Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
HAILEY
I wake in the crook of Reed’s arm.
When did I fall asleep?
He brushes his lips against my temple, and for one moment I forget that I’m spiking out with my father and his eighteen-man crew who are all going to witness me leaving this sleeping arrangement.
Nothing happened, but they don’t know that.
“Good morning,” Reed says, curling my soft body into his hard one even more than it already is.
“This is becoming a habit, me falling asleep on you,” I say, unzipping our shared sleeping bag.
He grips my hip and I yelp as he pulls me toward his chest. “I can’t say it’s one I’d like you to break anytime soon.”
I scroll his face in the morning light.
My gosh, this man is beautiful. Even with a shirt on.
I touch the hollow in his cheek, letting the tip of my pointer finger sink into…
The tent walls quake.
What was that ?
They billow once like a parachute and then shudder, faster and faster.
The fire.
We wrestle and stumble out of fabric. This sleeping bag was not made for two. Reed tugs at the opening first, his broad frame shielding my body as he yanks at the zipper.
A rush of air tornados through the hole. Dirt, pine needles, leaves, all fly inside our shelter. I can’t see anything. I have no clue what’s making that chopping sound.
And then as quick as it blows in, the dust storm calms. It hangs in the air for a minute before I catch the whirl of the black copter blade soaring into the sky over us. Two paper sacks are thrown near our faces.
“Lucky bastard. If I had Madison here…” Dean murmurs, except I miss the rest of his sentence as I blow out a breath.
It’s just breakfast delivery .
“I really need to tell him about her,” I whisper, more to myself than to Reed, and another shaky breath gusts from my lungs.
“Let me do it,” he offers, brushing his hand down my cheek.
I wish I could trap all of my problems outside this canvas bubble. Stay in here forever with him.
“I can’t let you do that,” I say. “He’s finally starting to let you in. It needs to come from me.”
He frowns when I pull away from his touch, running a hand down my braid where it’s plastered to the back of my neck.
I miss showers .
I slink out and snatch up my breakfast sandwich, hoping the helicopter chaos is my answer to escaping unseen. I work the wrists of my bunched shirtsleeve down my forearms as I stand and squint into the daylight.
No such luck.
The entire crew stares back at me .
I don’t know if we ever were one, but I guess Reed and I are not a secret anymore.
I might as well be picking dandelions.
If I thought my hand tool was heavy yesterday, how it feels today is laughable. Sweat trickles from my hairline toward my eyes and I wipe it with the back of my glove, smearing another layer of soot across my already caked forehead.
I need a break.
Grabbing a bottle of water from my borrowed line pack, I drain a full liter down my throat. Thank you, Air Tactical 6; it’s still cold.
My stomach growls. How long has it been since I ate?
Slipping the pack to the ground, I rummage through the front pocket. My hand closes on a crinkly corner, but much to my disappointment, the item packaged in aluminum foil and plastic is an MRE meal.
Nope. Won’t be needing that.
I stuff it back in. I think it’s Marshall’s? He could use the extra calories.
With a second sweep of the front pocket, I pluck out a bag of trail mix. I can’t tear the top off fast enough when laughter steals my attention. Even though it’s the fifth time I’ve heard it since last night, I don’t recognize who it belongs to until I see my father’s head tipped back at something Murphy said.
Will there ever come a day when it doesn’t sound foreign to me?
He catches me staring and approaches my resting spot.
I pop a red M&M in my mouth .
“You like it here,” I state. A truth that seems to set him free when he gazes with adoration at his surroundings.
“What’s not to love?”
I chew two orange M&Ms, the chocolate melting on my tongue.
Had you asked me before now… the sight of charred ground, burnt trees, and smokey skies would not be something I’d have categorized with the word love. But now that I’ve been out here, seen it for myself, I know that’s not what he’s talking about. Or rather, who .
