by Erin Wright
English, you idiot. I’m speaking English.
But this time, she couldn’t vocalize the words at all. They just hung in her mind, taunting her, as she drifted into the blackness.
Chapter 29
Troy
Talking. So many people talking. Why were they so loud? Didn’t they know he needed to sleep? He’d never been so tired in all his life. He wanted to tell them to shut up and let him sleep.
Then the sounds disappeared and he was drifting again. Drifting on a cloud that buoyed him along, no pain, just warmth, warm, warmer, too warm, why was he so hot? Squares of cold were being pressed to his skin. So cold right there. Why were they making him cold? He tried to tell them to stop, but still, the cold and hot continued, twisting around inside.
Pain.
It was everywhere. It was trying to nibble in around the edges and make him crazy. Couldn’t he take a Tylenol, or seven? He tried to tell the voices he wanted Tylenol or Advil or Aleve or something but no one seemed to understand. They were all right there, but no one was listening.
“Troy, it’s okay,” she whispered. Someone was talking to him. Who was it? He knew that voice. He liked that voice. She was someone special. Who was she?
“Just relax and sleep, okay?” This time, there were fingers stroking across his forehead and through his hair. Such a lovely, soft touch.
“Mom?” he whispered, his voice cracking and straining. It hurt to talk – damn, it hurt. What was wrong with his throat?
“Hi, baby,” Mom whispered.
“How are you feeling?” Dad asked.
“Water,” he whispered.
A straw appeared at his lips, pushing against them, and he wrapped his lips around it and sucked in deep.
“Thank you,” he finally whispered as he laid back. “Throat. Hurts.”
“You were in a real bad fire,” Mom said, and her voice sounded shaky. “Dear, why don’t you call your brother and tell him that Troy has woken up? He’ll want to know.”
“Sure. Be right back.” A quick squeeze of Troy’s hand and then footsteps were fading away.
“Are you in pain?” Mom asked anxiously. “I can tell the doctor to up the morphine.”
“No,” he whispered. His throat was on fire and his body was on fire but even then, he knew he didn’t want to become hooked on painkillers. “Tylenol or something?”
“I’ll ask the doctor. Oh Troy, I can’t believe you’re awake.” Her hand was shaking and Troy knew she was crying. He squeezed her hand, too tired to say anything. He was drifting again, catching snippets of words but none of them made sense. People were trying to ask him questions but he had no answers.
“Hey, Troy.” A girl’s voice. He knew this voice. Who was this? He loved this person, he knew that much. “I know you can’t hear me, so I’m going to have to say this all over again when you wake up. Maybe we’ll consider this to be a practice run.” She laughed a little.
It was right there – her name. Pamela? Penelope? Polly?
He was trapped – he could hear but couldn’t talk. No matter how hard he commanded his mouth to move and his lungs to expel air, nothing happened. Just drifting, like a piece of wood on the current of a river.
“…okay. They said because she was asleep, she didn’t breathe as deep, so her lungs are better than they would be otherwise. You saved her life, you know…”
The words went away then, and he was drifting along, pain and heat and cold and calm all mixed together. It was peaceful here, and he didn’t want to leave, not ever. But a tugging came along and began to pull him to the surface. He had to wake up. He couldn’t ignore it any longer. The voices wouldn’t allow him.
His eyes fluttered open, feeling like sandpaper scraping along his eyeballs as he squinted up into the bright light. A face into view and then she leaned over and she came into focus.
“Penny?” he whispered.
Nothing made sense. If he were dead, he wouldn’t ache all over like this, right? Something was wrong. Why was she there? Angels didn’t appear to live people – at least, he didn’t think so. Actually, he’d never been dead before. Maybe they didn’t appear to dead people, either.
“Hiya, handsome,” Penny whispered, and leaned over to press a kiss to his forehead. “Welcome to the land of the living.”
“Water,” he whispered. His throat hurt so damn bad. Maybe if he could just cool it down some, then he could think. He could figure out why he was dead and alive at the same time.
She held a little cup up and angled the straw into his mouth. He greedily sucked down the liquid and then laid his head back on the pillow with a happy sigh. He felt so much better.
He still didn’t know why he was dead and alive at the same time, though.
“Are we in heaven?” he asked, his voice cracking and rough. For some reason, this made Angel Penny laugh.
“No, we’re in a hospital in Boise. But I can see how you’d get the two confused,” she said teasingly.
If he could open his eyes up again, he’d totally glare at her for that one.
“Do you remember what happened?” asked heavenly-earthly Penny.
He searched back through his memory, but there were just a jumble of words and flashes of movement and he didn’t know what any of it meant.
“No,” he whispered.
“You saved my mom’s life, that’s what happened. If I wasn’t so thankful, I’d beat you over the head with this pillow. Any sane person would’ve escaped long before you did. Jaxson told me you wouldn’t leave, and your damn stubbornness is what saved my mom’s life.”
He creaked one eyelid open to peer up at her. “You don’t sound grateful,” he rasped out.
“That’s because I haven’t decided yet if I want to strangle you for putting me through the last week.”
