Valentine Baby

by Gina Wilkins

  When she no longer needed him.

  Zach slowed for a steep, winding curve, negotiated it carefully, then picked up speed again, skillfully pulling the trailer along the twisting, mountainous roads toward Beaver Lake. This rural route wasn’t heavily populated. A few old houses and mobile homes lined the road, only a few showing evidence that the residents were awake at this early hour on a Saturday morning.

  The rosy sunrise was kind to the area, softening the peeling wood and patched roofs, the old cars sitting on blocks in dirt yards, the rusty dog pens and ramshackle storage buildings. Northwest Arkansas was a region of stark economic contrasts, containing both great wealth and staggering poverty. As a fireman, Tom had fought just as hard to save the old, decrepit homes as he had the expensive, country-club estates.

  “Tom,” Zach said after they’d driven a few minutes in silence. “I hope Leslie and Kenny will make you happy. God knows you deserve it.”

  “Zach, don’t—”

  “No, let me say this and then I’ll drop it.” Zach sounded as though he’d rehearsed a speech and was determined to deliver it, no matter what resistance he encountered.

  “For the past year or so, I’ve felt so damned guilty around you. It wasn’t anything you did,” he added quickly, when Tom automatically started to protest. “It was my own guilt. I know you’ve never blamed me for that accident, and intellectually I realize it was more the fault of the guy who inadvertently slammed into us, if the blame falls on anyone—but I’ve never forgotten that I was driving. I’ve never forgotten the way you looked, all crumpled on the ground, bloody and absolutely motionless. At first, I—I thought you were dead.”

  The break in Zach’s voice tightened Tom’s chest. “Zach, this really isn’t necessary.”

  “Damn it, Lowery, shut up and let me finish.”

  Scowling, Tom shut up.

  “My point is,” Zach said doggedly, “that I’ve felt lousy because, except for a bruised and sprained shoulder that healed in a couple of weeks, I wasn’t even hurt in that accident. You went through hell, not knowing at first whether you’d ever even walk again, and then all those months of painful therapy, and being left with physical problems that kept you from returning to the only job you ever wanted to do. You were the one who talked me into being a firefighter, remember? It was your dream all those years, not mine, though I’ve loved every minute of it. But you were the one who had to leave it.”

  “I like my work now,” Tom interrupted, feeling the need to make that point clear. “Not the mundane stuff, of course, but arson investigation is something that always interested me. Now I have a chance to get into it more fully. I’m signing up for classes all over the country starting this summer and I’ve been doing a lot of reading and studying. I might even teach a class or two sometime. I’ve also thought about teaching search-and-rescue classes. I’ve always liked sharing what I’ve learned.”

  “You’d be good at it,” Zach said slowly. “You really want to be an instructor?”

  “It’s something I’ve been looking into. I have no intention of spending the rest of my life regretting a freak accident. I’ve still got things I want to do.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. For a while, you didn’t even seem to want to talk about work or search-and-rescue or any of the things we used to do.”

  “For a while, I didn’t want to talk about it,” Tom admitted. “I had to go through my own adjustment period, I guess. Mom called it a period of mourning—which is an exaggeration, of course, but sort of true. It took me a while to form a new plan for my future, but I’m getting there.”

  Zach exhaled in relief. “Man, that’s good to hear. I knew you’d come around, of course,” he added quickly. “But I’m glad you’re showing some enthusiasm for it.”

  “You knew I’d never be content to sit back and draw disability pay.”

  “I knew that never even crossed your mind,” Zach agreed. “I thought you were going to take Art Sample’s head off when he suggested it.”

  Tom snorted, remembering how furious he’d been when a former co-worker had advised him to draw total disability and spend the rest of his life fishing and taking it easy. Tom couldn’t imagine a more boring and pointless existence. He was a giver, not a taker. As far as he was concerned, no one owed him anything he didn’t earn with his own hands.

