Chapter 4
CARLISLE
In the back of the van, Callum and I are silent.
There’s nothing to be said. I know that we’re entirely on the same page, our heads stuffed with the same shock, but it’s the last thing we can think about right now as the van speeds toward the crest of the hill that will lead us to the heart of the fire.
But the fire is the last thing on my mind, even as the smell of smoke fills the air. My hand closes on the respirator sitting on my lap, trying to focus on the task at hand, on what we came here to do.
But all I can think about is those four children. And her—Angelie, after all these years, just as beautiful as she was that night. Except now she has four children, a set of quads who look as though they could be around the right age to be…
Ours.
“Carlisle,” Callum mutters, nudging me with his foot.
I realize that the van has come to a halt, and we’re back at her house again, on the edge of the forest where the fire is threatening to edge toward the town.
With everyone gone, we can finally focus on getting this shit under control, even if it feels like little comfort knowing what might wait for us on the other side.
“I’m good,” I retort, and I rise to my feet, tossing open the back of the van to hook up the water tanks on the roof to our makeshift hoses.
The rest of the equipment we need will be here in the next couple of hours, but we can’t leave the fire to rage for that long, not without putting every building in Devin Ridge at risk.
“You ready?” Joe barks to me as he pulls on his helmet and jacket, his eyes fixed in that way they get when he knows we have something to deal with. Dylan is already unraveling the hoses, and Callum scrambles to the top of a small ridge to get a better look at what we’re going to be dealing with.
“Ready,” I reply, hefting one of the hoses over my shoulder and looking to Callum. “Where do we start?”
“Lot of dry wood to the east,” he replies, hopping down to lift the portable water tank and move in step behind me. “If we can cut it off there, we might be able to keep it from reaching the town.”
“Let’s go,” Joe calls out, gesturing for us to move forward, and the four of us move with a practiced ease toward the fire.
It doesn’t get easier, this part of the job.
Doesn’t matter how many times you do it, there’s always a part of you that wants to turn the fuck around and run for your life when faced with a blazing inferno like this.
It goes against every one of your instincts as a person to move closer to the flame, to feel the searing heat on your skin.
As we descend a hill toward the line of fire that inches toward the town, I can already feel sweat beading on my brow, dripping down into my eyes, and I swipe it away, keeping a grip on the hose as I go.
With just four of us, we need to be careful about where we put our resources, but if we can at least drive the fire back, we might be able to buy ourselves some more time.
“There’s a marsh further down the hill,” Callum calls out to us. “If we can push the line of fire behind that, it’ll at least burn out for a while. Too damp to make for good kindling.”
“Good thinking,” Joe replies, as he stations the water tank on the far side of the ridge that leads down to the marsh.
We’re in the midst of it now, fire licking up on either side of us.
Our hefty suits are designed to keep us safe, but the snarling bite of the flames through the trees sends my heart into a thumping stress reaction in my chest.
“Take the right,” I call to them. “We’ll take the left. Come on, Dylan…”
Dylan positions the water tank as I aim the hose, dousing the flames closest to us in a jet of water—the hose flexes and tries to break free from my grip with the sheer force of the pump, but I grip tight to the metal handle on the top, steering it steadily to take out the fire.
I’m distantly aware of the sound of Callum and Joe working on the other side of the forest, but I don’t break my gaze for an instant to look around and check on them.
That’s the thing about working with these men.
I know I can trust them with my damn life—and I have, more times than I can count.
Handling fires like this all over the state, we’re a first line of defense, a force that can be quickly deployed to these smaller rural settings when the larger groups need more time to mobilize.
Soon, as I turn the hose on the last rush of the fire along the bank of the marsh, the flames are doused.
I can see flashes of orange and red through the trees, but they’ll have to wait till we can restock our water tanks.
At least they’re back behind the marsh for now.
Callum’s right, it’s not like they can move across the swampy ground—nothing to burn there.
I look around to see Joe and Callum running low on water just as the flames fade out to nothing. I pull off my helmet and drag my hand along my forehead, the bitter taste of ash clinging to my tongue.
“We need to get back to the safe house,” I call out to them as we regroup in the center once more. “See where else we’re seeing threats from, call in some help—”
“And check on Angelie.”
Dylan is the one who says her name out loud first, but I can tell from the reactions around us that each and every one of us has been thinking about her.
I coil the hose as best I can while we start up the hill once more, grabbing the other end of the water tank and helping Callum lift it over the rocks.
Nobody says a word for a moment. Nobody knows what the hell we’re meant to say, I can tell that much.
When we got the call to come to Devin Ridge, I knew that not a single one of us thought that we would see her here.
The last time we all lived in this place, she was away studying at college, pursuing the career that she wanted so badly.
I had assumed, perhaps wrongly, that she would stick it out somewhere far from here, somewhere she never had to think about us again.
That night at the bonfire was just a last hurrah for her.
Even if it was part of what bonded the four of us together for life.
We had shared so much already, me and the guys, just by virtue of growing up in the same place.
But sharing that, something so damn intimate, it brushed aside whatever might have stood between us, whatever bullshit macho crap might have kept us from being honest with each other in our entirety.
