Controlled Burn (Scarred Hearts) (4 page)

“I’d prefer a lot of things.” He stayed silent a long while. His eyes drifted closed and his breaths grew slow, as if he’d drifted back to sleep. Then a tear leaked free. Wincing, he raised his non-bandaged hand and wiped it away.

When he began talking again it was in a sandpaper-coarse whisper. Every syllable of every word had to be a misery, but he barely hesitated. “You carried me out. Said you’d check on Ashley.”

“Yes.”

“She didn’t make it.”

“No.”

“She was my best friend, and I’ll never love anyone like I loved her.”

Delancey swallowed her impulse to cry. “She must have been very special for you to have risked your life for her.”

“There was no one like her.” The rasp in his voice worsened, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. “She didn’t deserve to die.”

“No one deserves what happened to you two.”

“She’d sent me on yet another coffee run. Then I found her.” The raspiness, possibly from the difficulty speaking or possibly from emotion, overtook Logan. He coughed lightly. The cough quickly grew in intensity and stole his ability to speak.

“Shh. Relax.” Delancey filled the bedside cup with water and slipped the nearby straw into it. Careful not to jostle him, she helped him take a few sips until his coughing eased off.

When he stopped coughing and his face no longer showed pinch lines of pain she set the cup back on the table. “You should rest.”

“I’ve done nothing but rest,” he whispered without moving his mouth.

“It’s how you heal. You’ve suffered too much.”
But will suffer more.

“I suffer in sleep too. Dreams hurt.”

“Dreams and memories. They can be worse than breathing,” she admitted. “But we can’t hide from them.”

He looked at her with those eyes that had arrested her from the beginning. Despite the pain he had to be feeling, his gaze reflected an acceptance she wouldn’t have expected so soon after he awoke. “What do you dream of?”

“Fire.” She almost held the admission back, but lies slowed recovery and hindered emotional connections that could motivate a patient. With Logan, not lying extended to a need to admit what she shared with no one else. “I dream of flames robbing me of the man I’d planned to marry. I dream of days when loss didn’t motivate my every move.”

“Hope your intent isn’t to cheer me up, ’cause you suck at it.”

She smiled, almost on the verge of laughter. Burned, covered in bandages and grief, Logan managed to make jokes. It was a rare quality.

“Guess that’s why I’m not a motivational speaker.”

“Or a suicide hotline volunteer.” His mouth curved the slightest bit, inviting her own smile to widen.

“I’m definitely more of a shit-or-get-off-the-pot kind of girl.”

“Ashley was too.”

As quickly as humor had entered the conversation it left. Logan’s eyes closed, pinching visibly with his efforts to breathe. Long minutes passed before he opened his eyes again and looked directly at her. “Delancey?”

“Yeah?”

“I know you saved my life and you’ve visited me.”

She nodded.

“I don’t understand why you come here.”

That made two of them, and now that he was awake she was more curious than ever.

“Would you mind not coming back? You remind me too much of that day.”

His request robbed her of breath and had tears welling up until holding them back became the focus of her being. She mechanically nodded and stood.

Lexi had warned her not to be hurt if he didn’t share the same need to see her. Warnings and preparations truly did nothing to brace her for the shaft of rejection.

Chapter Four

Months had passed and they still didn’t have answers on how the fire had started or what exactly had happened to Ashley that she’d been dead when the fire started. What could she have hit her head on? Or had she been murdered?

Logan’s gaze haunted the empty doorway as he fought the draw of the pain meds that kept him in a daze. He wasn’t dazed enough to not realize the mistake he’d made with Delancey.

He’d taken to reading the books she’d left behind, but the stories lacked a spark without her voice to add depth to the characters and different inflections to the dialogue. Without her visits the stories failed to successfully distract him from the screams beyond his door and in his mind.

And without her visits, Ashley, or rather Ashley’s ghost, visited more often.

As if a thought was enough to conjure her, Ashley appeared at the foot of his bed. “You miss her.”

He’d never believed in ghosts, let alone the idea of having a conversation with one, but he wouldn’t dismiss the prolonged time with Ashley, so he answered. Besides, her visits offered a distraction from the torment of healing grafts and slowly regenerating nerves. “I don’t know her.”

“You know you miss her.”

“Not like I miss you.”

