Hold Me Close

by Rosalind James

  Natural consequences.

  Smoke.

  She sat bolt upright. The door to the living room was open, and there was light out there.

  Not because it was morning. Because it was fire.

  “Eli!” She was out of bed, coughing, her eyes burning. She turned on the bedside light and tugged at him. “Get up!”

  He sat up groggily and said, “What? Is it morning?”

  “The apartment’s on fire! We have to get out. Right now!”

  Eli was out of bed, pulling on his cowboy boots. “Put on your shoes, Mom!”

  “What?”

  “Put on your shoes! To get out!”

  Her shoes were in the closet. Too far away. But she was barely listening anyway. She was standing on the bed, struggling with the window.

  Something was wrong with it. The handle was stuck. She yanked, tugged harder, beat on it with her fist, but it wouldn’t open, and the burglar alarm had begun to shriek.

  “Stay there,” she shouted at Eli over its racket, then jumped from the bed and ran to the bedroom door. The smoke was thicker the closer she got, making her cough. They weren’t getting out that way, and if she didn’t do something, they were going to be in real trouble. She slammed the door, grabbed the blanket off Eli’s bed, and shoved it against the bottom of the door frame.

  “We have to break the window,” she told Eli. She was feeling light-headed now. Too much smoke. No ventilation. She fought down the panic again. They’d be sliding out over broken glass. What did she do?

  “My bat!” He’d grabbed it, was up on the bedside table and swinging it against the window. Kayla heard the glass shatter even as she ran to the bathroom, flipped on the light, yanked the towels off the rack, and ran back out again. Eli had the glass out, but the opening was so narrow, the window so small, and there was no way they could break through the aluminum divider in the center of the frame.

  She wrapped the towel around her hand, climbed onto the bed, and punched out the remaining glass, then ran a frantic hand over the edges. Please, God. Please, God. Let me get him out.

  She threw another towel over the bottom of the frame. “I’m going to lift you so you can go feet first,” she told Eli. “Here.” She gave him two hand towels. “One in each hand. So you don’t get cut.”

  “Throw the bat out first,” he said. “I can pull you out by it.”

  She did it. “OK. Go.” She lifted him by the waist with a strength she didn’t know she had, and hoisted him high. He scrabbled up the wall and out the window, reaching awkwardly with towel-covered hands for the edges, and he was through, and out. Falling. Safe.

  It was dark outside except for the flicker that was the fire at the front of the building. She could hear people out there now. Shouts, cries. The burglar alarm was silent, burned out. The smoke was thicker, and she coughed again. She picked up the framed picture on the table and dropped it out of the window. She spared a thought for Kurt’s saddle and let it go, then hoisted herself up and pushed her upper body through the window so she was balancing, half in, half out.

  “Give me the towels,” she called. “Eli?”

  “He’s right here.” The voice came from out of the darkness. From out of her nightmares. “Come and get him.”

  “Forget it,” Luke muttered, and pulled the pillow over his head.

  Daisy whined again. “Go to bed,” he said. “Quiet.”

  Another whine, and her front legs were against the mattress now. She licked his face, and he flinched. “Daisy! No!”

  She barked in his ear, making him jump. He sat up, swearing, and she ran to the door, then ran back and barked again.

  “What the hell?” He swung his legs out of bed. “You need to pee? You’ve got a dog door. Go away.”

  She barked again, dashed toward him, then ran to the door again.

  He muttered a curse, grabbed his jeans from the chair, and pulled them on. It was freezing out here. She was at the top of the stairs now, then back with him again, circling him, nudging him with her nose.

  “All right. I got it already.” He flipped on the hall light and followed her down the stairs and to the back door.

  “See?” he said. “Dog door. Open. Out. Go.”

  And then he shut up. He was standing stock-still, looking out the sliding-glass door, and there was something there that shouldn’t have been. Red. Orange. Flames.

  Oh, shit. He ran to the back porch, shoved his feet into his boots, and was out the door, leaping the gate with Daisy clearing the fence beside him, and then was following her down the hill, unable to match her speed.

