Hidden Heart

by Amy Lane

  “Yeah, sure, but—”

  And while Theo was still talking, he lopped the branch off in one swing.

  His muscles sang with the strain, and he bumped his injured shin, but that sucker fell gracefully to the deck like it was on sails.

  Spencer took a deep breath, then another, and tried to blink the spots from his eyes. “Ready for the next one?” he called.

  When Theo spoke next, every syllable was enunciated as though he were auditioning for a role in a play. “If you open your femoral artery, I’m feeding you to whatever is beneath the surface of this water, you lunatic.”

  “That’s fair,” he said, trying to suppress a grin. His biceps and chest were feeling a little watery. He needed to work up the umph here. “But I need a little kick. What happened to the F-word, Woodchuck? I think you need to swear more.”

  “I’m not giving you the fucking satisfaction!” Theo yelled. “Get down from—”

  And that was it. That gave him the power he needed. With a growl he hefted the hatchet and sent it crashing down on the next limb, which sheared off and fell to the deck next to its brother.

  Spencer grinned tiredly, then bent to the rail post to help himself down before he realized his entire body was shaking. “Good job,” he panted. “And speaking of the F-word, Woodchuck, could you come grab this fucking tool from me? I don’t want to drop it.”

  “Fuck!”

  Theo took the hatchet out of his hand, and as Spencer heard it thump against the deck, he felt Theo’s strong arm behind his thighs, giving him an assist down.

  He pulled his bad leg off the rail first, the blood rushing to it as it dangled for a moment, and then gingerly lowered his foot to the porch. His vision went dark as it hit, and for a moment he thought he was going to lose his granola bar. He took a minute, breathing harshly through his nose, and then, fingers white on the fence post, allowed Theo to take some of his weight as he moved his good leg to the deck to support him.

  “You know,” Theo said, settling him down with his back to the fence, “I could have done that.”

  “Well, sure,” Spencer told him, his breath coming in pained pants and his vision still swimming. “But if you’d fallen, I might not have been able to get you. Now, if you want to start stripping those off, I’m gonna sit here for a minute and try not to puke.”

  “Fine,” Theo muttered. He set one of the branches up, pointy end on the deck, and proceeded to use the handsaw to strip all of the smaller branches off of it. Spencer watched, his vision clearing, appreciating Theo’s strength and no-bullshit movements, and part of that might have been that he was still pissed at Spencer, but part was that he was clearly used to working outdoors and with his hands.

  “Chop a lot of firewood out here?” he asked conversationally as Theo wound down the work on the second pole. They were a good size, maybe ten feet in length, and while not exactly straight, they were sturdy all the way to the end.

  “Look around,” Theo said. “We’ve got trees, and we’ve got sky. Sometimes we’ve got water, and sometimes not so much. Sometimes we’ve got snow. But there’s always trees.”

  Spencer had to smile because he sounded so put out. “You don’t like trees?”

  “Like ’em fine,” Theo said, pulling the debris into a pile by the built-in utility box. “Sometimes they can feel a mite confining, that’s all.”

  “You grow up here?” Spencer asked.

  “Yup. Moved from Tucson when I was a little kid. Mom got a job teaching, Dad got a job trucking, and we got Annie the cat—perfect childhood.”

  “That why you came back after college?”

  Theo looked up at him and gave a brief smile. “How do you know I’ve been to college?”

  Spencer took a deep breath and assessed his body. Everything hurt and most of it was fucked. But they were getting close to tangling with the rest of the tree, so it was time to move.

  “Education and travel,” he said, pushing up on the fence. “Two things that give someone authority that they don’t need to push in people’s faces. You’ve had first-aid training, and they put you in charge of teenagers. What’s your degree in?”

  Theo half laughed. “Land management and just plain management,” he said. “I knew I wanted to be right where I am. I got the EMT training because if you’re in charge of a parks and rec division in the middle of nowhere, sometimes people fall down and get hurt, and someone’s got to know what to do.”

  Spencer found himself chuckling. “Well, aren’t you the prepared Junior Woodchuck. Here, give me one of those.” He stuck his hand out imperiously, but Theo walked the pole up to him and handed it over, taking stock.