We went from friends to something more—to the point that, when I decided to sign up for service, the three of them did the same, almost as a matter of course.
Where one of us went, all of us went. That was the agreement.
We had each other’s backs and we always would, one of the many reasons we made such a good team…
But now, as we stack our equipment back in the van, there’s something hanging over us—something that I know we need to contend with, even if it’s the very last thing any of us want to say out loud.
If we’re heading back to that safe house, then we’re going to be there with Angelie and the kids, and we’re going to have to figure out just when to ask the question that’s on the tip of all of our tongues.
“So,” Dylan finally demands, his voice blunt, “anyone else notice how old those kids were?”
Silence hangs over us for a second. Nobody wants to be the one to say it, because it will change everything, for all of us, if one of us is the father of those children.
I can hardly bring myself to string the pieces together, but what choice do we have?
They’re the right age to have been conceived on that night at the bonfire, and trying to pretend otherwise…
“Doesn’t mean they’re ours,” Joe shoots back as he secures the water tank to the van. “She went to college right after that. Could have gotten herself knocked up there, came back to be with her parents and sister so they could help her—”
“You saw the way she looked at us,” Dylan retorts. “Like she’d seen a damn ghost. Four of them, to be exact. She hasn’t been with anyone else since that night, I’m sure of it—”
“No, she hadn’t been with anyone before that night,” Callum replies, shaking his head. “Doesn’t mean that she wasn’t with anyone else after it—”
“You can’t seriously be telling me that you believe for a second that those children aren’t ours?” Dylan exclaims, loud enough that his voice echoes out around the forest that surrounds us. “Jesus Christ—Carlisle, do you believe me, at least?”
I grit my teeth. I have to acknowledge the possibility, but that doesn’t mean that I entirely trust the idea that those kids could be mine. Or ours, or however it is she wants to see it.
But we’ve been gone for a long time, a long enough time that she would have had the chance to reach out to any of us if she had wanted to let us know, to give us a chance to be a part of their lives, and she didn’t.
Which leaves me with the conclusion that she doesn’t want us to have anything to do with those kids, even if they do belong to us, which we have no proof that they do.
“We can’t get distracted with that,” I reply, doing my best to keep my voice neutral. “We’re here to keep the fire under control—”
“So I just have to ignore the fact that the woman we all had sex with has four kids who line up with that night?” Dylan replies, tossing his arms in the air with incredulity. “Yeah, sorry, but I’m not doing that. We have to address it eventually. Better to get it out of the way now, when we can—”
“She might be losing her home,” Joe points out. “The last thing she wants to deal with is any of us throwing accusations at her.”
“Not accusations if they’re the truth—”
“No matter what they are,” Joe cuts him off. “We’re here to do a job, not go digging up the past.”
“It’s not digging it up if it’s right there in front of us—”
“Guys, we need to get back to the safe house and replenish our equipment,” Callum reminds us, swinging himself into the back of the van.
“And we need to figure out how to get Angelie and her kids somewhere to stay—she can’t just go to one of the motels that the rest of them are staying at, not with four kids, so we’ll have to—”
“Fine,” Dylan mutters, clearly sensing that he’s not going to get through to us right now.
I almost want to pull him aside and tell him that my mind is at the exact same place his is, determined to get to the bottom of this one way or another, but it doesn’t work like that.
We have to focus on the task at hand, not get dragged into a history that all of us thought we’d left behind.
The ride back toward the safe house is in virtual silence, all of us alone with our thoughts as we try to make sense of it.
It still feels impossible, on some level, though I know it’s anything but.
The four of us were with her that night, and it’s not like any of us were smart enough to think about using protection.
It almost felt like we were in another world, a world where there were no consequences to our actions—a world where we got to have her to ourselves for just one night before she took off to her new life, giving her the send-off she deserved.
But now, those consequences seem to have come in fours, and I don’t know where that leaves me—or any of us, quite frankly.
I brace myself as I climb out of the van, striding toward the door before Dylan can get ahead of me. He’s a hothead at the best of times, and this is far from the best. I don’t want him busting in there and throwing accusations and demands around before we get a chance to check on her.
But as soon as I’m through the door, I see Angelie crouched by the couch where the four children are watching her—a couple of them are fussing, but it seems to be more out of concern for her than anything else.
And I can’t blame them, because she’s curled up on the floor, her shoulders heaving, her skin stained with tears, her knees drawn to her chest like she wants nothing more than to vanish into herself.
And all the questions and doubt in my mind vanish in a split second when I see her like that. I drop to her side, my arm around her shoulders.
“Angelie, talk to me,” I murmur to her, as the others stream in behind me. Callum heads to the couch, checking on the children, and I rub my hand over the back of her neck, trying to bring her back to the moment.
“I—I—I don’t know…” She breaks down into tears once more, her chest rising and falling as she attempts to gulp down air.
“I think she’s in shock,” I mutter, looking up at Joe, who’s the one with the most medical training out of our group. “Joe, can you check her over?”
Joe nods, dropping in by her side as I stand up. As I cast my gaze over the toddlers in front of me, I get the feeling that the forest fire is going to be the least of our worries in the coming days.
Because whatever is going on here? Yeah, that’s far harder to wrap my head around.