“Of course we are. And, yes, we can hang out sometimes. We’ll make it a threesome. You, me, and Oliver.”
Sara’s eyes close briefly and she sighs.
God, she’s beautiful.
Without even thinking about it, I raise my hand and use a finger to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. She grabs my hand and holds it to her face, but I quickly remove it when someone clears their throat. We look over to see Donovan coming towards the bathroom.
Shit. What if it had been Oliver?
I have to be more careful. And I definitely shouldn’t drink this much around Sara. I’m bound to do more stupid things. I don’t want to confuse her. I don’t want to confuse me.
“Game’s almost over,” Donovan says, nodding back to the suite.
I try to gauge the judgment in his eyes, but I don’t see any. I’m not sure if that makes me feel less guilty—or more.
“See you back in there,” I say, walking away from them both.
Before I turn the corner, I glance back and see Donovan putting a friendly arm around Sara. I wonder if he’s telling her to stay away from me. Then I think maybe he should. Despite the fact that Sara wants me in her life, it might be for the best if I’m not.
I get back into the suite just as the game is finishing up. “Come on,” I say to Nora. “Let’s get out of here and beat the rush.”
I quickly say my goodbyes to everyone before Sara comes back in the room.
“Where are we going?” Nora asks as we make our way to the subway. “Your place?”
I shrug. “Better not. Since I’m living at my sister’s place, I don’t feel right bringing guests home.”
“My place?” she asks.
I look back towards the stadium, wondering what Sara and Oliver will do tonight when they get back to the rehab center. Technically, this was their first date of sorts, albeit with Donovan chaperoning. Still, I find myself wondering if Oliver will kiss her before he leaves. Maybe he’s already kissed her. Maybe he’s kissed her like I did the other day.
The thought of Oliver kissing Sara—the thought of anyone kissing her—makes my stomach turn.
“Mind if I take a rain check on that?” I ask. “I’m wiped out and I have to work in the morning.”
“So that means you’re up for going out again?” she asks, smiling.
“Sure. I’ll even let you choose the place since I got to pick the last two times.”
“Sounds good to me.”
On our walk to her place, she tells me about her roommates and her job. I tell her about an interesting medical call we went on the other day. Being a nurse, she can relate, because a lot of what we do is of a medical nature.
“This is me,” she says, pointing to her building.
We stop walking. “I had fun tonight,” I say.
“Me too. Especially when you stopped obsessing over Sara.”
“Sorry about that.”
“I get it. You saved her life and you want to make sure she’s okay. The same goes for me with my patients. That makes you compassionate, Denver.”
“Maybe next time, we’ll just make it a twosome,” I say.
Nora smiles at the thought. “I think I’d like that.”
She stands there without moving. I think she’s waiting for me to kiss her. I didn’t kiss her the last time we went out. If I don’t kiss her now, she’ll think I’m not interested. To prove to her that I am, I lean in and press my lips against hers. It’s not a passionate kiss. After all, we’re standing on a crowded sidewalk in New York City. It’s not a chaste kiss either. It’s somewhere in between.
She smiles up at me, clearly convinced, before she turns to enter her building.
As I watch her walk away, however, I’m not sure she’s the only one who needs convincing.
Chapter Twenty
The rig pulls up alongside the accident and I see the three mangled cars. An SUV is wedged up against a building. A Dodge Charger is T-boned into a telephone pole. And the third car, a minivan, is twenty feet away from the others, its front tires spinning around and around as they dangle off the end of the loading dock.
I shake my head, wondering how in the hell cars can end up like this when the speed limit is thirty-five miles per hour.
We hop out of the truck and someone from NYPD is running towards us. “High-speed chase,” he says. He motions to the two cars by the building. “Those two were involved, but the one over there”—he points to the minivan—“that one got caught up in it. Woman and two kids. I can’t get to them.”
