Jane Austen Girl (24 page)

He grabbed it as if it were a snake he wanted to fling out the window, looked at the caller id and then answered in an even voice. “Hey, what’s up?”

He listened for a moment, and Grier saw the seriousness enter his face. “Yeah, okay, I’m leaving now.”

He clicked off the phone and put it back on the nightstand.

“What is it?” Grier asked.

“The fire department. I’m a backup volunteer when extra men are needed.”

“Something bad?”

He slid off the bed and reached quickly for his shirt. “There’s a fire out at the retirement home.”

“Which. . .which home?”

“The Sunset Retirement Home,” he said and she could tell he was trying hard not to sound alarmed.

She swung to her feet even as a sickening wave of anxiety swept through her. “I’m going with you,” she said.

“Grier, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Why don’t you wait here? I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”

“No!” she said.  “I’m coming with you.” 

“A prince rarely arrives on a white horse. You’ll recognize him all the same.”

Grier McAllister  

Blog at Jane Austen Girl

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Bobby Jack put the flashing red light on top of his truck and drove according to the urgency he had heard in Billy Mire’s voice a few minutes earlier. Apparently, it was bad. The only time he got called was when it was bad. He didn’t have a good feeling about Grier coming with him, but he couldn’t exactly stop her.

They’d left Flo and Sebbie at the house, sleeping beside one another on the living room couch. Bobby Jack assured Grier that Flo would show him the doggie door to the fenced back yard if either of them needed to go.

They said nothing else during the ten-minute drive. Bobby Jack concentrated on taking the curvy roads as fast as he could. And Grier sat straight and silent, looking out the passenger door window.

He saw the flames licking at the skyline before the actual building came into sight. Bobby Jack heard Grier’s sharply indrawn breath and reached over to put his hand on hers. “You wait in the truck,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I know something.” But one look at her face told him his words were a waste. When he pulled up alongside one of the county fire trucks, they both got out.

The scene was one that barely made sense to him. The entire front of the retirement home was engulfed in flames, six men hosing different sections of the fire. People were strewn across the yard in wheelchairs, on cots, and on the ground as well, as if they had been rescued from the burning building and left there while others were helped.

Bobby Jack spotted the fire department captain and ran to him, asking, “What can I do?”

“They need help on the back side.”

“I’ll go,” Bobby Jack said, and then called out to Grier where she stood, staring at the people around her, “Grier, stay here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Bobby Jack circled the building, recalling the jut-out of rooms at the far end.

Marty Crawford, another volunteer, waved him over and said, “The flames haven’t gotten back here yet, but the smoke has engulfed the whole place. Some of the guys are inside, bringing people out. Why don’t you grab a hose from the truck in case the fire comes this way?”

“How many people are still in there?” Bobby Jack asked.

“We don’t know for sure,” Marty said.

“I’ll go in and help,” Bobby Jack said.

“Hey man, that’s not a good idea!”

But just then a fireman in uniform struggled out with a barely conscious woman in his arms. Bobby Jack ran into the building, aware that every second counted. The smoke was thick and black, and he put a hand over his nose and mouth, feeling along the walls for the doors to the rooms.

The first one was empty. He ran his hand along the bed and called out, “Is anyone in here?”

The second and third rooms were empty as well. But in the fourth, he heard soft moans coming from the bed at the room’s center. The man lying there was thin and frail. When Bobby Jack reached down to lift him up, the man felt like a bird in his arms.

“Hold on,” Bobby Jack said, “we’re getting you out of here.” He made his way to the door, then reminded himself to turn left for the entrance to the building. He tried to hold his breath while he walked, and by the time he burst through the doors with the fragile man in his arms, he was gasping for air. He sucked it in, then carried the barely conscious man to the far end of the yard and set him down beside the woman who’d been brought out a few minutes earlier. “You stay right here, everything’s gonna be all right. Someone will be here to help soon.”

