Controlled Burn (Scarred Hearts)

by Nikki Duncan

  “Sort of.” It had only taken one beating to realize he needed to not just meet his uncle’s wishes, but to predict what they might be on a day-to-day basis. If there was no homework, Logan lied and said there was. Then he did extra work to have on-hand.

  “Did you tell your teachers why you’re doing the extra work?” Ashley dropped into the chair beside him. “If Uncle Dave thinks you’re lying, even about extra work, you’ll be in trouble and he’ll go to the school about there not being enough work for you.”

  “If I tell them, they’ll start asking questions that could lead to a CPS visit and you know what could happen then.”

  Uncle Dave enjoyed inflicting punishment, physical and emotional. Logan and Ashley hid the evidence because being split up wasn’t an option either of them viewed as acceptable.

  “He’s getting worse.”

  Worse had been an understatement, because he’d increased his drug use and the more he used the more violent he became. A sigh might land a little too heavily and he would go off.

  Ashley looked around, making sure they were still alone. “We’re going to have to tell someone.”

  More afraid of telling the truth about Uncle Dave than he was of another beating, Logan broke out in a sweat. He shook his head. There was no one he trusted enough.

  “What about Mr. Wells?” Ashley asked.

  Logan liked his math teacher, a lot, but the man was a rule follower. If he suspected a kid was being abused, he would report it. “I don’t know that I could spin it right.”

  “You think he’ll report it?”

  “Who’s reporting what?” Uncle Dave demanded as he barreled into the room.

  Logan flinched. The dust particles in the air quivered at the instant rage in Uncle Dave’s voice.

  Spinning a story for a teacher was one thing. Spinning one for Uncle Dave never worked. Staying seated, because Uncle Dave hated having to look up, Logan lifted his gaze. Ashley scooted her chair closer to Logan’s.

  Hatred stared down at them, colder and more vicious than any other time in the last eighteen months. Logan wanted to crawl under the table or grab Ashley’s hand and run and never look back. It was a normal feeling he’d learned to squash.

  “Who’s reporting what?” Spit lined the edges of Uncle Dave’s lips.

  This time Logan didn’t flinch. When he took too long to answer, Uncle Dave stomped around the table, closing the distance between them with Ashley in the middle. Younger, but bigger, Logan surged from his chair and moved to stand in front of Ashley.

  Predictably, Uncle Dave got pissed. He raised a fist and swung. Pain erupted across Logan’s face. Pain that had nothing to do with his uncle.

  Relentless, feverish agonies scalded a path along his jaw line, across the back of his head and down his side. The more aware Logan became of the pain the more he noticed large areas where he felt nothing. The extremes between the pain and the numbness increased in violence as the drugs keeping him sedated wore off. Just as predictably as the pain’s volatility was the appearance of a blurry-headed nurse entering his room and dosing him with more medication.

  Logan tried to keep count of the changes in light and dark outside his window, but time passed oddly between nothingness and memories and agony. Hypomnesia was one possibility. Hell was more accurate.

  The tangy scent of grapefruit drifted over the odor of soap and antiseptic and carried him back to the day of the fire. To the last times he’d seen Ashley.

  His mind locked up the instant the Starbucks cups hit the ground. The weight of failure and death crashed down on him. Ashley was dead. She had saved him when he needed her most, but when she needed him, he wasn’t good enough.

  Voices moved around and over him, but darkness lured him, promising freedom. Freedom wasn’t to be his.

  Pain more intense and raw than anything that could be described ripped Logan from the void. The scent of grapefruit came to him again, making him think about the firefighter who’d carried him out.

  Thoughts of her were more welcomed than recalling images of Ashley’s unmoving body, but the agony suffusing his body, and his mind, grew too strong and forced him back into oblivion.

  The oblivion of drug-induced unconsciousness never lasted as long as he thought his doctors might want. Hot and cold. Raw and overexposed. Nearly half of his body was an oversensitive and exposed nerve that felt everything too deeply.