“Week?” It hadn’t been that long since the fire that he only vaguely remembered. Why, that was just…earlier today? Last night? None of that seemed right, actually.
“Yeah, week. You’ve been drifting in and out for about that long. The doctors even medicated you pretty heavily at one point because they wanted you to sleep so you could heal, and all you were doing was arguing about sticks in the water.”
“Argue?”
“Yeah, argue. You were very adamant that there were sticks in the water, and wouldn’t go back to sleep until I agreed to collect them all for you.”
He was so dazed, he couldn’t decide if she was kidding or not. He decided to leave it alone for the moment. “Sparky?” he whispered. It seemed like she’d been there the night of the fire, but of course that couldn’t be right. She would’ve been at home, safe and sound.
“I don’t know if you remember or not, or even realized it was happening, but when you got to the front porch with my mom in your arms, you collapsed there, and Sparky darted forward and began trying to drag you to safety. I can’t believe she was willing to go that close to flames again, but she was – for you. I missed it at the time, but they told me later that the embers fell on her at one point and Moose’d had to smother the flames, which she did not appreciate, but she still wouldn’t move. She was so worried about you.”
“Mom?” he whispered. It seemed like she’d been there at the hospital, or maybe that was just part of the delusions, too.
“I finally met them – your parents, I mean. Your mom and dad have been here all week, and so have your aunt and uncle. Bryce has popped in and out, based on time he could get off from the mill. All of the Millers have come by, Jaxson and Sugar and the boys, Levi and Moose and Dylan, Luke and his wife Bonnie…I kept telling them that you weren’t awake to appreciate their coming, but of course, you can’t keep the people you love away in a time like this.”
People I love…
It was true that he did love all of those people. He was sure lucky in the friends and family department. But more than anyone else…
“Did you come home from Seattle after the fire?” His throat felt like it’d been set on fire again after such
a long question and even without him asking, Penny brought the straw of liquid life back up to his lips. He gulped it down greedily and then sank back against the pillows.
“No,” she finally whispered, and then was quiet for so long, he forced his eyelids to open so he could look up at her. Her normally perfectly styled hair was a rat’s nest, her signature red lipstick was gone, but in his eyes, he’d never seen anyone as beautiful as she was in that moment.
“I was already driving back to Idaho when the fire broke out. I had no idea any of this would happen when I left Seattle. I was coming back home because…”
She drew in a deep breath and then slowly released it.
“Troy,” she whispered, “I love you. I love Long Valley. I love living here. I think I even like Wranglers. At least, Wranglers on you. They make your ass look amazing. But that’s not the point.” She waved her hand in the air dismissively.
“It’s not?” he croaked. Honestly, he could handle hearing a little more about how she thought his ass looked amazing, in or out of Wranglers, but she kept going.
“No, it’s not. I was an idiot.”
This just kept getting better and better. He decided on the spot that he was a-okay with her veering off the topic of his ass, if this was what she was gonna talk about.
She ran her fingers through his hair. “For so long, I clung to this idea that I needed to leave this valley to really be me. Nothing else mattered. I had to escape as soon as possible. When I met the Millers and your aunt and uncle and the guys at the fire department and I started to fall in love with Long Valley for the first time in my life, it scared the shit out of me.”
He snorted with laughter at that, which set off a coughing fit. After another gallon of water or so, he snuggled back against the bed, except somehow, she was now behind him and his pillow ended up being her chest and side instead.
It was almost worth feeling like his whole body had been set on fire.
“I didn’t want to admit that, even to myself, and so I fought it tooth and nail. I wanted you to break up with me. I was safer that way. It was less scary. I kept trying to push you away, but you didn’t budge. And then, the dinner at the mill.” She shrugged, which did delicious things to the parts of her body that were pressed against him, and despite enjoying every moment of that, he was even more sad that he was too broken to do anything but appreciate it. Maybe being set on fire wasn’t worth it after all.
“I hated Seattle. Dreary rain All. The. Time. It’s just this wall of green, everywhere you look. I felt claustrophobic. The buildings were close, the trees were close, the bushes were close, the clouds were close – it rained for 33 days straight. And what did I get for 33 days of misery? Not even any white fluffy stuff covering the ground. It was just wet – everything was wet.”
“So you decided to come back to me,” he said hoarsely, pushing the words out past his raw throat, “because it rained too much in Seattle? What if you’d moved to LA or San Diego?”
He peeled his eyes open again and shifted to lay against the pillows propped up at the head of the hospital bed so he could glare at her. If her whole mea culpa was gonna simply be, “I don’t like the rain, so let’s date!” he wanted none of it. She’d eventually figure out that there were warm and dry cities other than Seattle that she could move to, and would destroy his heart again.
And he just wouldn’t be able to live through a second round.
She bit her bottom lip. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I’ve had a whole week to practice this speech. You’d think I could do it better than this.”
She took another deep breath. “I love you with all my heart and soul. Seattle being the wrong climate for me just helped me realize that a little faster, is all. But loving you has always meant loving Long Valley too, and that wasn’t something I was ever going to allow myself to do. I’ve spent my whole life trying to escape this hellhole. But now I know the truth – I can stay in Long Valley and still be me. I don’t have to give up high heels and sparkles on my tennis shoes and lipstick in order to live here. I don’t have to give up who I am, or what I care about. It just took me a while to figure that out.”
