The Woman for Dusty Conrad Read online

  He knew a relief so complete, so overwhelming, that his extensive training was what carried his legs toward the edge of the front lawn and safety, away from where the paramedics were even now hoisting Ellie’s father onto a gurney and into an ambulance. He laid Jolie and her load on a bed of freshly raked leaves, staring down into her eyes, which seemed even more vividly blue against the grit covering her face. Behind them a menacing whoosh sounded, followed by the sound of cracking wood. He didn’t have to look to know that the house had just collapsed in on itself. And the heat against his back told him the fire had arced outward, then back in again.

  All he could see was Jolie.

  The little girl in her arms struggled. Jolie let loose a small, strangled cry, then quickly sat up, taking Ellie with her. Dusty helped her take the mask off her face even as paramedics rushed to them, reaching for Ellie although it seemed Jolie might not let go.

  “Please…” Jolie coughed, her voice rough and smoke-filled. “Be gentle…with her.”

  The female paramedic nodded. “I will.”

  But Ellie wouldn’t let go. Her thin arms grasping Jolie’s neck tightly, she looked as if she might do what the smoke had been unsuccessful in doing and choke her.

  Jolie’s eyes filled with compassion as she eased the seemingly fragile arms from around her. “It’s okay…I told you everything was going to be all right…remember?”

  The little girl’s eyes, large in her urchin face, stayed focused on Jolie as she nodded.

  Jolie smiled tremulously as she smoothed back her tangled hair. Dusty knelt, mesmerized.

  “You need to go with Dana now, okay? She needs to check you out. Make sure you’re okay.” The arms sought Jolie’s neck again, but she gently caught them in her hands. “She won’t hurt you. I promise. You believe me, don’t you?”

  Again, Ellie nodded, not having said anything since she was brought from the house.

  The other paramedic started to check Jolie, but she waved him away. “Take care of the girl. Ellie needs you more than I do.”

  Dusty sought Jolie’s gaze, and finally she turned his way. He didn’t have to say anything. Neither did she. Everyone in the town knew the Johansens. And everyone would also soon know that Angela had perished in the fire that even now was completely claiming the house behind them. And that Jeff’s chances for survival were dim.

  Everyone also knew that neither Angela nor Jeff had any extended family.

  Dusty searched Jolie’s wide eyes, seeing in their murky depths hope mixed with pain and fear.

  “Come on, sweetie,” Jolie said calmly to the girl she still held. “We both have to go to the hospital now.”

  Finally, little Ellie let go of her neck, allowing the paramedic to take her to the second waiting ambulance. Dusty slowly reached out his hand toward Jolie. She stared at it, then him, the emotions he’d glimpsed just moments ago eclipsed by wariness and confusion. Then she slipped her glove off and placed her hand in his. He marveled at how small it seemed in his, as he always had. He’d always thought she should have hands larger than his. Limbs to match the size of her heart…determination…courage.

  He realized he was staring and forced himself to easily lift her from where she still sat on the mound of leaves. She coughed, a dry, crackling sound that racked her entire body. He tucked her into the curve of his arm and led her toward the station rescue truck, glad when she didn’t protest or otherwise shuck his attentions. And feeling more mixed-up than ever.

  Where did things stand between him and Jolie? He’d been so certain that the love they once shared was gone. That he’d shored up his heart against her. But as every minute ticked by, he not only remembered all those little, tiny things that, when added up, had made him fall in love with her in the first place; he was finding new, fresh reasons to draw a deep breath and allow her very essence to saturate the very depth of him.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen. The divorce papers were stiff and unforgettable in his back pocket. But for now all he wanted to do was feel her weight tucked against his side. Her hand in his. And thank God she still walked the earth.

  Chapter 7

  Dusty hated hospitals. Had loathed them ever since he was seven and he and Erick had been left to visit with their great-aunt Wilma while their parents went out for coffee. Mom and Dad had only been gone fifteen minutes. And when they’d left, Aunt Wilma had seemed fine, her false teeth flashing white against her purplish lipstick, her silver curly wig hanging cockeyed as she spoke to him and Erick.