He gulped in as much air as he possibly could, and then bolted back into the building. At the sound of cries for help, Bobby Jack felt as if he had just run back into a nightmare. He followed the sounds, counting down the number of rooms from the entrance and checking the fifth room on either side of the hall. Both were empty, and so was the sixth.

But in the seventh, he found another man crumpled to the floor. “I’m not sure I can get up,” he said.

“It’s okay,” Bobby Jack said. “I’ve got you.”

“Have they gotten Maxine out?” the man asked.

Recognizing Grier’s mama’s name, Bobby Jack told the man, “I’m not sure. We’ll check when we get outside.”

This man was far heavier than the last, but Bobby Jack somehow managed to lift him from the floor and fight his way back through the smoke to the entrance.

Again, Bobby Jack carried him to the far end of the yard and lay him down on the grass, next to the other people there. He could hear the rescue squad blaring toward them, and assured the man that someone would see to him soon.

“That’s all right,” he said. “I’m fine. What’s your name, young man?”

“Bobby Jack Randall. What’s yours?”

“Hatcher. Please. Can you find out if anyone’s gotten Maxine?”

Marty ran over and said, “Bobby Jack, it’s not safe for you to go back in. The fire’s broken through the wall between the two buildings. And it’s started in on this one.”

Just then Grier appeared at the corner of the building, calling out his name. “Bobby Jack, have you seen my mama?”

“Did you not see her out front?” he said.

“No,” she said, fear in her voice.

Bobby Jack glanced around, not recognizing any of the faces. “I’ll go back in.” He looked at Hatcher and said, “Which room was she in?”

“The eighth one on the right.”

“Okay.”

“I’m coming with you,” Grier said.

“No, you’re not,” Bobby Jack said. “Stay here, Grier. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

She was going to defy him. He could see it. “Grier, if you come with me, I may not be able to save your mother because I’ll be watching out for you instead.”

Eyes pleading, she folded her arms across her chest and said, “Please, go.”

Marty called out for Bobby Jack to stop. “Wait until the others get here!”

But he ran back in, covering his nose and mouth again, reaching out with one hand and counting the room doors, hot to the touch. The building now felt like an inferno, and he tried not to think about anything other than the next step in front of him.

When he got to the eighth room, he found Maxine in bed, struggling to breathe. She tried to speak, but Bobby Jack told her not to and leaned in and picked her up.

They were halfway down the hall when he saw the blaze spit through the roof and drop tiles onto the floor in front of them. He fumbled his way around the flames, clutching the tiny woman in his arms, close to his chest.

Bobby Jack stumbled onto the lawn with Maxine in his arms, dragging air into his lungs.

Grier ran to them, crying, “Are you okay? Mama, are you okay?”

But Maxine had gone limp. Bobby Jack placed her on the ground while Grier frantically called for one of the paramedics who had just arrived. The paramedic immediately began CPR.

Grier knelt on the ground beside her, looking frozen with disbelief. Bobby Jack touched her shoulder and said, “I’m going back in to make sure there aren’t any others.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

She stopped him with a hand on his arm, her gaze holding his. “Thank you,” she said.

He followed two other volunteers into the building, and together, the three of them searched each room. The sound of crying drew them to the end of the hall where they opened door after door until Bobby Jack found an older woman huddled inside a cleaning closet.

Compassion coursed through him when he leaned down and picked her up. “Come on, sweetheart,” he said. “Let’s get you out of here.”

He lifted her up. The flames were licking at the roof now, as if announcing that they meant business. Water from the fire truck hoses rained down through the newly created holes. It was impossible to see through the black smoke billowing up around them, but Bobby Jack knew they had to be close to the door.

He heard the crack in the roof above, and lunged forward, trying to get out of the way. But the section of ceiling came crashing down.

Someone screamed, and that was the last thing Bobby Jack remembered hearing.

“It’s what we take for granted that is actually most important to us.”

Andy’s favorite quote from last week’s sermon
at
Timbell
Creek Baptist

CHAPTER FORTY

Andy woke up to a phone ringing somewhere in her mother’s house. At first she thought she was dreaming, or that it was her cell phone, and she groped a hand through the dark for the spot on the nightstand where she’d left it, only to find that it wasn’t her phone.

