Summer of Fire - Linda Jacobs [142]
Trying not to think about the frightful blank look on her daughter’s face when she’d collapsed on the tarmac, Clare wondered where Steve was. When Deering had driven them down in his truck behind the ambulance, Steve had been taken away in a wheelchair.
This morning at the airport, she’d never expected him to fly. Even if he had promised she would not be alone, she had not imagined him getting onto a helicopter with her.
She slouched against the uncomfortable straight-backed chair. Steve had stood by her, but on the mountain, she’d let him down. She’d stood on the safety of rock while Deering leaped to his rescue. Although she could plead the excuse of Devon’s weight hanging on her, she did not believe that would suffice. Ahead of her still lay the interrogation surrounding the death of Private William Harrison Jakes.
Clare sighed and looked around the empty room. An abandoned jacket lay in a chair and a blanket and pillow marked where someone had passed the night waiting for news of a loved one. A television high in the corner played the evening news with footage of the fires behind Peter Jennings’s shoulder. The usual firefighters on the march, the obligatory chopper picking up a load of water, the flying tanker dropping colorful retardant. This was where she’d come in, seeing romance and adventure in a line of sweaty firefighters trudging up a forest road.
As much as she longed to explore where she and Steve might have gone, it was time to take Devon home to Houston. Her heart ached, but when it came to blood, a mother’s choice must be for her child. Somehow, she had to convince Devon that she was too young to try and make it on her own.
As to firefighting, she had yet to decide. At Old Faithful, Steve had said Frank would want her to battle the North Fork.
But Frank had been a war-scarred veteran with over twenty years in the department. He’d told her that his grown son was proud of his old man, not scared like Devon had been. If Clare’s work brought continued pain to her daughter, she’d have to cash it in and dust off her teaching certificate.
Clare opened her eyes to find Steve leaning on crutches in Devon’s hospital room doorway. He wore his jeans and western shirt.
“How long have you been there?” She straightened the recliner beside the bed where Devon slept and stretched to release the kink in her back.
A slow smile spread over his face. “Not long. You must have felt me looking at you.”
Clare wished she believed in telepathy with this man. She rose and gestured Steve toward the brown vinyl chair she’d slept in. He remained on his feet.
Outside the window, all was dark except for pole lights in the parking lot. Clare’s watch said it was nearly midnight. “Is Karrabotsos all right?” she asked.
“Doing well, considering. This time around he’ll be looking at more skin grafts.” He looked at Devon, who lay with blond lashes sweeping her cheek, her arm in a cast. “How is she?”
Clare reached to smooth back Devon’s hair. The singed section had been trimmed, leaving her with a lopsided haircut that made her look very young. “No concussion from the crash. Just the burn and a crack in the radius above her wrist.”
Steve advanced into the room with the awkward swinging gate of a person on crutches. “I know you well enough to figure you’re tearing yourself up over what happened with her.”
He’d been her constant cheerleader, telling her to never back down and she was getting sick and tired of it. “I should never have come here,” she said. “Devon would be safe at home if I hadn’t.”
“That’s enough!” He straightened and put more weight on his legs.
Devon sighed and turned her head. She was on Percodan, a strong painkiller that would help her sleep.
In a softer voice, Steve went on, “If you hadn’t come, I would never have met you. You saved my life more than once this summer, and I couldn’t believe it when you pulled Karrabotsos out of that fire.”
She shrugged.