Come Morning

by Pat Warren

  His head swiveled toward her, his eyes bleak. “Don’t call me that. I don’t deserve it.” He started the motor and lurched out into traffic.

  Thoughtfully, Briana watched a muscle in his hard jaw twitch, and wondered not for the first time what he was thinking, and what had triggered this particular reaction. A man of many moods, most of them enigmatic, she decided. Would he even confide in her if she asked? Doubtful.

  In his driveway, outside the parked truck, Briana decided to try. But she’d have to go slowly, using caution. He was as skittish as a newborn colt. “Will you come in and have coffee with me?”

  Slade rubbed a weary hand along the back of his neck. “Brie, I’m a little tired tonight and …”

  “Please?”

  He knew what she wanted from him, and it wasn’t coffee. He knew he hadn’t revealed much about his recent past in words, but his actions, his reactions, had disclosed a great deal. Briana Morgan was very good at reading between the lines.

  He also knew he was scared to death.

  He’d come to this island a skeptic, a loner, a man unwilling to let anyone get close to him, with good reason. He’d grown up ashamed—that his father had left them, that his mother drank, that they’d had to live hand-to-mouth, none of which had been the fault of a young boy. As a defense mechanism, he’d done everything he could to protect himself from people who would judge, who would criticize, who could hurt him.

  Then, as an adult, he’d done something that had brought disappointment, pain, and disgrace on himself. After that, he’d bottled up his feelings, sharing them with no one except in the most casual way, living with a loneliness so entrenched that at times he’d felt desperate.

  Then Brie had come into his life, a beautiful, vulnerable woman whose pain was as deep as his own. Only, she hadn’t set into motion the cause of that pain. She was an innocent and he was a guilty man. How could she understand what he’d done and forgive him when he couldn’t forgive himself?

  “I’m not very good company tonight, Brie.”

  But he had been until the incident with Annie. Briana was certain that whatever triggered Slade’s reaction to that missing child held the key to his past problems. Without asking herself why, she knew she had to find out what that was. “You’re afraid to trust me, is that it?”

  “No!” Slade scrubbed a hand over his face, wishing he’d said goodnight and gone inside. Better to be thought unfriendly than to strip yourself down to a raw and aching soul. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want anything in my past to hurt you.”

  That surprised her, but she remained unconvinced. “It’s not your call. I’m a big girl. I can handle more than you think I can.”

  Slade shifted his feet on the grass. In a distant yard, a dog began barking, vying with the sound of the relentless waves rushing in to the sandy shore. He felt his stomach muscles clench. God, when had he become such a coward?

  He wanted to tell her, but he also wanted her to understand, and there were no guarantees that she would. He hadn’t been aware that the need to share his feelings had been steadily growing inside him, and that Brie was the one person he wanted to confide in. But what if she turned from him? He’d already lost so many. He wasn’t certain he could handle losing her, too.

  Maybe he could talk her out of this. “What happened to me in the past shouldn’t have anything to do with you and me now.”

  “But it does. Everything that happened to form us before we met and since is what makes us what we are. I saw my son die. That experience changed me forever. I’m not the person I was before then. Just this week, you learned that the man you thought all your life was your father wasn’t.You’re a different person knowing that.” Suddenly, Briana felt tired. Why was she pushing him? It was obvious he didn’t want to confide in her. She had no business badgering him.

  “Listen, let’s just forget it. You have a right to your privacy. I told you weeks ago that I’d butt out, but here I am, doing it again. I’m sorry. I’ll talk with you tomorrow.” She started to walk toward her house.

  “You’ll hate me if I tell you everything.”

  Briana stopped, then slowly turned back, meeting his eyes in the patchy moonlight. “I could never hate you,” she said, her voice whisper-quiet as she realized she spoke the truth.

  “Why not? There are those who do.”