  “You’re bleeding through your bandages,” he said quietly. “And you’re starting to flush.”

  Spencer nodded, not bothering to contradict him or even give him shit. “Yeah, Woodchuck. I reckon we’ve got a timeline here. Elsie’s got to get your kids to safety. She’s got to hook up with Glen and Damien, maybe get themselves another guy on the crew to man the crane, and she’s got to refuel. I’ve been here, what? Two hours?”

  Theo’s mouth slashed up, and for a moment, Spencer’s sweet little Junior Woodchuck looked older—and dangerous. “Three,” he said grimly. He held up his wrist, and Spencer saw one of those all-weather watches, the kind that worked underwater. “Water’s still rising.”

  Spencer nodded. “And they’re not going to know where we are. We need to pole this… this house along the closest thing we can guess is the road, because that’s going to be where they look for us.”

  “Not the river?” Theo asked. “It’s not far off.”

  Spencer swallowed. “The dam feeds into the river, doesn’t it?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Then the river is going to be like Grizzly River Run at Disneyland, and that’s not a ride either of us—nor our sturdy porch here—are prepared to take.”

  Theo nodded. “I hear you. Okay. So we pole out. You going to let me steer? You seem awfully determined to take charge here, Mr. Helmsley.”

  Spencer gave him what he hoped was a good-ole-boy grin. “Oh, I can take orders when it suits me.”

  And for no reason at all, Theo flushed.

  Spencer’s good-ole-boy grin spread and sort of curled out. He felt a little evil. “Oh my, Mr. Woodchuck, what are you thinking?”

  Theo grunted and spun on his heel. “Nothing that would be of any interest to you,” he said shortly, and Spencer gave a wicked chuckle.

  “Oh sure. Pique my interest there.”

  Theo shook his head. “You’re incorrigible. You’re lucky your bosses didn’t have you up on harassment charges.”

  Spencer guffawed out loud and turned his attention toward the situation at hand. “Oh, I’m sure they’ve wanted to bind and gag me and leave me in the dog kennels a time or two,” he said confidently. “But, you know, mediocre pilots are hard to find.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “That I’m hard to find?” Spencer snorted, and used his pole to push off. “I’m gonna get us away from the trees. You may want to push us where we should go,” he said.

  “Oh my God, you are so bossing me around when I’m supposed to be in charge.”

  “Topping from the bottom,” Spencer said, eyebrows waggling, even though Theo was busy with his own steering and couldn’t see. “It’s a specialty.” He didn’t want to add that all things in bed were his specialty. He’d never been picky, really. Mostly, he just didn’t want to be alone.

  “I know what that means, and if you let anybody top you it’s because you’re in a mood,” Theo said grumpily. “And I meant that I doubt you’re a mediocre pilot. All your BS and you’d have to be pretty decent, or they’d dump you on your keester.”

  “I’m tall and I’m decked,” Spencer said without conceit. His double-wide on Glen’s brother’s property had three bedrooms, of all things, and one of them he’d filled with free weights. The only thing he really missed about moving out into the country onto Preston’s dog-t
raining property was the gym. Well, and the hookups. But once he had a place he could keep Colonel, he really didn’t need to bring home strangers anymore, did he? “They can’t dump me on my ass. But mostly I show up for work, and I get the job done, and let’s not forget Elsie. She and I come as a team, so they can’t ditch me, or they’d lose the real best pilot on the West Coast, and that would be a shame.”

  Theo didn’t answer for a minute, and Spencer turned to see him scoping out their surroundings. Most of the smaller trees had become completely submerged, but this was the deeps of Oregon, and many of the pines and redwoods here stood over 150 feet tall. The result was they were poling their way around an obstacle course, and Spencer imagined it would be pretty damned hard to find a landmark of any sort in the immediate vicinity. But if Theo had grown up around here, he’d know which direction the river was, and which direction the current would take them. He imagined that the water pouring from the dam would ease up eventually, and in the meantime, the pressure of the water through the little valley would push them through to Stucky or Stickly or Sticky or whatever near the mouth of the valley, where the interstate branched off.

