These Ties That Bind. Mary Sullivan

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СКАЧАТЬ had done a great job of raising Finn alone, so Rem would respect her wishes. For now.

      “Ma, I’m going to see how that young girl is doing and then finish setting the house to rights for your homecoming tomorrow.”

      She tried that smile again, but must have known how bad it looked because she stopped. Ma, you’re breaking my heart.

      He squeezed her good hand. “I love you.”

      She nodded.

      Rem rushed out because of the headache throbbing behind his sinuses. Maybe he was getting a cold. Or maybe it was just that he’d been up too late last night turning the dining room into a bedroom for Ma’s return, including moving in the new bed he’d had delivered.

      On the first floor, he found Randy in the emergency ward. “How are the girl and her mother?”

      “Lucky, from what I hear.” He punched Rem on the shoulder. “Heard you’re the man of the hour for pulling her out of the wreckage.”

      Rem shrugged. “You would have done the same thing. Seriously, how are they?”

      “You called it right. Mother’s got a concussion, fractured ribs and a broken arm. Daughter’s got burns to her scalp, hands and arms.”

      “Can I see them?” Rem needed reassurance that the two were alive and well. When the kid had been trapped…

      Quit. Don’t think about it.

      Randy directed him to Intensive Care. “They’re pretty doped up, but you can look in on them.”

      Rem stepped into the room. Nurses worked around the young girl’s bed quietly, lending the room a hushed, expectant silence.

      Her face looked peaceful in her drugged sleep, with the white bandages swathing her head.

      His gaze drifted to the other bed, where her mother lay awake and watching him, her gaze only slightly unfocused by pain meds.

      “Hi,” he said with a wave of two fingers.

      “Hi,” she said. “Are you the one who saved my daughter?”

      “Yeah.” He squirmed beneath her admiring gaze. Lady, I’m not a hero.

      He approached her bed. Under the bruises on one side of her face, he could tell she was a whole lot younger than he’d originally thought, probably younger than his own thirty-two years.

      “What’s your daughter’s name?” he asked.

      “Melody.”

      He had a snap memory of this woman screaming that as Rem dove into the burning vehicle. “I’m Remington Caldwell. People call me Rem.”

      She smiled, then grimaced as if her face hurt.

      “I’m Elizabeth Chase. Liz,” she said. “Did that happen at the crash?” She pointed to his wrapped hands. He nodded.

      “I’m sorry.” She had a pretty voice, feminine and sweet.

      “You’re not from around here. Are you here to visit family?”

      She shook her head and shadows clouded her eyes along with a dose of fear. Something wasn’t right, but the woman wasn’t saying more. Fair enough. She had a right to her privacy.

      When he asked no further questions, she stared at him some more as though he were her hero, and he had to leave the room before he disappointed her by blurting out how wrong she was.

      REM TURNED THE JEEP INTO his driveway and stared at his big old oak and the fields on either side of the entrance to his ranch.

      Fire had scorched the fields, now sodden under the weight of the water the fire crews had poured on them.

      The acrid scent of charred earth drifted through the open window.

      The fire trucks must have reached his ranch shortly after he passed through Ordinary on his way to the hospital.

      After last summer’s drought, the town had installed solar-powered pumps in Still Creek where it ran along the highway.

      Thankfully, access to water for the fire pumps wasn’t an issue.

      The results could have been so much worse. Those golden fields could have burned right up to the house and taken it down, too.

      He had lost grain, though, and would have to replace it.

      He climbed out and pressed his hand against the scar on the tree where the car had hit. Fire had blackened this entire side of the trunk. Still fresh, the odor of burning wood had replaced that of singed flesh.

      His bandage came away sooty and black.

      Above his head, bare limbs formed a stark spider’s web against the blue sky.

      Lucky he hadn’t lost the whole tree. The other half remained green. Thank God. He loved his land. Rem had an affinity with nature and this hurt. It really sucked.

      The stag was gone. Maybe one of the firefighters had taken it home to butcher and freeze for the winter.

      Out here in rural Montana, food didn’t go to waste.

      Rem shook himself out of his pensive musings.

      Given Sara’s reluctance to let him get to know his son, he had a lot to prove, a lot to do to persuade her that he was a responsible man.

      Fired up, he drove to the house, ready to jump into final preparations for Ma’s homecoming tomorrow morning.

      One way or another, he would find a way to be Finn’s dad, Sara be damned.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      SARA TOOK THE ELEVATOR down to the emergency waiting room. Finn waited for her there, listening to music in his headphones and sketching. Thank goodness he’d broken his left wrist instead of his right.

      She should go home and make him lunch, but acid churned in her belly. How could she possibly eat after the bomb Rem had dropped?

      Since his birth, she’d had Finn all to herself, had taken him to and from school with her, year after year until she finally became a nurse, her dream of medical school eliminated by her pregnancy. No regrets, though.

      She’d kept him with her despite Mama’s and Timm’s arguments to leave him in Ordinary with them.

      She made every decision about his life. If she could keep her son close enough to her, Sara could keep him safe. How could she possibly share him, especially with a man who had spent too many years wasting his life on the worst habits, and who’d made a mistake of the biggest proportions? He’d burned Timm and ruined her brother’s teenage years. He’d ruined Sara’s, too.

      With her parents’ attention firmly on Timm’s operations and physiotherapy, and the illnesses brought on by a compromised immune system, Sara had faded into the background. Had disappeared. СКАЧАТЬ