In the Woods Read online

  "Listen, you. I can't deal with this again . . . I can't deal with you like this. I didn't choose to marry a drunk. You put this on me. I stuck it out because you promised you were done. You're not going to drag us back through this every time life tosses you a curve.Grow up, Alex. Deal with it. I've had to. I've stood by your career choice, and don't think it's been easy. I've lain awake at night knowing you're out there up to your armpits in hell, not knowing if you'd be home or I'd be getting that—that call. But I've dealt with it because that's who you are. I've had to be strong, but I can't be strong for both of us. You've got to take some responsibility, too. Now, fix it, or I'm gone."

  Head pounding miserably, Alex found a cradle of negligible comfort in the hug of his arms upon the table top, but his wife's words continued to lash at him in scourging punishment. He could have told her about Pete and earned her tenderness once more. But he didn't. He wasn't sure why. Maybe he needed her scourging. Maybe he deserved it.

  "Hey, I don't feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for those people who got hurt . . ."

  His head came up defiantly. Red-rimmed eyes glared. "They didn't just get hurt, Helen." He paused, wanting to hit her between the eyes with the clawing agony in his gut. His voice was purposefully cruel. "Have you ever seen a baby die? Or worse yet, cooked?"

  She paled, going the color of their kitchen appliances. "You son-of-a-bitch . . ." That's all she could manage.

  "Well, I have," he spat in vindication. "And it's not pretty."

  Her tender lips quivered then firmed. "Don't talk down to me, Alex. Don't do it." Another tense second passed, and he didn't relent.She grasped the gold band on her left hand and began to wrestle it over the knuckle, the violence of the move, as well as the connotation, shaking Alex to the core.

  "W-what are you doing?"

  The circle of their commitment to one another struck him square in the chest and rebounded to the table top, revolving there in increasingly rapid spirals.

  "What am I doing? I think it's more like what are you doing, Alex."

  He snatched up the still twirling wedding ring and advanced on her, holding it up between unsteady fingers. "Come on. This isn't funny. Put it back on."

  Helen held her ground, glaring at him with a wounded vengeance, tears bright behind her stare. Her lips gripped tight.

  "Never again," he told her. "I promise. Never again." She refused to unbend, having heard it before. Then he threw in a new twist, his tone raw with conviction. “I'll quit the damn job."

  His fierce sincerity cut through her defenses, stunning her into momentary silence. When she spoke, her words were filled with ripe emotion. "I don't want you to quit . . . well, I do want you to quit.Quit drinking your pressures and feelings away. I know you've had a terrible time getting over what happened with Terry, and I guess I never told you how proud I was that you didn't cave in then. Don't do it now. Don't you realize that when you wash away the pain with a bottle, you're washing me away with it? What are you going to have when it's over? Nothing, Alex.” She paused, waiting for that to sink in before adding, “I can't do this for you. You have to make the choices, then we have to live with them, together."

  Tenderly, Alex lifted his wife's hand and slid the ring back where it belonged before carrying her knuckles to his mouth for a gentle kiss.

  "What bar?"

  Helen held onto her relief for a cautious moment. "You committed to me?"

  "I'd be committed without you. No more carousing." He smiled."And I'll stop in to feed the fish anytime."

  The tension in his wife melted away. She smiled back and stepped gratefully into his hug. It was long and tight, sealing vows made long ago, making them new again.

  "Besides," Helen said at last, "I don't trust those twins.Whatever their names are . . . Bitsy and Mitsy? Something cutsie pie, like that?"

  "Helen!" Alex sounded shocked. "Will you stop that? They're chopped liver compared to you, my little filet mignon." He gave her a squeeze, and the feel of her against him woke a host of new interests. Feeling his attention rise between them, Helen gave him a push away and a stern look.

  "You are not out of this that easy, pal. Tonight, it's the couch for you."

  Alex's gaze was all sultry persuasion. "I don't think we'll fit."

  She sniffed. "You're right, we won't, loverboy. When you sober up, I might unlock the bedroom door."

