Her Only Hero (10 page)

“It’s going to be okay.” Ryan seemed to be reading her thoughts
again. “I have a good feeling about it. Your buyer is going to love what you’ve
done.”

“I keep telling myself everything will go the way I want.” She
glanced in the rearview mirror. “This procedure is Mandy’s best chance at a
hearing life. I can’t let anything interfere with her getting the implant.”

“And then what happens?” Ryan kept his eyes on the road. “You
won’t leave Suffolk, will you?”

“I’d like to stay here,” she said carefully. Don’t read too much
into it, she told herself. He’s asking as a friend, that’s all. “Mandy will
need therapy for a while to learn to make best use of the implant, and this is
a good place for her to get it.”

“So you’ll stay.”

“I’ll still have to find another place to live. And a part-time
job.” Even if she got the price she expected for the building, her finances
would be tight for some time.

“It’ll happen.” He reached across to pat her hand. “You’ll see.
Suffolk is a good place to live, and you have friends here.”

Friends, including Ryan. The hospital came into view ahead of
them, and she couldn’t help the involuntary way her hand clasped his.

“It’s going to be okay,” he repeated, and squeezed her hand.

They were simple words. The kind of words she used to reassure
Mandy when things went wrong. Every mother said that, probably.

She just hadn’t realized how much she’d longed to hear them
herself. Longed to have someone tell her things were going to be all right.

Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them back quickly. She
took pride in standing on her own. She did.

But she couldn’t deny how good it felt to have someone with her.
Someone who understood and cared, even as a friend.

She looked at that thought, appalled at what it implied. She’d
been telling herself that she didn’t want anything from Ryan except friendship.
She’d actually begun to believe it.

But turning into the hospital lot, knowing that soon she’d
confront the possibility that Mandy’s implant would be a reality, she longed
for more.

She took a deep breath. It doesn’t matter what you want. Ryan is
offering friendship, nothing else.

That was true. She knew it.

Unfortunately she also knew she ought to admit another truth to
herself, even if she never told Ryan. Her feelings for him had already gone
beyond friendship, and there was nothing she could do about that.

Was there anything worse than sitting in a hospital waiting
room? Ryan tried not to fidget. This room wasn’t like the emergency room where
he’d waited more than once for news about another firefighter. People sat here
for ordinary appointments, not life-threat-ening emergencies.

But lives would still be changed by what was going on in the
exam room where Dr. Marsh examined Mandy and Laura waited for his verdict. If
he’d had the right to go in with them, maybe he could have helped.

No. That was a stupid idea. He didn’t have the kind of relationship
with Laura that would permit that. Even if he did, she might still have wanted
to go in alone. That fierce determination to have the best for her child didn’t
even let her see anyone else just now.

The tiger-like ferocity of her love was more than a little scary
to someone like him. Face it, he’d gotten through life on a combination of
charm and physical prowess. He’d always thought that was plenty for anyone.

But neither of those qualities was of much use to Laura and
Mandy right now.

He propelled himself out of the brown plastic chair and paced
across the room. The rack next to the receptionist’s desk had an assortment of
pamphlets, some on cochlear implants. He snatched a few and stalked back to his
chair.

He’d managed to hold up his end of a short conversation, thanks
to his Internet research, but it sure wouldn’t hurt to know a little more about
something that was so important to Laura and Mandy. He owed them that, as a
friend.

They came out, and he stuffed the pamphlets into his pocket and
went to meet them.

“So, how’d it go?”

Mandy held up a coloring book that showed a child in a hospital
bed. She pulled a green lollipop out of her mouth. She smiled, showing him a
green tongue.

“It looks as if Mandy liked Dr. Marsh. How about you?”

He could feel Laura’s tension without touching her, and his
nerves sprang to attention. If the appointment had gone badly—

“He says Mandy is an excellent candidate for the procedure.”
Tears filled Laura’s eyes, and she dashed them away with the back of her hand.
“It’s stupid to cry about it when I’m happy.”

He caught her hand. “It seems like a pretty good reason to me.”

She gave him a watery smile. “I guess. Why don’t we get out of
here?”

When they were in the car, she began giving him a blow by blow
account of everything Marsh had said and done. He wasn’t dumb enough to think
that made him anyone special. He was just there, and she needed to talk. He
drove and listened until she finally seemed to run down.

“When does he think he’ll do the procedure?” he prompted.

He glanced into the rearview mirror as he turned into Laura’s
street. Mandy caught his gaze and smiled, as if to share some secret happiness.
A ridiculous warmth swept through him.

“Ten days. If all the tests go well, they’ll schedule the
surgery in ten days.”

“That sounds like disbelief in your voice.”

