She was saying something else. He forced himself to pay attention. “Maybe she was curious about where you work?”
“Then why didn’t she just ask me to show her the station? You saw her outfit. She was looking for action. And she had molasses-ginger-chocolate-chunk cookies with her.”
Cherie drew in a shocked breath, as if he’d said she had dynamite with her. “Molasses-ginger-chocolate-chunk? Are you sure?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, that could mean only one thing.”
“What? That she likes extra iron in her cookies?” Mystified, he pulled into a parking space in front of the Lazy Daisy. It was busy as always, although the crew rarely went there now that Thor had whisked the former waitress, Maribel, off to Alaska to get married.
“She’s looking for a husband.”
“Whoa.” Vader turned off the truck and pulled the keys out of the ignition. “Is this more Harper family weirdness?”
She snorted. “There’s plenty more where that came from. Everyone in the family knows that my stepmama made my father molasses-ginger-chocolate-chunk cookies that were so good he proposed right then and there. ’Course, little did she know what she was in for, since—” She cut herself off so abruptly someone might have slapped a gag over her mouth.
“Keep going,” he prompted. “Don’t hold back all those juicy crazy-family details.”
“Maybe later. Right now I have bigger fish to fry.” She stepped out of the truck, bright as a sunrise illuminating the drab parking lot. He followed, locking the plug-buggy behind him. As they walked side by side toward the coffee shop, he snagged her hand, engulfing it in his.
“I’m happy to see you, Cherie. No matter what.”
Her eyes widened, and she swallowed, the muscles moving under the creamy skin of her throat.
“But don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten where we stand.” He held the door open for her. As she walked past him, she gave a quick glance up; maybe it was his imagination, but he could have sworn there was a flash of regret in her lovely eyes.
“I’m happy too, Vader. You know how much I care about you.”
He decided to ignore that, since it wasn’t anywhere close to what he wanted from her. “Care” brought to mind Care Bears and nursing home care. Not the hot, sweet glory he experienced with her.
They chose a small table in the corner. As he pulled out a chair for her, he carefully kept his body from brushing against hers. He couldn’t forget his determination to make her come to him—for more than help with her sister. But since she’d sought him out for advice about Trixie, he bent his mind to the problem.
“Why do you think Trixie’s looking for a husband?” he asked as he sat down. “Most eighteen-year-olds aren’t thinking about marriage. And she acts like a thirteen-year-old at her first boy-girl party.”
“I know. That’s what I don’t understand. If she wanted to get married, she should have stayed home. That’s what they do there. They get married, the younger the better.”
The hint of bitterness in her voice made him look at her searchingly. She was surveying the menu, running her tongue over her rosy-red lips. He allowed himself a moment to admire the sight, then forced his own gaze back to the menu.
“Why don’t you just ask her? She’s not exactly shy.”
“And she’s not exactly honest either. She’s a Harper,” she added, almost absentmindedly.
A Harper. As if that explained everything. Cherie’s family was becoming more and more interesting. He was going to make her share the details if it killed him. “I don’t get it. What nefarious purpose could she have, other than making some poor guy her chauffeur and wallet-carrier for life?”
“That’s just it. I don’t know why she’s being so secretive. Maybe it’s just habit. She’s a—”
“Harper,” agreed Vader. “Care to explain what that means, exactly?”
“It means trouble. That’s all you need to know.” She snapped the menu closed.
“Yeah. I already knew that part.” He raised his eyebrows at her.
She made a little face, which looked so adorable he wanted to plop her on his lap. “Not me,” she told him. “I’m the exception to the rule. I left home, remember?”
“Well, so did Trixie. But she’s looking for a husband, and you’re looking for anything but a husband. So put that one together for me.”
He’d finally rattled her. Her eyelids fluttered down and a flush of pink warmed the upper curve of her cheeks. “It’s not . . . I’m not . . . It’s not that simple.”
“It never is with you.” He gestured for the waitress, a harassed-looking woman on the far side of the coffee shop. “I need to get going, Cherie, so if you think you’ve figured it all out, I’ll take my coffee to go.”