  Air.

  Fabric.

  Gauze.

  Loss.

  He felt it all and wished, more than once, that Death had spared him.

  He hadn’t been told what happened to Ashley, but he knew she was gone.

  Thinking of her was all it took to bring her face into the forefront of his mind. Sweet and always happy with a sharp intelligence glinting in her eyes, she’d been the reason he’d stayed out of foster care when their parents had passed and their uncle had been taken to prison.

  “It’s okay to cry, Logan.” Ashley’s words from the day they stood at their parents’ graves came back. Crying was no more of an option now than it had been then.

  As often as their father had lectured Logan on making good decisions, on becoming a stand-up man, Uncle Dave was more insistent. Much more hardnosed to the point his beliefs and expectations had warped into something impossible to achieve.

  The moment with Ashley, her offer to cry for him, had shown Logan she would always be there. It had also been the moment when he vowed never to make a blatantly wrong choice or need comforting again.

  He had become the man his father had lectured him to be. He hadn’t been enough, though.

  Blackness brightened to shades of gray and then blue and white. Pain rested beneath the haze of almost-light, but it was nothing as intense as the other times he’d been partially awake.

  The screams returned. His throat felt sore, like some of those screams had been his own. His eyelids were almost too heavy to blink, but he forced them open. He half expected to smell grapefruit, but the scent wasn’t there. Only the smells of a hospital could be picked up.

  Blurry at first, it took a moment for a nurse’s image to take form. Dark skin, black hair and oddly elegant in scrubs, the woman turned to him.

  “Mr. Mathis,” she said, sounding surprised. “You shouldn’t be awake.”

  He tried to move his head to see her better, but agony sliced along the back of his head and halted the attempt. The nurse’s barely clear features fuzzed the moment before he closed his eyes against the pain. Several breaths later, when the pain was less raw, he opened his eyes again.

  It took a lot of effort to push words past his throat, each syllable burning as much as the flames he’d lain in. He only managed a single whispered word. “Ashley.”

  “Rest.”

  “Ashley,” he repeated with more strength.

  The nurse didn’t answer. Instead, she pressed a button on the IV machine and nothing more registered as darkness again overtook him.

  The next thing he registered was a voice, serene and sensual, as it penetrated the darkness with a feminine hypnotism and carried him into a story about an amnesiac being chased through a foreign country, killing people easily with weapons or in hand-to-hand combat when the need arose. Jason Bourne, and the woman bringing him to life, quickly became Logan’s favorite distraction from his pain and the sounds of agony coming from beyond his door.

  When he opened his eyes again dust danced in the beam of sunlight shining across his bandage-wrapped arm and leg. Only his fingertips, puffy white stubs with black char spots, showed beneath the gauze. He looked away from the ugliness and found Ashley watching him from the foot of the bed.

  “Ashley. I thought…”

  “I’d leave you alone? That’ll never happen.” She rested a hand on his leg, but he didn’t actually feel the weight of her touch. She was there without being there, and he couldn’t think about what that meant.

  Chapter Three

  Delancey drummed her hands against the steering wheel, staring at
the hospital that was more like a second home than a place of work. Over the course of the last month, when she wasn’t at the firehouse or helping patients, she’d been at Logan Mathis’s side in the burn unit.

  Blocking the screams of agony that echoed off the walls was impossible. They were heart wrenching and had an eerie way of embedding themselves in her mind and rising again at unexpected times. They brought back memories she’d rather forget, but ignoring them didn’t work. After the first visit, she’d brought a book and began reading to him. Thrillers had seemed to be the best choice because of their faster pace.

  In the month of her visits, she’d replayed the day of the fire again and again. The look in Logan’s eyes, the weight of his hand on her wrist, the pressure of his inquiry about Ashley. Why she’d been drawn to him, why she felt compelled to visit him even when he didn’t know she was there, eluded her.