From down the hall, she heard her mother’s voice. Even at first, then rising like something was wrong.

“Where is he? Darryl Lee, where is he? In the hospital? Is he okay? I’ll meet you there.”

Andy swung out of bed and ran to her mother’s room. “What’s wrong?” she said. “Is Daddy okay?”

Priscilla glanced up with something that looked like shock widening her eyes. “There’s been a fire out at the retirement home. Your daddy was in one of the buildings when part of the roof collapsed.”

Andy started to cry then, with no ability whatsoever to control herself. Tears just turned on inside her, and she cried like a little girl. “Daddy,” she said. “Daddy.”

She repeated the word over and over again until her mother quickly slipped on her clothes, and then helped Andy into hers. They ran for the car, leaving all the lights on in the house and not bothering to lock the front door. They drove to the hospital, holding hands the entire way.

“Most important quality in the man of your dreams? No, my dears, it isn’t great hair. Or even killer abs. In my book, it’s selflessness. Give me a man who puts others before himself, and that’s a man I’ll keep.”

Grier McAllister – Blog at Jane Austen Girl

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Grier sat in the small hospital waiting room, numb with shock.

The doctors had just wheeled both her mother and Hatcher back to separate areas of the ER. Grier had ridden with them in the rescue squad, alternating between praying and blanking her mind altogether of what might lie ahead for either of them.

A second ambulance had brought Bobby Jack and one of the other injured firefighters in behind them. When Grier had all but pleaded for information on how Bobby Jack was doing, the nurse told her in a firm but gentle voice, “We’ll get back to you as soon as we know something, dear.”

Grier leaned forward now with her head between her knees, breathing in several long gulps of air and willing herself to calm.

“Grier!”

At the sound of her name, she raised her head to find Andy staring at her, eyes wide and terrified. Priscilla stood behind her, looking nearly as distraught. “Where’s Daddy?” Andy said. “Is he okay?”

Grier stood, her legs shaky with the effort. “The doctors are with him.”

“Is he all right?” Andy cried, the question shrill now. Grier started to pull the girl to her, but glanced at Priscilla, and kept her arms by her side.

“Can we see him?” Priscilla said.

“The nurse said to wait here,” Grier said.

“How can we just wait here?” Priscilla said then, pressing a hand to her mouth. And Grier could see in that moment the woman’s clear feelings for Bobby Jack. Whatever had passed between them over the years had not extinguished the basic root of love.

Grier eased her way back into the chair, a wave of dizziness forcing her to sit.

“What happened?” Andy said.

“Bobby Jack was getting people out from the back side of the building. When he started, there was just smoke. But by the time he came out with the last woman, the flames had gotten through to that area, and part of the roof fell in.”

“On him?” Andy cried again.

“I’m not sure,” Grier said carefully. “The firefighters were hosing that area, and got the blaze out quickly.”

“Is he burned?” Priscilla said.

“I don’t know,” Grier said. “They wouldn’t let me see him.”

“Oh, Daddy!” Andy said, sinking down into the chair beside Grier.

 Andy started to sob then. Priscilla sat down next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders and pulling her to her chest, rubbing her hair, and telling her that everything would be all right. But Andy continued to cry, her shoulders shaking, and Grier could feel the girl’s pain vibrating against her own.

Andy sat up abruptly, tears still streaming down her face. “Your mama,” she said, as if just remembering. “Was your mama in there?”

“Yes,” Grier said. “Your daddy saved her and her friend Hatcher, and several other people as well. So many of the firefighters were working on the front side of the building that they were shorthanded in the wing where Mama and the others were. Most likely, he saved their lives.”

This brought a fresh wave of tears to Andy’s eyes, and they rolled down her cheeks, dropping on her hands, which were clasped in her lap.

A nurse appeared in the doorway just then. “Is there family here for Bobby Jack Randall?”