“Vader.”
Her soft cry of protest was interrupted by the tone of an incoming text message. Quickly he glanced at his phone, expecting a text from his mother, immediately relieved to see it wasn’t. “It’s Stud,” he told Cherie. “Probably wondering why the hell I’m not at the drills with the others.”
“You’re on shift? Why didn’t you tell me? I never would have dragged you out here . . . Vader? Are you okay?”
No, he wasn’t okay. The words in the text message weren’t making sense. And yet his body was responding on its own. He leaped up, knocking the menus off the table. “I have to go.” Completely flummoxed, he turned toward the plate-glass window, as if he could dive straight through it into the plug-buggy.
A strong tug on his arm stopped him two feet from the window. Cherie was hanging on to him with both hands. He looked at her, barely aware of who she was, or who he was. “Let me go,” he said in a strangled voice that sounded utterly alien.
“Sure, we can go. The door’s that way, though. Come on, I’ll take you there.” He let her tow him away from the window. “What happened, Vader? Tell me what’s going on.”
“My house is on fire.”
The fog in his brain cleared as soon he said it out loud.
“What?”
But now he was half running toward the door. He tried to shake her off but she refused to let go. The two of them tandem-ed out of the restaurant.
“Is the fire department there? Your station?”
“Yeah. They’re all there.” Everything was hazy around the edges. He felt like he was drunk. He couldn’t even walk in a straight line. The truck might as well be miles away and his legs had to be made of molasses. So slow. Too slow. Had to get there. Too far. “I should already be there.” Why did his voice sound like that? So thin, so strange.
“We’ll go. Right now. We’ll be there in a few minutes. The guys are on top of it, Vader. They’re the best, remember?”
“But they don’t know.” Somehow the truck was in front of him. He fumbled in his pocket for the keys. Dropped them on the pavement. Fuck, what was wrong with him? Bend, damn it. Get the keys. Get in the truck.
“Of course they know. They’re already there. They know how to put out fires, Vader. Take a deep breath, come on, baby.”
His mind whirled in crazy circles, occasionally spitting out a word or two. “You don’t get it. My mother. Wheelchair. No text. Must be hurt.” Ginny must be unconscious. No other reason why she wouldn’t have called him or texted him that the house was on fire. She would have called 911, then him. Or maybe the other way around.
Cherie stared at him, then dropped to her knees, scrabbling on the ground for the keys. When she found them, she sprang to her feet and gripped Vader’s forearms. The metal dug into his flesh. The slight edge of pain acted like a slap in his face.
“Look at me, Vader.”
Blankly, he met her eyes, which were so focused they’d turned nearly black. “Your guys are there.” She gave him a little shake. “You trust them with your life. You know how good they are. Brody’s there, and he never loses anyone. Sabina, Fred, Double D. They’ll take care of your mother. I’m taking the keys and I’m driving you over to your house. But you have
to tell me where it is. Can you do that?”
The hell she was. His truck. His house. His mother. “Give me the keys.”
“No.” She snatched her hand away. “You can use the time to put your gear on, or text someone about your mother. Or to get a grip. You’re in no state to drive. I won’t let you.”
Fuck that. He was a firefighter. He was always in a state to drive, and do everything else necessary to function. It was part of the job. But as Cherie slipped from his grip and climbed into the driver’s seat, he knew she was right.
He’d never had a fire break out in his house before; never with his mother inside, trapped in a wheelchair.
With a quick prayer to God, the angels, and every divine power that might watch out for his mother, he grabbed his gear and jumped into the passenger seat.
Chapter Sixteen
Cherie had never seen Vader like this. Every speck of his usual fun-loving exuberance was gone, leaving a grim mask of terror in its wake. His jaw was set tight, his mouth white around the edges. As she drove, he pulled on his firefighter gear, twisting and turning to get the big padded jacket and pants onto his body. “Good thing I was on my way to training,” he muttered. “But I should have fucking been there.”