  “Because … because I care about you.” She took a step closer, well aware that what she’d said could send him scurrying for cover. “I know what you’re thinking, that if I learn what’s bothering you, I’ll walk away. All your life, people have abandoned you. I’m not like that, Slade. When I care about someone, I’m in for the long haul. There’s precious little they could do that would cause me to leave.”

  “You walked out on your marriage, on Robert.”

  “Yes, I did, because it was no longer a marriage in any sense of the word. I didn’t know it when I met him, but Robert was already married—to his work. I couldn’t compete. Indifference kills even the strongest love.”

  Opposing emotions warred in him, yet the overriding one was fear—fear of losing her before he really had her. Not until he’d faced the possibility of that loss tonight did he even realize that he wanted her. Maybe a clean break would be best before things got out of hand. “I told you once before, it would be unwise of you to get involved with me. I warned you. You should have listened.”

  “I remember and I gave you some breezy answer. But the truth is, admit it or not, we’re already involved. Aren’t we, Slade?” She kept her eyes steady on his. Showdown time, Briana thought. She’d never been much of a gambler, but she’d put a lot on the line this time.

  Slade stared back. There was nothing to do but tell her the truth. Then watch her walk away.

  “Maybe. The question is, do you want to be involved with a man who’s responsible for the death of an innocent child and the utter ruin of her mother?”

  Chapter Ten

  It was several seconds before Briana could speak. Her first thought, irrational as she knew it to be, was that she’d heard wrong. Slade couldn’t have caused someone’s death. He was a firefighter sworn to save people’s lives.

  She was aware he was watching her closely and knew that her first reaction was one he’d remember. “Come with me,” she finally said. “I’ll make coffee. I want to hear the whole story.”

  Slade didn’t move. “It’s not going to make any difference. The bottom line is that a four-year-old died because of me and her mother’s a basket case. Period.”

  “Nothing is that simple, Slade. Certainly everything isn’t all black or all white. You told me you didn’t want to be judgmental like Jeremy. I’m not quick to judge, either.” She touched his arm. “Come with me, please.”

  He let out a shuddering breath. It was bad enough that he’d blurted out the end result. He didn’t know if he had the strength to tell the rest. Or rather, he didn’t know if he could stand watching her face while she heard the terrible details. “Maybe it’s best if we just leave it alone. I told you I’m not a good person, that I’ve done things.”

  “I wish you’d stop trying to make up my mind for me. Are you so certain I’m incapable of listening and deciding for myself what to believe?”

  “It’s cut and dried, Brie. A done deed.”

  She was tired of fencing with him on the front lawn. Taking his arm, she pulled him along the walk to her front porch, leading him inside. “The best I can offer you is the floor. Sit down. I’ll be right back.”

  In the kitchen, Briana busied herself with the coffeemaking, her thoughts on his words. She could tell he firmly believed that he was responsible for the child’s death, the mother’s devastation. But was he? There had to be extenuating circumstances. If he were guilty, wouldn’t he be in prison? Chances are he only thought he was responsible.

  The whole thing had to be tied in to his work. She knew he’d been with the fire department over five years. Surely i
n that period of time, there had to have been some casualties. Surely Slade couldn’t take full personal responsibility for those deaths.

  Plugging in the pot, she went into the living room and joined him as he sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at her new blue carpeting. “Are you all right?”

  Slowly, he raised bruised eyes to hers. “I’ll never be all right again, Brie.”

  She nodded, understanding. “I remember saying those very words after Bobby died. Was this child a stranger or someone you knew?”

  “Oh, I knew her, all right That makes it much worse.”

  Briana waited, hoping he’d go on without her prompting.

  Finally, like a man reciting a bad dream, Slade began to talk. “The woman I mentioned living with earlier tonight, the one who threw me out? Her name is Rachel. You remember when we first met, I said that you reminded me of someone?” When she nodded, he went on. “I thought you resembled Rachel more then than I do now. Same hair coloring and eyes. But there it ends.”

