Chapter 12 #2
They’d always looked so happy to him, so absolutely in charge of their own world. So much so it had always seemed impossible for him to even attempt to replicate it.
So he hadn’t. He hadn’t even tried. If asked, he would have said he hadn’t found his calling, but he was working on it—on the couch with his eyes closed.
But that had been before Griffin’s life began to unravel, and for once, his brother hadn’t been able to pull things back together.
For Brody, turning his back on Griffin’s troubles would have been expected. Easy.
And wrong.
Apparently he did indeed have a conscience. Damn it.
“Son, tell us.” His father stroked his mother’s hand, the one that held his so tight his skin had gone white.
“Is he okay? Where is he?” Tears swam in his mother’s eyes. “When can I see him?”
He had to do this right—he, the son who’d majored in kidding around, the class clown, the guy who’d never successfully created a single relationship worth having except for the one he had with Griffin. “He’s okay.”
She stood. “Take me to him.”
He grimaced. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I promised I wouldn’t.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his throat thick at the look on her face. “But I’m in touch with him.”
“And he’s okay.”
“Yes.” God, he hoped. He was flying back to San Diego in a few hours, he wanted to be there when Griffin got back late tonight or the next morning. Not that Griffin would want him there.
“What can you tell us? What has he been doing? Why has he stayed away so long… Please, Brody,” she whispered. “Please tell me more.”
He looked at them, his parents who’d aged in the past year more than in any other time in their lives.
“I don’t really know what he’s been doing all this time,” he said.
“Just existing, I suppose. But I managed to talk him into—” He let out a mirthless laugh.
“I bullied him, actually, into volunteering for Hope International. It’s a charity organization that sends out volunteers to assist in whatever their specialty is. ”
His mother gasped again, her hand to her chest. “And he went on a fire?”
“He did, he went out on a wildfire in Mexico. I want to be there when he gets back.”
“Oh, my God.” His mother got up, drew him up also, and hugged him tight. “Oh, Brody. You’re such a wonderful brother.”
Brody let her squeeze him while he squeezed his eyes tight. He wasn’t a wonderful brother, he’d never been a wonderful brother. That had been Griffin.
But letting her think so felt…really good. “I’ll talk to him, try to get him to call you.”
“I love you, Brody.”
He knew that. He did. But for the first time he wanted to live up to that love.
Much later, before he left his parents’ house for the airport, still basking in that nice, warm, “wonderful brother” glow, he called his cell phone.
He got the voice message, which had been changed.
“Brody,” Griffin’s voice said. “Don’t even think about leaving me a message and asking how I’m doing, because I’m going to tell you.
Remember that time when you climbed that tree out front of Aunt Gail’s house?
You slipped and fell, but a branch caught you on the way down, leaving you hanging there, upside down, bleeding and screaming for an hour before anyone rescued you.
Remember that, Brody? Remember that feeling?
That’s how I’m doing. I’m hanging in. Literally. Now go away. Go far, far away.”
“I’m sorry,” Brody said regretfully. “No can do.”
Griffin leaned on his shovel and swiped sweat off his forehead with his arm.
Three times this morning alone the increasing winds had forced him to call the crew back and redirect.
The only saving grace had been the river and the rock.
All they had to do was use them effectively and pray the weather cooperated.
If that happened, they just might get this thing contained.
The tractors were barely able to handle the mountainside, but they put them to work anyway, dragging thick, heavy railroad ties behind each machine, which effectively cleared the dead pine needles and small branches and made a damn good firebreak.
He had been scraping dead and extremely flammable growth for hours now, and his stomach was still bouncing around. At the moment they had the fire at their backs and were working on setting the flames back on themselves, hoping to trap the hot monster.
A hot, hard gust of wind hit him, and then another, which made his heart sink. The weather report Tom had brought had been for a steady barometer and low winds.
And yet that’s not what it felt like. If they weren’t careful, the fire was going to jump this latest firebreak as well, and head south, right into town, never mind what the northward climb up the mountain would do.
Griffin lifted his head from his work, immediately searching out and finding Lyndie, only about ten yards away, digging hard.
She still wore the bandanna around her mouth. It was filthy. She was filthy, sticky, damp with perspiration, and looked every bit as exhausted as he felt, and yet her arms never slowed as she worked as hard as any man out there. He thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
And then suddenly, vibrantly, the wind shifted and the fire reacted accordingly; jumping, writhing, and just like that, he was hit.
Not by the heat, which was intense.
Not by the flames themselves, which were hot enough to make him feel sunburned.
No, what doubled him over was a sudden, menacing, unstoppable panic.