Nerds on Fire (44 page)

He didn’t need this. “Of course
not.”

“
You should have stopped
after the first two words,” Leo advised. He stared at Mark in
nearly identical tones as Katy.

Like both feared he’d lost his
mind.

“
What?” Had someone
tampered with their neurotransmitters? He thought about the
possibility for a moment. Maybe someone had tampered with his.
Since the world as he knew it was different. Cold, hostile, and
nothing made sense.

The pair snuggled together
on Leo’s chair exchanged a glance, and they must have conducted an
entire conversation because Katy nodded and leaned forward. “From
what you just told us, Trixi was
not
interested in breaking
up.”

His heart stopped shattering.
“What?”

“
You took her actions and
words as she wanted to break off your relationship. I’ve known her
for twelve, fourteen, or something years,” Katy waved the time span
away, “and this is not how she works. She doesn’t give up on people
this quickly.” She leveled a look at him that curled his
toes
—
in a bad
way
—
and then
continued.

He remembered this woman was as adept
with a scalpel as him.

“
Trixi did not break up
with you.
You
broke up with
her
.”

When he opened his mouth to vehemently
protest, Katy and Leo both help up hands to forestall him. This
time Leo leveled him with a look. “I’ve known you my entire life.
You broke this off because you’re running scared.”

Mark decided there was nothing worse
than a know-it-all, unless said know-it-all had a perky, violet
eyed counterpart seated right beside him, nodding her blonde head
in complete agreement with him.

She leaned forward now and said
succinctly, “You’re running scared because one, you’re afraid it’s
not going to last, and two because your relationship is working
well and you’re terrified of where it’s going because it’s moving
so fast.”

Katy didn’t give him time to refute.
Instead she continued, more in depth this time. “You haven’t had
time to process all that’s happened. Things are going super well
because you’re head over heels in love with Trixi, and you don’t
like having someone in your life who holds such power.”

He started to shake his
head, but Leo set blazing blue-green eyes on him. “Don’t you shake
your head at her. This is how you’ve
always
been. You
never
get involved.”

Mark swallowed because this pair, when
they got going, were not nice people. Even if what they said held a
small grain of truth. He had used his busy school life as an excuse
not to get involved with the opposite sex, then the myriad
fellowships. When sliced open, it was true he didn’t usually get
attached. Love made him mighty uncomfortable.

This conversation made him mighty
uncomfortable.

“
The blame isn’t entirely
yours.” Katy mused from her snug haven against Leo.

This was news to him. He figured
they’d next pin world hunger on him.

“
No, Trixi isn’t any more
used to relationships than you are.” Katy’s violet eyes were
unblinking on his. She held her ground, her jaw set as she took his
measure. “Trixi doesn’t feel like she’s good enough. She never has.
I’m sure from the start she’s been certain you were going to leave
because she’s never measured up.”

His brain blanked. Like a colleague
had nimbly sliced all the connective tissue and nerves and neatly
plucked the organ right out of his skull. It was a strange
sensation, being brainless like this.

Numbness crept in as he gazed at Katy.
Her expression slid from determined to concerned. She glanced at
Leo. His brother gawked at him like he had morphed into a bad
science project.

The strange stupor coursed through his
body and his limbs turned heavy and wearisome. He wanted to lay his
head down and dream about nothing. The very thought of Trixi not
being good enough was the silliest, most ridiculous thing he’d ever
heard. She was worth ten of him.

“
She’s...” His brain
remained blank.

“
What’s wrong with him?”
Katy asked Leo in a worried voice.

“
I have no idea.” Leo
launched out of his massive chair and stepped close to Mark. “You
okay?”

Mark shook his head. It hurt. Should
it hurt if his brain wasn’t there?

“
I think he needs some
time,” Leo said quietly.

Then, it all came rushing back, the
hurt, pain, betrayal, the sense of complete loss he’d felt in the
parking lot when he realized they were finished.

“
Trixi,” he whispered, and
shut his eyes, not able to bear seeing the happy couple in front of
him. The ironically happy couple who didn’t even know they were
dating.

Yet he and Trixi were done because
they were afraid.

Katy wriggled between him and Leo and
tugged his arm, hard. “Mark, Trixi is hurting at least as much as
you are, but she won’t seek us to help her. She doesn’t feel like
she deserves to be happy.” Katy paused and solemnly met his eyes.
“Is that true?”

“
No,” the word burst from
him in an agonized vibrato.

They deserved to make their
relationship count. To make it worthwhile because it was important
to both of them.

The main problem was he had no idea
how.

Chapter 43

What is that
smell?

Agony stabbed to her very being and
made Trixi want to burrow in somewhere safe and forget all about
her problems. Only she caught another whiff of the alarming, acrid
scent and this time she lifted her head and took a deliberate
breath.

It was smoke.

Panic crawled up her throat as she
leaped to her feet and raced down the hallway. The haze grew
heavier as she neared the guest wing of her house. By the time she
opened the door to Mark’s quarters, thick clouds billowed out with
the all too familiar roar of flames.

Coughing, she dug for her phone and
quickly called 911. The crackle and snap of the blaze as it tore
along the wall was heart stopping. Her breath suspended while bile
sloshed as more of the flames beat against the house, and her house
lost.

The emergency dispatcher shouted at
her to get out of the house, and amid coughing fits, Trixi finally
comprehended the woman’s command. She retreated to the kitchen and
then through the mudroom where she had the presence of mind to grab
her coat. Wrenching open the door she bolted outside and ran around
to stare at the hungry beast consuming the guest wing.