She pushed a strand of curly dark hair behind her ear in a
gesture he’d seen often. “I guess it is. I’ve been driving toward this for so
long without thinking about anything else. Now that it’s almost here, I don’t
know what to feel.”

“Elation? Apprehension?” He’d probably feel both of those if
Mandy were his daughter. Maybe he did anyway.

“Both.” Her lips curved. “Add in some plain old fear, and you’re
on the right track.”

He reached across to catch her hand and squeeze it. “She’ll be
all right. You said yourself that Dr. Marsh is the best person for the job. And
in just eleven days the procedure will be over and you’ll be celebrating.”

“Well, I might save the celebration for another month. Mandy has
to heal from the surgery before they activate the implant. Probably a month, he
said.”

“That’s not long to wait.”

“No.” Her breath caught in an audible gasp. “I’ve got to get the
house done. The hospital requires a deposit in advance from people who don’t
have insurance.”

“You’ll be done. Look how far you’ve come already.” He drew up
to the building. “I have the rest of the day free, so I’ll help with the
painting.”

Laura looked as if she’d stopped listening. Instead she was
looking at a white paper that fluttered from a piece of tape on her front door.
Apprehension darkened her eyes.

“Now what?”

He slid out. “I’ll get Mandy. Go ahead and see what that is.”

Nothing, probably. How important could it be? But a chill seemed
to brush his skin. Laura had had too many little things going wrong lately.

When he and Mandy reached her, she was crumpling the paper in
her hand. She looked as if she’d like to do the same to whoever had written it.

“What’s going on?”

She shoved the paper at him, as if inviting him to read it, and
turned to unlock the door. “Honestly, I think that committee is on a power
binge. What will they want me to add next—an original nineteenth-cen-tury
outhouse?”

He smoothed the note out. Bradley Potter. He should have known.

“Well, that complaint is just ridiculous. How do they expect
security lights to ‘blend in to the existing ambience’ of the structure? They
didn’t have security lights then.”

“Don’t ask me.” She pushed her hair back in a weary gesture.
“Every day it seems Potter’s handing me a request for something else, and I
don’t have the time or money to fight them.”

He felt a sharp spurt of annoyance toward Brad Potter. “Well,
look, don’t worry about this one. I think I can probably rig the lights so that
the shutters hide the mechanism. They can’t ask for more than that. You have a
right to be safe, whether it’s historically accurate or not. If the committee
doesn’t agree, I’ll bring the fire department down on them.”

“You shouldn’t have to work on those lights again. You’ve done
enough. I can—”

“I’ll do it. I have all day, remember?”

His cell phone picked that moment to ring. He yanked it out of
his pocket impatiently. “Flanagan.”

The voice at the other end was North’s. He turned away slightly
so that Laura couldn’t read his expression.

“I’ll be right there.” He snapped it off.

“What is it? What’s happened?” Laura’s face had paled.

Obviously he hadn’t done a very good job of hiding what he felt.
He may as well tell her—it was probably all over the news already anyway.

“That was North. There’s been another arson attempt, two blocks
over.”

“Was anyone—”

“No,” he said quickly. “Apparently the fire fizzled out. They
didn’t even discover the damage until an hour ago, and it must have been
started during the night.”

“Another one, that close.” Her brown eyes were huge and dark.

He clasped her hands in a quick, hard grip. “Look, this might be
good news. The guy’s made a mistake, and that might lead us to him.”

“Right.” She took a breath, obviously trying for control. “You
have to go. Thanks for this morning.”

“I’m glad I was here. And please, don’t worry about those
lights. I’ll do them as soon as I can.”

He bent to give Mandy a quick hug. He straightened, wishing he
could do the same to Laura.

But he shouldn’t. He turned and went quickly to the car before
he could give in to the impulse.

S
upper was
over, Mandy in her pajamas, and still she hadn’t heard anything from Ryan.
Laura leaned against the window, hand pressed on the smooth pane, looking down
at the street. Nothing. He hadn’t come, he hadn’t called.

Well, Ryan didn’t have to report in to her. They didn’t have
that sort of relationship.

Evading the question of what sort of relationship they did have,
she turned to Mandy. “How about watching a video before bedtime?” she signed.

Mandy nodded and ran to the video cabinet to pull out her
favorite and slide it into the machine. Laura had to smile at her absorbed
expression as the familiar story started. Videos didn’t take the place of an
old-fash-ioned bedtime story, but they did have their uses.

She realized she was starting toward the window again and turned
away, busying herself with picking up the newspaper she’d left on the floor.
The morning paper hadn’t had a story about the latest fire, but she’d watched a
brief report on the television news.