I stare at the minivan, and the only thing I can think of is Sara when we were up on that bridge and I thought she was going over. I thought we were going over.
“I want that one,” I tell J.D.
“You sure?” he asks.
“I’m positive.”
“Okay.” He turns to Squad 13. “Cash, secure the minivan. Andrews, do not attempt a rescue until the chains are in place.”
“Sure thing, Captain,” I say, grabbing some gear before running over to the edge of the dock.
I stand next to the minivan, trying to look inside. One side of the car is heavily scratched and dented, like it was hit hard before going off the road. The driver’s window is intact, but I can see a woman slumped over the decompressed airbag on the steering wheel. And I hear a child crying.
“It’s secure!” Brett yells. “But it’s wedged in there pretty good. We can’t pull it back without risking injury.”
“Got it,” I say, running around to the intact passenger side of the van. Luckily, the side door is unlocked, saving me precious time. I climb in, feeling my weight shift the vehicle. I freeze for just a moment. In that moment, I see my parents, trapped and helpless. Then I see Sara. Bleeding. Seizing. Dying. But then I see her opening her eyes and whispering to me. I see her getting out of bed and walking all by herself. I see her laughing as we play cards. I see her smiling as she paints on the canvas. I see her staring up into my eyes after we kiss.
“Hey, buddy,” I say to the child closest to me. He’s not the one who’s crying. He’s in shock. “Collar!” I yell behind me. Someone hands me one and I place it around his neck. Then I unbuckle him and feed him out to EMS so they can get him on a backboard.
“One more coming right behind him,” I say, making my way to the other child, a toddler strapped into a car seat. I cut the anchor and belt away from the seat and hand the entire seat out to Steve, who whisks the screaming girl off to the ambulance.
Then I crawl between the seats and make my way to the mother, knowing she’ll have to come out the back. I reach around and feel for a pulse. It’s strong.
“Ma’am, can you hear me?”
She starts to come around, moaning and disoriented. Then she must see what’s in front of her vehicle—the water. And she starts to panic.
“My leg!” she screams in her attempt to move.
I use my hands to hold her head in place. “Ma’am, please don’t move.”
I lean through the seats and try to assess her injuries. Her leg is broken. Looks like a compound fracture. And her head is bleeding.
The van shifts again and she screams.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’m going to get you out.”
She doesn’t stop screaming. I reach over and lower her visor, opening the mirror and angling it so she can see me behind her. “Look at me,” I say. “I’m not leaving you, okay?”
She calms down when her eyes meet mine. And I realize I have no idea what color her eyes are, because the only thing I see when I look in the mirror are Sara’s chocolate-brown ones. Then Sara’s eyes become my mom’s eyes looking back at me. Then my dad’s. And their eyes are smiling. And suddenly, I’m sure this is exactly where I was meant to be. At this accident. In this car. Saving this woman.
I don’t even notice when the car shifts again because I’m so focused on the task at hand.
The woman looks horrified as she screams, “My kids!”
“They’re okay. We got the
m out already. What’s your name?”
“Connie.”
“Connie, I’m Denver. And I’m staying right here with you. We’re going to get you out of here.”
“Andrews, report,” J.D. yells from outside the car.
“Captain, she’s not coming out this way. Compound fracture of the right leg. Possible head injury.”
“Can you stabilize if we winch the car back?”
“Get me a splint and a collar.”
“You got it.”
A minute later, he hands me both and I secure her neck in the collar before I squeeze myself between the seats and put the splint on her leg. “The car is going to move,” I tell her. “But I promise you, they have chains attached to it. We’re not going anywhere but back.”
The car shifts back, but then gets stuck. I can hear Squad outside the car talking about how to get the front tires back on the dock. A minute later, we hear a noise that scares Connie.
I put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Connie. They are inflating some air bags under your car to raise it up so they can pull us back.”
She reaches up and grabs my hand.
