I Still Do (13 page)

Damn,
Will thought again.
Damn and double damn.

“Anita?” He called her name, but he didn't hear a reply and the wreckage enclosing him was packed tightly.

His mind kicked into emergency mode as his predicament more fully registered. The rubble and the metal overhang burying him were heavy, too heavy for him to simply stand up and shrug them away. He was on his side, one arm pinned, the other free. Free enough, thank God, that he could reach and activate the PASS attached to his SCBA gear. The personal alert safety system worked as designed, immediately emitting a loud audible alarm.

But hell if he was going to rely on that alone. The damn canopy and all that hadn't held it up were lying on top of him and who knew how muffled the alarm was to those standing outside. Of course the other firefighters would have noticed the collapse, but they'd have no idea where to start looking for him. So he added to the noise of the PASS alarm by pounding on the debris piled around him.

The exertion sweat he'd worked up during his firefighting had turned icy, he noted, and one of his ankles was started to throb. It could only mean the first jolt of oh-shit adrenaline was starting to wear off, and he gritted his teeth as he continued banging his fist on anything within reach. He stretched farther, trying to find a new material that might elicit a louder noise, and there, just a few feet beyond that, he thought he detected a small opening.

He could lie here, hoping someone could figure out where the hell he was under all this crap, or he could try to help them find him. One of his arms was still pinned, and it was a risk to move and chance the broken stuff settling even more dangerously on him, but Will had reason to make the attempt.

Because it came to him, suddenly, that he had to get out from under this. Jamie, Max, Alex, Tom and Betsy didn't need to lose another family member. His mind flashed on his nephew, Todd, twined on his leg. Even within his smoky prison, he could smell baby Polly's just-shampooed hair.

With a heave, he wrenched his trapped arm free. Nothing else around him moved.
All right, all right,
he told himself,
that's a sign.
The sign to go for it.

Taking a breath, he sent a last thought to his firefighting buddies who he knew were coming up with their own plan to free him.
Hang on, everyone.

Bird Brother was on the move.

His pulsing ankle protested as he started crawling forward, but he ignored it. It was his SCBA tank that stopped him instead, catching on something lying on top of him. Will wormed around, shrugging and twisting as best he could in the tight spot until he could wiggle free of the straps of the SCBA. His face mask still in place, he scooted along on his belly, toward that promising chink in the debris. Elbowing his way through and around pieces of 2 x 4 and 2 x 6 lumber, he finally reached the opening. Sucking in the air from his tank—and how much of that was left?—he stuck his arm up into the night air and started waving it around.

That was the best he could do, he realized. The only thing left was to wait for rescue.

And think, he realized forty-five seconds later as a million jumbled thoughts clattered against each other inside his head. Despite the patch of night air above him, it was still damn smoky in his confined space and it was making his mental processes murky, too.

Dozens of snapshots appeared to him in the darkness, though. He could see them against the dark gray backdrop. The sibs, black matchsticks lined up at the double funeral of their parents. Brighter images, too—the chaos of their schoolwork spread over the dining room table, the tumbleweeds of Christmas wrapping littering the living room on holiday mornings, the raucous party they could make out of something as commonplace as one of Jamie and Ty's barbecues.

If he didn't get the hell out of here in one piece he wouldn't experience that again. If he didn't get the hell out of here in one piece, their big brother wouldn't be around to keep them in even a semblance of order. Would someone check the oil in Betsy's car? Who would pay attention to Alex's rants about his favorite sports teams? Would Tom ever realize he was drunk in love with his girlfriend Gretchen and would someone be there to pick him up if he saw the truth too late?

Emily showed up then in his mental scrapbook. He saw her in a bathing suit and little sarong. A wedding veil. That kicky little skirt she'd worn in his kitchen when she'd gone wild on him. He saw her in nothing but skin.

His breath stuttered in his chest. His imagination was killing him, he thought, but then realized his tank had run out of air. Thinking of his family, of Emily, he brushed off his face piece and lifted his head toward the meager showing of night sky he could see around his lifted arm.

Coughing a little, he waved his hand with more vigor. He'd felt trapped by all of them, by his brothers and sisters and by the woman he'd married, but now that he was trapped
away
from them—

Something touched his hand. Fingers. Another hand, grabbing his. Clasping it hard.

He'd been found. Relief eased the tightness in his chest, even as he coughed some more. He'd been found. The crew knew where he was.

Bird Brother was going to make it home to the ones he loved.

A firefighter's helmet blocked the little light coming through the hole in the debris. “We'll get you out of there, Will,” a voice assured him. “But it's going to be dicey.”

Bird Brother was going to make it home to the ones he loved…maybe.

E
mily discovered that she could make herself a mousehole wherever she was. For a while, starting with that moment of recognizing Will, through their impulsive marriage, and on to their brief affair, she'd thought she'd left behind the reclusive librarian she'd become in her hometown.

But since the morning she'd woken to Will's note, she'd found herself scurrying between her stacks of books in the library and then straight to the ever-growing pile of them in her house. Her mouseholes, her fortresses, the armor she kept between herself and getting out in the world.