It hadn’t given her much information she didn’t already have
from Ryan, but the images of the scorched porch had chilled her with their
reminders. The owners of that building had been fortunate, though. The fire had
gone out quickly, doing little but cosmetic damage.

The television reporter had speculated, of course, about the
possibility of a firebug in their midst. If there was a pyromaniac on the
loose, it was odd that he’d failed so badly in this effort. Perhaps someone or
something had frightened him away before he could be sure the fire caught.

Her pacing had taken her to the window that overlooked the
alley. And the lights. The note from Bradley Potter lay on the table, seeming
to look at her accusingly.

A wave of restlessness went through her. Ryan had said he’d fix
the lights, but he hadn’t come. What if someone from the historical
preservation committee happened by tonight and saw that she hadn’t heeded their
warning?

Logic said the committee would hardly expect her to have fixed
the problem in a single day, but she was driven by something stronger than
logic.

Ten days until Mandy’s surgery. She couldn’t afford to be held
up endlessly by the preservation committee. Even if Ryan was right about the
power of the fire-safety regulations against the preservation committee, that
could take time. She couldn’t risk delay.

Mandy was snuggled up on the sofa, already half asleep. She
tucked the afghan over her and put the monitor next to her pillow.

“I have to go out back and do some work, sweetheart. Just tap
the monitor if you want me, okay?” They’d rigged up the method of signaling
when she’d realized Mandy was old enough to have her mother a few rooms away at
times.

Mandy nodded, staring past her mother to the screen. Laura bent
to drop a kiss on her cheek and then hurried down the stairs. She switched on
lights as she went. It was already dusk. If she were going to rig up something
to hide the light fixtures, she’d have to do it now.

Leaving the back door ajar, she put the monitor on the window
ledge. Strains of music from the video floated through it, nothing else. Mandy
was only a flight of stairs away, she reminded herself.

She looked up at the lights, seeing what Ryan had meant about
the shutters. They could be pulled out to hide the fixture without covering the
electronic eye that detected movement. She ought to be able to do a temporary
fix, leaving a more permanent solution until later.

The long aluminum ladder still lay in the back hallway where
Seth and Ryan had left it. She manhandled the ladder out the door and up,
surprised by its weight. The ladder swayed a bit before slithering into place
against the house.

Okay, she could do this. It wouldn’t even require tools to pull
the shutters out. She grasped the ladder, shaking it to be sure it was stable
as she’d seen her father do hundreds of times.

Somewhere in the back of her mind a caution sounded, but she
ignored it. A few minutes and she’d be done. She started up the metal rungs.

She’d been climbing ladders since she was a kid. This was
nothing. Halfway up, she glanced down at the concrete alley. Well, it wouldn’t
be a pleasant fall, but she didn’t intend to fall.

Finally high enough, she reached out. The shutter was just
beyond her fingertips. She should have set up the ladder closer to the window,
but she could manage. Grasping the ladder with her left hand, she reached out
with her right, straining toward the shutter.

The ladder shuddered. It swayed. A spasm of fear clutched her
stomach. She braced her hand against the brick wall, fingers scrabbling to find
something to hang on to.

Nothing. She couldn’t hold it, it was going to fall—

“Laura!” The fear in Ryan’s shout echoed hers.

She didn’t dare move to look down, but she knew he was there,
grabbing the ladder, steadying it, slamming it into place with the strength of
his body.

“Get down. Now.” His voice grated in a way she’d never heard
before.

She was too grateful to take offense. Clutching the cold aluminum
with both hands, she slithered her way down the ladder. Her legs shook, and she
seemed to have left her stomach up there someplace, but she was all right.

She slid the last few rungs and felt Ryan’s hands grab her
firmly, almost angrily.

“Are you crazy?”

He was shaking. Ryan forced himself to push down the emotions
that raged through him. He wanted to shake Laura silly for scaring him that
way. Or kiss her senseless.

Fortunately he had just enough control to know that neither of
those were good options. Still, he couldn’t quite hold his voice steady.

“Are you
trying
to
hurt yourself? That aluminum ladder is dangerous.
I
wouldn’t go up it without someone steadying it, and there
you were—”

He stopped. He was wrong. He didn’t have enough control to keep
his hands off her. He backed up a step.

Laura had sense enough to look embarrassed. “I thought I could
go up and do a temporary fix on the lights. Just in case someone from the
historical preservation committee came by tonight.”

That brought his anger bubbling again. “I told you I’d take care
of it.”

Her stubborn chin firmed. “It’s not your problem. It’s mine.”

He was actually grinding his teeth in frustration. “Will you
please listen to yourself? You’re being irrational. The committee certainly
wouldn’t expect you to have the things fixed in twelve hours, no matter how
fanatical they are.”