Overhead the sky rumbled
and cracked and then it opened. The ensuing deluge doused a good
bit of the hungry monster intent on devouring her house before the
fire trucks arrived.
What was taking them
so long?

The first one screamed up the
driveway, sirens blaring, lights flashing in the darkness. They
blinded her as whiffs of smoke rose to choke her. Still coughing,
Trixi stood, transfixed as they drove around the garage, and with a
screech, braked in front of her. With shouts, a lot of activity,
and huge spouts of water later, they killed the last of the fire
threatening that wing.

Without Mother Nature’s intervention,
she might have lost the entire wing, if not the house. For the
first time in her life, Trixi was grateful to be standing in a
chilling downpour. Tufts of smoky air wafted up to her, encasing
her and her lungs kept spasming, making breathing
difficult.

Additional coughing fits didn’t clear
her lungs. A determined paramedic, who had sped up her driveway
after the firefighters, led her to the ambulance. He fitted her
with oxygen, but she barely noticed his ministrations. Numbness
encased her in a welcoming cocoon.

A litany kept scrolling
through her mind. Someone had tried to burn her house down.
Again
. She tugged her
phone out and called the one person she knew would come to
her.

“
Daddy? My house is on
fire,” she said in a smoke roughened voice, lips
trembling.

“
Are you okay?” She heard a
lot of commotion on the other end and then the distinctive sound of
a garage door opening. There was someone with him, a female, in the
background.

“
Yes,” she lied, wondering
what okay entailed.
Okay
wasn’t her, because her whole world had shattered
tonight. They ended the call after he assured her he’d be with her
in minutes.

When she looked up, Lauren was at her
side and immediately refitted the oxygen mask. “I saw the fire
start just as I pulled in so I called the rescue squad.” Lauren
shivered in her raincoat. The wind grabbed her curls and tussled
them.

Trixi was happy her fellow nurse had
taken up residence in the carriage house, and that she was home
this evening.

“
Thank you.” Trixi wheezed,
the oxygen flow not sufficient for her still smoky lungs. Lauren
adjusted the level, and Trixi heard her answer the paramedic. He
seemed satisfied when he heard Lauren was a nurse and lived on the
property.

From what she could tell, Lauren
answered the fire chief’s questions with ease. In fact, she seemed
happy to do so. Trixi finally noticed he was attractive. Her
hormones yawned and then she started wheezing again.

Not her shining moment, for
certain.

Fresh tears welled and Trixi wondered
if she had any liquid left after her sob session. The fire chief
asked her some questions, of which she thought she answered, but
she couldn’t tell if he was satisfied or not. Maybe Lauren could
comfort him if not.

Her father barreled up the drive and
exited the vehicle in what seemed like all one action. He grabbed
her in a death grip and offered up information she couldn’t process
to the fire chief. Nina encased her from behind, making soothing,
strangely comforting noises. The woman should have been a
nurse.

The rest of the terrible evening
passed in an array of strobe lights, undulating colors, blurry
images, questions, and smoke clouds intent on barbecuing her
lungs.

A sense of unreality
threatened to overwhelm her. Her dad and Nina’s arms were
comforting but she didn’t know what had happened and what she was
supposed to do. Her entire world had been shaken like an injectable
med. Katy eventually replaced her dad and Nina. Then Katy passed
her to Leo who squeezed her and then passed her on to...
Mark
.

His arms were so tight she
couldn’t breathe. Tears welled again, and when she caught sight of
his implacable face, her heart faltered and clenched. Why was he
here?
Hadn’t she endured enough
tonight?

Truthfully, she felt safest in his
arms though. When the police and fire chief came around to ask her
additional questions, she thought maybe her answers made more
sense. It was wonderful to be here again, in his arms while the
rain and wind slashed at them.

Mark’s grip didn’t lessen much and he
kept her in his personal space the entire time. She thought maybe
he was trembling and this made him seem human to her. Definitely,
she was human. The sense of unreality didn’t alter a bit when Uncle
Johnny drove up fast with Miriam and Gran. They exited the car and
all of them hugged her, hampered by Mark’s unwillingness to let her
go. So the hugs were awkward, but doable.

“
What happened?” Katy was
wide-eyed and a little terrified in the flashing lights and glare
from the spotlight the firefighters used. Smoke continued to puff
out of the crumbling wing while the continuing downpour made the
embers hiss. It was reassuring to see the embers sizzle and then
completely die.

The firefighters hit them with several
streams of water from their massive hoses and then before she was
ready, everyone around them piled back into their vehicles and
disappeared down the driveway. The feeling of déjà vu added another
overwhelming element to the evening.

She wasn’t ready to see them go. Now
she had to face reality and she didn’t want to. Part of her house,
like her life, lay in ruins that were no longer smoking but lay
black and dead looking in the falling rain.

Not surprisingly there was a chorus
of, “Trixi, you need to come home with me,” from her father, Miriam
and Johnny, Lauren, and Katy. She thanked all of them, but
straightened her spine. This was her mess.

“
Thank you for your offers.
But I have a perfectly good guesthouse, and I need to be here to
make certain the fire doesn’t rekindle.”

Katy after a quick conference with
Leo, elected to stay with her, but her father overrode them. He
decreed he would stay and no one argued. Trixi was thankful. Her
father would know what to do better than her.

Mark very reluctantly agreed to return
home with Leo.

Gran decided to leave with Johnny and
Miriam since Rylan planned to stay. They were allowed back into the
house long enough to grab the essentials. Trixi took the time to
pack food. The lethargy wore off and weariness crept into its
place.