I Still Do Read online

  That he loved.

  Wow.

  He’d been so damn busy working and raising the family that he’d never really given it much thought before. He loved his job.

  It was a good thing to know, he decided. A good thing to be certain about. “I’m not after another career,” he told Owen. “Now, an escape from Jamie and Max and Alex and Tom and Betsy…that I might go for.”

  Owen drew his notes closer and shuffled through the pile. “You could do it, then. You could move away and be a firefighter somewhere else. Start over, like your old friend, Emily, did in moving here.”

  Will opened his mouth, the instant refusal to leave his hometown on the tip of his tongue. Then he narrowed his gaze on Owen’s too-carefully blank expression and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “All right, you’ve made your point, for whatever reason you felt you needed to make it. I enjoy my job, I like where I’m doing it. So if you’re so damn smart, why don’t you come up with why I—well, I should say we—complicated the good thing we have going here by what happened in Las Vegas?”

  For the life of him, he couldn’t dredge up whose idea the wedding had been first. None of them had piped up with a single word of caution. And when Emily had stood beside him, her little dress hugging her curves and a silly veil perched on top of her head, he could only remember the smell of her perfume and that he was grinning like a loon and thinking he was the happiest—

  Surely he hadn’t been thinking at all.

  He looked over at his best friend. “Well?” he demanded. “What’s your answer? How could two smart, happy-in-their-careers-and-where-they-practice-them single men make the biggest mistake of their lives?”

  Owen was still quite the Confucius with that no-expression expression. “Are you so sure it was a mistake?”

  That left it to Will to provide the reality check. “Owen,” he said. “The women we married ran away the morning after the weddings. You can’t get the librarian who said ‘I do’ to say ‘hello’ to you now, not even over the stinkin’ phone.”

  “I’m going to fix that,” Owen answered. “I’ve got four free days coming after this shift. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m tracking Izzy down.”

  Disquieted by the determination he heard in his friend’s voice, Will leaned forward. “Owen, what are you talking about? You can’t get Izzy to return your call.” And I can’t get Emily out of my head.

  That unbidden thought sent his mind spinning off again. Not to Vegas this time, but to that last night they’d been together. The night of Jamie’s awkward anniversary party.

  When he’d realized what all the Daileys were gathered for, he’d been—hell, he didn’t know. Furious, maybe, with a good measure of…something else he couldn’t name thrown in.

  He didn’t want his siblings’ gratitude. He wanted them to leave him alone!

  Nobody understood it. Not even Emily. But that hadn’t stopped him from demanding more from her, from demanding that she let him into her bed so that he could forget himself in her silken skin, her sweet smell, the soft, hot, wetness of her body.

  Their passion had put them both to sleep, but he’d woken just past midnight, in an instant recognizing—just as he’d recognized that day at the Las Vegas hotel—that he was with Emily. There’d been that same sense of exhilaration, that same sense of rightness, and he’d not moved a muscle in order to leave her sleep undisturbed.

  Her cheek was pillowed on his shoulder, and she was curled against him, her knee riding his thigh, her naked breast pressed to his side. He’d gone from semi-hard to poker-stiff, no surprise about that, but he’d ignored the automatic reaction to bare beauty in his arms to focus on less earthy sensations: the soft sigh of her breath against his collarbone, the silky feel of her hair against his cheek, the shiny quality of her fingernails as a trickle of moonlight found them resting against his chest.

  That’s right. He’d wallowed in the prettiness of the woman’s fingernails!

  God, he could see them in his mind’s eye now, and didn’t that just mean he had to, had to get a grip.

  He had to get out from under the weight of the feelings he was beginning to have for her. Unless he did, they were going to take him down.

  Across the table, Owen was frowning at his cell phone. Will straightened in his chair. “What’s up? You heard from Izzy?”

  “My grandfather,” Owen replied. “Demanding another command performance, I guess, though he just had those two weeks of Marston togetherness in Tahoe and didn’t manage to convince me then of the error of my ways.”

  What had once been a mom-and-pop feed and farm supply, Owen’s grandfather had grown to a much bigger business. Owen’s brother was ready to step into that side of things while his younger sister was eager to take over the winery the family also owned, but old Mr. Marston hadn’t given up on getting his oldest grandchild under the company thumb, too.

  Will had met the irascible, stubborn patriarch, but his money was on Owen. His friend looked up. “Damn it. Get this—the old buzzard has learned to text message. Next thing you know he’ll have found out about what happened in Las Vegas.”

  “I thought what happened there was supposed to stay there,” Will muttered.

  Is that where they’d made their mistake? All four of them thinking it was a lark instead of legal?