  She walked away from him, kicking an extra swing into her coltish stride in case he was still comparing her to those twins. Even filet mignon needed a little special marinating now and again.

  Alex watched her go, a smile curving his lips, and not a thought in his head of another women living on the same planet. There was no other woman for him, and it was time he started letting her know it.

  And he would, as soon as his head stopped firing off regular twenty-one gun salutes. He opened a cabinet by the sink and shook a couple of pain relievers into his palm, swallowing them down with the last of his soft drink. Then he bent down and gathered up the spill of papers, placing them on the counter with extra care.

  Helen didn't deserve the hell he'd put her through. She was right about one thing. It was time he grew up and took responsibility for his life. And for Terry.

  He sagged back into his chair, eyes closed as he wished the pain away, the pain beating between his temples, the pain stabbing around his heart.

  Terry died because he'd hesitated. He hadn't been there to watch his friend's back. He hadn't been there to alert him when the sinister suck of air brought hell roaring to life. He hadn't been there to warn him of a ceiling beam about to give way. He hadn't been there to wrestle that smoldering timber off him. He'd been crouched in the office building's stairwell, paralyzed with indecision, listening to the sound of his own mortality throbbing out a frightened heartbeat.Just a second or two longer, he'd told himself, just until the others arrived with the hoses.

  Terry hadn't waited. He'd been a hero to the last.

  And in those seconds, heat and flames roared through the room where Terry lay pinned and helpless, cooking him in that tremendous blast, while Alex waited, safely out of harm's way, heeding his fear instead of his friend's muffled screams for help. He hadn't heard them then, but he did now.

  Every time he closed his eyes.

  He'd let Terry down by yielding to his own weakness. Was it that same instant of self-absorbed cowardice that kept him from rushing in today, perhaps in time to rescue that woman? Had he put his own insecurities in front of duty? Was he doing the same thing with Helen now, weighing doubts heavier in his heart than devotion?

  What could he do to make it up to them? What would make the sound of Terry's screams, the scent of that woman's charred flesh, and the sight of Helen's injured stare go away so he could sleep again?

  What would it take for him to become a hero in his own eyes again?

  ӜӜӜ

  Helen paused in the doorway to the kitchen. The fluorescents were still on despite the glare of sunlight streaming in across the floor through cheery curtains, making a halo of brightness about her husband's bowed head.

  He was asleep at the table, head resting atop his arms, where he'd been all night. She noted the neat stack of her paper work and a swell of incredible tenderness overcame her, washing away her disappointment at not being joined in bed where she'd waited, awake and impatient, for over an hour before drifting unhappily to sleep.She hated their fights, but their making up was always something to write home about. That much hadn't changed in all their years of marriage. Beneath the sheets, they'd never had any trouble communicating. Or was last night the first in many silences to come?

  She was already dressed for work in jeans and a bulky sweater and moved quietly around the kitchen so as not to disturb Alex on his day off. She knew he hadn't been sleeping well and she knew why. Even though he'd flatly refused to tell her that anything was wrong, she knew he was blaming himself for Terry. But that, too, was something he was going to have to work out for himself. If he could.If he cou
ldn't, in spite of her tough stand, she meant to jump in with both feet to wrestle him back to the straight and narrow. She loved him too much to let him go, and had put way too much into their marriage to give up on it without one heckuva fight.

  Papers in her work folder and car keys on top of it, she carried her coffee over to the table and stood looking down at her husband.He looked like an angel in repose—a rather scraggly, rumpled angel.Grinning wickedly, she dipped out some coffee into her spoon and dripped a drop of it onto Alex's nose.The response was immediate.He shot upright, features comic in their startlement.

  "What the hell was that?" he rumbled, rubbing his abused skin.

  "What?" came her innocent reply.

  He smelled his fingertips suspiciously. "How did coffee get on my nose?" He glared at her but she only smiled sweetly, stirring her coffee. "Funny," he growled.

  "I tried to wake you but you wouldn't budge. Even the phone couldn't get so much as a snort out of you. What else could I do?"

