The Fireman's Son

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  An older, more experienced man might have done better.

  But she’d woken up in tears. Devastated.

  Even hungover and with no memory of the night before, a woman would surely hold on to any residual pleasure, right? Subconsciously at least?

  He needed facts.

  To help where he best could.

  And move on to the next item on his to-do list.

  At the moment he couldn’t remember what that was.

  The meeting with Kellogg, his buddy. Someone he’d known a long time. But not as long as he’d known Faye. New family.

  New history.

  She was watching him. With a lack of employee distance. While he assessed his schedule, she seemed to be assessing him.

  Maybe she just knew him well enough to know that he needed a minute.

  He’d changed over the years. But not nearly as much as she had. He’d grown more into himself. She’d grown into someone else.

  And yet, when he met her gaze, he felt...something. Recognition. The woman he’d known...parts of her still existed.

  He just wasn’t sure how they fell into the rest of her.

  And didn’t want to know.

  “You said you had a question.” He assumed the storytelling was over.

  Had he really been there less than an hour?

  Seemed like days.

  “I need a sample of your DNA.”

  Reese’s jaw dropped.

  * * *

  FAYE COULDN’T BREATHE. Sitting in the chair, she felt herself getting light-headed. She tried to calm herself, muscle by muscle.

  She’d done it.

  She’d made it through the presentation. The next part, part four, his answer, was completely out of her control.

  She had no idea what to do while she waited.

  The man across from her sat there, completely frozen. She wanted to lay her head against his chest, a chest she could picture naked.

  Slowly, deliberately, as though being programmed, he bent to pick a piece of lint off his foot.

  He was going to leave without doing his part, without answering her. He wasn’t even going to give her a chance...

  Panic flared inside her.

  “Elliott had a tonsillectomy a couple of years ago.” She blurted the words. She’d said them to Bloom Larson, who had understood.

  Hadn’t she? Or was that Sara?

  “When I got home from the hospital Frank...was abusive.” Reese was leaning forward like he was going to stand. She rushed ahead. “For the first time I didn’t comply—” Doesn’t matter why. Just keep going. “—I showed my disgust. And he unleashed like never before...”

  She had no plan for this, no rehearsed words, but Reese was watching her. And she knew for certain that she had his full attention.

  “He told me I was frigid.” Because he’d made her that way. She knew that now. Just as she knew the condition might very well be permanent.

  That was very definitely not Reese material.

  “Just like that night in your dorm room, he said.” She tripped over her tongue in her hurry. “His semen touched me, but he couldn’t penetrate. I was too tight...”

  Even in her drunkenness she hadn’t welcomed another man.

  Not that it mattered anymore...

  “Elliott’s been getting worse,” she hurried on, pulling out every card she had and throwing them on the table. “Not his grades, he’s doing well there. But his sleepwalking. His disrespect for me and...he’s isolating himself. Sara Havens, his counselor at the Stand, believes it’s because he’s trying to protect everyone from the Frank inside him. Some little-boy way of fighting back against what he heard between his father and me, that he can’t handle.”

  With head bent, Reese looked at her. She’d never seen this expression before. It was old. And tired. “You asked for my DNA.”

  She met his gaze head-on. “I didn’t sleep with Frank again—or at all, I know now—until after Elliott was born. There’s still a chance he’s Elliott’s father, but from what I’m told, there’s an equally good and possibly better chance that you are.”

  His lower lip thinned. His chin puckered. He stared at her.

  “And if you are, then the news could greatly affect the next years of his life.

  “If what Sara believes is true, the news could completely turn him around. Eventually.” She had to be completely honest with him.

  About Elliott.

  And ignore the fact that she was sitting with the love of her life, discussing the possibility that they had a child together.

  She’d thought life had already exacted all of its most painful moments on her. She was discovering that there was no end to them.

  “There would be another period of adjustment. Change, even good change, is seen as a negative thing to a lot of kids. In Elliott’s case, more so, because he already struggles with a sense of insecurity. Most kids adapt to change more quickly than adults, but with Elliott, having so much change...”

  He was going to hate her if Elliott was his son.

  For so many reasons.

  Not least of which was the fact that Faye hadn’t kept him any safer than she’d kept herself. She’d exposed him to something so hellacious that he had to take his schooling at a secure shelter with daily counseling.

  Reese nodded. He stood. Turned to leave.

  “Reese?”

  She wanted to go after him. To cling to his arm and beg if she had to. Nothing was beneath her anymore, it seemed. Not where Elliott was concerned. But she was shaking so badly her knees gave out on her.

  He was opening the gate before she got out of her chair.

  She stumbled after him.

  “Reese.”

  “I need you to leave me alone now, Faye,” he said.

  He wasn’t going to give her the DNA sample. He was walking out of her life for the final time.

  And he was probably going to fire her.

  She saw it all coming like a big black freight train racing down the track.

  “Please, Reese.”

