Chapter Twelve
Jesse holds my arm as we hurry away from the burning house. My eyes sting from the smoke. The smell of burnt wood is in my hair and my nose. I taste it. “What’s happening to Brady?” I ask as an ambulance flies down the driveway.
“We’re waiting to hear,” Jesse says. “Crusher knows what he’s doing.”
Brady’s nickname is Crusher? There’s so much I don’t know about Brady. What have I been doing?
I need to spend my time more wisely. I should be learning everything about the most amazing, heroic man I’ve ever met. If he’s okay, that’s what I’ll do.
He loves me.
Jesse pulls a blanket from the side of the firetruck and places it over my shoulders. “I’m going to leave you with the the paramedics.”
I nod. “Please bring Brady back safely.”
“You know I will.” He turns to the woman jogging toward the firetruck. “She did a hang and drop,” he says, nodding at me. “Needs to be checked for smoke inhalation.” He holds his hand to the side of his helmet. “We’ve got a man down. Possible broken leg,” he says to the paramedic. “Hang tight.”
“Understood,” the paramedic says.
“Is it Brady?” I ask.
Jesse doesn’t respond, only turns on his heel and runs back to the house.
It’s Brady. It has to be.
I shake uncontrollably under the heavy blanket. One minute, I was pulling Lara’s winter jacket from the closet in her room. The next minute, I smelled smoke. My phone was downstairs. I ran into Lara’s bathroom, soaked the towels, then shoved them against the bedroom door.
I was calculating the distance between the window and the ground when the firetruck came. I don’t know who called the fire department, but I’d be dead if that person hadn’t.
“We need you to come over to the ambulance so we can get a better look at you,” the paramedic says.
“But I need to see what’s happening.”
Ear-shattering popping erupts from the house. Flames lick the second-story windows.
The paramedic takes my arm. I jerk it back. “I need to see what’s going on.”
She nods. “Understandably, you’re upset, but it’s not safe this close to the fire. We need to check you out and make sure you’re in good shape.”
“I didn’t mean to, I swear.” A shrill voice cuts through the smoky air. “I didn’t think anyone was inside the house. Lara is in California. I didn’t know Sammy was inside. I had no idea.”
Daphne is being dragged toward us by one of the fireman. She’s the arsonist. She burned down the B&B and set fire to my car. She tried to kill me in my home.
“Sammy,” she shouts. Her chunky ivory sweater is dirt-streaked and covered in pieces of dry leaves. Strands from her ponytail swing around her face. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anyone. Not you. Not Brady. Especially Brady. I love Brady. He’s the best T-ball coach ever.”
There’s something wild in Daphne’s eyes.
She's got the look of someone who's lost touch with reality. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not capable of committing a crime. I only want Sammy to leave Whispering Pines forever.” She waves a finger at me while she addresses the fireman. “She keeps seducing my husband.”
“You think I’m seducing Jake?”
“Ma’am, we need to get you to the ambulance to check you out,” the paramedic says from beside me.
“Of course you are,” Daphne shrieks. “The way you talk. The way you look. It drives him crazy. When you’re anywhere near Jake, he forgets about his family. How can you do this to us? He loves you more than he loves us.”
Jesse and another fireman trudge across the lawn. They’ve got Brady on a portable stretcher. He’s wearing an oxygen mask. His eyes are closed, and his body is limp. Panic seizes me. I rush toward the stretcher. “Jesse, what’s going on?”
“He needs to get to the hospital.” Several paramedics descend on the portable stretcher and help carry it toward the ambulance.
“Oh my god. I can’t believe I killed Brady,” Daphne wails, racing toward the stretcher. A paramedic intercepts her with an outstretched arm that sends Daphne reeling backwards.
I follow behind the stretcher, fixed on Brady’s unmoving body and pale face. What’s happening? He’s always movement and brightness. “Please,” I say to the firemen and paramedics loading Brady into the ambulance, “tell him I’ll be waiting for him at the hospital. Tell him I love him.”
A police car pulls into the driveway as the ambulance pulls out. “No,” Daphne screams and takes off toward the burning house.
The police officers sprint across the lawn and tackle her to the ground.
I turn to the paramedic still standing beside me. “I need to get to the hospital.”
She nods. “We’ll get you there.”
I knock lightly and open the door to Brady's room at De Clair General Hospital. I’m used to this drill. It’s day three of his stay at the hospital where they helicoptered him so he could undergo emergency surgery.
An older woman sits beside him on a chair. She smiles as I walk in. The creases around her eyes remind me of Brady.
“You must be Anna,” I say. My gaze shifts to Brady sitting on the bed, grinning at me.
He’s got on the Fire Academy T-shirt I brought him.
His leg is covered in a cast that extends up to his hip.
His coloring and alertness are a thousand times better than yesterday.
They must’ve shifted him to the lighter pain meds.
“I take it you’re Sammy.” She brings me into a big hug. Damn, his family knows how to hug. “Thank you for taking care of the most demanding patient in De Clair.” Her eyes light up with the joke.
“It’s been my pleasure, and he barely has any demands. My father with a head cold is a thousand times worse.”
Anna laughs. “Brady’s father, too.”
I pull the keys to Brady’s house out of my pocket and hand them to Anna. “You should probably take these.”
I’ve been going back and forth between De Clair and Whispering Pines getting things for Brady and checking in on Lara at my parents’ place.
The night of the fire, I followed Brady to De Clair. Once he was safely out of surgery, I checked into a hotel near the hospital and had a mini breakdown. I suppose I’d needed private space to release an emotional pressure valve in wild, hysterical sobs.
I was angry about the destruction a very sick and twisted Daphne caused and angry at Mark for being selfish and deceitful.
I was upset about Gabriella being a horrible friend.
