“Sit tight, we’re coming,” was the last thing I’d heard. They checked in now and then, and the hotshot would confirm we were still alive.
I thought about Miranda most of the time, her sweet face and bright blue eyes. I pictured the way they’d almost always looked at me—a suspicious scowl, usually—and it made me smile. I was so desperate that even her ongoing dislike of me had become a fond memory. I’d give anything to watch her stalk away from me again, even if it meant having to watch her worship my brother for the rest of our lives.
I thought about my brother, too. Chance had picked up a heavy burden when Dad died, coming back though it had never been a part of his plan to return to this tiny mountain town. He came back to shoulder the responsibility of running the business, though I suspected part of the reason he returned was to look after me. Maybe I needed it. Mom had died a long time ago—which didn’t mean I didn’t miss her. But I’d grown used to that hole in my heart, and our house had become a little colder, a little messier, and a little more practical. No more flowers in vases, no more seasonal decorations. We just lived there together after Chance had gone to school—me and Dad. And it had been okay. But when Dad died…the house had changed again. It was an empty shell I rattled around in. It was good that Chance came back. And now, to think I might not see my big brother again…
I squeezed my eyes shut tight and waited, trying not to think. I didn’t want to get my hopes up that I might get to thank him for coming back, or for stepping back for so many years where Miranda was concerned. I didn’t want to think that I might not ever get a chance to take a real shot with the girl I loved. I did my best to shut my brain down and just wait.
“Hey, did you feel that?” Ryan was tapping on my arm, and I opened my eyes.
I looked around, confusion swimming through me. “What? Feel what?” All I could feel was terror and heat.
He didn’t say anything else, but stared upward for a long minute. I followed his gaze. The tops of the flames had stopped reaching wildly for each other—in fact the mountains of fire looked smaller, less menacing somehow. And as I gazed upward, a huge fat raindrop landed smack between my eyes.
Rain?
I didn’t want to hope. It could just be a passing sprinkle, not enough to help.
But it wasn’t. Within minutes, the sky opened and rain was streaming down. It wasn’t enough to douse the massive fire, but maybe it would keep it from moving any more for a while. Ryan and I exchanged a hopeful look. Mr. George moved around a bit, and I turned to face him. His eyes hadn’t opened, but his chest was still heaving, so I knew he was breathing. We needed to get him out of here before that changed.
Despite the rain, the fire looked as impenetrable as it had before, and though it was a little easier to breathe now that the water was clearing the air a bit, hope was fading as the flames continued to dance around us in defiance of the water. It would have to rain a whole lot harder to put this thing out.
Ryan’s radio crackled and we both stared at it as he pulled it from his belt.
“Come in,” he shouted. “Come in!”
The radio buzzed to life again, and we heard a string of garbled words, followed by, “Be ready.”
We stared at one another, and then scrambled to get to our feet. My legs were weak, and I realized I’d probably inhaled more smoke than was advisable—not that I’d had a choice. I could feel the effects on my body though, and my mind was muddled and slow. I stared at the flames around us, not quite believing what I was seeing as a figure emerged from the fire, stepping into the ever-decreasing circle in which we were trapped. It was another hotshot in full turnout gear, carrying a pile of what looked like clothing in his arms. He dropped it to the ground, and shouted, “Put this on!”
We donned the heavy turnout gear he’d deposited as he explained. “The wind’s dying and the rain let us get the fire pretty thin here. We’ll have to go through it, and we’d better hurry. The guys are keeping it down on the other side.” I stared at him. We were going to walk through the wall of fire?
“And Mr. George?”
The hotshot responded by picking the older man up and throwing him over his shoulder as gently as he could and covering him completely with an open coat. “Let’s go!”
Ryan and I exchanged a look and then stepped toward the wall of flame.
“Right there!” The hotshot yelled. “Now!”
I stared at the unyielding wall of dancing fire. Everything in my body was screaming at me to stay put. No one in their right mind walked into fire.
“Go!” He screamed.
I took as deep a breath as I could manage, and forced my legs to move. The heat was incredible, and as I stepped near enough to the flames to touch them, my mind was screaming at me to stop, but I forced my body to keep moving forward into the scorching inferno. I lost all sense of perspective, though I was probably in the fire for only a second or two before emerging on the other side. I couldn’t make sense of anything that was happening as the men around me doused me with water, drenching me and then pulling the hot gear from my body. I watched in shock as Ryan and the other hotshot, carrying Mr. George, emerged from a wall of fire and were immediately wet down as I had been.
Consciousness faded in and out, and I heard shouting all coming from all sides, but the last thing I remembered was seeing my brother’s face above me before everything went black.
Chapter 25
Miranda
People began to stir inside the diner not long after I’d told my mom the news, and while our friends and neighbors stretched and yawned, looking around them with wide wondering eyes, Mom stared out the window, unmoving. She’d cried for a little while as we’d sat together in the dissipating darkness, and Maddie had brought her some tea, but whatever processing Mom needed to do to accept the uncertainty all around us, she needed to do it alone. I stayed by her side, my own mind churning in useless circles as I tried to think my father and Sam out of danger.