Whatever you wanted to call her place of work and the place she called home, the result was the same. Emily was once again in full retreat from the
sturm und drang
that she knew were the unavoidable consequences of living life.

The brief meeting she'd had with the film professor that evening had been the exception, and she still might have congratulated herself about the event if her heart hadn't galloped like a runaway horse when she'd heard from Will soon after. And after
that,
after he'd had to break off the call, if she hadn't slipped into flannel pajamas, her thickest robe and a pair of hand-knitted slippers that had been her grandmother's and were probably fifty years old.

It wasn't even eleven o'clock and she was tucked into a corner of her couch with a cup of tea and her favorite comfort read.

Her phone rang.

She let it.

The sound cut off abruptly, before her answering machine could spit out its spiel, and she went back to her book. Now if her cell phone rang, she'd have to get up and take the call, since it was the number her boss at the library had, that Izzy had, that she'd given Will.

But Will had gone out on a fire call, Izzy was being stubbornly silent since the last time Emily had harassed her about getting in touch with Owen—and since she was still married, Emily didn't have much room to criticize, anyway. Her boss had never once called her during her off-hours.

No one else had the number. She cocked her head toward the kitchen, where the phone was plugged into its charger. Will might be back at the station already. He might want to continue the conversation they started…

But it remained silent.

And Emily settled into the comfortable sofa cushions and tried pretending she was a Regency-era miss instead of a modern mouse. This time it was a knock on her door that interrupted.

She started, and automatically half-rose, but then she dropped back to her seat. Who would come visiting at this time of night? Kids out on a prank?

Who had her address anyway?

Her boss, who hadn't called her cell phone.

Izzy, who was on the other side of the country.

Will, who was working a twenty-four-hour shift.

Glancing at the door as someone banged on it again, she double-checked that it was locked and deadbolted. She was safe. Safe in her mousehole, insulated from worry and heartache and all the highs and lows that had come to her over the last few weeks. The highs and lows of living life.

The next knocks were louder, a declaration of impatience and insistence. Really, who could it be? Not her boss, or Izzy, or Will—

“Emily!” A voice called out. No, not Will, but one of only two others who'd ever been to her house. One of Will's brothers.

Her heart clawed its way from her chest to her throat as she approached the door. “Max?” she called back, even before she had her hand on the lock. “Is something wrong?”

“Will.” Max's voice was muffled. “It's about Will.”

Her fingers slipped on the deadbolt. She clamped her teeth on her lower lip and focused on her hand, finally managing to turn the mechanism and fling open the door.

Cool air rushed over her colder skin, and Max faced her, his hands in his pockets and his eyes worried. A younger, leaner version of his brother. A more scared version. Even standing before an Elvis asking for his “I do,” Will hadn't appeared afraid.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice hoarse. “Oh, God, what's happened?”

“I don't know exactly.” Max's gaze bored into hers. “But something went wrong at a fire and we're supposed to get to the hospital. One of the sibs told me to stop and pick you up on my way.”

“Pick me up? I'm not, he wouldn't…” Oh, God. Will wouldn't want her. They weren't anything to each other.

Max bounced on the balls of his feet. “Are you going to change first? Please hurry.”

“I…I…” Unsure what to do, she gestured him over the threshold, then backed toward her bedroom. “We don't know if he's hurt, or…?”

Oh, good Lord, what was she dithering about? She turned and ran toward her bedroom, already stripping off her robe. In seconds she rushed back out and then she and Max ran to his car.

As they drove off, she looked back at her house, the lights she'd left on making it look cozy. Secure.

But knowing something had happened to Will—
not
knowing what had happened to Will, meant she wouldn't be safe there even behind another set of locks or even bars on the windows. Still, she'd discovered a knack for making mouseholes anywhere. Surely in the midst of the large Dailey family she could stay back—unnoticed and perhaps even invisible—thereby assuring herself all was well with Will. And without putting more of her emotions on the line.

Mouseholes were mighty fine for her, she'd decided.

The hospital's emergency room waiting area was filled with uncomfortable chairs, tattered magazines and people in various stages of misery. A child held an icepack to a cut lip, a grizzled old man slumped against molded plastic in an attitude of surly yet stoic patience, a gaggle of Dailey brothers and sisters roiled in a restless knot in one corner.

Max made his way straight for them, but Emily hung back even as she kept her ears open for news. It didn't take long for both her and Will's brother to be filled in. A fire, a collapsed metal canopy, a search to find Will under all the wreckage.

Wreckage.

They'd had to cut him out.

Cut him out.

It took ten long minutes once they'd located him to free him from under the debris. Though he'd protested, they'd brought him to the hospital, because obviously he'd suffered from smoke inhalation and there was something wrong with his ankle.

Something wrong with his ankle. Smoke inhalation.

Emily's head felt heavy, as if someone had stuffed cotton wool in her ears. Her hand to her chest, she backed away from the circle of Daileys, needing to get away, get out.

At home there was a couch, a soft robe, a Regency miss at a dance.

“Emily!”

She froze, as Jamie's gaze found hers. The other woman strode through her family to take hold of Emily's arm. “They said we'll get to see him in a few minutes. He'll want you to be there.”

