Fire at Sunset: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 4 (17 page)

“What about it?”
 

Caz leaned against the wall of the building and pursed his lips, giving a low, slow whistle that echoed into the parking lot. “You whistle constantly. Like if you don’t, you’re going to say something you might regret.”
 

Bonnie put her hands on her hips. Screw the fact that practically the whole town
and
her parents had watched their little exchange—she was too upset to care as much now as she knew she would later. “Anything else?”
 

“You lie to Valentine when you tell him you like his cooking.”
 

Well, that was true. No one liked the nights when Valentine cooked, but they were on a rotation. And he was so inordinately proud of the food he made. If anyone else in the house had made crunchy rice, they would have laughed him right out of the station, but Valentine was so earnest about it, so excited every time he put the big spoons into his sweet-potato-oatmeal or gluten-free macaroni casserole, that Bonnie didn’t have the heart to tell him that there was always a secret pizza delivery to the patio door every night he cooked.

“That’s not fair. Who doesn’t lie to him?” It was just a fact—a white lie was preferable to the truth sometimes. Why didn’t Caz get that? He preferred to hurt people?

Bonnie turned her back on Caz and took a step away, toward where her bike was locked. She patted her pocket to make sure she had her house keys. It didn’t matter that her raincoat was inside. She’d had enough humiliation for one night.

His voice followed her, strong and clear. “You lied at my house.”
 

Her whole body stiffened.
 

“Bonnie.” If a sound could physically wrap around her, his voice was the thing that could do it. She turned slowly. The rest of the world dropped away. There were just the two of them under the still-wet night sky. “At
my
house. You lied. Why?”
 

“About my virginity? I was teasing you, Caz.”
 

“Not
that
. Do you really think I’m still mad about that? That was a stupid joke. It was nothing.”
 

Confusion filled her body, her very bones. “Then…”
 

“You told my father he would be fine.”
 

“Oh, Caz. I just—” She broke off. Her heart clattered as if she were in atrial fibrillation, rattling and thumping wildly in her chest. The thought raced through her mind that maybe that was where the technical shorthand had come from. Atrial fib. Afib. A fib. “It’s just—”
 

“No
just
. If you’d only…” Caz paused and tugged on his ear so hard it looked like he wanted to pull it right off his head. “If you’d only been…
honest
with him. That would have been something. But you lied. To him.”
 

Bonnie opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
 

“I can’t forgive you for that.”
 

The truth hit Bonnie with force. “That’s not it.”
 

“Excuse me?” Caz drew himself to his full height, and if she’d been a different woman, Bonnie might have felt cowed.
 

But she wasn’t. She was the woman her grandmother had been proud of. “That’s not what you’re mad about. You
liked
that I said what I did to him. You liked that I made him feel better. I know you did.” Bonnie was the woman her mother loved. She might not be good with emotion, and she was starting to admit perhaps that was something she should work on. (She’d cried on her mother’s shoulder! Wasn’t that enough of a start?) But she was great at her job-she knew that—and part of her job meant making people who felt terrible feel less scared. Sometimes that meant a half-truth.

And knowing what to say when didn’t mean she didn’t
know
the truth. Caz was upset she hadn’t told him how she felt about him. That’s what this was about.
 

She went on, “I know what you want me to say. You have that black-and-white way of looking at the world, and mine is messy, all purples and pinks and greens.”
 

Caz’s eyes were a lake of blue ice.
 

Bonnie went on. “There’s a truth to everything, and then there are shades. Your father will be fine because that’s the truth. If he dies right this moment, while we’re here, he’ll be fine. I believe that. Besides.” She dug her fingers into her palms and said the next words slowly. “I didn’t tell him he was going to be okay for his sake. I said that for you. Half the things we say at deathbeds are for the living, not the dying.”
 

“He’s not—” The sound was ripped from Caz’s throat, low and painful.

“He is. You know he is. If you don’t admit that, then
you’re
the one lying.” Bonnie knew she’d crossed a line, but it was too late to mark boundaries. “He won’t make it much longer.”

“He’s strong. He’s—”

Bonnie put her hand to her stomach, almost able to feel the knots beneath her fingers. “If you believe that, then you’d think it was just fine I told him he was going to be okay. He
was
strong. He’s not now. Now is the time you have to give your strength to him.”
 

Caz’s face went dark. “You’re out of line.”
 

“Me? You left your cabin, your old job, everything you cared about to take care of him, but you’ve done it with resentment and bitterness at leaving your old life behind. You think that’s really what he would have wanted? You think he
appreciates
that? Your job is to filter the world around him. To make him feel cared for. And you’re failing at it.”

“He has no idea what’s going on around him.”
 

“But
you
do.” Bonnie didn’t know where she found the air to say the next words. “Take care of your father, Caz. Show him you care, that you believe in his strength. That’s the only truth that matters.”

It wasn’t, not to her. The truth that mattered to
her
was that her heart was breaking, but she could deal with that later, alone, in her bed, under the covers. She’d stay there for the next ten years or so. She might even cry. The whole time.
 

Caz’s face was bleak, as if she’d taken away something he’d worked his whole life for.

Bonnie stayed still. She had no courage left.
 

Caz said, “Truth or Dare, right?”
 

She nodded.

“Truth, then,” said Caz. “Are you in love with me, Maddern?”
 

The only answer was
yes
. It sang in her veins.
Yes, yes, yes.

But she said, “I don’t know.” She stood in front of him as the mist turned back into a fine drizzle, her uniform doing nothing to protect her from the naked feeling of her skin beneath the fabric. “Are
you
in love with
me
?”
 

He looked right into her eyes. “No,” he said.

Caz went back in the door, into the app bay, leaving her alone in the dim moonlight, dashing away the unforgivable tears from her cheeks.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

It was a lie.
 