“That’s it. Squeeze my hand as hard as you want to. I’m tough. I can take it. This will all be over in a few minutes and then you’ll see your kids.”
I feel the van rise underneath us, then we feel a jerk as the tires come back onto the dock.
Debbe and Ryan come through the driver’s door and get Connie onto a backboard. They put her on a gurney and take her over to another ambulance where her kids are being assessed.
When we finish unhooking the van and get our gear put away, I go check on Connie and her kids before the ambulance leaves.
Connie is sitting up on the gurney, her leg still in the splint, and she’s holding her daughter. “Thank you,” she says to me through her tears. “I thought for sure we were going to fall in. But you … you were so sure we wouldn’t. You were so calm. Uh, what was your name again?”
“Denver,” I say, offering her my hand. “Denver Andrews.”
She doesn’t shake my hand. She pulls me towards her and kisses my cheek. “Thank you, Denver Andrews. I will never forget what you did for us.”
“It was my pleasure, Connie.”
The ambulance pulls away and I turn around to see the rest of the guys staring at me. Then Steve looks around the dock as if he’s looking for something.
“You lose something?” I ask.
“I was just looking for the puddle of vomit,” he says.
I shake my head at him. “Asshole,” I say, walking back to the truck.
They all laugh. All but J.D. He pats me on the back. “You did good today,” he says.
“Thanks, Captain.”
~ ~ ~
When I wake up, the first thing I think about is that Sara is going home today. Five short weeks ago, the doctors weren’t even sure she was going to live, let alone walk and talk again. She proved them all wrong. She’s alive. That’s all that matters. Not that she’s going home with Oliver. Not that she kissed me but is going to be sleeping in his bed. She’s alive.
“Andrews, get down here!” someone yells.
I get out of my cot—the one in the corner that’s designated for the floaters—and put on my shoes as I wonder why the hell everyone else is already awake.
When I make it down to the kitchen, everyone in the firehouse is standing at attention.
“What’s going on here?” I ask, suspiciously.
J.D. nods to Steve. “Steve got his transfer,” he says. “And while nothing has been made official yet, I talked to Chief Mitzel and the commissioner yesterday, and pending final approval, it looks like you’re set to become the newest member of Engine Company 319. So—unofficially—welcome aboard.”
“Seriously?” I look around at all the smiling faces. “Are you guys okay with that? I mean, considering …”
“I wouldn’t have recommended you without asking them first,” J.D. says.
Bass is the first one to shake my hand. “Welcome to 319, brother.”
I pull him in for a hug. “Thanks, man. I know you had a big hand in this.”
“You did this all yourself, Denver.”
I see something being thrown around the room between the guys. It looks like a shirt. They all start playing keep-away from me. “What is it?” I ask, trying to grab it.
Bass snatches it out of the air and holds it up to his chest. It’s an FDNY Engine 319 t-shirt. “For you,” he says.
I smile proudly. I reach for the shirt, but he pulls it back and turns it around. That’s when I see the name on the back. Well, it’s not a name, exactly. It reads, ‘Prisoner 3876463.’
My jaw goes slack as they all double over laughing.
“Welcome to 319, convict,” Steve says. “I can’t think of a better convict—er, man—to take my place.”
I shake my head, knowing I’ll probably never be able to get rid of that nickname. It seems like once you’ve been given one, it tends to stick. But in this moment, I don’t care. Because I finally have a home. A family.
And after all the pomp and circumstance, I realize the first person I want to tell is Sara.
~ ~ ~
“To my lovely fiancée,” Oliver says. “Five weeks ago, I thought I might lose you. But you overcame all the odds, and tonight, you’ll walk out of here on your own two legs without any wheelchairs, walkers, or support belts.” He raises his glass. “To Sara.”
“To Sara,” the rest of us say, before taking a drink of two-hundred-dollar-a-bottle champagne.
“Oh, wow. That’s good,” Sara says, tasting the first alcohol since before her accident.