  But hell, none of them was that dumb. The night they’d wed on a whim, it hadn’t felt whimsical at all. It had felt like a hell of a good idea.

  But an idea that had run its course all the same, he told himself, as he pulled out his own phone. Without allowing a moment for second thoughts, he searched his address book then called Emily’s number. Tonight they’d plan a course of action regarding what to do about this marriage business.

  It was time, wasn’t it? Owen was going to track down his wife, while Will was going to find his way out of the trap he and Emily found themselves in.

  She answered on the first ring. “Eliot?” she said, her voice breathless.

  Will lifted the phone to stare at it a moment, then he slammed it back against his ear. “Who’s Eliot?”

  “Oh. Will.” She laughed a little.

  What the hell was so funny? He cleared his throat. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  “No, no. I just got back from drinks—”

  “With Eliot?”

  She laughed again. “Yes. He’s that professor I told you about, and he forgot a book at the restaurant. I brought it home with me.”

  “You’re dating a professor?”

  “No, Dad.” She huffed a little and he could imagine the annoyed expression on her face. “It’s a business thing. Remember, the man who was interested in my film and book club idea?”

  “Oh, that.” Had he really sounded fatherly? Maybe he could live with fatherly. “Is this guy married? Is he a thousand years old?”

  “He doesn’t wear a wedding ring—”

  “You and I don’t either.” Though when had Emily taken hers off? He remembered sliding it on under the approving gaze of Reverend Elvis, but he hadn’t seen her wearing it since. “So how old is this Eliot?”

  “He’s thirty-five. Eliot spent a few years in Hollywood—actually starred on a soap for a while—before realizing he’d rather teach about films than try to break into them.”

  Some pretty boy, wannabe actor had been out tonight having drinks with Will’s wife.

  Earlier, the idea of what he and Emily had done had felt like a weight he was carrying on his shoulders. But this, this idea that his Emily was out with someone else—would likely be out with other someone elses once they dissolved the marriage—felt like a pair of hands strangling him around the throat.

  From the minute he’d seen her again, he’d done everything he could to tie himself to her—making sure that they spent every moment together in Las Vegas, not once balking at the crazy idea of marrying her, not even when he’d gotten a glimpse of the Bible-toting, bling-wearing Elvis. Now his throat was closing up at the id
ea of her with another man.

  So tight he couldn’t get out the words that would precipitate the end of their marriage.

  “Emily…” His voice didn’t sound like his own. “Emily, we have to—”

  The alarm in the station house sounded. Damn. Another delay. He rose, his mindset already switching from personal to professional. “Gotta go, Em.” If she responded before he clicked off, he didn’t hear her voice.

  It was a residential fire and even in the dark they could smell and see the heavy black smoke as they arrived. The home was two stories, a vestibule room attaching the living area to the garage. Over the wide garage entrance was a metal canopy extending out another ten feet. It appeared the fire had started in the vestibule and moved to both house and garage.

  Dressed in turnout gear, helmet, hood, gloves, boots and self-contained breathing apparatus, the firefighters got to work. Owen and others from a second engine moved toward the house itself, while Will and Anita approached the open garage with a charged hoseline. Will had the nozzle in hand, Anita, carrying an ax, backed him up as they moved under the canopy and then into the garage.

  He could see the flames had spread rapidly across the ceiling and assumed they were finding plenty of fuel in the enclosed attic area. Their hose was having some effect, though, and he only hoped that the others were doing as well in the house. The homeowner had met them out front and said the family had evacuated, so there were no worries about anyone besides his fellow firefighters.

  When their SCBAs were running low on air, he and Anita backed out for a bottle change. After replacing their cylinders, they went right back in and resumed putting water on the fire. He heard a muffled sound from Anita, but before he could look around, debris fell from the ceiling onto his head. The heavy thunk to his helmet sent him to his knees.

  Damn. Holding fast to the nozzle, Will struggled back to his feet and didn’t protest when Anita indicated they needed to get the hell out. Only three minutes into their second bottles of air and conditions were deteriorating.

  Once again, they backed out of the garage door, but remained near the doorway and under the canopy. With the hose line still in operation, this time Will made a conscious choice to go to his knees so he could better direct the nozzle toward the fire consuming the garage ceiling.

  Then, disaster. Without a breath of warning, the overhanging canopy crashed down. Metal slammed into Will’s back, hitting his tank and knocking off his helmet. He fell to the concrete as heavy debris dropped. Imprisoning him. The dark was absolute. Smoky, and absolute.

  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.

  Chapter Twelve

  Emily discovered that she could make herself a mouseho
le 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.