A horrible thought struck her. It was Trixie’s fault that he hadn’t been at the station when the call came in. And it was Cherie’s fault that he hadn’t gone straight back. Oh Lord, if anything happened to his mother, she’d never forgive herself. And why hadn’t she known his mother was in a wheelchair? She’d never even been to Vader’s house. He’d always picked her up at Gardam Street, and they’d either gone out or stayed in. How could he have proposed marriage to someone who’d never been to his house?
Maybe she wasn’t the only one who was hiding a few things. What if she’d said yes to his proposal? When would he have told her about his mother, at the wedding?
As she watched him out of the corner of her eye, she realized that she knew the outer layers of this man. But so much more lay beneath. She’d been so busy with her own crap that she hadn’t taken the time to know more.
“Why is your mother in a wheelchair?” Maybe this wasn’t the best time for questions, but then again, she had him trapped in a fire department truck.
“Car accident. Take the next left.” He gestured to the upcoming intersection as he pulled on some kind of neck garment made from a thin fiber material.
“What happened to her?”
“Spine injury. She’s paralyzed below the waist. Some brain impairment too, but she’s pretty sharp still. She always surprises people.” The muscles in his jaw shifted as a grim look came over his face. “I should have told the guys, but I didn’t want them looking at me different.”
“Is that why you didn’t tell me?”
He fastened his jacket, obviously uncomfortable with that question. “I’m the fun guy. Why would you want to hear about a wheelchair? I would have told you eventually.”
A million responses rushed into her mind. Why wouldn’t she want to know something so important? Did he really think all she wanted was “fun”? What kind of person did he think she was? And exactly when was he planning to tell her? But she shoved all those questions aside and stayed focused on his story.
“When was the accident?”
“Seventeen years ago. The doctors didn’t think she’d live this long. Next right, then it’s halfway down the block.”
By now the sound of sirens filled the air, and they could see a plume of smoke rising over the rooftops. Vader fiddled with his helmet, his leg bouncing impatiently up and down, his entire body drawn tight as a bungee cord. She gave up on asking any more questions, especially because the last answer had shocked her. Seventeen years. Quickly, she did the math. Vader must have been fourteen when it had happened. And he’d never mentioned it. Not once. She never would have guessed that he was dealing with something so serious on a daily basis.
When she turned onto his street, a line of emergency vehicles came into view. Lights flashed in a hypnotic, alarming rhythm. Firefighters dressed just like Vader were hauling long hoses toward a house halfway down the street and shooing away curious neighbors. A tongue of flames leaped from the tidy one-story ranch-style house plastered in ochre stucco.
“That’s your house?”
Vader nodded tensely, his eyes scanning the scene. Cherie, with a quick glance, saw no sign of a woman in a wheelchair in the crowd of curious onlookers.
“Where should I park?”
“Just pull over. I’ll get out, then you can go home.”
“I’m not going home, Vader. Anyway, this truck belongs to the fire department.”
“Then drive it back there, catch a cab. You can’t stay. It’s dangerous.”
She pulled to a jerking stop behind the last fire engine in the line. Vader burst out of the truck, letting in a blast of warm, smoky air. “I’ll call you later,” he told her. “Go home.”
“I’m not leaving,” she called after him, but he was already racing toward the burning house while jamming his helmet onto his head.
She parked the plug-buggy next to the curb, so the engine in front of her could back out if necessary. Then she sat for a moment, her throat going tight. It could have been from smoke or worry, or some combination.
“Please, Lord Almighty, let his mother be okay,” she muttered under her breath. She’d lost the habit of spoken prayer after leaving Arkansas. There, she’d been forced to pray and sing hymns and confess her tiniest little sins. When she’d run away, she was afraid the Lord Almighty would be on her father’s side and that someone would catch her. So she’d used a different part of her being, her most secret, silent, yearning heart, to beg for a chance. She’d gotten that chance, and ever since, she’d held that sacred space in her heart.
