by Caro Carson
“I’m Brooke. I’ll try to forget every mustache joke I’ve ever heard.”
Sam turned to Zach. “I like her already. She looks awfully sane to put up with your crazy.”
Brooke smiled politely. Zach was so much more sane than she was, it wasn’t even a contest.
Sam was jerking her thumb toward Zach. “Shark Bait gets sad if we don’t dangle him on a wire from the bottom of the chopper at least once a month. That’s certifiably crazy.”
“That’s a certified rescue swimmer,” Zach returned mildly. “You want Texas Rescue to have a rescue swimmer on the roster, then you gotta let me hang out on the end of a wire at least once a month.”
“Shark Bait?” Brooke asked, while inside she was hoping she was hearing all this rescue swimmer stuff wrong.
Sam grinned. “We hook him on the end of a line and lower him into the water. He’s just glorified bait.”
Brooke frowned at Zach. “I thought the Coast Guard took care of water rescues.”
“Off the coast, sure. They run the school that certified me.” Zach’s words were casual, but he was watching her closely, as he had when she’d been too persistent about the ice.
Smile. Be normal. The man isn’t in any danger at the moment.
Sam was enthusiastic. “We do search and rescue, mostly, for folks who get lost in the wilderness. Half the time we find them in a spot where the only way out is up. Zach drops down and hooks ’em up, and we haul them into the chopper.”
“I didn’t know you did that.” She was talking to Zach more than the pilot. Shouldn’t she have known he was a rescue swimmer? “You’ve never brought someone here.”
“We haven’t?” Sam looked at Zach and poked him in the arm. Brooke told herself it was a sisterly move. Poke, poke. “Yeah, yeah, remember that frostbite couple right before Christmas? We brought them here.”
“Dispatch sends us to Breckenridge most of the time,” Zach said, naming another Austin hospital. “I never get a chance to impress Dr. Brown in my flight suit.”
“You won’t get it next weekend, either. We have to do all the paperwork training. No ride in a basket.”
“Killjoy.”
“Cheer up,” Sam said. “Maybe we’ll get a real call or a nice natural disaster before that, and then we won’t have to do training this month at all.”
All the worry Brooke had felt during the races returned in force. Zach was a rescue swimmer. Paramedic and firefighter, she’d known about, but the rescue swimmer thing seemed far more dangerous. Her mental catalog of checklists for drowning victims was grim. People just couldn’t cheat water. Not that anyone could cheat fire, either. Or smoke inhalation.
Or twisted metal in car wrecks.
Her gaze settled on a little girl wearing a pink dress. Her pigtails bounced as she played among the river rock landscaping that filled the median strips in the hospital parking lot.
The monster hit Brooke hard.
Oh, Chelsea, you precious baby.
Chelsea had brought her treasures all the time, treasures like river rocks. Although she’d been in middle school, Brooke had appreciated her sister’s pure joy when she found a rock that was more precious than all the rest by virtue of having an interesting chip or crack. Chelsea had given all the special rocks to her.
“It was nice meeting you. Catch you later.” Sam headed back to her copilot.
Brooke was amazed anew at how it was possible to conjure a passable smile and a polite nod of the head and fool the whole world into thinking she wasn’t losing to a monster.
She kept it up, sitting down at the picnic table and picking up her hot dog. She smiled and nodded as Zach thanked her for his own foot-long. He couldn’t be bothered to sit, but he perched on the edge of the table above her. His watch caught the sun for a flash as he took a bite, and Brooke read the time upside down. Of course, his watch had a second hand like hers, sweeping its way steadily around the face, ready to clock the pulse of a mortally injured patient.
“Confession time,” Zach said.
She looked up at him with genuine curiosity. What kind of confession did he have to make? Maybe he’d signed up for another race. Maybe he was going to tell her nothing more earth-shattering than cotton candy was his secret weakness. Or maybe he was going to confess that in addition to firefighter, paramedic, and rescue swimmer, he also rode bulls in a rodeo. Danger seemed to be more addictive to him than her kisses.
Her smile was in place. “I’m listening.”
“Not me. It’s time for you to confess. What’s up? You can’t be worried that I’ll miss the start of another race, but you keep checking your watch anyway, and then a little worry wrinkle appears right here.” He pressed his finger to the space between her brows with a grin, but then he dropped his hand and his smile faded away. “This dinner with your mother isn’t just a dinner, is it?”
He’d hit the nail on the head, but she didn’t want to talk about it. “Men aren’t supposed to be so intuitive.”
“Are we going back a few decades? Okay, girls are supposed to be nurses, not doctors.”
“Very funny.”
“You’re worried about the time, aren’t you?”
She scowled at her hot dog. It was loaded with bright yellow mustard and chopped green relish, the ultimate picnic food. She couldn’t choke down a bite right now, no matter how badly she wished she could.
Zach could. The dozens of people who’d been in line at the food stand could. But Brooke?
She was worried that a man might drown, and sad because a little girl had been playing among some rocks.