The guys sawyering and cutting and protecting this land are his family. And in the past, that realization would have broken me. But as I’ve gotten to know them personally, it’s a bond I admire. Even now, I watch Ramirez with his frosted tips humming, and Murphy with his burly beard and larger-than-life smile shaking his head at him. They’re two very different men working together as one. Even Dean and Reed seem to be in sync. Something I didn’t want to mess up by letting Reed take the fall for Madison.
“He was right. You do eat M&Ms in the order of a rainbow,” my dad comments, taking a seat beside me.
I add three yellows to my mouth.
“Who was right?” I turn my body so I can face him, even if he has a hard time looking at anything other than pine needles and his own two feet when he’s around me.
“Reed.”
My cheeks pinken. Here we go. I brace myself for the lecture to stay away from him.
“I’m sorry for barging in the other night,” he says instead, taking me by surprise.
“I’m always glad when I see you home,” I admit.
He finally looks at me. Really looks at me. Lets me see his pain.
“I’ve been running for so long I’ve forgotten how to stay,” he says.
Something compels me to reach into my pocket and pull out that picture Reed gave me. I slip it in his palm.
“He was right about you too, you know. Looks like you were staying closer than you think.”
He holds out the photograph of me and my mother and regards it with a sad smile. “How did you get this?”
He doesn’t need to know Reed found it. “It fell from your pocket on the line,” I say.
A puff of air expels from his nose. “It was snowing the day you were born. Did I ever tell you that?”
A look of sympathy must pass across my face.
“Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t have.” He drops his chin at first but then lifts his eyes to ask, “Can I tell you now?”
“Please.”
“It was snowing,” he repeats. “Big fluffy flakes that stuck to your eyelashes when you stood beneath them. It was a mile-long walk to the car with the way your mother was waddling. By the time I got her tucked in the front seat, she was laughing uncontrollably at the frost that had fused to my eyebrows and beard. Said I looked like Scrooge.”
I picture it and giggle.
“Probably not my finest look.” He returns my smile. “She labored for twenty-seven hours. It was like you didn’t want to leave her.”
My eyes mist over.
“But she was determined to bring you into the world in your own timing. We paced that hallway until you were ready.”
A hot tear rolls down my face as I savor the thought that she wanted to keep me close just as much. It’s the first piece of my mom I get to hang on to.
“At five in the morning, you came quietly into the world, wide-eyed and curious. She held you, staring into your eyes. We stayed that way for a long time.”
His bottom lip quivers, and I don’t know whether to give him space or reach for his hand.
I decide on the latter.
“But then she started feeling dizzy and asked me to hold you. Somehow I hadn’t noticed that the doctor and nurses had left the room. We were all alone in there, and I had no one to call on for help. At that point, I’d worked for years in crisis situations, but as I watched blood gush from the end of the bed, I froze.”
I squeeze his hand as tears break free from his lash line, repelling down his cheeks in long streaks.
“Our doctor thought everything was fine. She’d stitched up her tear and went home for the night. It happened so fast, the hemorrhaging.”
I can see the guilt he’s been carrying around all these years, and I don’t know how to fix it besides telling him, “It wasn’t your fault.”
He swipes at his eyes and lifts his head, pain radiating from every pinched groove and downturned line on his face.
“It’s always been my fault, Hayes. When your mom died, a part of me died with her. The only thing she left behind were those eyes, and I couldn’t bear to look at you. I wasn’t cut out to be a single parent.”
I see them now… all the ways he’s been scared.
I shrug. “I think I turned out okay.”
“I don’t know how to make it better between us,” he says.
I’ve been in this place for a long time. The one where he’s at the wheel but I’m giving the directions. I think it just comes naturally to me now to be the one with the plan.
“We take it one day at a time,” I tell him. “We start over. ”
I don’t need a caregiver or financial support anymore. What I need is a family.
“We all make mistakes,” I continue. “I just want us to be there for one another through them.”
“I don’t deserve you,” he says, squeezing my hand back.
I wrap my arms around his neck, and he circles my middle. The small, broken girl inside of me screams for joy.
“You deserve all the best things this life has to offer, Dad.”