  “Anyway,” Zach went on, “it wasn’t just work. It just seemed that I had everything I wanted. My health. My work. A wife I love more than anything. I hated the thought that you—the most deserving guy I’ve ever known—had been left without any of that. I felt...guilty.”

  “You should have felt stupid,” Tom said bluntly, “because you were. I never begrudged you a damn thing, Zach McCain, and you know it. I never blamed you—or anyone else—for that accident, and I was nothing but pleased that you and Kim seemed so happy together. And I ought to punch your teeth in for letting some dumb guilt complex get between us.”

  “Hey, I wasn’t the only one who let stuff get between us,” Zach answered defensively, apparently more satisfied than offended by Tom’s insults. “You’ve got to admit you’ve been acting weird lately. Finding excuses not to get together. Refusing to talk about the things we used to like. Keeping everything to yourself. Even getting married without telling anyone.”

  “Okay, so maybe I’ve been partly to blame,” Tom conceded. “I had some issues to work out, and I needed to do that on my own. But mostly I couldn’t stand the thought that any of you guys were feeling sorry for me. And sometimes you acted as though you did. You treated me like a noble martyr or something, and I hated that.”

  Zach’s momentary silence told Tom that the words had struck home. Hard. “Damn,” he said after a while. “Did I really act like that?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes. You jerk.”

  “So how come you didn’t beat some sense into me?”

  “ ’Cause you probably would have apologized for hurting my fist with your face,” Tom muttered. “And then I would have had to kill you. And that might have upset Kim, who didn’t deserve it.”

  “Hell, Tom, I’m sorry. Trust me, I won’t ever be nice to you again.”

  “You’d damned well better not.”

  “It’s a promise. In fact, I might just make you bait my hooks today so I don’t get those slimy old worm guts all over my nice, clean fingers.”

  “Up yours, McCain.”

  Zach laughed. It was the first time in months that his laughter sounded as easy and comfortable as it had before the accident. The first time since then that Tom felt he and Zach were really communicating. Not just verbally, but mentally, the way they always had before.

  It felt good. Even if they had been forced to go through some “touchy-feely” stuff to get to this point.

  Content, Tom leaned back against his seat and sipped coffee from the plastic lid of his thermos. The sky was growing much lighter in the east now. By the time he and Zach got to the lake, it would just be daylight. The closer they got, the worse the narrow roads would become, until finally they would be negotiating what was little more than a twisty, rutted, hair-raising trail. He and Zach had made the trip more times than Tom could count since the first time Zach’s dad had taken them fishing together when they were still both missing their front teeth.

  He entertained himself for a while listening to the country music from the radio and looking for signs of life in the few houses they passed. Tom had always liked getting out this early, watching the rest of the world come slowly awake. He liked being out on the lake on a cold, clear morning, listening to the water lap against the bottom of a fishing boat, watching his breath hover in the air in front of him, breathing in the pungent smells of outboard exhaust and fish.

  He hadn’t realized until now just how much he’d allowed himself to miss while recuperating.

  He had opened his mouth to make some casual comment to Zach, when he suddenly sat bolt upright, the dregs of his coffee sloshing in the plastic cup. “Zach, look at that house!” />
  Zach looked inquiringly in the direction Tom indicated, swore beneath his breath and slammed on the brakes. Their experienced eyes had seen the same ominous signs—a red glow in the darkened back windows of an old wood-sided house, thin billows of smoke pouring from beneath the eaves.

  The house was on fire. And if its residents were inside, they were probably still asleep, unaware of the danger surrounding them.

  “Call it in!” Zach yelled, opening his door at the same time he cut the truck’s engine. He was out of the vehicle and running toward the house almost before the words were out of his mouth.

  Tom grabbed the cellular phone beneath Zach’s dash. Moments later, assured that rescue crews were en route, he jumped from the truck and ran after Zach. Zach stood on a tiny, rickety front porch, hammering with his fist on the locked front door, yelling for someone to wake up and respond to him.

  He glanced at Tom. “I just know someone’s in there. I’m going in.”