  He shook his head, opened the door of his truck. “I need to think.”

  He was gone before she could move again.

  But the tears pouring down her cheeks weren’t all filled with sorrow. Reese was going away to consider her request.

  There was some part of him that was still the man she loved. And some part of her knew that.

  They might have eradicated their sacred, shared space—if it had ever existed—but as with all things, a piece of what they’d been remained. Maybe just a little piece, but it was there.

  The idea of it comforted her.

  * * *

  HE MISSED HIS MEETING. Didn’t even call to excuse himself. Sometime after four o’clock, he received an inquiring text.

  To which he didn’t reply.

  He was, bottom line, a fireman. Emergencies were common. And didn’t always allow time for niceties like adjusting social calendars. Kellogg would understand the missed meeting.

  Reese wasn’t sure anyone would ever be able to make sense of the thoughts spiraling through his mind.

  He wanted a drink. A strong one.

  He thought of Faye...so drunk she couldn’t walk home alone.

  He went to the woods instead.

  To climb as high as he could get on the tallest peak of the mountain closest to Santa Raquel. It took him until dark. And then he sat there, atop the cliff, and breathed.

  Brandt was on duty. Reese had already signed himself out before he’d left after lunch, figuring he’d be spending the rest of the day with Kellogg. He hadn’t thought of that until he sat there alone in the dark, though.

  Hadn’t given a thought to the station. To the lives that
depended on him. The town that expected him to be mindful of their care.

  As he’d climbed, he’d tried to eradicate the pictures in his head, scenes concocted by Faye’s words and real scenes from his past with her.

  He thought about Tabitha.

  About the son she’d tried to give him—about the fact that she hadn’t even felt loved enough to tell him she was carrying the child.

  And about a little boy who was isolating himself from the people and friends and love he needed most because he feared he was evil like the man who’d made him.

  Reese had no choice here.

  He knew that.

  Just as he knew that once they opened this Pandora’s box, if it turned out that Elliott was not Frank Walker’s son, life was going to get real hard in a lot of ways.

  Reese wasn’t father material. He knew that now. Risking his life was an everyday thing for him. He thrived on the adrenaline of knowing he was challenging nature to save lives.

  And he wasn’t what Faye needed, either.

  Not that she was asking him to be. Not anymore. That ship had clearly sailed.

  For both of them.

  And yet...

  The pictures would not let up. Then and now. Faye’s eyes, trusting and then empty. Her voice, filled with laughter, emotion, passion. And then...empty.

  And her arms.

  At one time, they’d opened for him even across the city. She’d always welcomed him. Whether they were having a spat or ready to make love, he’d open his arms and she’d walk into them and hang on tight. That woman had had a grip that...

  Today, he’d tried to pull her closer and she’d stopped him. With a hand up that had delivered a very clear and serious message.

  Any farther and he was moving against her will.

  A crime in his book.

  He hadn’t abused her. Not physically. But he’d abused her trust. Been unfaithful to their love. He’d lied to her.

  And she’d married her rapist.

  He couldn’t wrap his mind around any of it. Didn’t even want to.

  He wanted it to go away.

  Wanted himself to go away. Right over the mountain, to a new town, a new start. To fight fires he understood.

  And then, in his mind’s eye, he saw Elliott. The serious look in those blue eyes—his eyes? But Faye’s were blue, too—and heard again the solemn oath the little boy had made, exchanging a phone call for a fire-truck tour.

  The kid had called the fire chief to confess to a fire in a boy’s bathroom trash can. He’d been prepared to go to jail.

  He walked in his sleep and got violent sometimes when he did it.

  He loved his mother but was also hateful to her.

  It was that last thought that got him.

  On his feet, Reese headed down the mountain. He was well trained. Knew how to move in the darkness. And he took his time.

  Out of nowhere came a replay of Elliott’s grocery bag conversation on the beach.

  Of a doctor telling him that he’d lost a son.

  Of Tabitha’s desperate emptiness because he couldn’t give her what she needed.

  He was probably going to start looking for another job, preferably farther north.

  But not until he’d done what he could to be the most help.

  Not until he’d done what he could to teach one little boy—his or not—that a man didn’t disrespect his mother. Ever.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  FAYE WASN’T SURPRISED when she didn’t hear from Reese over the weekend. She’d given him a lot to process. In some ways she was glad for the reprieve. She purposely left her phone at home when she took Elliott to the beach on Saturday, but she spent the afternoon looking over her shoulder, worried that Reese would come find her there. Made sense that he would, if he had something to say. It was where they’d talked the week before.

  Elliott was being his usual surly self. Wouldn’t sit at the same table with her when she took him to get hamburgers so she’d asked for a takeout bag and taken him home. He ate at the table. She didn’t eat.

  It was almost a relief to be called into work Saturday night. Her work generally meant a life was in danger and she never wanted that to be the case. But to have the chance to save a life...

