One Summer (36 page)

“Maybe that’s not so surprising,” Charity said. She’d been thinking about it a lot as she’d looked at the photos in his book over and over again, searching for even the smallest piece of the man behind the lens. “Given what he’s witnessed.”

“Yeah.” He blew out a breath. There was this one time when a mob was chasing a woman who’d been accused of adultery. Which even in post-Taliban days in Afghanistan could mean a stoning sentence.

We couldn’t do anything because we were supposed to be turning that town over to the local police, and if we
had
fired, we would’ve ended up killing a bunch of civilians. Like most days downrange, it was pretty much an express elevator to hell.

“Since all the men in the mob were armed, anyone with any sense would have gotten the hell out of the way. I’ve seen other war photographers who’ve been more than willing to see people killed, just to get the photo they wanted.”

“But not Gabe.” It was not as much question as statement. Perhaps she’d come to know him better than she’d thought.

No. Not Gabe. He was right there running in the middle of the crowd, reaching out to grab her hand, maybe just for human contact, maybe because the crazy son of a bitch thought he could actually get her out of there, but then she fell and they were on her like a pack of wolves… .

“Meanwhile, Gabe’s literally on his knees, pleading with them not to kill her.”

“But they did.”

“Yeah. And somehow he managed to take the photo. Not because he thought it would win him any prizes—”

“Which it did.”

A Pulitzer, she remembered. She’d been riveted by the photo when it had come out in all the papers, never realizing that someday she’d meet—and fall in love with—the man who’d taken it.

He’s never cared about that. The funny thing about Gabe is that after all he’s seen and all he’s been through, you’d think he’d be cynical. And he comes off that way. But he’s not. He had this crazy idea that eventually good would actually triumph over evil, if only enough people saw the violence others are forced to endure. If his photos could somehow shake the world out of its indifference to suffering.

“And I think the only way he can endure what he’s witnessed and do the work as well as he does is be relentlessly single-minded and totally centered inside himself.”

He’d just described the man to a T.

“Thank you,” she said, not exactly encouraged by what she’d learned. “And please thank Kelli for me.”

“No problem.” Cole’s dark eyes held compassion, and, she feared, a bit of pity.

He walked her out to her vehicle and insisted on holding the door open while she climbed into the driver’s seat. Then, before she could close it, he said, “There’s just one more thing.”

Terrific.

“What’s that?”

“I agree with my bride. If there’s anyone who can get the guy to open up, it’s you.”

As she drove out to the camp, Charity only wished she could believe that.

“Are you sure we have to spend the night here?” Gabe complained.

“We all have to leave at dawn,” she repeated what she’d already told him. “Having everyone stay at the lodge only makes sense.”

“Maybe because
everyone
doesn’t have something better to do. How am I supposed to sleep if you’re sharing a damn dorm room instead of being with me?”
Where you belong,
he thought, but did not say.

“It’s not a dorm room. It’s a double.”

“With another woman in the second bed.”

“It’s only one night,” she soothed.

He looked down at the slender hand, which looked as if it should be pouring tea from a gilt-rimmed cup in some Victorian parlor. Having watched her wrestle a balky bulldog into its crate for the drive back to town yesterday, he knew her hand, like the rest of her, was a lot stronger than it looked.

“Camp’s almost over.” Which of them was he reminding? Her? Himself? Both? “We don’t have that many nights left.”

“Your choice,” she reminded him.

Since there was nothing to say to that, Gabe didn’t respond. At least not to her.

“Women,” he complained to his dog later that evening.

Although Charity’s vet assistant had taken the other dogs back to the shelter, Peanut and the mutt had stayed behind and were going along on tomorrow’s adventure. At the moment the dog, who still didn’t have a name, was lying on its back offering up its stomach for attention.

“Why do they have to complicate every damn thing?”

The dog, wiggling in ecstasy as Gabe rubbed its belly, either didn’t know, didn’t care, or wasn’t telling.