Content with her answer, he let his eyelids slide shut again. “I love you too,” he whispered, “and someday, I’m gonna feel well enough to show you just how much.”
“I already know, babe, I already know.” She kissed him on the forehead. “Now sleep. You’ve got a lot of fans who will want to talk to you now that you’ve woken up.”
He wanted to laugh at that – fans. It made him sound like some sort of superstar, instead of just an Idaho farm boy who happened to fight fires when his community needed him.
But he was too tired to laugh and so instead, he closed his eyes and began to drift again.
Epilogue
October, 2019
It was one of those rare fall days where the weather was simply postcard perfect, with the golds and reds of autumn leaves swirling to the ground with each light whisper of wind, and fat, fluffy white clouds stretching across the brilliant blue sky. It put Penny in the mood to design a logo for a forestry company, or maybe a home décor store.
But, no design work for her today. Today was Grand Opening Day. She felt a thrill of excitement run down her spine. After all this time, it was a little insane to think that it was finally happening.
It had been a risky move to hold the grand opening for the Long Valley Business Co-op during harvest – prying farmers away from their tractors long enough to come on down for the celebration was a big concern. But Penny had pointed out to Troy that their primary demographic was the wives anyway; the husbands were just bonus. As she peered out from behind the drapes, hiding her from the crowds milling about, she noted with satisfaction that she was right. More than a few farmers were out there, but it was mostly farm wives and tourists.
Perfect.
After the grand opening was over with, she was planning on sleeping for a week. Maybe even two, but only if she could convince Troy to sleep with her. She grinned to herself, her hand caressing her perfectly flat stomach. Although there hadn’t been nearly enough time lately for them to simply cuddle together in bed, they had managed a few fun times, and now, she couldn’t wait to give Troy the news, hopefully that night. He was gonna be the best—
“Hey Penny, the mayor says he’s ready,” Kylie Whitaker called out, popping her head around the corner of the curtain, her adorable one-year-old baby girl propped on her hip. “We’re just waiting on you two.” Even with a baby underfoot, running the veterinarian clinic, and getting married, the ever-efficient and cheerful wife to Adam Whitaker had been a big part in getting the co-op off the ground. Penny was sure her goat soaps and lotions were going to fly off the shelves now that she had a good place to sell them.
“Thanks. I’ll go find Troy,” Penny said with a wave, and began the search for him. In the last week, he’d been bitten by the one-more-thing bug, and at this point, Penny was a little worried there was no cure for it. He was going to one-more-thing himself right into an early grave.
“Hey, babe!” she called, opening and closing doors as she went. Not in the utility closet. Not in the storage closet. Not in the– “There you are!” she said when she opened up the door to his workshop. The comforting smell of leather embraced her and she paused to take a long, deep breath of it. Leather and pine trees – old Penny would’ve died laughing at the suggestion that those would become her two favorite smells in the world, but new Penny…
They were the smell of Troy, and thus the smell of love.
“Oh, hey,” he said distractedly, sorting through his pile of leather scraps as Sparky stood and stretched, padding over for some loving. “Where did I put that…” he mumbled to himself.
“Babe, the mayor is waiting for us,” she said, sliding her arms around his waist and popping a kiss on his mouth while also scratching Sparky behind the ears. “Along with the rest of the town.”
“Dammit, is it really that late?” He looked up at the c
lock on the wall and let out a few choice swear words. “Where in the hell did the morning go?” he asked rhetorically. “I was gonna get one last-st thing done…”
“It’ll all be here when this is over with,” she promised him, threading her fingers through his and tugging him towards the door. She absentmindedly stroked her thumb over the scarred and rippled skin on the back of his hand – the worst of the damage still remaining from the fire. His left hand would never be the same again, which as a left-handed artist, had been a huge blow to him. Over the past ten months, though, he’d done countless hours of physical therapy and had been able to regain most of his mobility, along with strengthening his right hand to compensate.
She thanked the heavens again that it wasn’t worse than this, at least for Troy. The doctors had said his relative youth and health had been his saving grace – the reason why he was able to recover as fully as he did. Still, every time his radio went off, it was hard for her to quell the pure panic that roared through her veins. What if he wasn’t so lucky the next time? What if he went back for a dog or kitten or child, and died? What if—
Just thinking about it was making her heart try to pound its way out of her chest. Him continuing to serve as a volunteer firefighter was one of the few rip-roaring fights they’d gotten into since she’d come back from Seattle. She’d finally caved, realizing that it was a part of who he was – how he gave back to the community.
Firefighting and this business co-op, that was.
“How’s my hair?” he asked gruffly, just before they stepped out onto the temporary dais together. She quickly ran her fingers through it and then pressed a hard, quick kiss to his lips.
“I love you,” she murmured, “and I’m so damn proud of you.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.” He shot her a nervous grin. “Let’s do this, eh?”
Hand in hand, they stepped out from behind the curtain and up onto the platform, waving to the crowd as the mayor moved onto the platform from the other side.