The Fall

by Kate Sherwood

  Vince looked at him doubtfully, then looked around the scene as if trying to find someone who had time to babysit Joe. That wasn’t a good use of anyone’s efforts, so Joe pushed the oxygen mask off and dragged himself to his feet. “I’m good,” he said again. “See?”

  “Don’t be a hero, Sutton.” Then Vince looked at the house and shook his head. “Too late for that, I guess. But don’t be a hero again.”

  “I’m fine.” He looked over to where a cluster of adults had gathered around three unmoving shapes on the ground. Damn it, he couldn’t think about that. “I’ll go with the water truck, make sure they don’t have any trouble.” His argument would have been stronger if the wave of coughing hadn’t hit him like it did, doubling him over. He was barely aware of Vince guiding him back to the truck and fastening the mask back on his face, but after a while the coughing faded and he looked up at his captain.

  “You’re done for the night,” Vince said firmly. “You need to go into the hospital to get checked out. You can hitch a ride with the paramedics. I’ll have someone drop your truck off at the ranch, and you can call Will to pick you up at the hospital.”

  Joe wanted to stay busy, not get poked and prodded at the hospital. He tried to focus on breathing and resolutely refused to look in the direction of the ambulances that raced away with the girls inside. At least they were racing, he told himself. They wouldn’t be in a hurry if they didn’t think there was a chance.

  When another ambulance arrived, Joe reluctantly let Vince drag him over to it. If there was any urgency to the fire scene, he would have fought harder to stay, but it was pretty clear that the department had given up on survivors and on saving the house; now they were just making sure the fire didn’t spread. The dog Joe had pulled out of the fire was still being given oxygen, but they were bundling him up for a trip to the vet; if they were looking after the animals, they’d run out of hope for the humans. The team would make sure the fire was out, secure the scene, and wait for daylight to start the recovery work.

  He let the paramedics check him out, but he resisted when they wanted to put him on a stretcher and take him to the hospital. “I’m fine,” he insisted.

  “My shift’s over,” Constable Stark said from nearby. “My partner can take the squad car back, and I can drive Joe in to the hospital in his truck. I live in town; I can walk home from there. And I can cuff him if he gives me any trouble about it.”

  It was better than an ambulance, at least. Joe found his cell phone in the truck and reluctantly handed his keys to the constable.

  The ride to town was quiet until Andy said, “Do you think the parents were drunk? Got careless and started the fire somehow?” Joe couldn’t answer the question, and finally Andy said, “I should have made them tell the truth. They could have been living in a safe foster home somewhere, not….”

  Joe leaned his head against the cool glass of the window. “Yeah. And I should have kept a closer eye on them. And you or me or somebody should have beaten the shit out of Del Walton for even thinking about taking a drink, knowing what he turns into when he’s drunk.” He started coughing then, and gasping for breath was a pleasant reprieve from the darkness of his thoughts.

  Andy didn’t say anything more, but when they got to the hospital, he parked the car and came inside with Joe. Neither of them mentioned Joe’s need for medical care, not until Andy had found someone to tell them how the girls were doing.

  “They’re being worked on,” the middle-aged nurse told them. She sounded as exhausted as Joe felt. “They’re in serious condition. We’re not sure if they’ll regain consciousness; if they do, we’re not sure if there’ll be brain damage from the oxygen deprivation.”

  Joe thought of his own scorched lungs and how quickly he’d become dizzy and disoriented in the house. How much longer had the girls been breathing that crap?

  “I’ve told the doctors you’re here, and they want me to take some blood—we’ll test it to see if you’ve inhaled anything too toxic. But they won’t be able to get to you for a while.” The nurse was writing something on a clipboard as she spoke, but she seemed busy, not inattentive.

  “I don’t really need to be here,” Joe tried, but he could see she wasn’t going to buy that. “Or I could come back tomorrow….”

  She smiled. “Dr. Michaels said you’d say that. And she said to tell you to sit down and read a magazine. No going home.”

  Andrew nodded in support. “You could barely breathe for a while there, after you got out.”

