Erin – 2nd draft

Chapter 1

“No! I have to go back in!  Let me go!  Let me go damn you!”  I shouted, stomping at his feet and chopping at the arm that held me back.  I could hear him pounding behind me as I ran towards the house, but I had to get in there, I had to!

She did not feel the hot breeze on her skin as the flames escaped from the only place she has called home in these last few years, she just knew she has to get in there, had to save Roger, her memories, what was left of her life. 

What will I do without Roger?  He has been so good to me this last year, always there for me.  I have to be there for him.  There is no question.  I’ve got to save Roger.

“ROGER!”  Suddenly, she feels the air being sucked out of her lungs and a pressure in her ears.  It is the last thing she remembers as the house explodes and the ground rushes up with darkness to claim her.

 The big man charged into the rubble, not caring that his hands are bare or that he has left his fire coat by the ambulance where he has been taking oxygen.  All he knows is that she is in trouble could be dead and he is not willing to accept that.

“C’mon, get over here! We have to find her! She’s under there somewhere!”  Frantically he digs at the wall that fell on top of her he yells at the two men running from the ambulance.  Everyone that was there as part of his team that day could hear the fear and desperation in his voice.  They knew what it would mean to him to lose someone in a fire.

“For God’s sake Jon, go back and get your gear!  You are no good to us injured!” 

Milo scolded him though Jon did not seem to hear as the hot embers seared his skin and singed his hair.

“Jon!  Get back now!”  The men yelled in unison and finally broke through Jon’s concentration.  With a look of anguish on his face he trooped slowly back to the truck worried that she lay dead or dying.

“What is this?’ I pushed at the darkness surrounding me and realized I was under something.  It all came back to me with dread.  I was buried under the wreckage of my home and it was still burning around me.  I hadn’t found Roger and my heart dropped even further if that was possible.  ‘I can’t let him die! I can’t!  Can I move?’  I checked my parts starting with my toes I flexed each joint gently as I mentally cataloged what was working.  With relief I thought it seemed only to be the one beam lying across my chest that was keeping me pinned.  I thought again of Roger and pushed, hard.  It wiggled but didn’t move.  One more try!  This time I found a bit more leverage and got the beam up far enough to slither out from under it before letting it crash back down as I felt my hands get hot.

 

Scuttling out of the wreckage of her once beautiful home, she doesn’t even hear herself whimpering Roger’s name over and over.  Choked with tears and smoke she looks at the house that was once a beautiful, two story clapboard with emerald green shutters and a true English garden in the front. 

She has worked for months on that garden to get it just the way she wanted and now it was beginning to look as though it had been there for a while and was not as transient as she has felt her life has been.  Her garden has been her solace when the insanity has gripped her.  It was the one place she could go and feel she has accomplished something purely good. 

Hand to her head, she tries to stand “Oh!” she says and falls to the hard ground for the second time this day.

Almost before she settles to the ground Jon is there.  “Here, take my hand, we have to get you away from here.” she looks up at him, so lost and helpless and sad that Jon feels a wave of protectiveness as he looks into her stunning green eyes.  He felt them like a blow to his stomach, the kind that makes your breath rush out all at once and freezes your muscles so you can’t draw another for a moment.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>Quickly he visually assesses her condition and decides she cannot walk on her own “Put your arm over my shoulder”, he says and bends down to lift her fragile body into his arms.  Feeling slightly foolish, she does as he asks and he carefully lifts her up and begins to carry her toward the waiting medical equipment knowing that though she looks all right, something could be terribly wrong.

On his way to the ambulance,

Milo , his second in command, rounds on him.  “Jon! What the hell were you thinking?! You cannot just go through debris like that!”

“Do you mind if I get the lady to the ambulance and come back for my lecture?” Jon asks in a calm voice with her head resting on his chest and she bobbed in and out of consciousness.

“Oh yeah.” 

Milo stammered and blushed, aware for the first time that he was caught up in his emotions and lecturing his boss, and neglecting his work.  The realization made him stop and center himself before he went back to try to put out the flames and protect the surroundings with the rest of the fire team.

 

Jon trudged on, avoiding timbers and still flaming boards on the way.

“Any fool could see she needed my help, who else was close enough to get her out?”