The alarm shattered the night silence. At first, shaken from a dream of making love to Gabriel beneath Rainbow Falls, Charity was disoriented.

“It’s the fire alarm,” Sedona, who was already out of the other double bed and throwing a T-shirt over a sleeveless undershirt, said. The boxer shorts she’d gone to sleep in were printed with cupcakes, which Charity would have found faintly humorous under any other circumstances.

“I don’t smell any smoke,” she said as she hurriedly dressed and shoved her feet into her running shoes without bothering with socks. “I wonder if we’re supposed to do like in a hotel. And stay put until we hear differently.”

As if on cue, her cell phone rang, followed a moment later by Sedona’s.

“It’s one of the cabins,” Gabe informed her. “Fred says they’re all wired to ring here. They also trigger a call to the fire and police departments.”

“Which cabin?” she asked.

He hesitated.

“Gabe? Which cabin?” Her nerves tangled like seaweed.

“It’s the one the Harper kids are in,” he said with obvious reluctance as her heart cratered.

“It’ll take twenty minutes for the fire department to get here,” she said.

“Fred and I are on it. You stay put.”

“The hell I will,” she shot back. But she was already speaking to air. He’d hung up.

 

The smoke was burning his lungs and blinding him. Desperate, Johnny groped around in the dark for his sister.

“Angel! Where are you?”

“I’m here,” a small, frightened voice called out.

“Where?” He was madly ripping away at the bedding on the lower bunk. Which felt empty.

“Here,” the little voice, trembling with fear, answered. “Under the bed.”

“You’ve got to come out.”

“I learned in fire drill at school that you’re supposed to stay on the floor when there’s a fire,” she argued.

“That’s so you don’t breathe in smoke.” Which he was definitely doing. It scorched his throat and burned his lungs. “But we can’t stay in here. We’ve got to get out.”

“I’m scared!” she wailed.

She wasn’t the only one. As the sirens blared and the smoke made his nose run like a faucet, Johnny remembered what the Marine had said about managing fear, and tried to reassure them both.

“It’ll be okay,” he said. “I’ll get us out of here.”

He crawled the few feet and put his hand against the door. It was hot as an oven. And if he lay down right next to the crack at the bottom, he could see orange flames dancing from the living room.

“We’re going out the window,” he said as he crawled back. He swept his hands beneath the bed, as far as he could reach. “Dammit, Angel, I can’t fucking find you!”

“You’re not supposed to use the
f
word.” She’d begun to cry, big, deep, gulping sobs that were probably pulling more smoke into her lungs. “And don’t yell at me!”

“I’m sorry. But can you
pretty please
come out?”

“I want to wait for the firemen. They’ll save us. Like Fireman Ted.”

“Fireman Ted?” Jesus, could this get any worse?

“He’s a b-b-bear who becomes a fireman when his toast catches on fire one morning. He puts it out with a fire extinguisher, then rescues puppies and kittens all before he gets to school. Which makes him late and the principal gets so mad his pants catch on fire. But F-F-F-Fireman Ted saves him, too.”

“That’s a great story.”

Okay. Yelling wouldn’t help. Neither would scaring her any more than she was already scared. But tiny fingers of flames were starting to lick beneath the door. The entire place could blow up any minute.

“When we get out of here, you can read it to the dog.” Just this afternoon he’d watched them sitting together beneath a tree, the mutt seeming to actually look at the pages as she’d read to him about the grand adventures of a paper-bag princess who foiled an evil dragon and rescued Prince Charming. “I’ll bet he’d like that a lot.”

“I got it at the library. That’s where I get all my books, but they don’t let you keep them for longer than two weeks.”

Inside Johnny was screaming even louder than the fucking alarm. Outside, he struggled for the calm necessary to get his sister out of here and keep her safe.

“I’ll bet they have a library in Shelter Bay.” Lying down on his stomach, he wiggled beneath the bed, making wide sweeping actions with his arm. “We’ll check it out.”

He could hear a roar coming from the living room. Had the other kids in the cabin gotten out? Or were they stuck in their rooms, too? Though they probably weren’t having to suffer through such a stupid, time-wasting conversation.