“I thought—”

“You didn’t think.” He had enough control by now to touch her
again, so he gave her a gentle push toward the door. “Go inside, will you? If
it’s that important to you, I’ll take care of hiding the lights.”

“Not without someone holding the ladder.” She shot the words
back at him. “That’s what you said.”

Somehow he didn’t appreciate having his own words used against
him. “Right. Fine.” He repositioned the ladder, making sure it was right next
to the window. “You hold. I’ll fix.”

Now was not the time to point out that she probably wasn’t
strong enough to hold the ladder if it started to fall. It didn’t matter,
because he could do this in his sleep.

He scrambled up. The shutters shrieked as he pulled them out to
hide the light fixtures. If not for the protective mesh screening the window,
they could have done this a lot more safely from the inside.

“Good enough.”

He climbed back down again and grasped the ladder, the aluminum
cold against his fingers. Laura hurried to help him lower it against the wall.
A splatter of rain hit the pavement as they did so.

“Let’s get inside.” He wasn’t going to wait for her to invite
him in. He still had a few words to say to Laura, but they may as well be said
someplace a little drier.

At least she didn’t try to get rid of him. She hurried inside,
ducking her head against the raindrops, and let him drag the ladder in and lock
the back door. She was through the front room and halfway up the steps by the
time he’d done that.

He followed more slowly. Was Laura trying to evade the scolding
she no doubt knew he planned? Or just anxious to check on her daughter?

When he reached the second-floor living room, she was scooping
up the sleeping child from the sofa.

“I’ll put her to bed and be back in a minute,” she murmured,
avoiding his eyes.

He nodded. The television screen danced with a popular
children’s video. He found the remote and clicked it off. He didn’t want
singing animals as a counterpoint to the conversation they were about to have.

Not conversation. Lecture. His imagination replayed the scene
he’d found when he’d walked into that concrete alley behind the house. He
couldn’t shut the image off the way he had the video.

Laura, clinging to the top of the swaying ladder. Laura, ready
to smash to the pavement below.

He’d seen plenty of his fellow firefighters in danger. It had
never affected him the way this had.

“I’m sorry.”

He hadn’t heard her come out of Mandy’s room, but she stood a
few feet away. Her dark eyes were so huge and apprehensive that some of the
anger drained out of him.

“If you think an apology is going to save you from a lecture,
you’re wrong.”

She shook her head. “I guess I shouldn’t have tried it without
someone to hold the ladder.” The thread of defensiveness that underlay the
words told him she wasn’t ready to admit how foolish it had been. “Thanks for
showing up when you did.”

If he’d come sooner, she wouldn’t have had to try it. That
thought did nothing to ease the turmoil inside him. He crossed the space
between them in a couple of steps and grasped her shoulders.

“You scared me, Laura. I know I don’t have the right to tell you
what to do, but I don’t want to see you get injured for the sake of a stupid
light.”

Especially one he’d put up. If he’d foreseen the problem, he’d
have hidden the fixtures to begin with.

“I didn’t get hurt.”

“You could have.” His fingers tightened, feeling the warmth of
her skin and the firmness of her muscles under the soft cotton of her shirt.
“Don’t you see that?”

Her jaw set stubbornly, and again he had to resist the impulse
to shake her. Instead he turned her around, marched her to Mandy’s bedroom
door, and eased it open.

The nightlight cast a yellow glow over the sleeping child. The
even murmur of Mandy’s breathing was the only sound. He eased the door closed
again before he spoke.

“Tell me,” he demanded. “What would happen to Mandy if something
happened to you?”

She whitened as if he’d struck her. “That’s not fair.” The words
came out in a soft gasp.

“I don’t care about being fair as long as I can make you think.”
He clenched his fingers to keep from touching her again. “You’re all that
little girl has. She can’t lose you, Laura.”

Anger mixed with the tears that sparkled in her eyes. “Do you
think I don’t know that? Do you think it doesn’t keep me up at night,
wondering, worrying? She doesn’t have anyone else. I have to take care of her.”

Her pain seemed to wrap around his heart, penetrating as nothing
else could. “I know.” His voice went soft. “That’s why you shouldn’t take
risks.”

She took a few steps back into the living room, shaking her
head. The wiry strands of her dark hair curled around her face, and she brushed
them back impatiently.

“Don’t you see? That’s why I have to take risks,” she said. “The
risk of fixing this place up, the risk of going broke, the risk that the
preservation committee is going to tie me up in red tape. I’m all Mandy has,
and I have to do the right thing for her.”

“I know you’re worried about getting the house finished—” he began,
not quite sure what was driving her.

“It’s not just that. Mandy’s whole future is at stake. I have to
be able to pay for her surgery.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Ten days.
That’s all I have.”