  If they could find their way through the trees to where the valley flattened out and the town started, they might be able to find a house or an apartment building to perch on top of until the waters went down.

  But as Spencer took a moment and surveyed their area from what was probably fifty feet higher than ground level, he had to admit it was still hard to see which direction would take them away from the dam and toward the open.

  Theo let out a long, slow breath. “Mr. Helmsley?” he said, his voice a little shaky. “What do you think the odds are that my town is still there?”

  Spencer sucked in a breath. Oh. That.

  “Not good,” he said gently. “I’m sorry. The good news is that they were clearing out as they called us. I’m pretty sure most of the people made it out to the interstate and safety. It seems to me once they turned north or south, the water would spill out past the road and wash down into the canyon beyond the….”

  He blinked.

  “Oh my giddy aunt,” Theo said, and Spencer knew it had hit him.

  “We will cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said, keeping his voice calm. “Once the initial surge of water pushes through, it’s got to peter out. There’s no guarantee the water pressure is going to be strong enough at the end of this valley to… to….”

  “To send us hurtling into the canyon?” Theo asked, voice squeaking.

  Spencer took a breath. “This valley is, what? About forty miles long? It’s a lot of area, right, not a lot of people?”

  “Yeah,” Theo said, concentrating on getting them around a tree with his pole.

  “So, let’s find ourselves a relatively open area and then maybe get the boat stuck in some trees again. We get the boat stuck in the trees while the water whooshes out underneath us, we might not get washed out into the canyon. How’s that?”

  “That sounds like sunshine and bulldookie, Mr. Helmsley,” Theo said, his voice calm. “But sure. We can hope for that.”

  “Well, don’t forget my people are coming for us!” Spencer told him. “You think Elsie and I fly together for, what? Thirteen years? Just for her to go off into the wild blue yonder to leave me to drown? That would deprive that woman of the satisfaction of reaming me a brand-new sparkly shiny asshole for being stupid enough to fall out of the goddamned helicopter, wouldn’t it?”

  Theo let out a strained guffaw. “Yeah, that would be worth coming back for,” he admitted.

  Spencer’s voice grew gentle. “Come on, Woodchuck. Don’t panic now. We’re still twenty miles out from town, right? Let’s hope all your friends are safe, and let’s hope Elsie and Glen and Damien are coming back for us. I mean, you made a raft out of some poor woman’s porch—God’s not going to let you survive that and not give you a chance to tell that story. That would be plain wrong!”

  “Well, I’m not talking to God right now,” Theo said stubbornly, “so maybe this is punishment for my sins.”

  Spencer turned from poling the damned raft for a moment to stare at him.

  “You’re not… are you shitting me? You all but have ‘choirboy’ tattooed on your forehead, Woodchuck!”

  “Stunned but not speechless, I see,” Theo grumbled. “Yeah, so I don’t get to be pi… peeved with the force that took my folks away from me within two years of each other?”

  Aw. Poor baby. Spencer’s chest got a little achy. He hadn’t spoken to his own parents for fifteen years—for all they knew, he was dead, and they’d probably think he had it coming. But this man had been cared for. He’d sat by his mother’s bedside and mourned her passing, and that of her poor kitty as well. Of course he was mad at God.

  “Yeah, that could cool a relationship a little,” Spencer admitted. “But you had them. They seem to have liked you. You grew up in a nice place. That’s gotta count for something. Maybe you should forgive the big guy.”

  “You’re telling me to talk to God?” Theo asked, sounding at a loss.

  “I’m saying it couldn’t hurt. I mean, how much worse could you make things?”

  Spencer could see the back of his neck getting red. “Make things? Are you… are you saying this mess is because I didn’t talk to God?”

  “Well, I mean, I talk to him all the time. I even curse him out. He’s never dumped a lake on my head.”

  Theo looked over his shoulder at Spencer and gaped. “Wha… holy… oh my holy….” Theo’s face was purple, and it looked like he might be sputtering for a bit, so Spencer tried to help him along.