“Nothing’s too good for you, luv,” Oliver says.
Sara studies the bottle of champagne. “We don’t normally drink this, do we?”
“Of course we do. It’s your favorite.”
“Do I … drink a lot?” she asks tentatively. “I mean, Lydia and I, we liked to go clubbing sometimes, but I don’t remember being a lush or anything.”
He laughs and then leans down to place a kiss on her temple. “You drink the proper amount.”
Donovan leaves the room for a minute and then comes back in with a box. He nods to her painting supplies in the corner. “We can put her things in this,” he says.
I take the box from him. “I’ll do it.”
While the four of them sip champagne and talk about Sara’s time here, I pack up her paints, canvases, and brushes. She must have a dozen canvases here. Each one holds a memory for me. And as I put them in the box, one after the other, I see what progress she’s made since the first day of drawing simple circles.
Her latest paintings are landscapes. One is the street she grew up on. She painted it completely from memory. Another is the courtyard here at the rehab center. Others are places she can’t even explain or remember. The doctors say it’s not likely these are actual memories, even in her subconscious. The more plausible explanation is that Sara is trying to create a memory from the information given to her by either Joelle or Oliver.
I stare at the paintings, wishing I could take one home with me, but knowing it wouldn’t be appropriate to ask.
They are really good. Brilliant, even. But I have an untrained eye. Oliver tells me her paintings are rudimentary at best. He says she clearly has the skills, but the talent she once possessed is lacking.
I asked him if that bothers him. If he would see her the same way if she wasn’t able to be the famous painter she once was. He told me he doesn’t love her because of her painting. And damn it if I don’t respect him for that.
“Can I open this?” Sara asks, holding up the gift bag I brought her.
“If you want to,” I say.
She reaches into the bag and pulls out a collection of CDs. Her hand covers her mouth as her eyes mist up. She looks through the various cases. “You bought me the entire Beach Boys collection?”
“You’re the happiest when you listen to them. So I though
t if you ever feel down or depressed, you can just play one of those.” I nod to the bag. “There are two more things in there.”
She pulls out a deck of cards and smiles.
“I didn’t want you to get rusty,” I say.
“And what’s this?” she asks, pulling the last item out and turning it over in her hands.
“It’s a journal,” I say. “So you’ll never forget anything ever again.”
We share a look, but it’s more like a glance. A glance with more meaning than anyone in the room could possibly understand. And then it’s gone. It’s gone because we both know that a woman about to go home with her fiancé should not be sharing glances with a man who is not her betrothed.
“Mr. Compton?” someone calls from the doorway. “Can I steal you for a minute to fill out a few things on Sara’s discharge papers?”
“Sure thing,” Oliver says, putting his glass down. He nods at the gift bag contents. “Nice gifts, mate.” Then he turns to Sara. “Wait until you see the welcome home gifts I got you.” He leans close to her, but the rest of us can still hear. “Couldn’t bring them here. They’re for your eyes only. Or maybe mine.”
Sara looks a little green as he walks out the door.
She runs her finger along the binding of the leather journal. “It’s perfect,” she says. “I’ve never been given more thoughtful gifts in my whole life.” Then she frowns. “At least I don’t think I have.”
“Are you sure it’s okay if I bring the twins by your place next week?” Joelle asks.
Sara’s face lights up. “Of course it’s okay. I can’t wait to meet them. Maybe seeing them will spark a memory.”
“I doubt it,” Joelle says. “You didn’t ever want to spend much time with them before. You always made excuses why you couldn’t come for a visit.”
Sara’s face falls. “I’m so sorry, Joelle. I swear this time I’m going to be a good … uh, what am I to your kids?”
Joelle shrugs. “Second cousins? First cousins once removed? Heck if I know.”
“How about I just be a good friend,” Sara says. “To you and them?”
“That sounds great to me,” Joelle says.
Sparking Sara (The Men on Fire Series) Page 18