“Then stop talking to me. Preserve your oxygen.”
“My oxygen is already terminal. And you’re helping me not lose my mind.”
She was losing her mind listening to this. But she had to be the calm one. For his sake. During possibly the last moments of his life he’d chosen to contact her. She wouldn’t squander the responsibility, the trust. “Okay. Listen. You’re going to keep walking. Focus on the dark spot. That’s your way out.”
“I’m focusing on the dark spot. Oh, fuck, Harper. I’m not ready to die.”
Heat engulfed her as if she was the one in the fire. She paced to the bathroom mirror and wiped a hand across her forehead. “You’re not going to die. You’re going to keep marching. Slow, measured breaths. Calm and focused. You can do this. Tell me what you see around you.”
“Hills to the left—just one big cloud of orange now. Forest to the right, trees burning like torches, spitting out embers like Fourth of fucking July sparklers. Oh, shit.”
“What?” She strained to imagine the landscape he described. There were no hills in all of Chicago.
A knocking sound came out of the phone as if he’d dropped his on the ground. More static and scraping noises.
Oh, God! She’d lost him. She nearly vomited her heart out of her mouth.
“Okay. Fuck, that was close. Ember hit me like a missile and I had to roll.” The return of Jakub’s voice poured over her like a cool shower.
The boost of hope was quickly replaced with terror. “Jakub.” She couldn’t control the hitch of her voice on a sob. “Tell me where you are.”
“Thought it would be fun to help out California for a while.”
No. No. No.
“Harper. I’m sorry. For all the things I said. I was afraid to lose you.” He said the words with a gravity of a man confessing, a man preparing to face his own imminent death. “I’ve got to ditch the phone now. It’s getting too hot.”
“Jakub, wait! I’m sorry too. None of that matters now. Don’t hang up yet.” She had to keep him talking. “Don’t you have gloves? What happened to your gloves?”
“No gloves.”
“Do you see the dark spot still?”
“Getting smaller. Fuck it’s hot. Hurts to breathe. If I don’t get out of here… Harper—” He started coughing. Gradually the sound became muffled as though he’d dropped the phone and was moving away from it.
Please, God, please be going toward the dark spot.
The call stayed connected for another minute and twenty seconds as she watched the numbers roll by, helpless. Jakub did not return to the phone. Only the fire came through the phone speaker like a poor-quality nature recording of a fireplace, as if mocking the hell on the other end of the line.
Finally, clicking and popping noises grew louder and louder. Then complete and utter silence.
She now knew the sound of a cell phone burning to death.
Heart throbbing in her chest, she forced herself to digest what had happened. Jakub had disappeared in a wildfire.
She’d been the one to turn him away, to send him into danger.
She had to do something.
Hands shaking, she searched the internet on her phone for news of California wildfires. There were several around the state raging at the moment. The largest was the Chico fire. Neighboring towns had been given evacuation orders but not everyone had fled in time. With a combination of high temperatures, drought conditions, and strong winds, the fire had devoured whole neighborhoods after shifting directions in an instant. Dozens of people were missing.
Including a handful of firefighters.
She found the number of Jakub’s station on her phone. Palms sweating, she placed the call.
A man’s bored voice came on the line, “Fire station Forty-one. Lieutenant Ritchie.”
“Ritchie. It’s Harper. Jakub is trapped in a fire. We were talking then he started coughing and must have dropped the phone. The line went dead. I’m afraid he’s…”
Gone. He’s gone.
She couldn’t say the words. She swallowed roughly and forced herself to finish, “He can’t get out.”
The line went silent. A silence that reassured her Ritchie was taking her seriously.
“When did he call you?” When his voice returned, in alert rescue mode, Harper let out a breath.
It was a relief, albeit small, that she was no longer alone in the knowledge of what might be happening to Jakub. “Just now. Two minutes ago. Have you heard from him?”
“Fuck.”
“You knew he went, right? To California? Tell me exactly where he went.”
Ritchie told her everything he knew: the name of the program, the town where they’d held the initial training. He promised to call Jakub’s parents in case they’d heard anything and to text her with any news.
She dressed and packed her suitcase all the while imagining the flames that might have been Jakub’s last living vision. Wincing against invasive thoughts of him surrounded by scorching heat, struggling for breath, gripped with fear of dying—of dying alone—she somehow managed to check out of the hotel and call a cab.
Jakub was alive. He had to be alive. She repeated the phrase to herself over and over as though it were a mantra with the power to transform reality.
Chapter Thirty-One
Jakub’s skin felt tight. Especially the right side of his face. Also, his lungs. Like a vise had been winched down on them. He was too tired to be awake but too restless to be asleep. For what seemed like days he’d been trapped in this state. Vaguely aware of people and voices coming and going. More acutely aware of pain in his face and arm.
He opened his eyes and intense light blasted his retinas. He immediately slammed his lids shut. But this light was white. Daylight. Not the orange glow of hellfire.
“Oh, you’re awake. Good afternoon.” A nurse stood next to his bed, holding a package of gauze and scissors. “It’s time to change your bandages.”