  The front door was a sheet of flame. Oh, God. Let them be out, he was praying, even as he was following the sound of Daisy’s barking. Around the side. Around to the bedroom. Oh, shit.

  The moment she heard that voice, she was moving. Shoving herself through the window, heedless of the broken glass that still clung to the rim. Dropping to the ground headfirst, her arms out to break her fall, dimly aware of the pain of her sliced hands hitting the ground, her knee slamming painfully into something hard and rounded.

  Hard. Round. Eli’s bat.

  She had it in two hands and was up even as she saw Eli struggling in Alan’s grasp, heard his shout.

  “No! Mom! Run!”

  Something else was there, too. Something black-and-white, moving fast in the darkness. Daisy. Barking frantically, circling the man and boy.

  She barely saw the dog. She was running, rushing the dark figure wrenching Eli’s arm behind his back as he cried out in pain. She swung the bat back as she went, and Alan was turning, letting go of Eli to grab her, but the bat was already moving forward fast.

  Whump. She got him across the lower back. He staggered, grunted, nearly fell, and she’d grabbed Eli.

  She shoved her son in front of her, began to move, and was hauled back fast, screaming at the burning from her scalp.

  Her body knew that pain. Alan’s hand in her hair. She felt a clump of it loosen as he swung her around by it, and she was sobbing as he pulled the bat from her hand. Eli was scrambling around her, and she wanted to tell him to run, but she couldn’t get the words out.

  Alan staggered back again, because Eli was behind him, kicking and punching, while Daisy continued to bark and nip at his legs. He kicked out, connected with her ribs, and she yelped, but she kept coming.

  Alan was whirling on Eli, swinging backhanded with the bat for another blow—the blow that would land on her son’s head—and Kayla was kicking back, elbowing him in the ribs, gasping with pain as he continued to yank at her hair. She had to stop him from hitting Eli. Eli had to run.

  “Run!” she got out. “Run!” And still he didn’t, and the bat was coming back.

  It didn’t get there, because somebody else was there now.

  Luke had caught the bat in both hands, was pulling it out of Alan’s grip. Alan was as tall as Luke, as big as Luke, but he couldn’t fight for the bat and hold Kayla, and at last, she was able to pull herself out of his grasp with another choked cry.

  A shrieking of sirens, lights flashing, people shouting. The dog still barking, barking. And Luke, wrestling desperately for the bat. She had to help him. She yanked at Alan’s arm, screamed for help, for anybody.

  Eli still hadn’t run. He was back behind Alan, kicking ferociously with his boots.

  Luke had the bat at last, but Alan was reaching for something in his jacket pocket and pulling it out.

  “Gun!” Luke shouted, chopping with the bat at the rising arm. “Run run run!”

  The report was deafening, but the bat had landed hard on Alan’s arm, and he dropped the weapon, his arm dangling as Luke hauled the bat back to swing again.

  Kayla was dragging at his other arm, trying to hold him back, to let Luke land another blow, and Eli was still there, too, still fighting. Alan had swiveled all the same, t
hough. Luke’s glancing blow fell across his upper thighs, propelling him forward, and he was running.

  Luke started after him, but something was wrong. One of his legs wasn’t working. Kayla was there with him, grabbing him, hearing Eli’s sobbing breath behind them.

  The sirens were everywhere now. Lights flashing, the fire crackling. And Luke was still struggling to follow Alan.

  What happened next seemed to take forever. Alan was looking back, one arm dangling, his teeth bared in a grotesque smile. And then he was running into the street, amidst the sirens and the lights.

  His tall, dark-clad figure was revealed for one long second by the huge, high-set headlights of the fire engine. Then the heavy fender was striking him, and he seemed to bounce right off it.

  The flashing lights tilted and lurched, the brakes screamed, and Alan’s brightly lit figure toppled to the ground. And the big tires rolled on.

  NATURAL CONSEQUENCES

  She barely registered Alan going under the truck’s wheels, because Luke was stumbling, grabbing for his leg, falling.

  Eli was beside her, panting, crying, but safe. Safe. Because of Luke.