  Already they could hear the mounting roar of flames, smell burning wood and insulation, taste the oily smoke billowing from beneath the eaves. “Go!” Tom shouted.

  Zach raised his right foot and smashed at the flimsy wooden door. It took him only three solid kicks to splinter the jamb and gain admittance. Smoke poured out through the opening. Staying low, his jacket covering his mouth, Zach plunged inside.

  Tom was right behind him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Almost as soon as they were inside, Tom and Zach heard a woman suddenly start to scream from somewhere in the back of the house.

  “Fire!” she shrieked. “Oh, God, Joey! Emily! Get out!”

  Tom heard Zach crash into something heavy in the smoky shadows and swear, then yell in the direction of the hysterical voice, “Keep your head low and head for the nearest exit! Hurry!”

  A heavyset woman in a flannel nightgown emerged suddenly from a hallway, screaming in panic. “The kids,” she sobbed. “I can’t find the kids. There’s too much smoke back there.”

  Zach grabbed the woman’s arms and swung her toward Tom. “Get her outside,” he ordered. “I’ll get the kids.”

  “Joey! Emily!” The woman sobbed and moved as if to run back down the hallway. Already flames were licking at the tops of the walls around them, sucking the air from the room.

  Coughing, Tom managed to half drag the woman toward the front door. She outweighed him, and panic made her movements awkward and unpredictable, so he didn’t have an easy time of it. He wouldn’t be able to carry her if she collapsed, he thought grimly.

  “Zach will get your kids, ma’am,” he kept saying, trying to calm her. “You have to get out of here now. You’ll be waiting outside for them when he brings them out.”

  “Joey. Emily.” She choked the names repeatedly, as if afraid to stop. “Please, help them.”

  Something cracked above their heads. Glowing sparks showered around them, stinging exposed skin. The house was old and would burn like tinder, Tom knew from experience. The air was thick and noxious. He shoved the woman out the front door, his thoughts remaining inside the burning building with Zach and the woman’s children.

  She was wailing now, no longer resisting him, but limp with despair. “My kids,” she moaned. “My babies.”

  Tom had just managed to get her safely away from the house, when Zach stumbled out the front door, hacking and soot covered, a coughing boy about ten years old slung over his shoulder.

  “Joey!” the woman screamed, and snatched at the boy, who was now crying and reaching for her. “Oh, God, where’s Emily? Her room’s the last one down the hall. Emily!”

  Tom was already running, past Zach, who was bent double trying to catch his breath. The noise inside the house was deafening—the hungry shriek of fire, burning debris crashing down from the rafters, hot metals hissing, popping. And somewhere, in all that smoke and chaos, a little girl screamed, “Mommy!”

  “Tom!” Zach shouted after him. “You can’t—”

  Ignoring the warning, ignoring his aches and discomfort, Tom covered his face as best he could with his jacket and threw himself into the inferno.

  Nina woke with a start at just after 7 a.m. She didn’t know what had disturbed her. Steve slept soundly in the bed beside her and the apartment complex was Saturday-morning quiet. There was no reason for her to have awakened with her heart pounding with dread, her pulse racing in anxiety.

  She knew she wouldn’t go back to sleep. She slipped silently from the bed and tiptoed to the window to peek outside, clutching her prim nightgown to her throat. She saw nothing unusual in the parking lot below her bedroom window; hardly anyone was stirring at this hour.

  “Nina?” Steve yawned and rolled to sit on the edge of the bed. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, turning to face him.

  “Bad dream?”

  “I don’t think so. Just...a bad feeling.” She shivered.

  Steve stood and crossed the room to wrap his arms around her. Though he wore nothing but close-fitting boxers, his body was warm against her. He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll make some coffee and we’ll talk about it.”

  She nodded, grateful that he hadn’t brushed off her attack of nerves as foolish.

