I hear Katelyn answer, so he must’ve still been on the phone with her when I barged in. “We’re on it, Brody!”
I don’t remember the drive. I got in the truck, and a moment later, I’m pulling into the hospital lot and parking like one of those assholes who thinks the lines don’t apply to them.
I don’t need to glance at my phone to know where to go. Emily’s text is burned into my mind.
Burned.
Fuck.
The doors open automatically as I stomp my way toward them, and the smell of antiseptic hits me full-force.
In the back corner, what looks to be the entirety of the racing community is pacing around like there’s a track on the floor that only they can see, I see Ed, Jerry, Mike, and Clint, along with a few other familiar faces.
The crowd parts, and I see her . . . flip flops and shorts, long, dark hair down her back. For a brief moment, I think it’s all a mistake. Some misunderstanding or trick. And then she turns.
Emily.
I can tell them apart easily, but my heart had hoped for a moment that Erica was okay. Fuck, let her be okay.
“Brody.” Emily’s cry is accented by the thwack-thwack of her flip-flops as she runs to me. “You’re here.” She hugs me solidly, her tears starting fresh though the dried tracks down her face say this isn’t her first or second time to break down.
“What do we know?” My throat is tight, the words clipped.
“Nothing. Dan came in to help since it’s Rix and said he’d let us know.” I pat her back, looking at the doors leading into the treatment area. I want to get through them, need to get through them to Erica.
“Who are you?” a deep voice asks.
Emily jerks and pulls back, clearing her throat. “Uh . . . Dad, this is Brody. Brody, this is Keith.”
He’s sizing me up, and I know there’s no way I measure up. Even on my best days, I’m a dirty, rough cowboy who smells like cow shit. Today, I’ve been sweating my balls off in a barn with cowboys who smoke like chimneys, cows that shit where they please, and I think I spilled some of my beer on my shirt when Emily first called. Keith Cole is a little over six feet tall, but beneath his Carhartt T-shirt and pants, he’s lean muscle. His hair is dirty blond shot through with gray at the temples, and he’s got a matching blond-gray goatee and mustache. His eyes are bright blue and laser-locked on me. I can see the resemblance with Erica in those eyes—not the color, of course, but in that fiery spark. He might not be her nature, but he’s her nurture through and through.
I hold my hand out. “Brody Tannen.”
He shakes my hand, squeezing a little too hard. “Keith Cole. And again, who are you?”
“So good of you to come,” Janice interrupts, also making a move to hug me.
“You know him?” Keith asks Janice, who shrugs and doesn’t look the least bit sorry.
“We met at the farmer’s market.”
That seems like a lifetime ago, even though only a couple of months have passed.
Jerry comes over, offering me a hand and interrupting the third-degree interrogation Keith is ready to launch. “Hey, Brody. Our girl’s gonna be just fine, you hear? She’s a tough one, that Rix.”
Keith’s back goes ramrod straight, and I try to imagine what he’s going through right now. I knew Erica was racing, knew that there were inherent dangers, but I trusted that she would do everything to mitigate those. But sometimes, shit still happens.
Sometimes, the good ones, the ones who deserve to stay around the longest, leave too soon, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
Keith didn’t know Erica’s been racing. He got side-swiped with a double-whammy tonight—that his daughter’s been hiding something from him and that she got hurt doing it. And then I here come, strutting in like I belong here, and he’s never even heard my name.
“What happened?” I ask Jerry.
He tells me about Todd’s nitro going wrong and fire shooting out from under the hood. He tells me about Erica pulling Todd out of the car, and I shake my head at her brave stupidity. It’s not that I want to hold her back, but I can’t help but think she wouldn’t be hurt if she’d let someone else do the dangerous part. But that’s not who she is. And then he tells me about one last explosion and how Todd shoved Erica to the ground and took the brunt of the flames himself.
The whole racing crew plus Erica’s family listens in, though I suspect this is a repeat of what they’ve already heard.
“Good guy,” I say about Todd, which doesn’t begin to describe how thankful I am for his sacrifice to save Erica from anything worse. Jerry is stone-faced but nods, agreeing. “He okay?”
“Don’t know anything yet, about either of them. Emily’s doctor friend . . .” He trails off, looking toward the door like I did.
As if he conjured it, the doors open and the first thing I see is Dan smiling. He’s pushing a wheelchair . . .
Erica!
“Erica!” I shout as my mouth catches up with my brain. My strides eat the space between us.
She looks like . . . everything. She looks like . . . home. And also, a bit pale and dirty. Her legs are sticking out of scrub pants that have been chopped at the knee, leaving a frayed hem. Her calves and bare feet are wrapped in white gauze.
“Brody, what are you doing here?” she says, and my heart stutters. She doesn’t want me here? But then her eyes flick behind me to Keith, and I realize her hesitation isn’t about me.
“We met. He’s got questions. Later.”
Her arms open, and I hunch over to hug her. “Scared the shit outta me, Lil Bit,” I whisper in her ear.
She smiles big and bold, putting on a front for her audience. “Just another day of racing.”
I see her throat swallow as she looks to Keith. “Dad?”
Janice and Emily are bookending Keith, who’s breathing heavily and turning red. I think seeing that Erica is okay has relieved his initial fears, freeing him up to be angry at the situation he’s been thrust into.
“What the hell is going on? Do I even know you at all, Rix?” Hurt and betrayal thread through the words painfully.
“Of course you do,” Erica says, but she doesn’t sound certain. “I’m a racer, just like you taught me to be.” Better, stronger, and with pride.
Janice jumps in. “What did the doctor say?”
Erica looks to Dan. “Dr. Dan here says I have to keep the burns clean and dressed, and he gave me an antibiotic ointment prescription. I’m on concussion watch, but they don’t think anything’s wrong with my brain that wasn’t already a little bit wrong to begin with.”
Jokes? The woman’s got jokes after something like this? But I see the fear flashing in her eyes. More bricks, more walls, more façade. I don’t know why everyone thinks she’s this wild, devil-may-care creature. On the surface, maybe that’s true. But the truth is, she does everything for everyone else. Even now, comforting them with humor when we should be comforting her.
“It’s all on my discharge paperwork.” She points at the stack of papers tucked beside her in the wheelchair.
“It’s a little more complicated than that, but Rix has assured me that she’ll be a compliant patient. Right?” Dan prompts, and Erica nods, only a little sarcastically.