  But five minutes into a game of Go Fish, Aunt Wilma’s head had listed to the side, her rheumy eyes staring straight at him, and she had died.

  Even thinking about the memory made Dusty shudder. To this day, he still didn’t think Erick had had a clue what had happened. He’d thought, and Dusty had convinced him, that Wilma had been playing a joke. Only he knew that there had been nothing funny about it. Not even his parents caught on to what had happened. After figuring out that his old aunt had died, he’d pretended to be tired of playing cards and announced that he was going to the drinking fountain. Erick, of course, had trailed right behind him. As far as Mom and Dad knew, they had been the first ones to discover Wilma’s passing when they returned to the room a short time later.

  Of course, there were other reasons why he didn’t like hospitals. As far as he was concerned, the cold buildings represented illness, death and all things that reminded him that he wasn’t indestructible, after all.

  Aunt Wilma aside, there had been few times when he’d actually been in a hospital. Even when Erick had died in the fire, he’d waited until his brother had been taken to Reece’s Funeral Home to view the remains, having seen all he needed to on the site, though Erick hadn’t been officially pronounced dead until arrival at the hospital. DOA. Dead on arrival. When in fact life had seeped from his body long before then.

  The majority of the three times he’d been to the hospital had been because of Jolie….

  He waited outside her room. Rather, he wore the tile down in the hospital hallway. He peeked around the corner into the large, open space that comprised the emergency room. In one curtained-off area little Ellie, seemingly in shock, sat with a pediatric nurse, impervious to the nurse’s attempts to engage her in a game she’d brought and had spread out on the bed. The soot had been wiped from her tiny face, her hair had been combed, but in her eyes there was a sadness that reached out and virtually grabbed Dusty where he stood. And when she blinked those same eyes and looked at him through the glass, he feared he’d lose his stomach altogether. Especially when her expression didn’t change one iota. She seemed not to see him at all. Or worse, didn’t care one way or another who was on the other side of the door.

  Dusty shifted his gaze to the other side of the curtain, catching a glimpse of Jolie’s chestnut hair from where she sat with her back to him, her back left bare by the skimpy hospital gown, as Tucker O’Neill ran the stethoscope up one side of her defined spine and down the other side as Jolie inhaled and exhaled. The examination was pretty much par for the course when anyone at the station took in more smoke than they should. Except in his case. Dusty had absolutely refused to sit through more than a cursory exam at the rescue truck whenever the occasion arose. He smirked at his own cockiness, which seemed like a lifetime ago. And pretty much it was another lifetime ago. He was no longer that same person who would rush into a fire without protection. The man who could stand by and not only watch his wife enter the cauldron of flame, but encourage her to go right alongside him.

  No, that person was a stranger to him now. When he heard a siren, long moments passed before he could even breathe again.

  Tucker O’Neill came out of the room and closed the door after himself. Dusty shifted to allow him passage, though his gaze remained glued to Jolie’s back, the sight strangely mesmerizing.

  “You know I could have Sparks write you up for being a Peeping Tom,” Tuck said matter-of-factly, writing something on his chart.

  Dusty managed a
ghost of a grin at the man who was equal to him in age, but otherwise different. And it was more than that Tuck was his physical opposite with his longish, always-in-disarray blond hair and green eyes. While Dusty had once preferred to seek his excitement on the job and had lived an otherwise sedate life, Tuck was a mild-mannered doctor by day and a thrill-seeker by night. From leaping out of airplanes, bungee-jumping off of platforms, and driving his ’67 Shelby Mustang, on his off hours he lived as if there were no tomorrow. Of course he ignored everyone when they told him there probably wouldn’t be a tomorrow for him unless he settled down. He also ignored the advice that a good woman might help him do that.

  “Nothing wrong with a guy looking at his own wife,” Dusty said.

  Tuck lifted a skeptical brow. “So long as she still is.”

