“You must have been so brave to do that job,” I murmur as I imagine Wyatt and my dad charging into burning buildings, saving people side by side. “Do you ever miss it?”
“No.” Wyatt’s response is immediate, but then he adds, “It’s a rewarding job. You feel like you’re making a difference. But I sure as hell don’t miss having other people’s lives in my hands. The pressure was too much for me. Holden dealt with it a lot better.”
I take a sip of my lemonade, thinking this over. “Is that where you first met my dad? At the fire station?”
“No, we met in third grade. Best friends at school. Decided we’d train to be firefighters together.” Wyatt breaks the tab on his Coke, and it hisses as he takes a sip. “All in the past now. Let’s talk about you instead.”
But there’s still one question gnawing at me. One thing Wyatt hasn’t explained. He said he quit the department and pushed everyone away, but he never told me why. Every time the conversation veers toward that period of his life, it’s like he’s desperate to skip past it. I should let it go. Respect his privacy. But I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of this man, and the more time we spend together, the more desperate I am to know him.
Reallyknow him.
I muster up the courage to say, “I just have one more question.”
Wyatt sets down his Coke. “You can ask me anything you want, Pixie.” He looks resigned, like he knows what’s coming. It gives me pause, but my curiosity wins out.
“Why did you quit the fire department?” I ask quietly. “What made you cut yourself off from everyone like that?”
For a while, he doesn’t speak. The gentle lap of water fills the silence, birds chattering in the trees around us as the sun sets behind the mountains. I watch Wyatt as he runs a hand over his russet beard, staring off into the distance like he’s deep in thought. Just as I start to think he won’t answer me, he makes a noise deep in his throat and starts to tell me the story.
8
WYATT
Somehow,I always knew I would open up to Isabelle in the end. If it were anybody else asking about my past, I’d tell them to piss off and mind their own business. But not her. Hell, I could never deny her anything. But it’s still hard, talking about what happened, and I take a few moments to order my thoughts, casting my mind back twenty-two years. Then I clear my throat and start to talk.
“People think being a firefighter means running into burning buildings every day,” I say, my eyes fixed on the lake. “But it’s not like that. Cherry Hollow’s a small town with a small fire station. Most of our calls were for medical emergencies or car accidents. When we were called in to tackle an actual fire, it was usually something small—cooking fires, chimney fires, easy to put out.”
In my peripheral vision, I see Isabelle nod, hanging onto my every word.
“It happened about two months before Holden found you. Middle of the night, I was called in to help tackle a fire at a house on the edge of town. I lived just across the street from the station in those days, so I raced over, got suited up with the rest of the crew. Your dad wasn’t there—he was out sick that week.Anyway…the fire had completely taken over by the time we got to the house. It was a big old mansion, full of clutter. Went up like a damn tinderbox.”
Instinctively, I touch my arm, running my fingers over the puckered scar tissue.
“I was tasked with leading the search and rescue. It was a family home—parents, five kids, all still inside the building. We went inside in teams of three and started trying to find the occupants.”
When most people picture fire, they think of orange flames, bright and vivid. All I think of is black. Stepping into a burning building means wading blindly through charcoal-colored smoke, feeling your way along. The only light comes from your helmet, and it’s not enough to cut through the darkness.
“The house was like a damn warren,” I continue. “So many rooms, doors, hallways. We tried to check them all, but with visibility so low, it was impossible to know if we’d covered everywhere. We found the parents in their bedroom and carried them to safety. Found four of the kids and got them out too. But the youngest was still inside.” My throat tightens at the memory, the panic as each room turned up empty. “The building was collapsing in places. You could hear it creaking and groaning. We had Ralph yelling at us to pull back and get out of there. Said it was too dangerous to keep searching. My crewmates left, but I just couldn’t. I knew I must have fucked up. Missed a room somewhere. So I kept going, ignoring my radio.”
Isabelle sucks in a breath beside me, but I can’t bring myself to look at her. In my mind, I’m back in that house, hearing Ralph shout at me frantically through the crackling radio.
“My air tank was running low,” I say. “Got harder to breathe. I’d been in the house too long, and my gear was struggling with the heat. It’s not designed to protect you for long periods of time. A piece of burning debris knocked me to the ground. Pinned myarm down. Burned it. Took me a while to get it free, and that’s when I finally got out of there.”
I can still taste the pain. The fierce, searing agony that swallowed my arm. The roar of the fire mingling with my screams. My stomach clenches at the memory, but then I feel Isabelle take my hand, her skin soft against mine. Her touch grounds me.
You’re not in that house anymore.
You’re here with Isabelle, sitting by the lake.
“I went to the same hospital the family was taken to. Not everyone made it. The dad and one of the daughters had inhaled too much smoke—never woke up. They found the little boy in his bedroom. Turns out I missed a whole damn corridor of rooms, and his was one of them.”
I struggle to keep the self-loathing out of my voice, and Isabelle’s grip on my hand tightens.
“You can’t blame yourself, Wyatt.” Her voice is thick with emotion. “You’re a hero. You got six people out of that building.”
It should have been seven…
“I sure didn’t feel like a hero,” I tell her. “Ralph was furious with me for disobeying orders. What happened was hard on all of us—the whole crew. But I took it harder than the rest. A little boy died because of my mistake. It tore me up. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. I was so damn ashamed. Couldn’t face seeing the crew, not even Holden. I had to take time off for my burns to recover, and I just…never went back. Quit the department and moved up to the mountains.”
