? Why did you come back today?”

  “Not what. Who. After what you said, I thought I’d been wrong and maybe you really did want me to go—and I started to believe that you did.”

  “Who changed your mind?” he asked.

  “Kate, Doc, and my dad.” She cupped the side of his face. “You acted like an idiot,” she told him, “and I still don’t know why I love you so much.”

  “I’m an idi—” His grip tightened on her hands. “You still love me?”

  Grace knew then that Jack had been right. Patrick pushed her away to protect her. “Don’t you want me to?”

  “I don’t deserve you,” he said, pulling her against his heart.

  “No,” she agreed. “You don’t, but you’re stuck with me.”

  “Jesus, Grace,” he rasped. “I thought I’d lost you for good. That’s why I tried to drown myself in a bottle of Jameson.”

  “Ah,” she said, nudging the bucket with the toe of her sneaker. “Is that was this is for?”

  “Bear likes to be prepared.”

  “Drinking isn’t an answer. It just numbs the pain.”

  His gaze locked with hers. “I know.”

  “I knew it was a possibility—and wasn’t sure if I could handle it if you got lost in a bottle.”

  “It’s a hell of an existence,” Patrick whispered. “I’m so sorry,” he added. “I didn’t want to drag you down into that black hole with me.”

  “It took me a while to decide whether or not I wanted to go down there with you and drag your amazing backside back up here with me.”

  His eyes widened.

  “Come on, Garahan, you’ve got to know that you have an excellent butt.”

  “I, uh—”

  It is going to be all right, she thought. They would work through this and move forward. “I came back because after talking to Doc and spending the night worrying about you, I couldn’t stay away—even if it meant having to deal with you falling off the wagon when the pressures of your job get to be too much.”

  “I’m not an alcoholic, Grace—but sometimes when the nightmares won’t leave, I drink too much.”

  “I’m glad you told me.”

&nbs
p; “I am too—and maybe your idea will work. Are you really willing to hang in there with me?”

  “I wouldn’t have come back if I wasn’t.”

  He rested his chin on the top of her head again and sighed. “I didn’t think I was ready to talk to anyone about the reasons I left New York, but things changed after you left me.”

  “Hey,” she said, pushing against his chest until he loosened his hold on her. “Let’s get that one point clear: I didn’t leave you—you gave me the boot.”

  He pulled her back against him. “After I made the biggest mistake of my life and told you to leave, I realized how badly I needed you to stay. If it wasn’t for Bear and the guys, and Jack and your father, I might have ended up in the ER with alcohol poisoning.”

  She knew it cost him to admit it, so she didn’t say anything, but she did put her arms around his waist and squeeze him.

  “Grace.” He paused. “I need to tell you the rest of it—why I left New York. It was more than just the fire.”

  For the next half hour, he took her through his life in Brooklyn and his work at the firehouse. That he loved every minute came through clearly. The heart-wrenching details of the last fire he fought in the Projects had tears welling up in her eyes for a second time that morning.

  He was beyond brave—that he’d carried such an incredible burden for so long without telling anyone was a testament to how strong a person he was. The fact that his ex dumped him when he needed her support most was criminal—but then, fate couldn’t have intervened and sent Patrick to Ohio. “Your mom and sisters must pray for you every day.”

  He shrugged. “I guess.”

  “You’re a lot like my father and brothers-in-law. Kate dragged me over to talk to Jack yesterday. She said I was sick on the inside—and I guess I was, sick at heart that I’d lost you.” She pressed her lips to his forehead. “Jack told me about his PTSD and one of the main reasons he suffers from it.” She thought about how much Jack and Cait loved one another and knew she wanted the same with Patrick. “The guilt was eating him alive.”

  “I know. He talked about it last night.”

  “So? Are we OK?” she asked. “Are you ready to let go of the guilt and try things my way?”