  He cleared his throat. “Anyhow, I worked with Rachel’s brother, Alex, and he introduced us. She was a single mother, married and divorced real young, and she had this really cute little girl. Megan. She wasn’t quite four then, blond hair, big blue eyes. She was on the shy side, loved to be read to.”

  Briana listened, not wanting to interrupt, allowing him to tell it at his own pace.

  “Rachel and I started dating and we hit it off right away. After about a month, she asked me to move in with her. She was always short of money because her ex-husband had skipped the state and never paid child support. So I sublet my apartment and we split the expenses on this older house she was renting. Things were okay for several months, then I began to see signs of restlessness in Rachel.”

  “What kind of restlessness?” Briana asked as she rose to get their coffee. She brought back two steaming mugs.

  “She didn’t like being alone so much when I worked my twenty-four-hour shifts, but I explained that there wasn’t anything I could do about that. She wanted me to put in for a desk job and regular hours, but I didn’t want that. She told me she wanted a better life, a nicer place, money in her pocket. Unfortunately, I’d never gotten into the habit of saving much.”

  “So she was unhappy, discontented?”

  “Oh, was she ever. Next thing I know, she quit her job and told me she wanted to stay home, wanted us to get married so she could have another baby. We were already fighting most of the time. I told her no way was I getting married just then, and I made damn sure she didn’t get pregnant. Things went from bad to worse and I was about to pack up and leave her, but I was nuts about Megan. I didn’t know what would happen to her if her mother didn’t grow up.” Slade shoved both hands through his already mussed hair. “I should have tried harder.”

  “Don’t,” Briana said. “Don’t start the should-haves, could-haves. We all might do things differently if we could foresee the future. Countless times, I’ve said to myself, why did I let Bobby go with Robert that day? I could have begged off and he’d have probably agreed. Or why didn’t I go along and take the bullet that killed my son? You can drive yourself crazy with those thoughts.”

  Slade sighed heavily. “Yeah, I guess you’re right Anyhow, I did finally make up my mind to pull out. I went home after my shift one early morning and found that my key wouldn’t fit. Rachel had had the locks changed. I was furious and started banging on the door. She finally answered, wearing her robe, her hair all wild like she’d just climbed out of bed.”

  He gave a mirthless laugh. “Because she had. She had my bags packed and waiting at the door and the other guy already moved in. He was someone Rachel said made more money than I did, enough so she’d never have to work again. Good for you, I told her and grabbed my bags. But before I could leave, Megan came running out and threw herself at me. That was the hard part, walking away from that little girl.”

  Briana had a feeling there were even harder parts yet to come, but she kept still. She badly wanted to reach out and touch his hand, just to let him know she was listening with an open mind. But his head was bent and he was staring into his mug, the coffee untasted. “So she threw you out, so to speak.”

  “Yeah.” Slade forced himself to go on, to finish. Briana had wanted to know, and by God, he was going to tell her every rotten, ugly detail. “Alex, her brother, got transferred across town to a different station, so I didn’t see much of him after the split. That was good because he used to bring Megan down to the station occasionally. It would’ve been hard, seeing her like that.

  “One night about six months later, I was on duty when we got a call—a one-alarm fire. That usually means two engine companies, two four-men teams plus a battalion chief. A pretty serious blaze. A neighbor had phoned it in and I recognized the address right away, Rachel’s house. As soon as we pulled up, I saw flames shooting out of the back bedroom. Rachel’s room.”

  Lifting his mug, Slade drank, needing the momentary diversion. He didn’t even glance at Briana, so anxious was he now to finish. “Two of us went barreling in, the other two on hoses. I knew the layout best so I went first. The whole place was filled with smoke and it was hotter than hell. I found Rachel on the floor in her bedroom. Later we learned she’d fallen asleep smoking.”

  “The new man who lived with her, was he there?”