  She’d worked with numerous patients after major traumas and several of them described upsetting dreams that undermined their need to heal. Each of them had required psychotherapy, and given what Logan had been through, was going through, Delancey would be surprised if his sleep wasn’t filled with similar haunts.

  Sitting by his bed for hours, watching him struggle with whatever consumed his mind, had increased her curiosity instead of sating it. More than she had ever wanted to ease a patient’s pain, she wanted to peel away the bandages covering so much of Logan’s body and help him defeat his physical and emotional demons.

  Why?

  What was it about the man that enthralled her so?

  To find out she had to see things through. So she got out of the car and walked to the main entrance.

  Before her first shift at the firehouse Andy had warned her not to think too much about people they encountered at scenes. She’d done well enough until and after Logan.

  She was in no way responsible for Logan Mathis or his recovery, yet she found herself walking into the hospital to visit him time and time again.

  Inside, she lifted a hand to wave at the volunteers working the main desk. She did it habitually before noticing her mother was one of the volunteers.

  “Great,” Delancey muttered beneath her breath as she turned toward the desk. An attempt to avoid her mother would not go over well.

  “Delancey, what are you doing here?”

  “I work here.”

  “But today is your day off.”

  She shouldn’t be surprised that Mother knew her schedule. She had never been supportive of Delancey’s decisions and kept close tabs on her, always looking for an opening to reinforce her own views.

  “Just visiting someone.”

  “I hear you’ve been doing that a lot. Who’s the friend?”

  “No one you know.” Please don’t ask more. Don’t make me lie or tell you what you don’t want to hear about.

  Nothing about growing up with her mother gave Delancey a reason to believe the short response would be good enough. Mother would insist on knowing each detail about whomever it was she planned to see, because only when she knew everything could it be determined if the friend was worthy of a Winston’s attention.

  Predictably, Mother took her elbow and led her to some nearby chairs. “Tell me about him.”

  “No.”

  “So it is a man. I will find out.”

  Delancey shrugged. “I’m sure you will, but not from me.”

  “I want you to be happy.” It was calculation, not sincerity that loitered in Mother’s tone. “Enough time has passed.”

  “What’s enough time, Mother? A month? Six months? A year?” She’d heard it all at one time or another. What it really boiled down to was perception. In this case, Mother’s perception. “And why can’t you believe I’m perfectly happy with my life?”

  “Happy? You’re stuck in the shadows of what could’ve been.”

  “Only you see my life that way.” And she never allowed a chance to pass with it going unsaid. Once upon a time Delancey would’ve wasted her breath and energy on more explanations and self-defenses. Mother, professional volunteer and socialite extraordinaire, would never understand, or maybe just wouldn’t accept Delancey’s life choices. So Delancey stopped explaining.

  “Because you refuse to look at the choices you make and how they impact those around you.”

  Irony, meet Mother. Feel free to call her Kettle.

  Delancey’s choice to be a firefighter had led her to being where she needed to be to carry Logan out of his building. As impactful choices went it wasn’t a bad one. At least she hoped some people viewed it that way.

  Holding back the sigh that would earn her an extended lecture, Delancey calmly said, “When’s the last time you checked in on the boys?”

  “I don’t need to check on them. Their lives make sense.”

  Just another way of saying Delancey would never measure up to her brothers. They had toed the line of Mother’s expectations for their lives. They married suitable women interested in being society wives.

  Delancey was the rogue who’d never been feminine enough for someone of their breeding. Being a physical therapist didn’t measure up when she could have been a nurse or doctor. When she’d gotten engaged, things had improved marginally. But disaster had struck, changing her world.

  “My life makes sense.” She found herself arguing more out of habit than a hope to have her voice heard. Even Andy, who was known for his aloofness, was a better listener.

  “Then you’re alone in your logic.”

  Mother’s ability to infuse a retort with disdain was an amazing talent that must have been inherited with her blood type. Delancey’s grandmother and great-grandmother had been just as skilled at the disapproving parent act.

