Fireproof (24 page)

“You think I'm gonna make it, Captain?” Eric asked on the way back to the station.“Those testers didn't look happy out there.”

“They've been too close to too many fires,”Wayne said from the driver's seat. “All that heat's made their lips pucker. Not to mention—”

“Okay,Wayne. We got it. Listen, Eric, you did fine today, but you've got another day ahead. Rest up. Relax. And just do as you've been taught. You'll be a firefighter yet.”

“Yes sir.”

“And don't even worry about the aerial ladder climb,”Wayne said.“Man, that's the easy part.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Is there some secret to it?”

“Secret? Nahhh. It's like climbing a set of stairs. Just watch each step so that you don't slip, and you'll be up and down like a yo-yo.”

Caleb grinned. Ah, the joys of being a rookie. Soon enough, Eric's fear of heights would be put to the test.

CATHERINE PROPPED HERSELF on a stone bench and stared into the fountain's dancing waters. She'd joined Gavin here in the hospital gardens not so long ago and blossomed beneath his gaze. What had she been thinking? She was an educated, self-reliant woman, and she'd let some white-jacketed wannabe Prince Charming make her weak-kneed with a glance.

A few years ago she would have scoffed at the thought.

Recently, the doctor's demeanor had changed. Gavin was friendly still, as he would be to any other staff member, but the warmth in his voice and the brazen glances were gone.

Catherine took a sip of her lukewarm vanilla latte. The taste wasn't the same as that day when Gavin brought her one.

Seemed everything had gone flat. Not just the coffee.

Her days were blending one into the next, and she'd completely forgotten a few of her appointments at work. She'd heard how emotional stress could wreak havoc on the mental processes, but this was the first time she'd experienced it herself. At times, she questioned if she was losing touch.

She kept her smile on, nonetheless—she was, after all, the public relations manager—and kept herself outfitted in the latest fashions. So what if that meant racking up a few more charges on the credit cards? Maybe she'd be able to split the debt in a settlement.

Was that remotely fair to Caleb, though?

Her husband was so confusing. Though these past few weeks he had shown a whole different side, she wasn't convinced that it would last. Sure, he'd been sharing the chores around the house. Yes, he'd tried to show a little romance—the way it had once been between the two of them.

But was it worth taking a chance again?

No, she didn't dare go there. She couldn't. For the time being, it was all she could do to survive beneath a veneer of normalcy.

Lives changed, and marriages didn't always work out.

People fell in and out of love.

To move on
was
the new normal.

She took one more sip of her latte, then dumped the remains into the low shrubs behind her. Despite the personal pep talk, she felt more disengaged and out of place than ever.

CALEB JOGGED ALONG the trails behind his property, pushing past his muscles' protests and the tightening in his lungs. His churning legs parted swarms of gnats. He ran with endurance, locking the pain away in a corner of his mind while he concentrated on his reading of the most recent entry from
The Love Dare
.

The words were from 1 Corinthians 13.

Love . . . always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails . . . And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

When it came to protecting, he considered himself far above average. His entire job revolved around that very thing. He wasn't as great in the trust department—particularly after finding that Hallmark card on the dresser.

Wiping sweat from his eyes, he ran on.

When he slipped through the side door forty minutes later, Catherine's car was already cooling in the garage. The sight triggered an unexpected flashback to their first year of marriage, when he had come home from a workout to find her waiting with grilled-cheese sandwiches and a tall glass of sweet tea.

For just a moment, a flicker, he allowed himself to hope.

Love . . . always hopes . . .

And then that silly notion faded as he realized she was already locked away in the master bedroom. He went to tap on the door. Maybe she'd join him for dinner, even if it was nothing more than microwave entrées.

He lifted his hand to knock. Hesitated.

Why even risk it?

He turned and hit the hall lights. She had gone into hiding for a reason, and he would only stir her resentment against him if he interrupted her time alone. It was easier to not knock at all than to endure a flat-out rejection.