She’d always wanted to fit in, but having a sister die had made her a pariah at a young age. As an adult, it was simple to look back and understand that her school friends hadn’t known what to say. They’d avoided the girl who’d had such bad luck.
Then her father had passed away, too. Maybe they’d been scared that something so terrible was contagious. She’d learned all the common fears during the standard psych training in medical school. She understood.
But today, she didn’t want to be so logical about her lonely years as the unlucky teen. She’d tried to make friends. She’d failed.
Maybe it wasn’t all my fault.
“Maybe I’m the one who is fine,” she snapped at Zach, “and you’re the one who’s obsessing over how many times I look at my watch.”
She plunked her hot dog back in its paper tray. She hated that Zach could see right through her. She hated that she’d given him such a sharp answer just now, and she hated that she’d have to apologize when all she wanted in the world was to enjoy a hot dog today.
“What time are you supposed to see your mom?” he asked, and the kindness in his tone was just about her undoing.
“I told her I’d be there by six.”
“Same time my shift should’ve started. Why were you trying to hide dinner with your mom from me?”
She was so thankful that he wasn’t meeting her bad mood with one of his own, she put her hand on his thigh and squeezed gratefully, buying herself a moment to swallow down the emotion that clogged her throat.
“It’s not really dinner. I’m driving her to the cemetery. Today is the anniversary of my sister’s death. The eighteenth anniversary.”
He tossed the rest of his hot dog back onto its tray, next to hers.
“Baby, you should have told me.”
She probably should have, but she’d spent eighteen years not telling people the worst thing that had happened to her.
“Do you want to leave now? You must want to be with her.”
She laughed at that, but it was a pathetic sound. “I wish I could skip the whole thing. It’s a maudlin ritual. After we go to the cemetery, she wanders around the house and looks at old photos. I’ll offer her tea and she’ll say no. She
even waves away the box of tissues until the tears get really bad. At some point, I won’t be able to stand it, and I’ll turn on some lights. She’ll protest, but she won’t turn them off.
“Then I’ll go into the kitchen and cook something from whatever is in the pantry. She won’t eat it until it grows cold and needs to be reheated. One year, I tried bringing over groceries and a new recipe we could make together, but that was really offensive to her. She prefers this martyrdom routine, I think. You should see her huddled in her corner of the couch, sipping little spoonfuls of canned soup after she’s turned it away for a couple of hours.”
Zach didn’t say anything. Brooke kept her focus on his thigh, on the tight little square she was drawing there with one fingertip. She traced it again, so she wouldn’t have to look up and see how appalled he was at her complaints.
“I sound like an awful person, don’t I?” she said quietly, ninety-degree angles forming sharp edges over and over.
She’d done it again. She’d confessed the sad truth, just as she’d done during the intimacy of a preteen slumber party, and now she’d lose the friend. There would be a little distance between Zach and her, that distance that death puts between those with a black cloud over their lives and those without.
The situation was sorrowful, and pity was the natural response for anyone who found out about it. Pity led to distance, and because people had pitied her and then distanced themselves from her over and over, she knew what to expect.
She didn’t want Zach’s pity. She wished she could erase everything she’d just said.
“I do love my mother.” The squares stopped abruptly. “I do. Every year, I’ve tried to comfort her. I thought we could leave the house and go to a museum once, just the two of us, when they were having an exhibit of historical gowns. I thought it would be interesting and kind of academic, nothing frivolous like going to see a comedy and eating movie popcorn.”
“But she disagreed.”
“She thought that plan was disrespectful.”
“And this year?” he prompted her.
When she didn’t say anything, he said it for her. “This year, you decided to spend the day here. With me.”
“I wanted to see what it was you’d been doing all those push-ups and pull-ups for. I wanted to see what it would be like to be a normal girlfriend. The weather’s perfect, and I wanted to be outside, but not at a cemetery.”
She stopped herself before blurting out every horrible thought in her head. She’d already said I hate kids and accused her mother of being a martyr. That was too much already. She couldn’t say she hated her sister’s grave with its inscription about an angel too perfect for this world and its statuette of a little cherub that looked nothing like her sister.
Zach sat heavily beside her on the bench. He smoothed his hand over her ponytail, then wrapped the length of it around his hand, just one turn, and tugged her head to rest on his shoulder. “I’m assuming your mother didn’t approve of a community picnic. Ah, my poor Brooke.”
“Don’t make me cry,” she said, but she leaned on him as he let her ponytail unravel into a smooth spiral. “I’m trying to be normal.”
As she rested on Zach’s shoulder, Murphy and his Gothic girlfriend walked in their direction, beers in hand. Zach sketched Murphy a bit of a salute, a casual move that Brooke thought nothing of until she saw Murphy’s eyes widen. He quickly pushed his girlfriend to walk in a different direction.
Brooke knew what that salute had meant. Don’t come over. Got my crazy girlfriend in the middle of a meltdown here.
It was sad that she was grateful to be spared making any small talk with Murphy at the moment.
A little spurt of rebellion followed the thought. She didn’t want to be grateful. She didn’t want to be the black cloud on this picnic.