  “No. Apparently he’d moved out about as fast as he’d moved in. Maybe he hadn’t lived up to Rachel’s expectations, either. Anyway, I picked her up, saw she was breathing, and handed her over to my partner because I knew Megan had to be in there somewhere. Rachel started coughing so I got in her face and asked where Megan was. In the closet, she finally said.”

  Shaking his head, he struggled for composure. “I didn’t believe her. God, I wish I’d believed her.”

  “What do you mean? What happened?”

  “I went back down the hallway toward the bedrooms, but I thought that Rachel had been too foggy and disoriented to know where her daughter was. You see, Megan was scared to death of closets. She’d managed to lock herself in one once, and her mother hadn’t heard her yelling right away over the sound of the television. By the time I got to her, she’d been hysterical. But I went into her room anyway because I’d heard a sound, something that sounded like a child’s cry. I opened her closet and her kitten jumped into my arms. I’d heard the cat’s cry, not Megan’s.”

  Briana was puzzled. “I’ve read that young children often hide in closets when there’s a fire, thinking they can escape that way. But since Megan was afraid of closets, why would she hide in one for any reason? And why would Rachel tell you to look for her in a closet unless she knew Megan was in there?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I should have searched all the closets. But I didn’t. I put the cat inside my coat and started searching, but she was nowhere. The smoke was so thick I could barely see. And hot! My God, it was like an inferno. My air bottle was running out and I knew I’d soon be in trouble. I was moving along the hallway, keeping low to avoid the worst of the smoke, when Rachel’s bedroom ceiling collapsed, the walls caved in, fire shooting up all around. That was the room hit the worst because that’s where the fire had started. The rest of the crew were pouring on the water, a couple on the roof ventilating, cutting holes to let out the smoke and heat. Still, I kept on looking for Megan, crawling along the floor, calling her name, until the kitchen burst into new flames.”

  Slade shifted, rubbing a hand over his tired eyes. “It’s called a flashover. Heat builds in a room where there’s lots of smoke, it gets hotter and hotter, then suddenly erupts into new fire. The impact threw me into a corner. A couple of the guys came in and dragged me out. My air was used up. Another minute and the whole side of the building fell in.”

  Briana did reach out then, moving closer, putting her hand on his arm, squeezing it to let him know she was there.

  Slade drew in a deep breath. “They tried to put me into an ambulance because of smoke inhalation, but I wouldn�
�t go. I had to find Megan.” He shook his head. “But I knew. I knew it was too late.” He’d made himself stay until they’d carried out the small, charred body of what had once been a vibrant little girl. She’d looked no bigger than a blackened rag doll. Helplessly, he’d watched them bag her, knowing his life would never be the same.

  He turned to Briana, his eyes bleak and empty. “Do you know where they finally found her poor little body? On the floor of Rachel’s closet Her mother had trusted me to get her child out told me she was in the closet, but like a stubborn, arrogant fool, I didn’t believe her because I was so sure Megan wouldn’t go into a closet.”

  “But you did go look in the closet. Megan’s closet, which was the logical one to search. Rachel never indicated she meant her closet, did she?”

  “No. She just said, ‘She’s in the closet.’ But I was the firefighter, the professional. I should have looked in every closet You can’t assume anything, especially when a victim is near hysteria.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes, suddenly aware he had a pounding headache. “When I finally saw Rachel outside in an ambulance after the medics had worked on her, she asked where Megan was. I had to tell her I hadn’t been able to find her. She screamed and screamed and screamed, then she collapsed. I’ll never forget that sound. I hear it in my sleep.”

  Of course he would. He’d probably witnessed many burned and hysterical survivors, but none as personal as this one. “How badly was Rachel hurt?”

  “Not much. They investigated and found she’d dozed off, the cigarette had fallen onto the bed and started the fire, but somehow, she’d rolled off the bed. The floor’s the safest place to be in a room that’s on fire. The best guess was that Megan had awakened in her room and wandered into Rachel’s, got scared when she saw the fire and crawled into her mother’s closet. Rachel had only minor burns, some smoke inhalation.”