  The nurse raised an eyebrow. “I’ll add that to the notes.” She pointed to a stretcher with curtains on either side. “Sit. Stay.” Then she strode off.

  Andrew’s lips twitched, but he just said, “You want some company? I can stick around and drive you home after, if you need.”

  The constable looked almost as tired as Joe felt. They were both used to sleepless nights, but something about guilt and failure drained energy away faster than any exertion. “I’m fine.” Joe caught the look and held up his hands in surrender. “I meant I was fine to stay on my own, not that I don’t need to stay. I’ll stay. Get checked out.” And try not to watch the nurses too closely, try not to guess about the girls’ status based on the staff’s behavior. “You should go get cleaned up. Get some sleep.”

  Andrew nodded. “Okay. Call if you need me, though. Does Will know where you are?”

  Joe held up his cell. “I’ll tell him.”

  Andrew looked like he wasn’t sure he could trust Joe to do that, but finally he nodded. “Fine. You’re sure you don’t need anything?”

  Joe nodded, and Andrew headed out. Joe was left behind staring at his phone. He always called after a fire, always called if he wasn’t coming straight home from an accident scene. That was the deal he’d made with the family when they’d wanted him to quit the department altogether.

  He waited until Andrew was gone and the nurse had given him a hospital gown and taken her vials of blood, then hit the button to dial Will. He’d been hoping the call would go to voice mail, but Will picked up after the first ring, and he didn’t sound sleepy.

  “It’s Joe. I was at a fire, and I’m fine, but I won’t be home for a bit. I’m just getting checked out at the hospital.”

  “You want me to come in?” Will asked. “Nick said it was the Waltons?”

  “Don’t come in. I’m fine. But, yeah, the Waltons.”

  “How bad?”

  Will might as well hear it. “The parents… if they were home, they’re dead. The girls….” Joe took a deep breath and didn’t continue until he was sure his voice was under control. “They’re at the hospital. They… I don’t know. It doesn’t look good.”

  “Jesus.” Will didn’t say anything for quite a while. When he did speak, his voice was soft. “Get checked out and come home. I’ll clear the family out if you want. Or you can walk right by us and go for a ride. Something. But don’t do your driving-around thing tonight.”

  “I’m okay. Don’t tell Ally about the girls yet, okay? Wait until there’s more information.”

  “She’s going to see it on Facebook as soon as she wakes up.”

  “Shit. You could pull the plug on the Internet and tell her it’s broken….”

  “This is Ally we’re talking about. She’d troubleshoot that in about five seconds.”

  “Yeah.” And it wasn’t like Ally couldn’t handle the news. Just because Joe wanted to live in denial didn’t mean Ally needed to. And he didn’t have the energy to deal with this anymore. “I’ll be home later. I’m fine.”

  Another long pause, then Will finally said, “Yeah, okay. But check in if you’re still gone at breakfast time, okay? Austin will want to know.”

  Playing the Austin card. Will knew all the tricks. “Okay,” Joe said tiredly, and then he disconnected the call. He really didn’t want to stay still. He never did, after a bad call. Usually it was accident scenes that set him off, but a fire like this… another family that had lost its parents and might be abo
ut to lose a hell of a lot more…. Some of the guys could work on something like that and just go back home, sleep for a couple hours, and go back to work as usual. Joe didn’t react like that, and he definitely didn’t want to bring his mood into the family home. Usually he’d just drive north or west until he hit one of the Great Lakes, then sit and stare at the water for as long as it took. He made sure he was calm enough to cover whatever he was feeling and then got back to his life and let the emotions work out of him in their own time.

  But being stuck in the hospital, knowing he was waiting because the doctors were fighting to save the lives of three young girls he hadn’t rescued in time… he couldn’t stay calm there, couldn’t keep the emotions from trying to fight their way free. The nurse had hooked him up to oxygen as a precaution, and he made himself resist the urge to pull the cannula from his nose. If breathing some extra oxygen would get him out of the hospital faster, he needed to do it. And he didn’t want to be the petulant patient who distracted the staff from more important tasks. But, damn, he wished he could move around.

