He pitches his voice to me again. “I’ll get your van in the morning and tow it into town. You can come by Mitch’s when you’re up. Warren or Hay will give you a lift into town, I’m sure. Ask for me.”
I kind of wish I could ask Blake to give me a ride.
It’s hard to resist a mystery.
That friendly warmth when he’d been on the radio, and then the soft, almost intimate way he’d spoken, coaxed, reassured me. The way he’d said my name like it was a musical note rolling off his tongue.
Only to go cold and gruff and withdrawn the moment I’d noticed his pain.
He makes me think of a song, wrapped up in the shape of a man.
Melody in his movements.
Raw lyricism in his every breath.
I haven’t had a good muse in a long while. Maybe he could be my spark.
So even as I wave Justin and Rich off with my thanks, my thoughts are hooked on Fire Chief Blake.
On the discord of pain in his music, and what I could do to tease them out until he’s in harmony again.
I should pick up a rental car while they’re working on my van at the garage, if it’s even salvageable.
Pick up a rental, settle in, explore the town a bit more...
And hope maybe I run into my dark knight in fire-retardant armor one more time.
We’ll just see if we can start over on the right foot.
2
Off Note (Blake)
Goddamn, I’m an idiot.
Had a pretty gal right there, gunning to do something about this damn bum leg of mine.
And I just had to go baring my teeth at her like a rabid dog and run her off.
I mean, fuck.
It’s her frigging job, and if she’s any good at it, I’d have to be a card-carrying fool not to take her up on it.
Guess I’m dumb.
‘Cause I ain’t quite sure how I’m not gonna crash this fire truck trying to park it when my leg’s so locked up it won’t even unbend.
Shit.
At least I can manage the gas and brake with my right foot, but I’m exhausted. Not just tonight. The last couple years have been one round of serious business after the next. First old Warren and the drugs, then Doc and Galentron, then Tiger—I mean, Leo—and Galentron again.
It’s enough to drive a man under the covers in the comfort of his own bed and make him stay there. Only, seeing how I’m the guy who keeps Heart’s Edge from burning down, I don’t have that luxury.
My thigh is chewing me up by the time I ease the truck in its bay and kill the engine.
I’ll have to do the maintenance check tomorrow.
Right now, I need my bed, plus a Vicodin or twelve.
Mostly, I need home, and my daughter.
Not another starry-eyed single girl dumped on this town like it’s some kind of fucking chick magnet and some naked little cherub just decided it was my turn.
That’s how they got Warren and Doc.
Damsels in dead cars.
Weird shit around here sometimes, man.
Weird shit.
Gritting my teeth, I shove myself out of the cab of the truck—and nearly collapse.
My leg’s been groaning at me for months, always has, but tonight? It’s had enough.
Thank God there’s nobody here to see me like this. I dropped off my guys after I shot myself in the face by turning down Peace’s massage.
I catch myself with one hand, gripping hard at the door, my good leg holding me up. All while that fucking traitor thing attached to my hip dangles there uselessly, burning like I’ve shoved it into hot lava.
It ain’t usually this bad. I’ve done a lot worse to it and never had it flare up like this.
But I’ve been feeling weird all day.
Groaning, I sink down on the footboard, leaning my back against the cold metal of the fire truck, and thump my fist against my thigh, pounding against the thick ridge of scar tissue I can feel through my coveralls.
Fucking shrapnel wound, well over a decade ago.
Lucky I survived it, I guess.
If you call this surviving.
Sometimes that burning lance of pain takes me right back to the fateful day under the hot Afghani sun. Blood spouting everywhere as people got ripped apart in a metal hail. Felt like I was standing in a cloud of bees, sharp edges tearing at me, zipping little lines of blood along my face, my arms, my chest.
The one that hit me was less like a bee and more like a bullet. An explosion of howling agony as a chunk of searing metal buried itself in my thigh.
It shouldn’t feel so real. Not after all these years gone by.
But even if the wound’s closed up, even if the smell of my own blood is just a visceral memory...
Sometimes it hurts like it never healed.
Sometimes I hurt like I never healed, either.
Shit.
It dawns on me slowly. I know what’s wrong with me.
And I tilt my head back, staring up at the snow-dotted sky and breathing in its scent, letting it clear me and calm me down while I beat that knotted-up muscle till it starts to relax so I can limp home.
No forgetting what today is.
It’s the day Abigail died.
It’s been four goddamn years.
Four years, and I still don’t know how to feel about losing the mother of our daughter and the woman who’d promised to make my life a perfect forever and instead made it a living hell.
How do you grieve when you’ve fallen out of love but you still had a kid?
When she might not have been the one, but she was sure as hell someone?
It’s like that question is snarled up in all the hurt in my body, and every time I run up against it, my leg just knots worse. Telling me this is how I get to hurt.
Never figured out what to do with my heart, so all that pain gets roped up in my body.
I don’t know how long I stay here at the fire station. Kinda lost track of time when that call came in, with that pretty redhead with her purple-tipped hair and those green eyes that make her look pure vixen.
Peace.
Peace fuckin’ Broccoli—oh, sorry. Rabe.
Who the hell names their daughter Peace?
Probably the same kind of person who’d raise a chick who’d go mountain-trucking in a van that looks a whole lot older than she is, covered in hand-painted flowers in bright, bursting colors all over the finish.
That chick looks like she couldn’t have been born any earlier than 1990, but she’s got the look, all right.
Looks like she’d groove around naked covered in henna in a witch’s communion circle or something, flowers in her hair and wreaths around her wrists and ankles...
...and I should not be thinking about a stranger naked.
Make that a damned curvy, cute, smart-mouthed stranger with a petite body and a pert, pretty, impish face.
No excuses.
Even if it’s been a long-ass time.
I’m lucky when my phone yanks me out of my thoughts, buzzing in my pocket. I dig it out and swipe the new text—then wince.
GDI Dad u were here and u just left me?
Aw, hell.
I’d forgotten Andrea was at the Charming Inn with Haley, taking art lessons. I was supposed to pick her up.
I check the time.
Shit.
Like, twenty minutes ago.
Yeah, my leg’s being nasty, but she doesn’t need to know it. Nobody does, and that goes double for my little girl.
She’s sixteen.