He usually hated it when one of the foster parents would drag him to church, because he’d long ago decided that if God really did exist, he wouldn’t allow such bad things to happen to kids, who hadn’t done anything to deserve getting thrown into the fucking system. But now, as the smoke continued to fill the room, Johnny began wildly making deals with God.

If only he could get hold of Angel, he’d never swipe another cigarette again.

If only he could talk her into crawling out from beneath the bed before the place went up in flames, he’d quit bucking the system and be the most obedient foster kid anyone had ever known.

“Angel?”

She didn’t answer.

“Angel?” he tried again.

Again, no answer.

What if she’d died of smoke inhalation? He’d read somewhere that was a bigger danger than dying in flames.

If he could only get her out the window and into the fresh air, safe and sound, he’d even become a priest. First he’d have to become a Catholic, but for Angel, he’d be willing to do that, too.

His eyes were tearing. He took a deep breath and felt as if he’d swallowed a chestful of burning coals from last night’s campfire.

Finally! His fingertips brushed hers.
Thank you, God.

Johnny’s relief was short-lived. Just as grabbed hold of her limp hand, the door literally exploded off its hinges.

“Jesus Christ!”

He yanked hard, but pulling deadweight from a prone position wasn’t easy. Especially when he was half beneath the bed himself.

Flames were racing up the walls, licking greedily at the ceiling.

Proving that sometimes prayers really were answered, he’d no sooner said the words in his head than the window glass shattered.

“Don’t worry, kid,” the familiar deep voice said, sounding awfully calm considering they were all seconds away from being turned into crispy critters. “The Marines have landed and the situation is well in hand.”

“I’ve never been so frightened in my life,” Charity said to Gabe as she paced the ER waiting area.

Less than two minutes after Gabe had dragged the little girl through the window and run clear of the cabin, the entire building had burst into a fireball.

“If you hadn’t been there …” She closed her eyes and dragged her hands through her hair, dislodging bits of soot, which fell to the green tile floor like flakes of blackened snow.

“But I was. And I didn’t do it alone. Fred sure as hell did his part by helping get those other kids out.” Fortunately, unlike Johnny and his sister, they’d already been climbing out the window on their own.

“Poor Johnny. He must have been frantic.”

She could see inside the emergency unit where he and Angel were both receiving oxygen for smoke inhalation. The paramedic who’d arrived with the fire truck had also found that Johnny’s nasal hairs had been singed and although both children’s mouths and throats were reddened, other than sore throats and possible coughs, he’d believed that the prognosis for a full recovery would be good.

“I’d say that’s a good word for it. But they’re fortunate kids, that’s for damn sure.”

“I wonder what started the fire.”

“From what Johnny and the older kids in the other rooms said, it seemed to have started in the living room. Could’ve been the wiring.”

“The cabins are only a couple years old.”

He shrugged. “I imagine the investigators will come up with something. They’ve got lots of ways to discover points of origin.”

“So I’ve heard.”

She’d also seen
Backdraft
. Three times. Not because she’d enjoyed the fire scenes, which she hadn’t. But because the lonely teenage boarding-school girl she’d been back then had had a major crush on Kurt Russell.

“I hate that they won’t let us in,” she muttered as she watched the DHS caseworker talking with one of the doctors who’d first examined the children when they’d arrived at the ER.

“We’re not official,” he reminded her.

“But I care.” She felt the moisture sting at the backs of her lids as she looked up at him.

“I know.” Instead of criticizing her for that, as he had yesterday, Gabe stroked her hair. “And you know what I said? About you taking in strays?”

“Yes, and if you’re about to warn me again—”

No. I’m about to say that your warm and open heart is what makes you who you are. And if more people in this world were like you, there wouldn’t be any kids without parents and stray dogs that need you.

“Damn.” He pulled a tissue from the box on the table next to a pair of ugly vinyl chairs and dabbed at the tears that had begun to trail down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”