  Finally, Dr. Michaels arrived and smiled tiredly at him.

  “How are the girls?” Joe asked, afraid of the answer.

  But she just shrugged. “We’ve done what we can for them, for now. Time will tell.”

  That didn’t sound like enough, but he knew the doctor and trusted her judgment. So he tried to keep his concerns to himself and just said, “I breathed some smoke, but I’m fine. I just need a quick checkup.”

  Another tired smile. “I’ve looked at your blood work. There are elevated levels of some chemicals you aren’t exposed to working on the farm; I assume they’re from the fire, but I want you to come in next week for another blood test, to make sure you’re cleaned out. And there was elevated carbon monoxide—again, safe to assume it’s from the fire, but we’ll test again next week. It wasn’t at a level that causes me concern for your current health. But let me take a look at you, and we’ll see where we are.”

  She tutted over the scratch on his shoulder. “This could use stitches. But there’s no point if you’re just going to move the arm and pull them out.”

  “Obviously I’m going to move my arm… it’s my arm. I kind of need it.”

  She shook her head. “I heard Nick was home. Couldn’t he take over for you for a few days? It won’t kill you if I don’t stitch it, as long as you’re careful to keep it from getting infected, but it won’t heal as well, and it’s much more likely to leave an ugly scar.”

  Joe wouldn’t trust Nick to move his truck, let alone run the ranch. “I heard chicks dig scars.”

  “Now if only you dug chicks,” she said with a wry eyebrow lift. “But, okay. I’ve cleaned it out. I suppose I can’t trust you not to shower, either.”

  “I smell like melted pig shit.”

  “Well, that’s very descriptive. So….” She reached behind her for something from the counter. “I’ll put a wound dressing on it, tape the edges together as tightly as I can, and you’ll go shower and ruin all my work. But have someone tape it up for you afterward, the same way. And keep an eye on it. If it’s not scabbing well after a couple days, come back in and we’ll do something more drastic.”

  “Thanks,” Joe said, ready to slide off the table.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” the doctor said, placing her hand firmly on his chest. “Take the gown the rest of the way off. I see some burns on your back… flying embers, probably? They’re not serious, but there might be something worse somewhere else.”

  Joe thought about arguing, but it was quicker to go along. The doctor’s inspection was efficient, and when she got to Joe’s hand, she raised her eyebrows at him. “Were you planning to mention this?”

  “It’s only first degree, right?” He grinned at her. “I’ll just put some butter on it.”

  “No butter!” She turned his hand over so she could see it better, and then poked and prodded a little. “There’s a few patches of second-degree burn. I’ll clean it out, and you need to keep it clean. If you really won’t take a few days off, at least take some surgical gloves home with you and wear them under your work gloves. Gauze, surgical glove, work glove. I’ll give you antibiotic cream, as well.” She gave him a serious look. “You need your body to be in good condition, fully functioning. An infection would get in the way of that. In order to be fully functioning, you will do what is required to prevent infection. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m serious, Joe.”

  “Me too. I’ll do it, I promise.”

  She still looked skeptical, but she finished her examination and loaded him down with creams and pills and dressings and extras before letting him get dressed in his smelly, charred clothes and shooing him out the door. He supposed he should have paid for at least some of that stuff, but the firefighters always got special treatment when they came in with work-related issues, and Joe wasn’t going to complain about it.

  He eased in behind the wheel of his truck. Now that the doctor had pointed them out, he was aware of all the tiny burns on his back and shoulders, and his hand throbbed enough that he popped one of the pain pills she’d given him. He’d taken them before and knew they’d make him groggy, so he couldn’t do his usual driving-around trick.

  And somehow, that was okay, because this time he didn’t really want to drive around. He didn’t want to be alone to think about the three girls he was driving away from. He knew where he wanted to be; he just hoped he’d be welcome when he got there.

  Chapter 9

  THE BUZZING of his phone pulled Mackenzie out of a deep sleep. He had customized ring tones for all his frequent callers; if this was a telemarketing call, he was going to be pissed. He was only slightly mollified when he saw the name on the call display. “Joe? It’s the middle of the night!”

