by Erin Wright
It was strangely painful how much that hurt, she mused as she pushed herself out of the truck and to the pavement of the parking lot. She listened to the squeal of his tires as he peeled out and onto the street. She didn’t know what she expected – he wasn’t going to gently escort her to her door and kiss her goodnight. But still, he’d been such a gentleman all this time, helping her in and out of the truck every time, to the point that it was just natural. She’d thought it smothering and quaint at first – she was a grown woman and could walk on her own, thankyouverymuch – but now…
He was done with her.
She got the front door open and leaned against the wall once she got inside, trying to take deep breaths, trying to…
She sank down the wall and dropped to her ass on the floor with a thud, the pain pouring out of her in waves. She’d wanted to keep him at arm’s length, and she’d wanted him to move with her when she got a job, and she’d wanted him to take over the old mill to make a go of it, and she’d wanted to remain friends no matter what happened…
It was a big jumble now, a big mess in her mind of conflicting desires and thoughts and all she knew was that somehow, she’d screwed this all up. Despite her very best efforts, she’d made a muck of things beyond any sort of repair.
She let the tears flow out of her in the darkness. There was nothing else to do.
Chapter 25
Troy
Six weeks later…
The burn from the chemicals made Troy’s eyes sting and his arm was aching from days of scrubbing but still, he kept at it. Moose and Levi, fellow firefighters on the Sawyer City Fire Department, were hard at work on the wall opposite him. Being both best friends and of the male gender, they were of course flipping each other shit incessantly as they worked. It was difficult to suppress the pang of jealousy as he listened to them razz each other. He’d never really had the kind of relationship that Levi and Moose shared, that deep friendship where you could tell each other anything, at least not until—
He forced himself to stop there. No reason to go down that road. Again. It was well worn and full of dangerous potholes that could suck him in for days.
Instead, he listened quietly as the two started in on a contest to see who could clean the most bricks in five minutes. Not surprisingly, the trash talking started as quickly as the competition did. Troy gave them six minutes before they started asking him to be the judge – six minutes thirty on the outside. They were too competitive to let the other one win without a fight.
On the other hand, Troy had no doubt that either one would lay down their life for the other without blinking. It was just who they were.
After the training session down at the fire station had ended last night, Jaxson had asked him about the old mill and how the progress was coming along. Troy had instinctively tensed up – Jaxson didn’t know it, of course, nor did anyone else, but the new fire chief had to be one of Troy’s least favorite people on the planet. He seemed all right when it came to having a work ethic – at least he had one, anyway – but still, all of the snide comments that Jaxson had made over the past 11 months about what a shitty job Uncle Horvath had been doing as the fire chief before Jaxson took over…
It’d been hard for Troy to bite his tongue and not say anything. His uncle had been doing a damn fine job of it, considering his time restraints. He hadn’t been a full-time employee like Jaxson was. Uncle Horvath had had a mill to run in his “spare” time. Of course he hadn’t gotten as much done as Jaxson did, and it was a real assholish move for Jaxson to badmouth his predecessor like that. Jaxson didn’t get what it was like to live in a small town and have a hundred different commitments, because everyone had to wear two or even three hats at a time. He was just the fire chief and in a town this size, that was a real luxury. The way Troy saw it, he had the quintessential city slicker outlook on life.
What is it with city slickers in this town, anyway?
The thought sent pain lancing through him again but he grimly pushed it away, choosing to simply scrub harder instead. If he just worked hard enough, he was sure he could scrub a certain city slicker right out of his mind.
But Jaxson’s question after the firefighter training had been innocuous enough, and so Troy had tried to answer casually, not revealing his inner turmoil about Jaxson’s presence in Sawyer. He’d told the group that the mill was “coming along” but apparently hadn’t been convincing enough that he was actually making progress because before he knew it, the guys were all volunteering different times that they could come on down and help out.
