From Air (Wildfire)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

JAYMES

Fitz has no idea how much I need him right now. I have an uncle I never knew about. A whole life I never knew existed. Lies that don’t make sense. The void I’ve felt for years, growing up without a father figure. So I desperately need something true in my life. Something—someone—I can call my safe place in this confusing world.

He’s already taken my heart; now I need him to do right by it.

“Let’s go home,” he murmurs, finding my hand and leading me back to the truck.

My heart’s hemorrhaging. Is this it? Are we at an impasse?

“I’m going to shower,” he says as we enter the dark house.

“Me too.” I follow him up the stairs.

He heads straight into his bathroom and shuts the door with no invitation to join him. It feels like the beginning of the end.

After my shower, I dry my hair and stare at my reflection in the mirror. Will I regret this? Why can’t I be like Maren and Will and respect Fitz’s need not to talk about his painful past?

“In here,” he says as I step toward the stairs. He’s sitting on the end of his bed, arms on his knees, hands folded.

With a shaky breath, I pad my way into his room and sit on an old metal chest by the window.

We remain idle in silence for a minute, maybe two.

“I fight fires because that’s where I see them.” His words are ominous, imparting a sense of foreboding.

And for a second, I consider asking him to stop. I second-guess my need to know because I’m terrified this could be more than I’m ready to hear.

“It’s an awful way to die. The smoke. The heat. The panic.” He rests his head in his hands. “All because a crazy man started a fire to kill a fucking bear.”

My.

Heart.

Stops.

What is he doing? Why is he saying this?

“It engulfed thirty-two thousand acres. Seventeen people died, including five firefighters. My mom. My dad. My sister.”

The room spins just like my mind. I’m not hearing this. It’s impossible.

I slowly shake my head.

This is not right. That’s not what happened. Edith told me ... Fitz said ...

Didn’t he?

He lifts his head with pain etched into his face. “I see my sister the most.” He swallows hard, eyes reddening. “She’s screaming. She’s telling me to stop the fire. And she looks behind her, like she’s looking for our parents. Then she cries.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “And sometimes I hear her whisper ‘Thank you’ when the fire’s out.”

Jesus . . .

Words don’t exist. I’m afraid to speak. I’m so scared to take a breath or even blink. I’m gutted, decimated—a hollow shell of flesh and bones.

Fitz waits between slow blinks. He waits for me to say something.

Something sympathetic.

Something soothing.

Something that one lover would say to another.

Is this it? Is this the guilt and embarrassment from which my mom tried to protect me? The crushing feeling that accountability has been transferred to me?

“I don’t know what happiness looks like,” he says, as if that’s all there is to say—as if that explains everything. And perhaps it does. He’s no longer an enigma. Calvin Fitzgerald is a survivor of unspeakable life circumstances.

He can’t give me everything because he has nothing left to give.

Tears sting my eyes.

“But I know what grief looks like,” he continues. “And I know how it feels. I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone. One day”—he bows his head and runs his hands through his hair—“I’m afraid I’ll fall from the air just to trek into the fire. No tools. No lines to dig. I’ll follow my sister because it wasn’t fair that I lived, and she ...” He presses his lips together, slowly shaking his head and closing his eyes.

She died.

I stand with weak knees, trudging through a cruel fate to reach him. He spreads his legs and hugs me. My cheek rests on the top of his head.

“What happened to the man who started the fire?” I ask. It’s an awful question, but I have to know for certain. Maybe Dwight Keane isn’t the only man in history to have started a fire to kill a bear.

Fitz draws a deep breath and releases it with his forehead pressed to my chest. “He was found not guilty for reason of insanity. I’m sure he’s drugged up and strapped to a bed somewhere. Or dead. I hope he’s dead.”

I stiffen for a few seconds before releasing a controlled breath. “I’m sure he never intended for so many people to die.”

Fitz lifts his head. “What?” His face contorts.

“I’m sure he wasn’t thinking clearly. How could you be?”

“Don’t fucking do that. I know you work with the mentally ill, but don’t try to defend him to me. Why would you do that?”

“I ... I’m not trying to do that.”

One look.