“What was I supposed to do, just sit by and watch her die?” he mumbled, just barely audible.  He was venting to hide his reaction to her as well as to assuage his guilt at setting a poor example for his men.  If she had not been resting her head on his chest, and been so near to consciousness, she would have missed the words herself.

“No matter what,” Jon had repeatedly told him men “you always have the proper gear, you do not go into a dangerous situation without the proper gear because you could then need help and complicate the job we are there to do.”  For the first time he understood the desire to take on the beast unprepared.  Sometimes, you just have to act and hope there is a higher power looking out for you.  It didn’t make it easier to stomach, but now he knew.

Arriving at the ambulance after his trek across the debris of her house and his feelings he handed over to the best medical care in the county, inside or outside of a hospital.

“Here ya go Rachael; she seems Ok physically except for a bump on the head and a few scorch marks.  Maybe some smoke in her lungs.” He said turning away to go back to help put out the fire.

“Stop right there!” the woman shouted.

“You need to get on in here too big man.  You have quite a few scorch marks yourself you know.”

He looked down at himself in surprise, noting the blisters on his arms and that they were an angry red where he had not even felt anything burning his skin.  Now he saw them, they began to burn with a fierceness that made him wince.

With the loss of adrenaline rush, he began to feel the many aches and pains that would plague him for a few weeks and remind him of his age even though he would rather forget. At least the last 5 years anyway.

“Ya know Blondie, I don’t have time to get these taken care of right now, but I’ll be back.”

“Oh no you won’t!  You will get your cute backside in here and take a seat and do it now!” She told him, hand on her hips.  “Don’t make me come out there and drag you in!”

“I have to..”

“Get in here Harris!”  He knew that look and it said ‘I can kick your sorry butt any time I want to and I am not afraid to do it here and now.’ And he knew she wasn’t.

“Ok, ok” He said while climbing into the rig and taking a seat. “You know what Blondie?  You are one mean woman when you set your mind to something.”  he said with a chuckle.

“You know what Harris?” she chided, “You are an awful smart man to be so dumb sometimes.”  The insult was tempered by a smile as she recalled the fist time they had said that to each other.

 

 They were young and it was a beautiful summer day.  He and his friends were off to the pond to swim away the afternoon.  She wanted more than anything to go with because Tommy James was going to be there and she had a crush on him deeper than the ocean.  He knew it of course and never missed an opportunity to tease her about

it that summer.

“No way squirt, you can’t go with.  You are just a girl.” he teased.  “Besides, Tommy doesn’t need you tagging around behind him like he sprouted a tail.”

“I don’t want to see Tommy James you blockhead.  I want to go swimming and daddy won’t let me go without you.”  she insisted.

“Sure thing and you would want to go if Tommy didn’t go.  I know.” He put his arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze to make sure she knew he loved her.

“Ya know Rach, I do believe you will get your man because you are as stubborn as a mule when you set your mind to something.” He said with more than a little pride.

“And you are one smart boy, but you can be awful dumb sometimes!”  she said back and put her little arm around his waist.

They walked arm in arm clean through to the neighborhood pond.

 

 He climbed into the back of the ambulance and took a seat on the stretcher opposite the woman to wait for Rachael to get to him.  While he was waiting, he used his time to study the woman lying across from him.

Noticing that her eyes , open now, are not only an amazing green, but her hair instead of being the dark brown it looked under the moonlight is actually a deep auburn with copper highlights.  Her skin, under the dirt, soot and burns is white and smooth.  Looking hard could see the dusky blue veins under her skin.  He thinks about tracing the map they create and with embarrassment he begins to feel an uncontrollable tingling in his belly that he had not felt since eighth grade and he couldn’t go up to the board and answer the teachers question in math.

Coughing up smoke, he tried to hide his discomfiture.

“You all right Harris?  Not gonna die on me are you?” Rachael smirks because she had noticed the flush on his cheeks as well as the saucer eyes he had gotten.

“Sure thing ma’am. So kind of you to ask.”  He grins.

‘It’s been awhile Harris,’ he thinks to himself, ‘but not that long!’ There have been lovers over the years, none that he wanted to stay or stay with, but lovers nonetheless.  He is a man after all.  Many of them were truly wonderful women; just not the one he wanted to spend his life with and they felt the same.  They all knew where they stood.