In his own room, he kneeled to pray. Not because he had it all together—just the opposite. He felt like he was coming apart at the seams, like all his attempts had been for nothing. On his own, he was lost.

On his knees, he knew he was found.

CHAPTER 34

T
he next day there was a slight shift in the routine. Caleb handed Catherine her coffee as she jetted out the door, and she accepted it this time, with a mumbled thanks.

He held on to that moment for hours. In the woods, awash in a golden afternoon haze, he balanced himself on a wide mossy branch and thought:

She actually let me serve her.

As dusk settled, he found his way to the camp circle and faced the familiar symbol of love and sacrifice. Silently, he prayed:
God, help me
know how to obey and be patient. I'm just a man. Please, help me.

THE FIELD TESTERS were on duty again, ready to gauge Station One's capabilities by yards, inches, and seconds. Caleb understood the purpose of these drills, yet nothing mattered as much as a person's actions in the face of real danger.

With a hand motion from the battalion chief, the ladder truck's hydraulic outriggers extended on one side, then lowered until the vehicle was firmly braced on the passenger side.

“Rookie Eric Harmon,” said the tester with crew-cut gray hair.

“Sir?”

“You're goin' up.”

Caleb and the others let their gazes follow the hundred-foot aerial ladder into a cerulean, cloud-dotted sky. With nothing to lean against, the rungs seemed to disappear into thin air, rising high above the Georgia pines that guarded the lot. Memories of this test caused nerves to flutter in Caleb's stomach.

“C'mon, rookie,” he said. “You can do this.”

Eric, in full gear, bit his lip and nodded.

“You'll have all the time you need,” the tester said, “but if you fail to reach the top, you will be disqualified. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Wayne patted him on the back. “It's not as scary as it looks. Get about fifty feet up there, let the breeze blow you around a little, and you'll see there ain't nothing to it. My rookie season, I didn't even get sweaty palms.”

“Man,” Terrell said, “you froze at the top, like a penguin in an ice storm.”

“Penguins don't freeze, Terrell.”

“You don't know that.”

Wayne's eyes narrowed. “I know my stuff, okay. I watch Animal Planet.”

Caleb couldn't resist ribbing his driver. “Then how come those penguins all stand together huddled like that? I thought it was better to keep moving when you're cold.”

“Oh, that's easy to explain,”Terrell butted in. “It's because, just like Wayne here, they can't dance.”

Caleb threw Lieutenant Simmons a smile, and even Eric managed a grin.

The field testers were not amused.

“You're cleared to go,” said Mr. Crew Cut.

Eric started climbing. His boots clunked against each step, moving slower as his elevation increased. He looked back over his shoulder, saw Simmons backing him up the first twenty feet or so, and then he was stepping higher and higher, with no one there but the doubts and fears that Caleb knew from experience came whispering in your ears.

Two-thirds of the way up, the rookie stopped. With gloves clamped onto the sides, he ventured a look down through the rungs.

Bad idea. That was enough to flip your gut and twist it twice.

“Look up!” Caleb yelled. “You gotta trust the ladder to hold you.”

The rookie's legs were visibly trembling.

With the wind buffeting the skies, it was doubtful Caleb's cries could be heard, but he called out again anyway. “Don't quit now, Eric! Don't
quit
!”

One stiff step.

“You got it!” Simmons joined in.

The others formed a chorus, the brotherhood coming together for one of their own. “You got it, Eric! Keep
going
. You got it!”

Eric took another step. And another. Eventually, he gripped the top rung, nearly ten stories in the air and dangling over nothing but hard earth far below. He lifted his free hand a few inches in nervous victory, and the crew on the ground high-fived in celebration.

One more had been added to their ranks.

And that meant there was a final gesture to be made, to let him know he was in.