Adele and Frank appeared at the counter before everyone was awake, and soon muffins, orange juice and hot coffee materialized on the counter and that seemed to bring anyone still sleeping back to consciousness. Worried expressions were exchanged as people sipped coffee, and I slipped into the bathroom at the back of the diner, doing my best to wash my face and smooth my hair back into a ponytail that looked halfway normal.
It felt useless and superficial, worrying about what I looked like when my father and Sam were in so much danger, when everything we loved was threatened. I braced my hands on the sides of the sink and looked at my face in the mirror. Had I aged? Did I look older? Because I felt like I’d been through years in the last few days. I dropped my head between my arms and let the tears come, sucking in the sobs that wanted to roll out of my chest.
I allowed myself a few minutes to fall apart, to imagine a life without my father, to consider moving forward without him. And what terrified me the most was that I could do it. I could picture my mother and me alone in our quiet house—if it still stood. I could see us living quiet lives filled with an unspoken sadness we’d never be able to dispel. And in that image, Sam was gone too, and I knew that the girl I was watching move around in that future inside my head would never be truly happy again.
“No.” I sucked in a deep breath and lifted my chin. I wiped at my face and pinched my cheeks. I wasn’t giving up. Not on my dad or on Sam. My mother needed me to be strong. Heck, I needed me to be strong. I wasn’t a child anymore, and it was time I stepped up and acted like an adult.
But my new resolve crumbled when I stepped out of the bathroom to find my mother sobbing, sitting on the little bench in front of the window outside the bathroom door.
Oh God.
Oh no.
“Mom?” I sank onto the bench next to her, sliding my arm around her shoulders. “Oh God, Mom. Did you hear something? Is—”
My mother turned her head and met my eyes, and I realized she was smiling through her tears. “Look,” she said, her voice an amazed
whisper. “Look outside, Pudding.”
I lifted my head to look out the window behind us, and at first my mind couldn’t process what I saw. The pavement of the small dining plaza was almost black. Was that ash? As my gaze lifted, my mind racing to understand, I realized it was dark with wetness. The chairs and tables outside were dripping and wet, and rain was pouring down from the sky in torrents.
My entire body suddenly felt lighter, the weight of my worry lifting off of me a little bit. And while nothing was assured—we’d had rain two days ago, after all—it was something. Maybe it was a sign, maybe it would buy us time. Maybe it would be enough to allow my father and Sam to escape the fire.
“Have you heard anything?” I asked Mom.
She shook her head, still crying. “But I hope.” She didn’t add to that. She didn’t verbalize what it was she hoped for, and she didn’t have to. It was just that. In the dark of the previous night, she hadn’t dared to hope, but this morning. She hoped. And so did I.
That hope was a tenuous thread that pulled everyone in the diner through the morning. Conversation was quiet, and we all behaved as if things could be ripped from beneath us at any moment, because realistically, they could.
When Hal Hammond came through the door shortly after eight o’clock, his face was grim, and my heart fell. No good news was delivered when a man looked as somber and morose as Hal.
“Got ‘em out,” he said without preamble to the diner at large. “Palmer place burned though.”
I gasped and my mother did the same at my side, taking my hand and squeezing.
Frank was closest to Hal, and he put an arm on Hal’s back and led him to the counter, where Dean slid a cup of coffee in front of him. Hal shook his head and his shoulders hunched for a minute as he sat, and then he seemed to recover himself. “So far that’s the only local structure.”
My mother stepped near to Hal and sank onto the stool next to him, everything in her body language careful and hesitant. “Hal?” she whispered.
The older man turned to look at her, and his face showed all the worry, the work, the exhaustion he felt. But his eyes widened and he nodded at her. “They’re out,” he said. “They got them out.” He swung his gaze to me. “They’re meeting the ambulance here. Gonna take ‘em down to Kings General.”
Mom’s eyes widened and she glanced at the parking lot out the windows. “Now? Where are they? Are they okay?” Her voice was thin and rising.
Hal probably could have planned his news-sharing more thoughtfully, but I could see how tired and overwhelmed he was. He put a hand on my mother’s arm, and she quieted down. “I think so, Mrs. George, but I don’t know for sure.” He turned to the windows and stood. “Coming in now.”
Flashing lights strobed the windows of the diner as an ambulance pulled up out front. A fire truck pulled in just behind it, turning into the lot from the opposite direction. I held my breath as Mom and I rushed out into the rain.
We stood holding hands on the sidewalk as the rain poured around us, soaking our clothes immediately and sticking our hair to our scalps. The strange thing was that I didn’t feel any of it as I watched the men pull Dad and Sam from the truck. Dad was on a stretcher, and his eyes were closed. As soon as I saw him, my heart leapt into my throat and my knees threatened to go. He wasn’t moving.
The paramedics rushed to him and Mom stood back, a hand to her mouth and her eyes wide as she watched them transfer him to the back of the ambulance. I pulled her to the doors. “This is his wife,” I told them, and they reached down to pull her into the back of the ambulance.
“He’s stable,” the paramedic said, and I watched my mother take my father’s hand and lean down over his body, her back shaking.