  "I could think of a better way," he grumbled.

  "Did I hurt your precious nose?" she cooed in a baby talk voice.

  Alex just glowered until she took a last sip of her coffee and set it aside.

  "Wayne called."

  Alex, who was in mid-stretch, froze, recall of the previous night flooding over him like a noxious residual dream. "He did?Did he say what he wanted?"

  "Nope. Just to call him before ten." She glanced at the clock and gathered up her work materials. "Don't let him talk you into pulling an extra shift today. You could use some time to unwind."

  He couldn't argue with her there. He had no plans beyond some mindless R-and-R on the sofa. Still, he couldn't help wondering why the chief would call him. They weren't buddy-buddy close to warrant a personal call, so it must be something work-related. Something about why he didn't rush into that burning house a second sooner to save that woman yesterday?Something that would lead to another lecture on job performance and attitude and getting on with it, like those he'd endured after Terry's death? Just words, getting on with it. He wished like hell someone could show him how it could be done.

  He took the cup of coffee Helen extended with a nod of thanks as he dialed.

  "Hey, is Wayne there? Okay. No problem. I'll call him at home."

  He hung up, then puzzled over his boss's motives, getting more hinky by the minute. Call at home? That would take more than coffee as a fortifier. He went to the cupboard and took out the fast-fast-fast relief bottle, struggling with the top.

  "Adult-proof," he grumbled in frustration, only to have Helen take it from his hands, patiently, and with the flick of her thumb, pop the cap. His smile of thanks was on the surly side. She stretched up to catch one bent corner for a quick kiss, then stepped away before he could do anything about turning the chaste little peck into something deeper. She loaded her materials into the bend of one arm.

  "Be good."

  Alex grunted something that was probably better left unintelligible.

  Helen paused on her way to the door and looked back at him, her expression serious. "Remember last night?"

  "I sure do," he responded with just the right amount of humility.

  "Good. I'll be home early."

  She waited for his reply, then frowned because Alex wasn't thinking about his promise to her, he was consumed once again with the job. Having been married to it as long as she had been to him, she knew all the signs. He was waiting, even anxious, for her to leave.So he could contact one of the boys to share those secrets he kept from her.

  Once again, she was on the outside.

  Where Alex obviously preferred to keep her, and their marriage.

  Sighing, feeling hurt and dejected, Helen let herself out. She didn't want to dwell on failure. She wasn't a quitter. He'd have his chance, just like she promised, and maybe this time, he'd use it wisely by keeping his own.

  Maybe he'd use the day to get his head straight, to sort out his priorities as she'd had to when deciding to stay with him all those years ago. She hadn't regretted that choice, not until recently. Still, she didn't want to believe she'd chosen wrong by opting to stand by him and what they had.

  If not, she was going to break one of the cardinal rules of being married to a fire fighter. She was going to demand he come clean with all his confidences, with all his fears.

  Or else.

  CHAPTER SIX

  They parked at the end of civilization. Alex looked at his boss like he was a madman when Wayne opened the door of his truck and hopped out.

  "We're here."

  "Where the hell is here?" Alex muttered, reluctant to exit the comfort of the pickup's cab when the alternative was the surrounding wilderness.

  Alex was no big city boy, but he was definitely a card-carrying suburbanite. Trees were something that grew in the front and back yard, something you raked up after each fall and climbed when you were a little boy. They had nothing to do with the dense mat of overgrowth crowding around the truck on three sides like bullies standing over an intimidated foe. And Alex was intimidated, by the unbroken line of woods, by their obvious isolation. By the reason Wayne had brought him to this Godforsaken place.

  Wayne sucked in lungsful of air and expelled it with a noisy sigh. "Ah, nature. Admit it, you don't taste anything like this in town."

  Alex poked his head out of the window and took a cautious sniff.Mold and decay were all he noticed. It smelled like a damp basement.Nothing inviting about that. Not when he could be home watching ESPN from the embrace of his sofa, sucking on a cold soda and munching junk food.

  "Come on, Kerwood. Dismount. Nature calls."