  “Alone but not lonely.” Delancey tilted her head in a way that said the case should be closed. “It would be nice if you’d learn to accept that I like my life fine.”

  “Like not love.” Mother smirked.

  “You know best,” Delancey said as she moved to step away from her mother.

  “You didn’t tell me who you’re visiting.”

  “No, I did not.”

  “You think you’re so clever.” The disdain dripped again, which only made Delancey want to laugh. Laughing would, of course, earn more disdain. It was a vicious cycle she’d learned to avoid years ago.

  Holding back her smile, Delancey kissed Mother’s cheek. “I’ll see you later.”

  “You know I’ll find out.”

  “So you said.” If she hadn’t been found out yet, she wouldn’t be discovered anytime soon. Ignoring the threat, she took a couple steps away.

  “I have connections here,” Mother insisted.

  An understatement, because her mother had connections all across Dallas. Her connections had nothing on Delancey’s friends though, and Delancey had a lot of friends in the hospital. “Have a good day, Mother.”

  Mother’s mouth gaped and in a rare moment of silence she stared, unblinking, at Delancey. Reveling in the silence she almost never won, Delancey headed for the elevators. Then, in case her mother watched to see what floor she stopped at, she turned and took the stairs.

  Eventually her mother may discover who she was visiting, but until that time Logan deserved his privacy.

  Delancey smiled the moment the nurse’s station came into view and she saw one of her best friends. “Hey, Lex.”

  Lexi John, exotic from head to toe even in scrubs and with her black hair pulled into a braid, knew a thing or two about keeping secrets. At least Delancey was guessing she did, and she’d guess it had to do with the darkness that occasionally haunted her gaze and motivated her to work the burn unit.

  “D. Back again?”

  Delancey shrugged. “He intrigues me.”

  Lex raised her perfectly plucked brows and let out a long “ahh” that suggested she was privy to something profound and elicit. “Clearly.”

  “It’s not like that.” Or was that it? Was it something profoundly intimate that called her to his side? “
How’s he doing?”

  “Better.” Lexi rounded the counter and leaned against it, holding a file against her chest and watching Logan’s door. “His grafts are doing well and some of his own skin is growing back enough that they’re about ready to take off some more bandages.”

  A few of the bandages, mostly on the areas with smaller burns like his hand and arm, had been removed already. The scarring around the more severe burns would take time and possibly more surgeries to minimize, but they wouldn’t know for some time yet. And only when Logan was awake would they know how his reaction to his wounds would impact his recovery. A patient’s mindset carried a lot of weight when it came to healing.

  “Dr. Hyatt’s eased back considerably on his meds.”

  “So he’s awake?” Delancey was suddenly nervous about the idea of going in to see him. On one hand, she might discover why she was drawn to him. On the other, he might never want to see her again.

  “Yeah.” Lexi shifted her gaze to Delancey. The lighter side of her that she showed outside of work was deeply suppressed by seriousness. “As far as he knows no one outside the staff has seen him. He may not take your visit well.”

  “I get that.” Her walking into his room could go either way, good if he was interested in company and very poorly if he was afraid of people seeing him. She knew too well what he would be thinking. She also knew he would do better outside the hospital if he learned to let people see him before he left.

  “I know you’ve gotten attached to him, D. Don’t be upset when he doesn’t share that connection.”

  The moment should be entirely about Logan and how he was doing. She wanted to claim her feelings didn’t matter, but the fact that Lexi’s advice struck like a swift scalpel told Delancey how selfish her thoughts had been. She could bury it though.

  “Thanks for the reminder.” Delancey kissed Lexi on the cheek. “Everyone needs friends like you to keep us in line.”

  “I only do it because I love you.” Lexi turned Delancey toward Logan’s room. “Go. I’ll bring wine over when I get off. I have a feeling you’ll need it.”

  “I’ll get dessert.” Regardless what happened next the night would be a highlight because they hadn’t gotten together since before Delancey started her fire academy training. A few steps away Delancey turned back. “Hey, Lex.”