  Luke, who was flat on his face. She had dropped to her knees, was over him, somehow turning his big body without any effort, feeling frantically for the place where his hand was pressed.

  It was sticky. Wet. Oh, God. No.

  “Go get the fire guys,” she told Eli. “Now. Run. Tell them Luke’s been shot. Tell them to run.”

  She had her own hand over the spot now. His hand had fallen away, and he wasn’t talking. She pushed down hard, felt beneath his thigh with her other hand. So wet there, too.

  Exit wound. The sound of the gunshot, and Luke’s lurching progress. An artery? No. Please, God. No.

  “You hang on,” she told him fiercely, both hands pressed tight to him, feeling the blood pulsing out. His eyes had closed, and he’d gone limp. “Don’t you dare leave me, Luke. Don’t you dare. You hang on.”

  She registered Eli racing back to her, a firefighter in his turnout coat following him and dropping to the ground beside her.

  “He’s shot,” she told him. “His thigh. Help him. Help him.”

  “We’ve got him,” he said as two paramedics ran up with a gurney. “Stand back. Please, ma’am. Let us work.”

  Lights, and noise, and bodies, and she was shaking, and Eli was there, and she had an arm around him. Somebody was flashing a light in her face, down her body, taking her hand.

  “You’re injured,” he said. “Come on. Let’s get you over here, take care of that.”

  “I’m not—” she tried to say. “It’s Luke’s blood. Luke—”

  “Ma’am. You’re injured. Come on.”

  She was walking, her legs rubber. Luke was on a gurney now, and they were running with him to an ambulance, bending over him, and she wanted to ask, but they wouldn’t let her. Eli was still beside her, and she put out a hand for him.

  “My son,” she said. “My son has to go, too.”

  “He’s coming with us,” the man said. “Let’s get you inside. Both of you.”

  She was sitting in the back, a blanket around her shoulders, Eli on a bench with a paramedic next to him, checking him over. The truck was moving, lurching, the siren loud, and they were swiping at her hand with a cloth, and it stung in some vague spot in her mind that she couldn’t care about. A sharp, piercing pain.

  “Got some glass in here,” the man said. “And a real good slice, too.” And she didn’t care.

  It was all fuzzy. Luke could see a bright spot overhead, hear the voices coming in and receding like waves.

  “Kayla,” he said. “Kayla.”

  “You’re all right now.” A female voice, but not hers. He turned his head, but she wouldn’t come into focus.

  “Where is she?” he asked. “What—?”

  “You’re doing fine,” the moon face said. “Just relax. Breathe. You’re just fine.”

  He tried to sit up, and she shoved him back down, the hard hand against his shoulder a sharp contrast to the soothing voice.

  And then he heard it. The voice he wanted. The one he needed.

  “Hey. Look at you.” Trembling, and soft, and sweet, and he turned his head again.

  He still couldn’t see her, not right, and he struggled to bring her into focus. “Kayla?”

  “It’s me.” She had his hand, and the anxiety left him, because he knew that hand. “You’re all right. You’re going to be all right, Luke. Just lost some blood, that’s all, and they’ve pumped you full again. You’re all right.”

  “What happened? Eli?” He tried to sit up again.

  “Lie down, sweetheart.” Her hand pressed his, and her voice was urgent. “Please. Lie down and rest. We’re all fine. Eli’s just fine. He’s outside with your parents. A little bruised, and pretty shook up, but he’s drinking cocoa. And Daisy—” She laughed a little. “Well, Daisy’s in your dad’s truck, but she thinks she should be right here. She thinks she’s a therapy dog. And oh, God, Luke. I’m babbling.” She laid her cheek against his, and he felt the tears. “Oh, thank God.”

  He remembered now. “What happened to him?”

  “Who? Alan?” She kissed his cheek, then smoothed her hand over it, and he turned his head into that hand. “Seems he fell under a fire truck. He got run over, and he’s dead. He’s dead. And you know what they call that?” She laughed, just a breath out, and her voice was suddenly fierce. The voice he remembered. The voice that had pulled him back. The voice that had brought him home. “That’s what they call ‘natural consequences.’”