I can do this. I’m not crazy.
To prove it, she sat up and slid their paper trays back in front of them, ready to eat. “I’ve got a couple of hours left, at least. Are there any more races to watch? It sounds like live music is starting up.”
“Hey, Brooke?”
“What?”
“You want me to go with you tonight?”
Time stood still. So did her heart, and when it started beating again, she knew that one of her heart’s desires had always been to have a friend like Zach.
“It’s so nice of you to offer.” She had to stop and swallow down that emotion again. “But you can’t come.”
“Why not?”
“It’s going to be kind of like a funeral. I’m going to change into a black dress first and everything.”
“I own more than jeans. I’ll wear black, too. It’ll be fine.”
“It’s not...it’s not going to be fun. You’ll see us at our worst.”
He started toying with her ponytail, using the end like a paintbrush across her shoulder. “I expect it to be emotional. I’d rather not have you behind the wheel of a car when you’re going through an emotional wringer. I’ll be able to drive you and your mom to the cemetery with a clear head.”
“Oh.” She’d never thought of anything so practical. “But you’ll starve. Soup cans, remember?”
“We can take your mom out to dinner. We’ll pick a really quiet, formal place. Something not too disrespectful.”
He understood.
He understood, and her heart wanted to burst with it.
“We’ll never get her out of the house.”
But what if they could? Her heart beat faster. Hope was a persistent thing, even after all these years of defeat.
“Let’s go to the cemetery first,” Zach suggested. “She’ll be out of the house and in the car, so we’ll tell her we have reservations somewhere nearby. If she really hates the idea of a restaurant, we’ll drive through a takeout place and bring that back to the house instead. Either way, it will be better than reheated soup, right?”
“Oh, Zach.”
I love you, she wanted to say. It was the most inappropriate time to tell a man she loved him, the date of her sister’s death, while they were planning to visit a cemetery and trick her mother into a new routine. Inappropriate, the day he’d shared that a woman named Charisse had said she loved him but married someone else.
But Brooke loved him now, too. They would have no words, no wedding, no kids. But she loved him just the same.
Chapter Twelve
Zach tried not to enjoy the rest of the day.
Clearly, Brooke’s mother preferred it that way, and this was her show.
But as Mrs. Brown handed him a photograph of her deceased child— “Here’s dear Chelsea playing in the backyard when she was just two” —he couldn’t help but smile at the big sister in the photo, a ten-year-old Brooke with a blanket tied over her shoulders as if she was a superhero. He’d done that, too, at the same age.
Zach cleared his throat and killed his grin, making sure his expression was neutral when he handed the photo back to Mrs. Brown.
God knew the cemetery visit had been rough. He’d done the driving, but to better accommodate three people, they’d taken Brooke’s car instead of his truck. When they’d parked at the cemetery, he’d opened the back door for Brooke’s mother, of course, in time to hear her fiercely whisper to Brooke that “that man” needed to let them have their time alone.
She’d undoubtedly wanted him to hear. Zach had done his part, politely pretending he hadn’t heard. He’d suggested that they go on without him to pay their respects; he’d wait in the car. It spared Brooke from being embarrassed and forced to ask him to stay behind, at any rate.
Through the windshield, he’d watched as Brooke, all in black, had stood before a headstone, keeping her arm around her mother, who was tall and trim and stiff with dignity. Long minutes had passed, and Brooke had started patting her mother on her back. Her mo
ther had walked toward the headstone, leaving Brooke standing with her hand patting empty air.
As Brooke dropped her arm, her mother slumped, then knelt and wept on the headstone. Brooke stood alone, as still as a slab of stone herself, and waited.
And waited.
Zach looked at his watch.
And waited. An appalling amount of time passed while Brooke stood there, ignored, staring at her sister’s tombstone and her mother’s back.
Enough.
Zach got out of the car and went to fix the immediate problem, which was that Brooke was alone in an awful situation. In silence, he stood next to her and held the hand that had been left empty. Her mother didn’t notice for fully fifteen minutes longer. When she got to her feet and turned around, Zach ignored her outraged gasp.
“Do you want to visit your father’s grave now?” he asked Brooke. She’d lost both her father and her sister in the same year, he knew that much.
Mrs. Brown pressed a hand to her chest with a whimper.
Zach had too much experience as a paramedic to be truly concerned. Real whimpers of pain sounded different. This one was theatrical, to let him know he’d made some kind of terrible mistake.
“He’s not buried here. He was cremated, so...” Brooke trailed off uncomfortably. Uncharacteristically.
Zach glanced around the parklike grounds. Usually there were buildings of some sort that housed ashes. “So where do we go to pay our respects?”
“This is Chelsea’s day, not my husband’s. His remains are interred elsewhere.” Mrs. Brown stalked toward the car, her energy and backbone completely restored by Zach’s offense.
“I’m sorry, baby. I assumed they’d be buried in the same cemetery. Do you want me to drive you to his place now?”
That sounded strange, his place, like her father had his own house or something.
“That really would push my mother too far. He died a little less than two weeks later. He’s not part of this day.”