Emily didn't have the voice to set Will's sister straight. So she let herself be swept into the Dailey midst, and then, a few minutes later, she was swept along with them toward the hospital room where Will lay.

The family gathered around the bed and then just stood there, frozen with concern. Emily huddled by the door. She stared at Will, noting the scrape on his forehead, the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, the length of his body that ended with a wrapped ankle propped on a pillow.

She didn't think he noticed her as his gaze roamed over Jamie, who was cuddled close to her husband, Ty, then on to Max, Alex, Tom and Betsy. Will pulled the mask away from his face. “For God's sake, Tommy,” he said, his voice hoarse but happy-sounding. “Are you crying? Betsy Wetsy I can understand, but—”

The rest of his teasing was lost as his brothers and sisters converged on his figure. All Emily could see from her spot by the exit was his big hand roaming over dark hair, patting a shoulder, pausing to let fingers clutch his.

“We thought it might be something bad.” Jamie's voice came out muffled, as she was pressed, Emily supposed, to her brother's shoulder. “We thought you might have…have…”

“Left you rug rats?” he finished for her. “Then who would Max run to when he can't balance his checkbook?”

“Hey,” a male voice protested.

“Who can actually get Ty's lawnmower started for him?”

“Hey,” Will's brother-in-law echoed.

The family moved back, grins intact and each echoing the one stretched across their big brother's face. He gazed around them again. “You didn't think I'd leave you guys to fend for yourselves, did you? Knowing I had to keep the herd in line was what kept me determined to get out from under there.”

The worry had evaporated from the Daileys like steam under a summer sun. They started chattering as they always did, everyone talking at once, everyone vying for Will's attention and approval. She smiled a little, knowing he was in good hands, and wondering if the gap between him and his family had finally been breached for good.

She wouldn't be around to know for sure, but he was safe, and she'd be safe, too, once she got back to her cozy house and her comforting book.

She pulled open the door, only to face a woman in a firefighter's uniform. Her hair was sweaty and her eyes were red and she looked past Emily to the man on the bed. Emily scuttled sideways to make room as she strode across the floor.

The Daileys, sensing the newcomer's presence, opened their circle so that the woman had a spot at the end of Will's bed.

“Anita.” Will frowned. “What are you doing? You weren't hurt after all, were you?”

“No, no.” She shook her head. “That canopy missed me. But…but it's been a bad luck night, Will.”

He stilled. “What are you talking about?”

“Our guys were up on the roof of the house. Ventilating it.” The woman cleared her throat. “It gave way, Will.”

“Our guys.” His voice barked out. “Our guys who?”

“Palmer, Palmer from Engine 8. He's dead, Will.”

“Oh.” Will slumped against his pillow. “Oh, God.”

“And Owen,” the woman went on. “Will, Owen went down, too. The ambulance just came in a few minutes ahead of me. I don't know how bad it is. But he's alive, I know that.”

 

Will felt like he'd been hit in the head yet again. Oh, hell. Palmer gone, and Owen…? His gut clenched.
Bad luck night.

“Will, I'll go downstairs and find out what I can,” Alex said. “The woman at the reception desk looked as if she will respond to flirting.”

Tom rose from his spot on the end of Will's bed. “I'll go with, in case she responds to good-looking guys instead of pushy ones.”

Alex cuffed their younger brother, but the gesture was half-hearted. All the grins in the room were gone.

Jamie already had her cell phone out. “I'll call the babysitter and get her to give me Owen's sister's number. I know I have it somewhere. I'll call her to see what we can do to help.”

Betsy grabbed Max's arm. “Max and I will…we'll…I don't know, we'll do something useful. Don't worry, Bird Brother. We'll take care of things. You can count on us.”

Max nodded, his gaze somber. “We'll take care of
you,
Will.”

They all seemed about to leave. Suddenly, Will couldn't have that. The idea of being without them without saying something more, something else, set in a panic that made his head pound harder, his gut twist tighter. Though it was different, this need to be with them, different than when he'd been under that canopy, because suddenly he saw the whole picture.

He saw the whole thing about the Dailey brothers and sisters and him.

You can count on us.

We'll take care of you, Will.

“Wait, wait.” The words burst out of his mouth and he grabbed the arms of the two closest. Betsy. Max. “I need to tell you guys something.”

Five sets of Dailey eyes looked back at him, Ty was staring too, and Will gave them all a reassuring half-smile. “I knew you guys were all going to be here. Once the captain called Jamie.”

Her returning smile was faint. “You know the family grapevine is a fine-tuned machine.”

“And I counted on that,” Will said. “I counted on that like I know every one of you counts on me. Like I hope you know you
can
count on me.”

“Of course,” Betsy said, her voice puzzled.

“Ty says you're the oil in the Dailey gears,” Jamie added.

“Well, I'm glad to hear that. But everybody, everybody, the fact is, you're the oil in my gears, too. As much as you rely on me…I realize I rely on all of you right back.”

Betsy dropped to the mattress beside him, tears in her eyes again.

Will squeezed her hand. “I relied on you being at the hospital tonight, I rely on your prayers for Owen. I relied on you guys this summer to give me space when I demanded it. But, thank God, not too much space.”