  Already dressed in jeans and a sweater, Leslie was putting a load of baby clothes in the washer, when the telephone rang. It was still early, just after seven-thirty, but she hadn’t been able to go back to sleep after Tom left, and then Kenny had woken up and demanded his morning bottle. She’d already fed him and put him in his playpen with some toys.

  She understood now why parents of babies always laughed when other people talked of sleeping in on weekends.

  It surprised her that anyone was calling this early. She wondered if it was Tom, telling her something he’d forgotten or changing the time he’d estimated that he would be home. She snatched up the receiver on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Leslie, it’s Kim. I’m on my way over, okay?”

  Leslie felt her knees lose their stiffening. She sagged against the counter. She had to force the words past the lump of fear in her throat. “What’s happened to Tom?”

  “I just got a call from Washington Regional. Zach and Tom are there, but I’ve been assured that they’re both going to be okay. I have to pass close to your house on the way, so I’ll pick you and the baby up, all right?”

  “Were they in an accident?”

  “No. Apparently, they went into a burning house and saved a family.” Kim’s voice caught in a cross between a laugh and a sob. “Why was I not surprised to hear that?”

  Leslie raised a hand to massage her suddenly aching forehead. “How soon can you be here?”

  “Fifteen minutes. Will you be ready?”

  “I’ll be ready.”

  She hung up the phone and hurried to get the baby ready to go out. She felt as though she’d been transported back in time, to those months when she and Tom had been together before, when he’d worked as a firefighter and spent many of his days off on search-and-rescue missions. She’d always dreaded calls like this. Tom’s reckless disregard of his own safety when it came to rescue work had been a constant source of fear for her. She’d been even more frustrated by his choice of recreational activities—rock climbing, white-water rafting, skydiving, bungee jumping—whatever took his fancy. Almost always something that involved a risk of life and limb.

  Part of what she’d been running from when she’d left Fayetteville was her fear of something terrible happening to Tom. Even then, when she’d been afraid to let him know how strong her feelings for him really were, when the thought of a lifelong commitment had left her cold with fear born of painful childhood experiences, she hadn’t been able to face the constant dread of a devastating telephone call.

  She knew now that she’d lulled herself into a false sense of security since she’d returned to find Tom sidelined from the risk taking that had been so much a part of his life before. Obviously, it was time for them to talk—ab
out their feelings and about their future. Knowing how Tom felt about showing his emotions, she was aware that it was going to be up to her to initiate that serious conversation.

  If this marriage was going to work, one of them had to take the first step. Her father had never bothered to stick around to work out the problems in his marriages; he’d always chosen to cut his losses and run when things weren’t going just his way. Leslie’s mother had never fought to save her first two failed marriages, but had whined and complained about how hard life was and had drifted into the next marriage with little hope for success.

  Maybe Leslie had been following her father’s poor example when she’d let her ambition and her frustration with Tom’s emotional reserve spur her into leaving a job she’d loved to move to a city where she’d never really mattered to anyone until Crystal had found her there. Or maybe she’d been imitating her mother, giving up without a fight when a relationship started to fall apart.

  Now it was time to find out if Ben and Martha Harden’s daughter had what it took to make a marriage work—through both easy times and difficult ones. But first she had to make certain that Tom was all right.

  She thought he must be safe—Kim surely wouldn’t have been quite so calm if Zach or Tom had been seriously injured—but Leslie was consumed with a need to assure herself that her husband was unharmed. And it wasn’t hard to figure out that it was love that prompted her fear for him.

  “Feeling better?” Steve asked Nina later that morning. They’d breakfasted on coffee and orange juice and bagels with cream cheese. Nina had washed her face, combed her hair, brushed her teeth and dressed in comfortable, casual clothing. Steve had taken a quick shower and pulled on a sweatshirt and jeans. They planned to spend the day taking it easy, enjoying each other’s company away from the curious eyes of Nina’s neighbors and friends.

  “Yes,” she answered him. “I’m feeling much better. I don’t know what came over me this morning.”

  “Must have been a bad dream you don’t remember.”