Being a Saturday and all, today was a prime time for most of the guys to show up, and Abby, Wyatt, and Juan had already made their appearance that morning. They’d had to leave at noon for a family event, but Moose and Levi showed up just about that time, so it worked out pretty well in Troy’s estimation. He only had one full wall left to scrub clean of the soot and damage from the fire, and two partial walls.
Okay, so that wasn’t a cheerful thought after all. One whole wall and two partial walls?! It was such a slow and painstaking process to clean these damn bricks, the project just seemed to stretch out in front of him, endless and daunting, not to mention smelly as hell. If he never saw a can of oven cleaner again, it’d be too soon. The way he was tearing through the cans of the stuff, he really ought to be buying it in a giant vat from Costco. He had visions of pouring gallons on the wall and just letting it cascade down the dirty bricks. He’d have to wear a full body suit but it’d be worth—
“Hey, Jaxson!” Moose called out in greeting, and surprised, Troy used the excuse to drop the green scrubber into the bucket and turn to the open doorway. There stood the new fire chief, his wife’s Great Dane by his side along with his two boys. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”
Jaxson shot them all an easy grin. “Sugar is in the nesting stage of her pregnancy, and she’s informed me that I either leave the house and let her work, or she Spartan kicks my ass out the door. So, I thought I’d come down and bring some helpers with me.”
“Wow,” the older boy said as he looked around. He appeared to be maybe seven or eight years old. Troy had met him a few times, most memorably at Jaxson and Sugar’s wedding, but couldn’t remember his name at the moment for the life of him. “This place is huge.”
Troy moved his way down the ladder, thrilled to have an excuse to take a break from scrubbing. At this point, he’d take almost any excuse to step away from the project. Honest to God, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to lift his left arm above his head again. Before he could say anything, though, the younger boy moved towards Sparky that’d been busy greeting the Great Dane, each of them sniffing each other’s asses in true doggy greeting style.
“What’s your dog’s name?” the little boy asked, reaching for Sparky.
“Don’t—” Troy barked out…just as Sparky licked the boy’s hand.
Okay, so Sparky clearly didn’t find this kid to be a threat. Good to know.
“Um, Sparky,” Troy said, instantly deciding that if he ignored his outburst, everyone else would follow his lead. “Moose was the one who found her. Up in a wildfire.”
“Really?” the little boy gasped, his eyes wide as he looked at Moose. “Did you have to carry Sparky out of the fire?”
“More like drag her,” Moose said with a laugh. “She doesn’t like everyone, and wasn’t too fond of me being close to her.” He watched the younger boy who was in the process of getting a dual face bath – one from the Great Dane, one from the setter. “I think she’s your friend, though.”
“Dogs like me,” the boy said confidently and as Troy looked at him, packed between the two dogs, both of them loving on him, he had to agree with the kid. He wasn’t boasting, but simply stating the truth.
“Well, we’re here to help, not get face baths from the dogs,” Jaxson said firmly. “Troy, what can we help with?”
Troy froze, not sure of what to say. It was hard to know what jobs to give to two little boys. H
aving them scrub walls with caustic oven cleaner didn’t seem like a great idea.
“What about back there?” Jaxson asked, pointing towards the far end of the building, apparently realizing that Troy was in need of some help in coming up with suggestions. “It looks like it could use a good sweeping, and the windows are low enough that the boys could wash them – at least the bottom part.”
“Good idea,” Troy said, grateful for the help. It really was too bad Jaxson was a know-it-all prick. He could be a nice guy at times.
“We brought our own supplies just in case,” Jaxson said. “Aiden, Frankie, go get the stuff out of the Explorer. We’ve got some cleaning to do.”
With raised eyebrows, Troy watched the two boys obediently head towards the open doors without complaint. Getting kids to listen like that was impressive. The only other time Troy had seen Jaxson with his sons was on the day of Jaxson and Sugar’s wedding, and they’d been a real handful then. It’d been another mark against him in Troy’s book – for heaven’s sakes, Jaxson couldn’t even keep his kids under control, how was he supposed to run a fire department – but watching them now, he wondered if it’d just been the excitement of the day that’d caused them to be…less than well behaved. Although the audience at the wedding had thought their shenanigans were cute and had laughed along at them, Troy hadn’t been impressed.