“I’ve got it.” A familiar voice with a certain detached authority swept over him, a wave of comfort following in its wake.
It couldn’t be her.
She strode to the side of the bed, a beautiful little smile tugging at her cheeks. “Hi.”
It was her.
“Harper.” The great swell of emotion in his chest came out as a barely audible whisper.
“I thought you might need some help with those bandages.” The look on her face—so caring, so loving.
He started to smile too but pain tore across his face. The sharp intake of breath from the pain triggered a cough.
He dropped his head on the pillow and gazed at the sight of her. Brown hair swept up in her usual ponytail, a dimple graced her cheek.
She was here. And if she was smiling, that meant he was going to be okay. Didn’t it?
Memories of what had happened in the fire eluded him beyond images of orange clouds pressing in from all sides and the gripping need to speak to Harper. Things left unsettled rose to the surface when you believed you were about to leave this plane of existence. She’d been his one last piece of unfinished business.
And she’d been the one person who could keep her cool and talk him out of there.
He reached his right hand to the bandages on his face. The skin of his arm seared with pain. He had no idea what he looked like, not to mention what had happened after he’d dropped the phone in that inferno.
She pulled up a chair and sat next to him. “Doesn’t look like you’re going to work anytime soon.”
“I don’t remember…” Speaking took considerable effort. He paused for a breath before continuing, “What happened?”
“You texted me from the fire.”
“I remember that. I don’t remember after.”
“Lucky for you, you rolled down a hill. Over some hot embers, apparently, but out of the fire’s reach. They found soot and dirt imbedded in your burns.”
Rolled down a hill. A memory of a painful descent tumbling over sharp ground and burning earth came back to h
im. He’d thought he’d rolled into the bowels of hell and died.
Bandages covered half his face. God, what would he look like when the burns healed?
As if she anticipated his question, Harper grazed his uncovered cheek with her knuckles. “Don’t worry. You’ll still be handsome to me.”
He placed his good hand over hers, pinning her to him. Nothing mattered now but the fact she was here. And that she’d just given him some sort of hope.
“You have some smoke inhalation damage to your lungs too.”
“I don’t care.”
She raised a curious brow. “You don’t care?”
“I’m alive. And you’re here.” He smiled, making his right cheek rip with pain.
She leaned to give him a kiss on his good cheek. He tried to turn his head to capture her lips with his, but he was too slow. The grazing of her lips on his skin sent a shiver down his body. His cock roused.
Thank fuck that part of him still seemed to be in working order.
“Harper.” He only wanted to say her name. He didn’t know what else to say. Even if he did know, his throat had slammed closed.
She moved away. Then she was on his other side, carefully lifting his bandages along with the nurse who had returned. He winced when the gauze tore at his flesh.
The whole ritual was incredibly painful and seemed to take forever. He couldn’t rally the energy to speak. At the end, he was fatigued from enduring it all.
He wanted to talk to her. He wanted to embrace her. He wanted so much more. But his lids grew heavy.
Reality hit him like a head-on collision. He was going to be recovering from this for a very long time.
The room had grown silent. He caught a wave of her scent as she came near.
A light brushing of lips on his. “I have to go now.”
Thank God his left hand was responsive. He reached out and grabbed a fistful of her coat, then wrenched her closer. “Thank you.”
She gave him a sad smile as she swept her thumb down his cheek. “You’re welcome, sweetheart.”
Then she was gone.
Her departure was a great injustice he could hardly endure, worsened by the fact he was helpless to physically detain her, to pull her down on top of him, and wrap his arms around her and never let go. With this image in his mind, he drifted off to sleep.
When he woke, he thought her presence had only been a dream. Then he saw what she’d left on the chair next to his bed—a blond teddy bear with a brown ribbon tied around its neck. The same bear he’d given her after she’d broken her knee, and he’d found himself on her doorstep.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The day after she’d returned from Atlanta, Ritchie had texted: Found him. He’s in Enloe Medical Center in Chico. Badly burned but alive. She’d known with more certainty than she’d ever believed about anything, she had to go to California.
And good thing she did. Not only for the sake of her own heart.
The Midwest didn’t have a reputation as the center of medicine for nothing. The Cleveland clinic, Mayo, top teaching hospitals like Lincolnfield in Chicago, the home of the American Medical Association. But here… It was as if this hospital had never encountered complications in fire victims before.
Harper leaned over Jakub, prying gently at the bandage on his face while he slept. After she’d helped change his bandages, she’d planned to return to Lincolnfield. But the way the burns were healing—or rather weren’t healing—she decided to stay. Perhaps it was some sort of kismet that she’d already handed over the reins of the ID department for a month while she’d planned to be at the CDC, so she had time to attend to Jakub. Harper let a smile break through. What a romantic notion. Wouldn’t Bev be pleased?
It was enough that Harper was pleased. Enough she was here with this man she’d known in her bones was unique. Since the moment they met, he defied her attempts to categorize him with some mental machinery she’d created to save herself from hurt. That same cowardice had pushed him away from her and hurt them both anyway. She would do what she could to right her wrong no matter what the future held for them.