  “Sorry to wake you. Can I come in?”

  “Come in? Where are you?”

  “Your driveway.”

  “My….” Mackenzie shook his head and tried to wake up. Joe Sutton was in his driveway and wanted to come inside. It was the middle of the night. Those were about the only facts at his disposal. He sighed. “Meet me at the door.”

  He stumbled through the dark, Griffin bouncing excitedly at his side. As soon as he opened the door he was met with an acrid stench and wrinkled his nose until he saw Joe’s face. The harsh glare of the overhead security light was never kind, but there was more than that making Joe look so drained.

  “The smell gets in your clothes….” Joe said apologetically.

  Was Mackenzie supposed to know what was going on? “Why is there a smell? What have you been doing?” The entire situation was inexplicable.

  “Fire. I’m a firefighter. Part-time. Sorry.”

  “Sorry that you’re combining two sexy stereotype jobs into one? You’re a cowboy fireman. Seriously?” But Joe didn’t seem like he was quite ready for humor. He looked more like he was ready to collapse. And he’d come here, looking for… something. “Strip down,” Mackenzie ordered. He wanted to be compassionate, but he didn’t need that smell in his home. “Leave the stink outside, come in, and get in the shower.”

  Joe’s quiet obedience was one more sign that all was not right. Mackenzie was so preoccupied he barely even had lustful thoughts at the sight of Joe’s broad, toned chest, and was hardly tempted to reach out and touch as Joe stumbled out of his jeans and headed for the bathroom. He was still wearing his boxer briefs, but the rest of him was on display, and there were some disturbing changes to his body.

  “What happened to your shoulder? And what are all those little red marks?” Mackenzie asked.

  Joe lifted his hand to touch the bandage on his shoulder. “Glass. I should have cleaned the windowpane out better. The red marks are burns. Flying embers. I wasn’t wearing the right gear.”

  “And your hand?” Mackenzie demanded, squinting at the clean white gauze wrapped around the hand Joe wasn’t using.

  Joe looked down at the hand. “Burned it.”
He frowned. “A metal roof, with the fire beneath it. Got pretty hot.”

  “Jesus, Joe! You’ve already seen a doctor, right?”

  Joe nodded. “I’m cleared. But… can you put the bandages back on for me? If these get wet in the shower?” He frowned, then walked back to the front door and burrowed through the plastic bag he’d been carrying until he found what he was looking for. “I can wear the glove, to keep my hand dry. But I’d really like to wash my head, and that’ll get the shoulder wet….”

  “Yeah, of course. Do you have the gauze and everything, though? I don’t really have any first-aid stuff.”

  “You should,” Joe said seriously. “It comes in handy.”

  “Most of my houseguests don’t show up injured.”

  “But they might get injured while they’re here.”

  “This is a bit of a side topic. Let’s focus on getting you cleaned up.”

  Joe nodded and continued on to the bathroom.

  Mackenzie wanted to do something, but he had no idea what. He settled on gathering Joe’s discarded clothes and dumping them in a plastic bag. He didn’t have a washing machine in the church, and he wasn’t sure the clothes were salvageable anyway. A smell like that would be hard to get out, and there must be holes in the clothes since there were holes in Joe’s skin. Mackenzie went to the bathroom with the intention of scooping up Joe’s underwear and adding it to the bag, but he changed his plans when he saw Joe still partly dressed, staring at the shower curtain as if it were a portal to another universe. The man’s brain was clearly as fried as his body.

  Mackenzie leaned past him and turned the water on, then reconsidered his temperature setting and dialed back on the heat. It would sting Joe’s injuries no matter what, but at least cooler wouldn’t burn as much. Then he pulled off his own shirt and dropped it on the floor. Joe didn’t even look over as Mackenzie shrugged out of his pajama pants and underwear. He did wake up a little when Mackenzie hooked his fingers into Joe’s underwear and tugged them down over his ass, then let them drop. “Okay, cowboy, in you go.” Mackenzie stepped into the shower and tried not to wince at the tepid water. He reached for Joe’s nonburned hand and tugged him in.