His parents and his aunt and uncle…neither set of parental figures would’ve allowed him to act like that without a paddling in public over it.
“How’s the pregnancy going?” Levi rumbled, his deep voice echoing in the cavernous mill. “Is Sugar sick a lot?”
Jaxson shrugged a little. “Some,” he said. “The bakery is hard because of all of the smells. She’s suddenly decided that sugar is a terrible, terrible thing and won’t bring donuts or cakes home anymore.” He looked mournfully down at his perfectly flat stomach. “I’ve already lost ten pounds. She’s only six months along, and I already can’t wait for this pregnancy to get over with. Hopefully her insane stance on sugar will disappear once she’s had the baby.”
“Sugar doesn’t like sugar?” Moose asked incredulously, and laughed.
“Believe me, that’s a joke you don’t want to tell around her. I may…uh…have already mentioned this observation to her, and she didn’t find it nearly as funny as I did.”
The boys reappeared just then, the brooms and dustpans knocking against their heads as they struggled with the adult-sized items. “Thanks, boys,” Jaxson said. “Okay, we need to get to work. Maybe if we work hard enough, we’ll have enough time to stop at the bakery on the way back home to talk Gage out of some donuts.”
“Yeah!” the two boys shouted in unison and ran, brooms swinging wildly, towards the far end of the mill.
“I better go after them and keep an eye on them,” Jaxson said with another easy laugh. “I’d hate to see them somehow destroy this building when a fire didn’t do the trick. My boys are…talented, shall we say, in destruction.” He followed his boys, the Great Dane on his heels. Sparky flopped back down on the floor next to Troy’s ladder, snuggling back down for a nap now that her buddy was going elsewhere to hang out.
Moose, Levi, and Troy all drifted back to work. More damn walls to scrub. Troy was just sure the blackened bricks were multiplying when he wasn’t watching. He’d known in a theoretical sense that it’d be a lot of work to clean them, but if he’d known beforehand just how much work…
Ignorance was bliss and all that.
Just like I knew Penny was gonna leave Long Valley, and I fell in love with her anyway.
Shit. So maybe ignorance wasn’t bliss after all. He’d been damn ignorant to think that he could change who Penny was at her core. Ignorant, stupid, willfully blind, dumb…
All of those things and probably a few more besides.
He hadn’t heard from her since That Night. He’d only found out that she had moved to Seattle for a job when someone had asked him how she was liking it up there. He had been careful not to touch Facebook since That Night, not wanting to see the crazy happy pictures of her, enjoying her new exciting life.
He wanted her to be happy, of course; he just couldn’t handle seeing it for himself.
A saint, he was not.
A howl of little-boy laughter pealed out, echoing off the bricks, and the sheer joy of it made Troy smile, just a little. It was surprising how the atmosphere of the mill changed now that there were kids in it. Moose and Levi had kidded around and teased each other while working, but that wasn’t the same.
As Troy worked, he couldn’t help but watch Jaxson at work, too. Not surprisingly, he was spending most of his time supervising his boys, making sure they stayed on track and didn’t just turn their brooms into swords.
The Great Dane had patiently laid down on the sidelines, not kicking up a fuss or wanting attention but just waiting for his humans to be done so they could go do something fun together. His placid, waiting nature also surprised Troy. The day of Jaxson and Sugar’s wedding, the beast had caused a ruckus with his thick, heavy tail, knocking everything over in sight as he’d joyfully jumped around. Troy’d had to hurry to take the beast outside before he caused even more damage, and all he could think at the time was that he couldn’t begin to understand why they’d wanted this dog in the ceremony.
Now, though, watching his sweet nature around the two boys and Jaxson, Troy could see the attraction.