It happened two hours later, back at the firehouse. The rookie was polishing the brass fire poles, as instructed, when Terrell and Simmons edged to the opening above with tin kettles full of cold water. If you were going to be a firefighter, you wanted to keep yourself immune to the heat and the flames, wasn't that right?

Eric never saw the deluge coming. He froze in place at the bottom of the pole as a shower of ice-cold water soaked every thread on his uniform.

Caleb walked past, showing impeccable timing, and handed the kid a mop without saying a word.

THE TESTING CAME to an end, only to be supplanted by the real deal. A warehouse on the east side of town was burning in the wake of a chemical explosion, and the blaze was already jumping through the treetops to nearby buildings. The night dragged on with multiple fire stations involved, engines and ladders positioned so that crews on the ground could attack from the bottom, while men aimed down torrents of water from the aerials above.

Eric was up there, steady as a rock.

Others entered burning structures in search of victims—wielding axes, sucking air through smudged masks.

By early morning, they had wrestled down the fiery beast and stamped it into ash and dirt.

It would be back, though. Captain Caleb Holt knew that as a fact. In some other location, with other lives and buildings at stake, it would rise up again with a vengeance and use orange-red talons to tear at wood, metal, and brick. Fire prevention and education were much-needed values, but they would never negate the need for competent, fearless fire suppression.

And that was done by those who stood against the flames.

He arrived home the next morning. Showered. Did Catherine's dishes from the night before. Took a mind-clearing walk through the woods to shed the last lingering tendrils of smoke from his hair and skin.

CHAPTER 35

W
hen Caleb woke up, the house was quiet. He rubbed his eyes, pushed aside the covers, and found himself still clothed in sweatpants and a T-shirt. His watch told him it was eleven thirty a.m. No wonder he felt so groggy.

He walked into the living room and was perplexed by the sight of Catherine's purse and keys on the love seat. She was a reliable employee who never called in sick. And she never got home this early.

Was something wrong?

He tiptoed to her door, knocked gently. When there was no answer, he cracked open the door and saw his wife on her side in their king-size bed.

“Catherine? Are you okay?”

She kept her back to him. She sniffed. “I'm fine.”

He noted the wadded tissue on the nightstand. “Aren't you going to work?”

“No.”

Caleb took a few hesitant steps into the room. “Are you sick?”

“I'll be
fine
.”

He knew he should turn and leave before incurring her wrath, but he was held in place by his concerns for her health. This just wasn't like her. Though he'd have to deal with the consequences later, he had to know what was bothering her.

“Is it your allergies?” he asked in a soft voice.

She turned. Her eyes were puffy, her face pale. “I said I'll be fine. Don't worry about me.” She sounded more tired than upset.

Caleb figured he could press a little further. As she rolled over again, he said, “Because if you need something, I can run to the store.”

“No, I'm okay.” A weary tone. A sniffle. “You can go.”

He weighed his options and decided he had pressed as far as he should. A part of him wanted to lie down and curl up beside her, to hold her in his arms and keep her warm.

That was out of the question, of course. She wanted no such thing.

“Okay,” he said.

He left the room, treading quietly down the hall.

CATHERINE WAITED TILL he was gone, then turned onto her back and stared at the empty doorway. She knew his departure should come as no surprise. Despite his efforts around the house, this was the same old Caleb—the one who had spent most years of their marriage focused on his own sense of valor, on his dreams of a boat, on his camaraderie with his coworkers that so often left her feeling out of the loop. No wonder nearly 70 percent of fire-fighters divorced.

She rubbed at her eyes and pressed a hand against her forehead. She felt feverish. She heard his Sierra start up and pull down the street.

Off he went, again.

“Go on,” she muttered. “Go play the hero to some stranger out there.”

So much for playing hero to your own wife.

Even with these musings, she was too tired to feel anything hostile toward him. Just as had happened during her foot-stomping tirades as a child, her anger was running out of steam, leaving an ache that throbbed in her chest. She closed her eyes and faded into restless sleep.