The Rescue - Nicholas Sparks [116]
“I don’t need this crap,” Taylor snapped, rising from the table. He started for the door. “You don’t even know who I am.”
Mitch pushed the table away from his body, knocking over the beers and causing a few heads to turn. The bartender looked up from his conversation as Mitch stood and came up behind Taylor, grabbing him roughly by his shirt and spinning him around.
“I don’t know you? Hell, I know you! You’re a goddamn coward, is what you are! You’re afraid of living because you think it means giving up this cross you’ve been carrying around your whole life. But this time, you’ve gone too far. You think you’re the only one in the world with feelings? You think you’ll just walk away from Denise and everything’s going to go back to normal now? You think you’ll be happier? You won’t, Taylor. You won’t let yourself do that. And this time, you aren’t just hurting one person, did you ever think of that? It isn’t just Denise—you’re hurting a little boy! God almighty, doesn’t that mean anything to you? What the hell would your father say to that, huh? ‘Good job, son’? ‘I’m proud of you, son’? Not a chance. Your father would be sickened, just like I am now.”
Taylor, his face white, grabbed Mitch and lifted him, driving him backward into the jukebox. Two men scattered off their stools, away from the melee, as the bartender rushed to the far end of the bar. After pulling out a baseball bat, he started back toward them. Taylor raised his fist.
“What are you gonna do? Hit me?” Mitch taunted.
“Knock it off!” the bartender shouted. “Take that shit outside, now!”
“Go ahead,” Mitch said. “I don’t really give a damn.”
Biting his lip so hard that it began to bleed, Taylor pulled his arm back, ready to strike, his hand shaking.
“I’ll always forgive you, Taylor,” Mitch said almost calmly. “But you gotta forgive yourself, too.”
Taylor, hesitating, struggling, finally released Mitch and turned away, toward the faces staring at him. The bartender was at his side, bat in hand, waiting to see what Taylor was going to do.
Stifling the curses in his throat, he strode out the door.
Chapter 23
Just before midnight Taylor returned home to a flickering message on his answering machine. Since leaving Mitch he’d been alone, doing his best to clear his mind, and had sat on the bridge where he’d plunged into the river only a few months earlier. That night, he realized, was the first night he’d needed Denise. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
Guessing that Mitch had left him a message, Taylor walked to the answering machine, regretting his outburst at his friend, and pressed the play button. To his surprise, it wasn’t Mitch.
It was Joe from the fire department, his voice straining to stay calm.
“There’s a warehouse fire, on the outskirts of town. Arvil Henderson’s place. A big one—everyone in Edenton has been called, and additional trucks and crews are being requested from the surrounding counties. Lives are in danger. If you get the message in time, we’ll need your help. . . .”
The message had been left twenty-four minutes ago.
Without listening to the rest of the message, Taylor hung up the phone and raced to the truck, cursing himself for having turned off his cell phone when he left the bar. Henderson’s was a regional wholesaler of housepaint and one of the larger businesses in Chowan County. Trucks were loaded day and night; every hour of the day saw at least a dozen people working inside the warehouse.
It would take him about ten minutes to get there.
Everyone else was probably already on the scene, and he’d be rolling in some thirty minutes late. Those thirty minutes could mean the difference between life and death to any number of trapped people inside.
Others were fighting for their lives while he’d been out feeling sorry for himself.
Gravel shot from his tires as he turned around in the driveway, barely slowing as he turned on the road. His tires squealed and the engine roared as Taylor punched the gas, still cursing. The truck slid