  Dusty averted his gaze. It was already clear that Jolie hadn’t told anyone about their impending divorce. Had she changed tactics? Had she said something to Tuck? If so, why?

  He decided to play it light, until he knew either way. “You know something I don’t?”

  Tucker grinned. “Actually, I think I should be the one asking that question. You and Jolie know something we don’t.” He shrugged. “Not that I’m saying we should know, but it would make things easier if we knew if it was okay to ask her about you when you’re not around.”

  Dusty met his old friend’s gaze. “You’re asking the wrong person, Doc.”

  “I see.”

  Dusty rubbed the back of his neck so hard he feared he might rub the skin clean off. “I’m glad somebody does.” He dropped his hand to his side then sighed. “So, what’s the prognosis?”

  Tuck snapped the chart he held shut, then tucked it under his arm. “On you and Jolie?”

  Dusty squinted at him, keeping his cringe to himself. “On Jolie’s health.”

  “Oh. She’ll be fine. Healthwise. Some minor smoke inhalation and she has the lungs of a fifty-year-old chain-smoker, but hey, it’s part of the job, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Oh, and when you get a chance, remind her that this doesn’t count as her annual physical. She’s going to have to come in and go through the whole nine yards.”

  “I will.” He glanced toward the isolation door to the side. “Any news on Jeff Johansen yet?”

  “No, sorry, there’s not. I’m just heading over there myself to see how I can help. I’ll probably be in the way, but I feel like I should be doing something, you know?”

  He nodded. Oh, did he know.

  “Did you want to see her?”

  Dusty hesitated, knowing Tuck was back to talking about Jolie again.

  Yes, he wanted to see her. More than anything else he could think of doing right that minute. But was it wise to see her?

  Wise or not, he knew he had to. “Yeah. Is it all right if I go in?”

  Tuck nodded. “Go on ahead.”

  Dusty started to.

  “Oh, and Conrad?” He turned at the sound of Tuck’s voice. “If you need anyone to talk to, you know, to vent on…I think my drinking arm’s still in shape.”

  Dusty grinned, recalling that many had been the time when he’d taken off with Tucker O’Neill, John Sparks and Erick, climbed on top of the Clemens’s hay silo, and knocked back a twelve-pack when they were teenagers. Often had also been the time when they’d puked their guts out over the side of that same silo. “I bet.”

  Tuck walked down the tiled hall, shaking his head and chuckling.

  Dusty turned back toward the door. The nurse looking after Ellie had pulled the curtains surrounding her cubicle partially closed so he could no longer view the little girl and her haunted eyes. Instead, he headed for the other side of the curtain divider, distantly hearing the nurse’s voice as she asked the little girl if she’d like to go down to the cafeteria to get something to eat, then asked, “Was that a ‘yes’?” He guessed Ellie must have nodded, because he heard the shuffling of feet moments later as they left the room.

  Dusty rounded the corner to find Jolie still with her back to him, tugging on her shirt. He stood rock still at the sight of the white flash of her bra and scarred skin, remaining silent until she’d finished buttoning up the front and started tucking the shirt in.

  “You’re doing it again,” she said softly.

  Dusty looked up and she slowly turned to face him. She must have washed up in the nearby bathroom, for there were no visible traces of the ordeal she’d gone through a mere half hour earlier. Aside from the smell. The odor wafted from Jolie as surely and more strongly than any perfume.

  It was difficult to believe there had once been a time when he’d thought the scent of burning wood exciting.

  “Doc O. gave me a thumbs-up.”

  Dusty nodded and tucked his thumbs into his front jeans pockets. “I know. I talked to him outside.”

  She passed him, reaching for her coat. Only as she draped it over her arm, he realized it wasn’t her coat. It was his. His old denim coat, to be more precise. He lifted his gaze to hers, but she was already exiting the cubicle and peeking into the neighboring one.

  “The nurse took her down the cafeteria.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long moment, then asked, “Any word on Jeff?”

  He shook his head. “You’re not thinking about waiting around until some news comes through?”