His heart twisted a little in his chest.
Maybe he’d been too quick to judge that day.
Maybe he’d just been in a sour mood because he’d felt pushed into being a groomsman for Jaxson when he really hadn’t wanted to be. No one then or now knew his true thoughts about the new fire chief, and so when Jaxson had asked him, Moose, and Levi to be his groomsmen, Troy hadn’t felt like he could say no. For hell’s sakes, who said no to a request like that?
Consequently, he’d spent the whole wedding in a pissy mood, just wanting it to be over and done with so he could escape outside and hurry to the peace and quiet of his home.
Maybe I’m not such a nice guy after all.
That thought hurt a little. He’d spent his whole life with that integral belief about himself – that he was one of the good guys.
Well, most of his life, anyway. There was that fighting stage he’d gone through as a young teenage boy when he’d been kind of a shithead, which had landed him in Sawyer. He hadn’t exactly been a paragon of patience and kindness at that point.
That aside – which to be fair to himself, could be chalked up to teenage hormones mixed with a natural reaction to fight back against bullying – he’d tried his best to always be a good guy.
Now, he wondered if he had been a judgmental prick at the same time. Was it possible to be both of those simultaneously?
“Hey you two, less sword fighting, more sweeping,” Jaxson said. “I’m pretty sure Gage doesn’t give out donuts to little boys who play around instead of work.”
But Jaxson had made so many snarky comments about what a terrible job Troy’s uncle had done as fire chief. Didn’t that make him a judgmental prick, too?
It was true that there were a lot of things that had been left undone while Uncle Horvath was chief, but Troy’d had a front-row seat to it all, and knew what a struggle it was for him to run the mill and be the fire chief simultaneously. Troy’d seen the long nights, the bags under his eyes as his uncle had pushed himself to the very limits.
Aunt Horvath had been supportive in her own way by keeping supper warm on the stove for them when they came home late from a bad fire, but she’d also bluntly informed her husband that if he didn’t cut back on something – and sooner rather than later – his heart was gonna give out and this town would find itself without a fire chief or a mill owner. She’d never been much for biting her tongue and didn’t hesitate in telling her husband that he was well on his way to making her a widow.
Still, his uncle had hung in there, trying to serve his community that he firmly believed need
ed him…right up until the city decided that what they really needed was a full-time fire chief instead. It’d been a slap to the face, but Troy could tell his uncle had also been relieved. He could finally stop trying to balance the two equally important demands on his time.
If only Jaxson had stepped up to the plate and been a little less of a jackass about the things Uncle Horvath had let slide, it might not’ve been such a bad handover from one chief to the next.
“Looking good!” Jaxson said encouragingly. “Frankie, maybe a little less enthusiasm. If you swing the broom around like that, you throw more dirt into the air than you sweep up into a dustpan. Here, let me show you.”
Troy slowed a little, his scrubbing circles becoming smaller and smaller as he stared sightlessly at the blackened bricks in front of him.
Did he really believe that?
He knew his uncle. He knew how much pride he had. He knew that being replaced, even if it had been by James (his right-hand man), would’ve been hard for Uncle Horvath to swallow. He’d spent so many decades of his life dedicated to the department, Jesus Christ himself could’ve taken it over and his uncle would’ve found something to be pissed about.
After all this time, maybe he needed to let the anger go. Troy continued to scrub unseeingly, his mind going around in endless circles as he went. He’d read enough hippie, kumbaya bullshit articles in his aunt’s women’s magazines to know that anger and bitterness only hurt the person who was angry and bitter; the focus of that anger and bitterness was rarely affected at all.
Except, it wasn’t bullshit in this case. Hell, Jaxson didn’t even know that Troy was pissed at him, let alone allow it to somehow affect him or change his behavior. Troy’d been carrying all of this around, and for what? Just because his uncle was a good guy and had done the best he could under the circumstances, didn’t mean he’d actually done everything that needed to be done.