  Alex muttered at the suitability of that phrase as he climbed down and did a slow deep knee bend. Joints cracked in protest.

  "Can't you extend the cab?"

  Wayne cheerfully ignored him as he fished in the box of the truck and came up with a knapsack. He threw it to Alex, who missed the pass.

  "Heads up!"

  With more grumbling, Alex snatched the pack off the ground and came around the rear of the vehicle to join his boss-cum-madman.Again, he looked around at the unbroken tree line, feeling more uneasy by the minute.

  "So, who owns this land? Robin Hood?"

  Wayne reached behind the bench seat and withdrew a shot gun.He tossed it carelessly at Alex, who hurriedly released the pack to catch it. He was holding it in both hands like it was newly forged hot metal as Wayne pulled out a second .12 gauge for himself.

  "Is this thing loaded?" Alex checked the chambers. "Jeeeshus, are you crazy?"

  "Not really." Wayne grinned at him. "Only when I have a gun."At Alex's look of alarm, he laughed. "Only kidding." He retrieved another pack and shouldered it over his camouflaged jacket. "This land has been handed down from generation to generation. The owners never let anybody hunt on it. Hell, they never let anybody walk on it."

  "So, how did you manage this?"

  "It was nothing I did. My kid sister married one of 'em. Easy as pie!"

  Strains of Deliverance played in the queasy realms of Alex's mind with a batch of Wayne's inbred in-laws running wild with shotguns in the woods. "And they just decided to give you the key to the forest."

  "Damn straight. Nobody messes with a Higley. Especially a Higley with a gun."

  "I'm gonna die in these woods. I just know it."

  Wayne laughed and pointed into the thicket. Alex couldn't see any sign of a trail. "That's where we're going."

  "I'll follow you."

  Wayne started into the trees, Alex close on his heels. After several yards, the younger man glanced back toward the pick-up, longingly. It was barely visible. Then it was gone, just the solid wall of woods on every side. Alex clutched his shotgun tighter, wondering if he should ask if Wayne brought a compass or if he should start leaving a trail of bread crumbs behind.

  But it was more than the Boy Scout trek where no man had gone before that had him restless.

  The whole thing was a mystery—Wayne's invitation for
starters.Doing anything special? Good, go for a ride with me. Dress all-terrain. Alex was thinking maybe he was being recruited to paint Wayne's house or into some community service project. But not this wilderness jaunt packing heat. He had Wayne figured for an all-weather PASS fan, not for a Michigan Militia wannabe.

  Strangely enough, when decked out Ramboesque in fatigues and weapon of choice, Wayne Higley adapted to the surroundings with a roughened ease Alex would never have imagined after seeing him daily behind his desk. How little did he know about the real Wayne Higley?

  That big question mark was the problem.

  But he did know there was more to this little outing than tromping through the brush. All he had to do was hang onto his patience until Wayne decided to tell him what it was.

  They continued to walk in silence. The feeling of being swallowed up pressed in around them. Their footsteps sounded unnaturally loud, cracking twigs, crushing last year’s leaves into powder under heavy vibrum soles. They were forced to be trailblazers, ducking limbs, edging around bushes, snagged by vines and brambles.It got so every dip in the landscape looked familiar, every felled tree the same. Alex wondered if they were wandering in circles, hopeless lost. He could picture them eating strips of bark and berries to survive, staggering out of the woods weeks later with straggly, leaf matted beards and tick-infested clothes. He shuddered.

  Are we having fun yet, Wayne?

  Suddenly, Wayne put out his arm, commando style, to halt his progress. Alex stopped, heeding the finger Wayne put to his lips to insure silence. He followed the other man's gesture to a particular oak, where a small red squirrel was lunching away under the umbrella of his bushy tail oblivious to the danger. Wayne raised his gun and sited. The discharge rolled through the forest like thunder.

  The squirrel darted away, unharmed.

  "Save me, Mighty Hunter."

  Spurred by Alex's sarcasm, Wayne said, "I don't see you trying to hit anything."