Relief poured through me. He was alive. My dad was alive, though his hands were wrapped in bandages, and his face was blackened beneath the oxygen mask. The doors to the ambulance were closed, and it turned around slowly in the parking lot and then pulled out, my parents disappearing down the road in the rain.
A big hand fell on my shoulder and I turned to find Chance Palmer standing next to me. “He’s going to be all right,” he said. “He took in a lot of smoke, but I’m sure he’ll be all right.”
I looked up at him gratefully. “Where’s Sam?” I asked, looking around. My eyes had been fixed to my father’s prone form, but now they found Sam, sitting on the curb at the edge of the parking lot, holding a bottle of water and shaking his head at a paramedic.
“He’s busy arguing with the guys trying to help him. He’s fine,” he said, and he stepped back.
I stared at Sam, my heart twisting inside my chest and my skin warming as I realized how happy I was to see him, how relieved I was to find him safe. But more than that, I felt a surge of warmth inside me when those stormy eyes met mine, when he stood and walked toward me, ignoring whatever the paramedic was saying to him.
My feet moved without me being conscious of having decided to go to him, and seconds later, I was swept up into his strong arms, my body pressed thankfully against his broad solid chest. I clasped my arms around his neck, and he swung me around again, just as he’d done the day it had rained after we’d wrapped cabins together. Only this time, when he leaned down to kiss me, I wasn’t confused. I pressed myself up to him, relishing every centimeter of contact we shared, knowing that when his lips met mine, it was exactly what I wanted and everything I needed.
The rain was coming down in torrents, and our bodies were slick with it, water streaming from our noses and fingertips as we ended the kiss and stood holding one another, looking into the depths of one another’s eyes. There were so many things I wanted to say to Sam, so many things I wanted to ask him about the past, but maybe none of it mattered. In that moment, it certainly didn’t. All that mattered right then was that he was safe. He and my father were safe, and the way the rain was sheeting down, I wondered if maybe the village was safe too.
“I’m so happy to see you,” I whispered in his ear, almost missing the gentle waft of licorice that usually clung to him. Now he smelled like smoke and the verdant mossy wetness surrounding us both.
He responded by finding my lips again, and I closed my eyes and let myself be comforted by the kiss and the arms of the man I realized I’d probably loved in some way my whole life.
“Sir, you’re going to need to get in the ambulance,” the paramedic said from somewhere far, far away.
Sam and I broke apart to find the man standing just inches from us, and as I took a step back from Sam, the rest of the scene around us came back into focus.
“Yes,” I said. “Go with him, Sam. Let’s make sure you’re all right.”
He shook his head. “I’m fine. And we have things to talk about.”
“We have time,” I said. “Go now, they’re waiting for you.”
“Go to the hospital, moron,” Chance said, stepping close to persuade his brother.
“If you come,” Sam said, turning to me.
I nodded and gave Chance a smile, and we got into the ambulance—Sam in the back and me up front—and headed down to the hospital. As we pulled out of the lot, I looked out the window to see Chance standing alone in the rain, his hands stuffed into his pockets as he watched us go.
Chapter 26
Sam
Going to the hospital when there’s nothing wrong with you has to rank up there pretty high on the list of stupid pointless things that get in the way of what you’d really like to be doing. For me, the priority was getting a chance to talk to Miranda, but it turned out that when your home has just burned to the ground, your community has just narrowly dodged a fiery bullet, and you’re being treated for smoke inhalation, it’s nearly impossible to find a quiet moment to pour your heart out to the woman you’ve loved your whole life… who you might actually have a chance with.
Miranda had come to the hospital with me, which should have been a surprise. In the world we’d lived in before the fire, that wouldn’t ever have happened. Not in a million years.
But in the world since the fire? Something had shifted. The misunderstandings and aggravations of our youth had been burned away. Or maybe we’d just realized there wasn’t time for the bullshit. There was way too much at stake.
We didn’t get a chance to talk, to really talk, because Miranda was darting between my ER cubicle and the room to which her father had been admitted, and none of us had really slept in days. So even if words were something we’d needed during that time, they probably would’ve been hard to come by. But the things between us that were unspoken carried us forward, and when I stared into those bright blue eyes while the doctor checked my vitals and asked me questions, I knew that my world had changed in more ways than I could number.
And it was funny that despite losing so much in the fire, I felt as if it had really given me more than I’d ever really dared to hope for.
Chapter 27
Miranda
Dad was going to be okay. And that meant that Mom was going to be okay, and so was I. They kept him for two days and performed a procedure to clear his airways of debris and detect further damage, but declared him good to leave once he’d awoken and spent one more night to demonstrate his breathing function was restored. We came right back up the hill, even though the doctors suggested a few days at a lower altitude would be good for him.
At home, Mom treated him like a king, plumping pillows behind him and bringing his favorite tuna sandwiches and Coke on a little platter he could balance on his lap while he watched television. Despite the amount of work the Park Service had to do to clean up in the aftermath of the fire’s near miss with the village, Dad had been given a short leave of absence to recuperate.
Love Reimagined (Kings Grove Book 2) Page 16