It was the worst lie of all.

That said, he wouldn’t—couldn’t—take it back. She’d said she didn’t know how she felt about him. So him saying he didn’t love her…well, maybe if he worked really hard at it, if he made it a full-time job, someday he could make it true.
 

“Come on, Dad.” Caz carefully propped his father up on the pillows. “Can you stay put just for a little while? Just settle in. That’s right. Just like that.” He’d sent Joyce to bed—she’d looked exhausted when he’d gotten back to the ranch.
 

“You sure?” she’d asked. Her face had been pale. “It’s a bad night.”
 

“I’m sure. I’ll stay with him.”
 

“Caswell, we need to talk about—”

“No, thank you,” he’d said. As if he were declining dessert. No, thank you, he would not talk about moving his father to a facility where they’d stick him in a bed and strap him down until he died, alone, unknown and unloved. No, thanks. Not today. Or ever.
 

“But—”

“Good night, Joyce.” Caz had kissed her on the cheek, surprising himself. “Thank you for being here.”
 

“Of course.” She’d gone pink and smiled. “Of course.”
 

Now, hours later, Tony Lloyd was only beginning to settle down. For the first time all night, he seemed to listen when Caz soothed him.
 

“That’s it, Dad. Just close your eyes.”
 

Tony’s eyes closed. “Story.”
 

Caz jumped. “What?”
 

Tony pressed his lips together in a tight line.
 

“Dad?”
 

His father stayed silent.
 

Had he really asked for a story? Or was that just another noise his father made, words that weren’t really words, sound that carried no meaning?
 

Caz picked up the wolf he’d been carving for weeks now. It still wasn’t done. Something about the legs, maybe, or the muzzle? Something was wrong, and he couldn’t tell what it was.
 

“Story.” Tony’s eyes were open, and he met Caz’s gaze almost as if he were still himself. As if Dad were still in there. Somewhere.
 

Bonnie’s voice came back to Caz.
To make him feel cared for.

“What kind of story?”
 

Silence.
 

Of course his father was silent. What was Caz thinking? That his father knew what he was asking for? Stupid. So stupid to think that.
 

But if he did…
 

“Okay,” started Caz. “I’ll tell you about…”
Bonnie
. He only wanted to talk about Bonnie. About the way her hair lit in sunlight, and about how her lips looked when she pursed them in a whistle. About how he’d screwed up maybe bigger than he had in his whole life.
 

He’d lied to her.
 

Tony’s hands moved fitfully, pulling at the blanket that covered him. Caz smoothed it.
 

The one thing he’d wanted from Bonnie, she couldn’t give him. But instead of giving her the truth,
I’m so in love with you it hurts, so in love with you I’m blind to anything else
, he’d lied for the first time in memory. It was a flat-out, bald-faced ugly-as-sin lie. The worst untruth.

He still didn’t know why he’d done it.
 

“Story,” said Tony again. “Cabin.”
 

“Dad?” Caz wanted to lunge at the idea. Anything to take his mind off
her
.
 

“Cabin.”
 

Maybe his father
was
in there. “Okay. Great.” Caz pulled his straight-backed chair—the one his father had helped him make so many years before—closer to the bed. “So. The cabin is almost done. You were right about the flooring, by the way. I ran the first boards perpendicular to the joists, just like you said.” His father had talked about how to put in a floor years before Caz had started building the cabin, but he’d never forgotten what he’d said. While he’d worked on the walls and setting the chimney stones and buying the glass for the windows, he’d remembered his father’s words on construction, pretending his father was there to help.
 

That, in itself, was kind of a lie, wasn’t it?
 

But Tony’s eyes were still on him. They still had this moment. Together.
 

“Anyway. I still have to put the final touches on it. I have no furniture. Every room is still empty. I kind of like it that way, I gotta admit. Remember what you said about every room’s echo being different? I love that I know how my footsteps sound in the kitchen versus the bedroom. When I buy the furniture, I want to know that…”
 

What? What did he want to know? Why did knowing Bonnie’s favorite color seem so important to him suddenly?

“You’ll take…” His father’s words trailed off. “Take…”
 

Caz leaned forward, wanting to grab each sound his father made. “Take what? Take you?” He couldn’t. His father couldn’t make the trip, unless he was sedated the whole time, and even then his breathing would make it too difficult…
 

But Caz took a deep breath. “Of course, Dad. I’ll take you.” Once he said it, he was astonished at how good it felt.
 

He believed it, too. That was the strangest part.
 

“I’ll put you in the truck, and we’ll go up the coast road. Then we’ll cut inland through the redwoods—they’re still your favorite tree, I bet. Mine, too. We’ll get there before dark and even though I have no furniture, I still have that little hibachi. I set it out on the deck, and I have a bag of charcoal, ready to go. I haven’t cooked a steak there yet, but we’ll do that together.”
 

Tony gave a sigh and closed his eyes. Was it a happy sigh? An uncomfortable one?
 

Caz kept talking. Kept hoping. “So we’ll sit out on the porch, and then you’ll get to see how the light drops there over the pond to the west. It’s why I put the front porch where I did. Every night, to be able to sit there and rest, and watch the way the water ripples as the trout grab the early evening moths… You’ll love it. We’ll go.” He said it again. “We’ll go soon.”
 

“Her.”
 

Caz held his breath.
 

“Not me. Her,” said his father, his eyes still closed.
 

Tony hadn’t made this much sense in six months. Maybe more.
 

How could Caz trust the words? How could he trust they weren’t just nonsense? The garbled brain of his father whirring in a body that was shutting down?
 

Then it sunk into him, into his very bones.
 

Caz got to choose what he believed. The truth was…his own.
 

He got to make it. To believe it.
 

He felt rocked back, a sonic boom sounding in his chest.