  “I mean, what’s God going to do if you tell him you’re pissed? You might as well tell him, Woodchuck. Go ahead and swear at him a little bit—hell, being all righteous and silent about it brought down a flood! How much worse could it get?”

  “Oh my gucking Fod!” Theo shouted.

  The words rang between them, echoing off the valley and the water around them, and Spencer lost his shit and started to laugh so hard he couldn’t breathe.

  Like Fungus

  THEO heard his own mangled curse lingering in the air and then, against all odds, Spencer’s hearty, riotous laughter in its wake. For a moment, he wanted to storm. He wanted to rage.

  God, he’d been so mad, hadn’t he?

  First Big John, then his mother—and hell’s bells! Even his mother’s sweet cat! And for two years, Theo had been walking around carrying that grudge. For two years, he’d been reminding himself that he wasn’t talking to God. He’d avoid the swear words. Oh yes, he would. But actually give a little prayer?

  Not even when he and three kids and a feisty old woman had been about to drown on a floating porch.

  Not even when a complete stranger had fallen out of a helicopter to save him.

  Theo had kept his back straight and steadfastly refused to talk to the forces in the universe because he was pissed.

  And it had taken a snarky stranger—who had infuriated Theo more than any human being on the face of the planet, bar none—to show him that he’d been spitting into the wind.

  For a moment he wanted to keep raging. He wanted to shout to Spencer Helmsley how dare he? He didn’t know Theo! How dare he make a mockery of this righteous grudge Theo had been carrying around, nursing the hurt of the oldest loss in the world.

  But as Spencer kept laughing, his voice hoarse and rusty, Theo remembered the flush on his face, the blood leaking through his flight suit, the stark pain on his face. And the gentleness in his voice, and the way his eyes had gotten all shiny when Theo had spoken of Annie the cat, whom Theo had hoped would keep him company while he wrestled with his grief.

  Spencer Helmsley was in a great deal of pain, and he was laughing in the face of it. And, whether he admitted it or not, he’d also been kind and more than human.

  Theo let out a little chuckle himself, and another, and in a moment, they were both laughing. Theo wasn’t sure how Spencer felt about it, but his
own laughter—a little weaker, a little sadder—was still the most cleansing sound he’d ever made.

  The laughter died down some, and Theo found he and Spencer were working as a team. Theo would give his pole a shove in the direction he hoped was toward the road, and Spencer would fight what felt to be a sucking current taking them toward the river. They worked in concert for a couple of minutes, and Theo had a rather frightening thought.

  “We’re not going toward the road,” he said. “We’re… everything we’re doing is keeping us away from the river.”

  Spencer took a deep breath. “Yeah. I was wondering when that was going to hit you. We can either start poling a little harder or ride the edge here. It’s up to you, Woodchuck. You know the land.”

  “How are you holding up?” Theo asked, looking at him carefully.

  Spencer gave a shrug and sucked in a breath when it pulled at his dressing. “I’m game for whatever,” he lied.

  Theo studied him carefully. “You’re not doing good,” he said after a moment. Spencer had two high spots of color on his cheeks, and the rest of his face was bone white.

  Spencer sighed, and his shoulders sagged a little. “Yeah, Woodchuck. You need to use me now while you’ve got me.”

  It was Theo’s turn to breathe hard through his nose. “Or we could rest now and wait until you’re a little stronger.”

  Spencer shook his head. “Not the most prudent of choices, Woodchuck.” He tried to mask it, but Theo saw a shudder pass through him. Infection. The cold, the wounds—a fever had been inevitable, and as they’d been fighting the water to get someplace clear, it had set in.

  Theo looked to the sky and more clouds and more water looked back at him. The closest they’d been to dry had been parked under that tree while Theo had been dressing Spencer’s wounds. He looked out at the landscape again, so vastly changed from what it had been earlier that day as he’d been driving out with the kids in the Tahoe, but also still the same. Water may have been covering all of it, but the water was ten, fifteen feet deep. The trees were still towering above. In a way, it was like poling their way through a Venice of pine and redwood.