  She stood for a long moment, still looking blankly at the empty cubicle. Finally, she shook her head. “No.”

  She turned and headed for the door.

  Dusty cleared his throat, catching the outer door when she opened it. “You want to get something to eat?”

  She glanced at him over her shoulder. Petite shoulders that were held at a rigid, unyielding angle. “No. I should be getting back to the station.” Then, in an afterthought, she quietly said, “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it. Though I don’t think your presence at the station would be welcome. Jones said for you to take the rest of the day off.”

  Her steps faltered. “Oh.”

  He smiled at her. “Yeah. Oh.”

  She averted her gaze, shifting the coat from one arm to the other where they stood in the middle of the bustling hallway. “I really should go, anyway.”

  Of course she would say that. Sometimes he thought Jolie would be lost if not for the fire station and her job. What would she do? Where would she go, if not for Jones and the crew, and the fires that needed dousing?

  He ran his hand over his hair, then remembered the papers he had stuffed into the back pocket of his jeans. Papers that didn’t seem so important now in light of what had happened in the past hour or so. His desire to hightail it out of town was replaced by the need to make sure Jolie was all right.

  An idiot could recognize the similarities between what had happened at the Johansen place and the fire that had stolen Jolie’s parents in the dead of night some twenty years ago. While she might be putting up a good front, he’d seen a heart-wrenching sorrow in her eyes when she’d sat on the Johansens’ lawn, clutching little Ellie to her as if afraid that if she didn’t, she might vanish into the air along with the suffocating, sky-choking smoke. He’d viewed that haunted expression in one other person’s eyes: Ellie’s just a few minutes ago.

  As he followed Jolie from the hospital, he stridently ignored that while he was forced to hurt her with their break-up, he would never do so at the cost of her emotional well-being. And one thing he knew for certain was that Jolie needed him right now. Needed him just as surely as she had twenty years ago as she clutched him, watching her parents’ covered, still bodies being lifted from the only home she’d ever known.

  He reached for his back pocket and shoved the papers a little more firmly down, then covered them with his jacket.

  “Where are you going?” Jolie asked, once they were standing outside.

  He shrugged, trying to appear indifferent. Only he’d forgotten for a moment who he was facing. Jolie knew him better than anyone and could see through any playacting. “I thought I�
�d swing by the station with you. You know, see if they could use any help.”

  Jolie’s right brow nudged up a fraction of an inch.

  He cleared his throat, then grinned. “Okay. So I know that Jones is going to send you home as soon as you show your face there. I thought maybe then you’d change your mind and catch lunch with me.”

  She nodded, this excuse making better sense to her apparently because she recognized it as the truth. At least a partial truth.

  She shrugged into the jacket, his jacket, her cheeks touched with pink as she presumably noticed that it was his. “Okay. You win. Let me go by the station, just to make sure they don’t need me, then I’ll meet you at…”

  He suspected she’d been about to say “home,” then stopped herself.

  “At the, um, house,” she finished.

  He nodded. “Tomato or clam?”

  Her brows knit together.

  “Soup. What kind do you want?”

  The shadow of a smile tilted her lips even as she glanced down at her watch, then past him at the hospital doors, her mind, no doubt, on little Ellie and her father. “New England. I think there’s a can in the pantry.”

  “Got it.”

  She turned to walk toward her Jeep, parked a short way away, his truck parked right next to it. She turned, walking backward. “I shouldn’t be more than an hour.”

  “I’ll give you half.”

  Her gaze darted away. “I have something else I want to see to first.”

  Dusty didn’t like the sound of that, but was helpless to do more than watch her as she climbed behind the wheel of the Jeep and drove away.

  Chapter 8

  Jolie was distantly surprised she’d been able to make the forty-five-minute drive out to Hocking Hills Nursing Home, as badly frayed as her nerves were. But somehow she’d made it quicker than she would have thought possible. Now she sat staring at the colonial-style building set back against a stand of thick, autumn-painted trees, a large pond in front.