  The crash was a single car wrapped around a tree. It was filled with teenagers. As she approached, she heard moaning, crying and screaming.

  The call had said there were at least three.

  One male, two female based on her first impression.

  The front end of the car was smashed in to the steering wheel. Front seats were where the back should be, somewhat on top of them. A team member was already prying open the trunk. Faye didn’t stop to see who.

  Rushing to the passenger side where the door was partially open, she pulled with every ounce of force she had, then shined her light inside. Looking for eyes staring back at her. For trapped bodies, freed bodies and signs of bleeding.

  She was going to have to choose who she helped first. There was no time for emotion. Her decision was based on her chances of saving a life. Of saving the most lives.

  A pair of blue eyes stared back at her. Male. Young. Fifteen to seventeen. Her heart lurched. The boy had a mother at home completely unaware...

  A girl was there, too. Screaming. While it was horrible to hear, it was also a good sound.

  “Shhhh,” she said, dropping her bag and bending to the girl first. Same approximate age as the boy. No visible bleeding. Pupils dilated but not dangerously so. “Save your energy,” she told her.

  “Get me a gurney!” Faye cried as loud as she could. Then she continued to talk to the girl. “Watch my face,” she said. “Just concentrate on my face.” The girl’s arm was so badly broken that the bone was showing through her skin. She had some lacerations but otherwise seemed okay. “You’re going to be fine, but we have to get you out of here to get to your friend, here. It’s going to hurt. Try to moan, not scream.” The last was just to give the teenager something to concentrate on as she taped the girl’s arm to her stomach.

  Hardly hearing the screams at that point, she helped Brandt get the girl onto the gurney, and then, as Brandt whisked her toward a waiting ambulance, she went to work on the boy.

  Riley had the trunk open and another EMT was working on the person in the back. She turned to the boy whose eyes she’d first seen.

  He’d lost consciousness. A blessing. He probably wasn’t going to make it.

  The driver, she’d already ascertained. He’d been belted in. The windshield had pierced through him, just below his rib cage. His arm hung nearly severed.

  Right side. She felt for a pulse. If by some miracle the glass had missed vital organs...

  The pulse was strong. She could save him!

  The next twenty minutes were a blur of activity, of focus without conscious thought, without emotion as Faye used all her training to slow bleeding, to do what she could to try to prevent full-on shock and get the young man out of the car and onto a stretcher.

  Brandt was back. He assisted where he could. But it was Faye who lifted the teenager out of the car. She’d been the one who could get farthest in, could get a grip on that mangled body, knowing what to support and how. She didn’t contemplate. She worked.

  She saw him to the stretcher. Ran with it to the waiting ambulance. Climbed in back with him. Rode with him to the hospital. She stayed long enough to hear that he was in surgery and still alive.

  And then, in blood-stained clothes, she went home to shower and lie down on the couch in her son’s room. Elliott could hate her if he needed to.

  And she’d love him.

  Because that was what she had to do. What she would do. With every breath she took. Every day. For the rest of her life.

  Her son was safe a
t home. In his bed.

  Suddenly nothing else mattered.

  * * *

  REESE HEARD THE call come in. A one-car accident. He waited for a call. When it didn’t come, he willed himself back to sleep.

  And when that didn’t work, he got himself a beer and sat in his home office. He went over his notes, over the copies of evidence he’d brought home pertaining to their serial arsonist. They were about to get through a Saturday night without a fire.

  Because Kyle was on notice?

  Reese wanted it to be that simple. But he didn’t think so.

  The choice of whether or not to give his DNA to Faye for a paternity test should be simple, too. If it was the right thing to do. His answer was either yes or no.

  Just that clear.

  And not clear at all.

  He’d given up on being a father. Wasn’t father material.

  If he didn’t do the test, Elliott’s world wouldn’t be further upset. The kid could go on with the status quo.

  And what if that status quo ultimately did more harm than good?

  What good would it do him to find out he had a father, one who wasn’t going to be a father to him?

  Or to be split between homes? His and Faye’s?

  How cruel was fate that the one thing Reese had wanted, the one big dream he’d had—a family with Faye—would arrive nine years too late and in such a twisted, agonizing fashion?

  It wasn’t like they could go back.

  Elliott was eight years old and troubled. Two hours and three beers later, Reese went back to his bedroom. He lay down and stared at the ceiling.

  Cursing fate.

  * * *

  SURPRISINGLY, FAYE SLEPT relatively well for the couple of hours she got before rising to go to her own bed. She left before Elliott awoke and found her there.

  She’d needed the sleep and needed it even more on Sunday as her son deliberately challenged every order she gave him—from bringing her his laundry to brushing his teeth.

  More like refused to do anything she asked.

  The one thing he’d done was carry in the groceries when they got back from a tense trip to the store. If she picked up ham, he wanted bologna. When she got the creamy peanut butter he liked, he exchanged it for crunchy. He wouldn’t eat crunchy, but she left it in the cart.