I was mad at myself for being willing to walk away from this "friendship" with Brady because I was scared and focusing on the negative parts of life in Whispering Pines.
The next day, I woke up refreshed despite only getting four hours of sleep and went to De Clair Airport to meet Mark and Lara. He thanked me for being there, gave Lara a big hug and kiss, and got on the next plane back to Los Angeles.
There was no plug for me to return to Los Angeles. No guilt trip about Lara’s safety and her needing both parents. Only a friendly goodbye.
I hope he’ll be a decent father to Lara. That's all I need from him.
Anna shakes her head. “Keep the keys. I’m staying in one of the rentals. The whole family will be here at some point this week. We don’t want to disrupt Brady’s peace.”
I look over at Brady. His mom telling me to keep the keys tells me what she knows about our relationship. He nods at the table beside his bed. “You can leave them here. Or keep them for when you come to visit.” He meets my gaze with undeniable, raw lust.
That settles it. He’s cured. Now we need to get his leg back in shape because I’m ready for us to get down to other, possibly healing, things.
“I’ll leave you two to catch up,” Anna says and closes the door behind her.
“Get over here,” Brady says.
I get within arm's reach, and he pulls me to him. We kiss slowly and sensually. I'm overflowing with gratitude for having this man in my life. What would have become of me if he hadn’t made it out of the fire? I can’t even think about it.
He eases away. “I meant that about the keys. They’re yours, if you want them. You and Lara can come and go whenever you want. I was even thinking we could set up one of the guest rooms for you two. That way she’ll feel like you have your own space.”
My cheeks stretch into a smile. “I like that idea.” I settle down beside him with my head on his chest. “I heard the McClellans are moving back to Toronto. Their place in Pines Harbor is going up for sale. I’m thinking of talking to them before they put it on the market.”
“Not renting this time? You’re buying?” Brady asks expectantly.
“I’m buying this time." I’m going ahead with the retreat and making peace with my quibbles about Whispering Pines.
The day of the fire, Rina Patel, the bank manager, thought Daphne was acting oddly to the point that she worried for Daphne’s safety.
Being a concerned neighbor, Rina followed her from the bank to my house.
She expected Daphne to knock on my door and watched in horror as Daphne used a liquid to set fire to the house.
Rina called emergency services and got out of there without realizing I was inside. I had walked over from Mom and Dad’s place, so there was no car in the driveway. I’d been in a bedroom at the back of the house. There was no way she could’ve known I was there.
If it wasn’t for Rina, I wouldn’t be here.
Brady takes my hand and presses his lips to my knuckles. “How many boxes did you get today?”
“So far only a bag of soccer balls and basketballs.” I’ve got no idea what I’m going to do with all the donations. Every day people bring us boxes of their spare kitchen items, toiletries, sheets, towels, and girls' clothes. The people of Whispering Pines are taking care of us.
“No baseballs or bats?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t made it through the bag.”
“Let me know what you find. I’ve got six months to recover before T-ball starts.”
T-ball reminds me of Jake and Daphne and the fire. A shadow comes over Brady’s features. I think it reminds him, too. “Has Jake been in contact?” I ask.
“He texts every day, still apologizing. What can I say?” Brady shrugs. “He’s not the one who set the fires. He seems to have been as clueless as anyone about what Daphne was doing.”
I shake my head in disbelief. Jake never gave me any indication he thought of me as more than an old friend. He never texted me or called me. He never flirted with me any of the times I saw him. His obsession with me was all in Daphne’s head.
I brush the hair from Brady’s eyes. “Mom heard Jake and the kids are moving to St. Louis. His father’s family is from there.”
“Good move.” Brady shifts his hips.
“How’s the leg doing today?”
“All better now that you're here.” He strokes my hair. “How’s Lara doing?”
“She wants to come see you. I told her to wait until you get back home.”
He presses his face against the top of my head. “She can come if she wants. I’ve still got a few more days ahead of me.”
“She’d love that.”
“She’s a brave girl. I can’t imagine coming home to find all of my things had been lost in a fire.”
I grimace. The donations from the neighbors have been a good distraction from her thinking about her stuffies and art projects. She holds it together for Mom and Dad while I’m in De Clair with Brady, but when I come back home, she’s ready for a breakdown.
I look down at Brady’s bandaged leg. “She's not the only one who's lost so much in the fire.” He’ll never fight fires again. He might never walk without a limp.
He squeezes me to him. “The only thing that matters is that we've got each other. And we’ve got a digital detox retreat to think about.”
I tilt my head at the “we.”
“If you’ve got the guts to stay in Whispering Pines after all you’ve been through, then I can take risks instead of sitting back and waiting for what I want to fall into my lap.” He looks at me expectantly. “I want to invest in the retreat, if you’re interested in a new investor.”
I imagine Brady and I working side-by-side designing a retreat for burned-out urbanites and former professional baseball players. “Are you interested in blueprints and hiring staff?”
“I know building design thanks to the places I built in Bearclaw Foothills and the fires I’ve put out all over this county. Bad building design is as close to evil as you can get. As for hiring, I’m willing to learn.”
Elation blooms inside me. “I’d love for you to invest in the retreat.”
He surveys my face. “We make a good team. I love you, Sammy. You’ve got my heart and soul. It’s yours to do with as you please.”
Brady is batting outside his comfort zone. Being with me isn’t a safe or easy choice. Lara is my life. I have to give my ex-husband a say in how her life proceeds, which gives him a say in how my life proceeds.
I’ve invested my livelihood in a retreat idea that might not have legs.
But Brady is willing to weather the storms alongside me. “I’ve never felt more loved or safer or happier than I am with you. I love you, Brady. We make a really good team. Unbeatable.”
He pulls me into a deep kiss that roots me in the place I’ve spent my life seeking.