  The relief that she was safe, and Eli was safe, and the danger was gone forever—it was almost too much, and he had to close his eyes for a moment. “When I saw you—” He was forced to gather himself and start again. “When I saw the fire. And then when I saw he had you . . .”

  Maybe it was whatever they’d given him, or how sick he felt, but the tears were rising, and then they were falling, and he heaved in a breath and tried to stop them.

  Her arms were around him, and she’d laid her cheek against his chest. His arm came around her, holding her where he needed her to be, her head against his heart.

  “And when I saw you.” Her soft voice was muffled by tears. “When you were on the ground. I was so afraid you were leaving me. Oh, Luke. I love you.”

  “How could I leave you?” There was something wrong with his throat, because he could barely swallow over the lump. “How could I ever leave you if you needed me to stay?”

  EPILOGUE

  Luke had stood up with his brother the next week in St. Boniface’s despite all Kayla’s urging.

  She’d suggested that he could just as well sit in a wheelchair for the ceremony, and he’d looked at her as if she’d proposed his attending in Daisy’s tutu and tiara.

  “No,” he’d said. “If I’m standing up for my brother, I’m standing. This one’s going to take, and I’m going to help it happen.”

  “Exceptions can be made,” she’d argued, “for people who got shot a week ago.”

  She hadn’t prevailed, of course. Luke might be easygoing, but when it mattered to him, his foot came down as hard as his brother’s.

  She’d forgotten even Luke for a few minutes that day, seeing Cal and Zoe claiming each other in a blaze of shining assurance that was almost too naked to witness. Zoe had worn, in the end, a gorgeously simple, perfectly cut dress of cream satin, and Cal had watched her walk down the aisle to him as if he’d been getting every Christmas present he could ever have dreamed of, and it had been beautiful.

  During the ceremony that followed, though, Kayla had seen Luke’s face get progressively whiter and more strained. A couple times, she’d nearly bolted from the front row to catch him when he’d swayed, but he’d stood there until the end all the same, more by force of will than anything else.r />
  At least he hadn’t been able to argue that he needed to sit down for the reception, and she’d sat with him until he’d made her get up and dance, first with Eli, then with Cal and his dad.

  “Can’t be giving you a bad experience with Jackson family weddings,” he’d said. “You never know when you might want to go to another one.” He’d smiled at her, and she’d gotten the flutter in her belly that Luke’s smile always gave her.

  Except for a Christmas visit to Kurt’s parents, she and Eli stayed with Luke to take care of him until January, when he headed back to school, walking with a stick instead of the crutches. And then they moved out.

  “Was it that bad?” Luke tried to joke when she told him that Rochelle was moving to a slightly bigger place “that at least won’t be across the street from the damn bar,” and that Kayla and Eli would be moving in with her. “I realize I might’ve been a little grumpy there, but now that we’re having sex again, I’m in a much better mood.”

  She sat down on the couch beside him, smoothed a hand over his cheek, and kissed him softly on the lips. “Of course it wasn’t. You know how I feel about you. But it’s what I said before. For both Eli and me, it’s better if we’re standing on our own feet first, and if we know we can make it on our own. If it doesn’t feel like a rescue, like we’ve got no choice. It’s not about you, or how either of us feels about you. It’s how we feel about ourselves. And the therapist agrees,” she added when he would have argued. “His and mine.”

  He sighed. “How’m I supposed to argue with that?”

  She smiled at him, the tenderness rising, as always. “You’re not. And, you know—I don’t think it’s forever. I think it’s . . . a transition, all right? I thought, weekends with you.” She kissed him again. “Both of us. Or maybe, you know, just me sometimes, if you think your folks would go for it.”

  “I think they might.”

  “Plus, it’s easy to move. All we have is our clothes.” And only the ones that had been in the bedroom closet, at that. Everything else had been the thrift store again, or the church donation box, plus a few presents from Luke. He’d insisted on buying her new underwear, and she hadn’t protested very hard.