With one look, I know this will end us if I let it—if I tell him the truth.

He never needs to know. I wish I didn’t know. When I get home, I will call the private investigator and tell him to forget it. I don’t need to find Barbara. If she doesn’t care about her father, why should I? I won’t be in San Bernardino forever. I can treat Dwight like any other patient. This will all fade away. I don’t need an uncle.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” I press my hands to his cheeks. “What you’ve been through is unimaginable.” I kiss him slowly before resting my forehead on his. “But don’t march into that fire, Fitz. They’re not waiting for you to die; they’re waiting for you to live.”

He pulls me onto the bed and shuts off the nightstand light. Then he hugs me like a security blanket until his breaths slow and his body relaxes.

I can’t relax. There is no security for me. I’m still awake when Maren and Will come home from the party. Their hushed chatter lasts for a while before their bedroom doors click shut.

And still, I can’t sleep. Fitz’s confession plays in my mind, and I question everything in the universe. I question the meaning of life. Is it really just a random chain of events? A ping-ponging set of circumstances? If destiny is nothing more than a cliché used to sell books and movies, then how did I find my uncle? Is that a coincidence? And how have I fallen in love with a man so intimately connected to my newfound family?

It doesn’t make sense. It’s not destiny. It’s a nightmare.

I worm my way out of bed without waking Fitz, and I tiptoe down the stairs, feeling thirsty, anxious, and on the verge of hyperventilating. This won’t work. I’m not a good liar. I can’t pretend I’m not hiding this massive secret from Fitz.

I gulp a glass of water and stand at the sliding door overlooking the shed in the soft glow of the adjacent streetlight. I was so drawn to this place when I saw the pictures. It felt right. It felt like my destiny.

The floor creaks behind me, and I startle.

“What are you doing?” Fitz’s groggy voice ghosts along my ear with his lips. His hands slide around my waist.

I continue to stare out the window while his touch brings a rush of tears to my eyes. I rub them like I’m tired, the wet emotion smearing across my cheeks. “Couldn’t sleep,” I murmur.

“No?” He gathers my nightshirt in one hand while his other hand slips down the front of my panties.

I close my eyes and rest the back of my head against him, hoping for a reprieve from the leaky emotions. I need this.

The distraction.

The escape.

The connection to the person I fear losing the most.

I press one hand flat to the window while my other guides one of his to my breast. Yes. I need this, to get lost in how he makes me feel so alive, so wanted and needed.

“Baby, spread your legs for me.”

“Fitz,” I moan. “Say that again.”

He could turn me on with nothing more than his lips at my ear, whispering dirty words. They’re an electrical charge in my veins, dizzying and powerful.

“Baby.” He slides his leg between mine, nudging them apart. “Spread your legs for me.”

With my arousal coating his middle two fingers, he works them inside me, drawing a sharp gasp from my open mouth—the heel of his hand rubbing my clit. His other hand squeezes my breast and tugs at my nipple until it’s hard between his fingers.

“Give me your mouth,” he says just before his tongue draws a line from my shoulder to my jaw.

I turn my head as far as I can, and he covers my mouth with his. Our tongues collide, making deep strokes together. I gasp for a breath and drop my chin to my chest, both hands pressed to the glass.

He removes his briefs and slides my panties down my legs. Guiding his warm, wet erection between my legs, he whispers in my ear, “Shh ...”

I grunt, biting my lips together when he drives into me. My knees lock, and my nails scrape along the window. His hands take the weight of my breasts, pulling my back a little straighter as we fall into a rhythm. Each of his breaths grows louder and harsher. And I lose myself in him and the life I want with him.

I fall first.

Muscles spasming. Knees buckling. My jaw slacks in a silent scream while my heart thrashes around in my chest.

“Oh fuckfuckfuck ...” Both of his hands move to my hips as he grinds into me, stills, and collapses forward so his hands are pressed to the window above mine. He pants at my ear, body relaxed and replete.

When we catch our breath, I turn into him, and he wraps me in his arms. His hand ghosts up my back, beneath my hair, and his fingers stroke my neck.

He’s mine.

Fitz says he loves me in silent but humongous, heart-wrenching ways.