‘Damn, why does this woman affect me so much?  Pull it together Harris!  You’ve got a job to do; you don’t have time to sit here looking like a pole axed calf!’

“I’m done with the lady here; let me have a look at you.” Rachael let a now conscious

Erin lay back on the gurney and rest with her irritated eyes closed.

Turning her attention to Jon she begins to shine a light in his eyes to check for pupil reflex. 

“Well, the eyes are ok.  Did you get hit on the head when the house blew or are you just behaving like a nut because you can?” she asks sternly.

“Nope, I was a good li’l firefighter and kept my helmet on while we were there Ma’am.” He said sheepishly.

“Well, at least you did that right my friend.  Damn you for scaring me anyway!” her voice cracking a bit and it came out more gruffly than she meant.

Looking up at her for the first time since she figured out what was going on with his reaction to the woman, “Hey, you alright Rach?  You don’t sound so good yourself.”

“I’m fine Jon, you just scared me rushing out to the house like that!

You are the one always telling your men to make sure they have their gear and to not do anything stupid!”

“I know I’m sorry I scared you.  I just wasn’t thinking. I know better, and the men will make sure I never forget this one slip.” He laughs.

“Well Mr. Disaster, I won’t let you forget either and you better hope Saint Lacey doesn’t find out!”

<p class="MsoNormal” style=”MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt”>“Oh no!  You wouldn’t tell my mom would you?”

“Yeah, I just might at that….unless you tell me why you look like a star struck teenager and took such awful chances to get this woman out of there.” She asked with a smirk.

Startled, he glances anywhere but at Rachael.  He notices for the fist time the grumbling of the diesel engine on the ambulance.  He looks at the gurney he is on and notices how white the sheets are.  He gets lost in thoughts he would rather not revisit.

He had a wife once, until she found someone else to keep her company on the night he got called out to a scene.

“Damnit Jon!  I don’t see why you have to go.  Can’t one of the other guys go?” she would scream

“No!  You know I am the chief, you know I have worked my entire career for this.  They can’t go instead.  I am the one that has to sign off on the paperwork and determine a cause.”

“I cannot have them go in my place or what place do I hold?  We’ve had this argument before and I am tired of having it.”  He shouted this last at her while slamming the door on his way out.

He had found that the cause of that fire was arson, and he also found the small burned body in the charred back bedroom.  It was an infant who was sleeping peacefully in her crib and never woke up again. 

Her mother died as well, in the hallway outside the nursery.  It looked like she was trying to get to the baby and get out. 

Only the father survived and he was going to spend the rest of his life in jail if he had anything to do with the fire.  Murder by fire is one of the most horrible ways to die, and for that infant and her mother, Jon would testify as to what he found when the time came and do everything he could to make sure the arsonist paid with this life. 

With the images of their poor lifeless bodies in his mind and the smells of the death scene still in his nostrils, Jon went home.

All he wanted was to go home to his wife and curl up next to her and know the warmth of another human being.  She was gone when he got home.  He spent the night on the floor with a bottle, shell shocked and lacking in comfort.

“Hey buddy. Where are you?” Rachael asked with tenderness in her voice.

“Sorry, just thinking.”

Rachael knew better than to say anything, she knew where he was and also that he was the only one that could chase his demons away. 

She could still picture how he looked when she found him standing on her doorstep wobbling back and forth, tears running down his cheeks and asking if she had any money for his next drink.  Those were dark days in her life as well as his.  The love they shared was so deep and ingrained she began to feel the pain he was enduring.  If she could have found his wife, she would have gladly strangled her.  She even began to dream of the baby and her mother.  Thankfully, she was able to convince him that life would go on, and it would get better, that he had an obligation to those poor victims to bring their killer to justice and as a half-witted drunk he could not do that.  Without her support, she knew he would not have survived, so her support is what he got.  Along with an even bigger helping of love for her friend than he had ever had before.  She moved him in, cleaned him up and took away all his alcohol.  Times were harder than she ever thought they would be, but it was worth it for him.

 

Erin was lying quietly and listening.  She can tell from the way they interact that theirs is a relationship that is built on mutual love and respect and for just a moment she longs to be a player on their stage.

Remembering how it was