But this situation called for every kind of prayer she could come up with. “Vader’s a good man, the best man I know. Please, Lord above, have mercy. Don’t let anything happen to his mother.”
She caught a glimpse of Vader’s tall form, bulky in his turnout gear, saw him point toward the wheelchair ramp leading up to the side door of the house. He hoisted a tank onto his back as easily if it were a child’s backpack, then strode toward the side entrance.
Oh God. He was going in. Of course he was going in. Why wouldn’t he? He was a firefighter, and that was his house. His mother. He did this sort of thing all the time, except she’d never had to witness it before.
Her prayer changed. It became a desperate, urgent thing, repeated over and over in her mind. Please take care of him. Don’t let anything happen to him, please please please.
Vader shouldered his oxygen tank, adjusted his breathing apparatus, and plunged into his burning house. At first Brody, as the commander on scene, hadn’t wanted him there at all. He’d been pissed that Vader hadn’t made it to the training center. But the instant Vader had explained about his mother, he’d waved him in. It would have taken ten armies to hold him back anyway.
As he entered the kitchen, thick with swirling smoke, he heard Brody’s voice sputtering on the tactical channel. His comm must be damaged. “Be . . . lookout . . . possible vic . . . a fifty-five-year-old . . . wheelchair. She’s likely . . . unconscious . . . paralyzed from the waist . . . Brown . . . Ginny.”
The bare facts of his mother’s existence, laid out for all to hear, shivered through Vader’s panicked brain. Likely to be unconscious. Paralyzed. Why didn’t they just say she was doomed? No. Don’t think that way. It’s not too late.
He didn’t see his mother’s wheelchair in the kitchen, but he looked under the table anyway. She could have fallen. But there was no sign of her. He flung open the door of the pantry, in case she’d gotten trapped in there. What if she’d hidden to escape the flames and something had fallen on her head and knocked her out and . . .
The pantry was empty.
Trying to escape the horrible images racing through his mind, he jogged through the kitchen into the adjoining dining room. The tall white
candles his mother liked to keep on the sideboard were wilting from the heat. Blisters were rising on the surface of the table as the varnish ran from the heat churning through the house.
The furniture was doomed. His heart twisted. But there was nothing he could do. The only thing that mattered now was getting to his mother, wherever she was.
Where could she be? Why hadn’t anyone found her yet? Realizing he wasn’t hearing anything over the tactical channel, he put his hand to the earpiece in his helmet. It crackled in response. Damn, his comm must have cut out altogether and he hadn’t even realized. Now he was hearing all sorts of things.
“ . . . unresponsive . . . unable to rouse her . . . burns on lower extremities . . .”
“Where the fuck is she?” he yelled into his helmet mic, tearing into the living room. The mess he saw there stopped him short. It looked as if the room had been gutted. The big-screen TV lay on one side, a blackened, blank shell. The couch smoldered in a cindery, sodden mess. The crew must have already come in through the front door and beaten back the flames. Which meant . . .
It must have started in his mother’s bedroom. With a roar, he launched himself out of the living room into the hallway that led to his mother’s room. A hose snaked along the floor. The flash of reflective tape on the dun fabric of padded jackets caught his eye. Firefighters in his mother’s room.
It felt as if the hallway had expanded to twice its actual length. His body refused to move as fast as he wanted; it was a big clunky weight dragging him down. He roared in frustration, pushing himself forward, onward down the hall. And then he was there, and he was pushing aside the firefighter blocking his way.
“Vader!” Sabina yelled, righting herself. “Take it easy.”
He ignored her, his gaze fastened on the sight now revealed. The French doors to his mother’s outdoor, walled-in patio, where he’d planted jasmine and gardenia in planters, had been smashed open. His mother lay on the floor of the terrace, her favorite purple corduroy pants scorched and blackened. Her head was tilted sideways. Fred knelt over her. He was giving her heart compressions, sharp, regular jabs to the chest. Sabina was aiming a hose at the flames pouring from the corner of his mother’s room, where she kept all her paperwork and files.
Four Weddings and a Fireman Page 16