Jakub moaned and Harper snatched her hand away from his bandage but not before she’d caught a confirming glance of the wound.
His lids fluttered open. “You’re still here.” His voice was raspy. The tissues of his throat had likely been injured from the heat of the fire. The reminder of the danger he’d been in sent a shudder through her.
“You’re stuck with me for a while I’m afraid.” She grabbed the ice water next to his bed and touched the end of the straw to his lips. “Drink.”
He took a weak drag on the straw, barely moving more than a few drops of liquid into his mouth. “Shouldn’t you be doctoring people who have deadly infections?”
She was glad to see his playfulness returning. He’d need that drive to get him through what lay ahead. “You mean instead of a firefighter who tried to take himself out in a blaze of glory?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said a little gruffly. Was there a hint of wounded pride in his voice?
He wouldn’t be fine. Not without her. “Actually, I’m not so sure there’s anyone more important for me to be treating right now.”
His cheek lifted slightly. It would have warmed her if she didn’t know the double meaning behind her own words.
The nurse on duty squeaked in on blue clogs a few shades darker than her scrubs.
“Morning.” Harper squinted at her badge and quickly added, “Helen.”
“Morning.”
“I’d like to speak to the attending. Mr. Wojcik’s wounds are infected.”
Helen gave her a wary glance. “The attending has ordered an antibiotic drip.”
“His nose swab was positive for MRSA. The wrong treatment will put him at risk for an opportunistic infection.”
“Mr. Wojcik is in the room if you haven’t noticed,” Jakub croaked.
Helen ignored him, narrowing her eyes at Harper. “Why don’t we leave his treatment up to Mr. Wojcik’s doctor?”
“She is my doctor,” Jakub said.
Helen put her hands on her hips and volleyed a look between them.
Harper waited for the nurse to make eye contact again. “I’m transferring this patient to another hospital. Page the attending, please.”
The nurse lifted her chin. “What hospital? This is the best hospital in the county.”
“That may be, but it doesn’t have what he needs. I’m transferring him to San Diego.”
The nurse huffed, then whirled on her heel and marched out of the room.
“San Diego?” Jakub’s eyes flew wide with alertness. “Harper, what’s going on?”
“What’s going on is you’re not getting the best possible care.”
“I don’t need VIP treatment, Harper.” The stern way she was handling his care stirred something in him.
“Do you trust me?”
Of course, he trusted her. With his life. He’d called on her when he wasn’t sure he had more than a handful of breaths left. She’d talked him down and out of that wildfire. He feared she was trying to take ownership of this disaster. He couldn’t allow her to burden herself this way. “Harper. This was not your fault.”
“Maybe not, but if I do nothing, what happens next will be.” She pulled out her phone and placed a call. Strode to the window and parted the vertical blinds with a finger. “Sarah. I’m so glad I caught you. I have a patient for you. A burn victim—a firefighter, actually. Yes. Extensive. I’m afraid they let it go too long. Yes, that’s what I thought. Great. I’ll make the arrangements on this end. Oh and Sarah… this is a special patient.”
Jakub wasn’t sure being a special patient sounded good at all.
Harper caught his gaze and added, “Very special to me, personally. I’ll be accompanying him.”
She ended the call and put her phone in her back pocket, her eyes not leaving his.
“Harper.” He lifted his hand in an attempt to take hers but ended up only patt
ing the mattress.
She placed her hand over his and curled her fingers into his palm. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I know.”
She raised an eyebrow and a warm smile lit her face. “You know?”
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. He held her there a moment, breathed her in. A faint floral scent emanated from her hand, her lotion perhaps. He hadn’t even realized he’d closed his eyes until she moved her hand away.
He opened his eyes as she swept her fingers along his jaw. “Jakub.” It was a soft whisper.
The gentle sound of her voice combined with the light touch of her hand and her lingering scent. His senses were gloriously full of her, and yet he wanted more. But then he caught her gaze. She was looking at him not as a doctor looks on a patient but as Samara used to look at him. The way a woman looks at a man who is everything to her. “This is going to take some time to heal from. I’d like to call your parents and let them know where we’re moving you.”
He nodded, a lump forming in his throat.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The treatment was working.
Jakub lay asleep before Harper in the hospital bed, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. She had the urge to place a hand on his chest and feel the life in him.
Doctor Sarah Steiner stood next to Harper, arms crossed, surveying her most recent experimental case in the hospital bed before them.
“Another successful application for the books,” Sarah said with a brisk turn to Harper.
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
Sarah gave her a kind look. “You don’t have to thank me. It’s what we do.”
Harper let out a long breath, suddenly aware she’d been holding her breath for weeks. “But thank you anyway.”
“Take a few quiet moments before you tell his family.” Sarah ducked her head with a nod and began backing away. With a conspiratorial smile she added, “Soon you’re going to be busier than you ever imagined.”
A little dazed at those words, Harper waited until Sarah had gone, lingering only briefly, then made her way to the family waiting room.
A Beautiful Fire (Love at Lincolnfield Book 4) Page 20