Ashley kicked her legs up on the bed, crossing her ankles and smiling. “How can you miss me when I’m right here?”

“Because you’re not really here.”

“Maybe, but I still know you. And I know you rejected a nice woman out of fear.”

Fear?
“I ran into a burning building for you. Why would I be afraid of her?”

“She reminds you why you’re alive and that magnifies your feelings of guilt.”

Half his life had been spent with guilt in the driver’s seat. Ashley was right that it controlled him more now than ever before.

As a kid he’d had no chance of changing the outcome of events. But in the fire… If he’d refused to go on the coffee run he’d have been there when the fire started. If he’d been there he could have gotten her out. Or if he’d ridden his bike instead of walking he would have gotten back faster, which would have given him a better chance of getting her out.

“See? You’re thinking about it now and blaming yourself.”

“I should’ve been there.”

“You can’t control life any more than you can travel through time to rewrite history.”

“A month ago I would’ve said talking to ghosts was impossible.”

Ashley grinned the way she always did when she was humoring him for being stubborn. “It must be driving you crazy that you can’t fit this into a tidy category.”

“You’ve never fit into a clear category, Ash. It never kept me from adoring you.”

“And that’s the real reason you’re still alive. You loved me enough to do my bidding.”

“You were trying to get me out of the way?”

“How could I have a wicked rendezvous with you there?”

“You sent me for coffee so you could have a quickie with Cameron?”

She faded before he could chastise her. Whatever she’d planned wasn’t what had happened. So what could have happened? What had he missed?

No sooner did the question spring to life than the memory swooped in with a fresh wave of heart-stinging loss.

Ashley knocked on the glass wall separating their offices a second before she leaned around the open door. “I need caffeine.”

Logan checked his watch and heaved a sigh.

Ashley walked to him, each step strong and commanding, with the slightest bounce. Her heels added the necessary inches to close the distance between their heights, making it easy for her to kiss him, like she often did, at the edge of his mouth where it became cheek. “Scowl all you want, baby brother, and we know you do it so well. We also know you’ll give in.” She pulled back and patted his shoulder. “It’s been an hour.”

Never sure how they could be related, with her always bubbly and bright-side view and his not-so-optimistic outlook, Logan stared. “A whole hour that could’ve been filled with caffeine if we had a coffee maker.”

“If you’re trying to make a point, I’d catch it easier with coffee.”

“I’ll spell it out for you. A coffee pot would mean endless caffeine, productive work time for me and, apparently, a functioning brain for you.”

“Other than you being a grump, I’m still missing your point.”

“I could buy a coffee pot. It would also save us money, which would increase our profits.” He leaned closer and narrowed his gaze. “And I could get some work done.”

“The landlord is supposed to provide the coffee pot, not us. We should hold him to his obligations.”

The trouble with being the first tenants in a new office building seemed to be that everything wasn’t quite ready. Or the problem could just be a slow-to-respond landlord. Resistance would be a futile waste of hope, because Ashley had never been swayed down a new path of thought once her mind was set. And she called him inflexible. “Consider something for me.”

“What?”

“If you had your own pot you’d never have to worry that someone didn’t make it your way.”

“That’s a good point. But until we’re set up…” She twirled her long brown hair around her index finger and smiled the way she always did to charm him and her fiancé into giving her whatever she wanted. “I would really appreciate some coffee.”

Rolling his eyes as much at her as himself and his willingness to do whatever she asked, Logan backed up the file he was working on to their sky drive and closed the lid of his laptop. “I’ll be right back.”

She kissed his cheek and grinned her most victorious grin. “I love you.”

“Love me all you want. This is the last run I’m making today.”

“Take your time.”

He regretted that he’d been annoyed with her. Annoyed and more concerned with the work he wasn’t getting done than telling her he loved her.

The clock’s hands moved too slowly around its world. Nurses and doctors came and went, changing his bandages, the most painful part of being burned as it turned out. Therapists, physical and psychological, stopped in to check on him and talk about what he’d need to do for a full recovery.

Sometimes he pretended to be asleep. It never worked, because no one in the hospital had an issue waking him up.

Days became nights and nights became days. The cycle seemed endless, with no discharge in sight. Through it all, he wanted the door to open for two reasons. First, to hear the news he was going home. Second, to reveal that Delancey had ignored his wish for her to stay away.

After several weeks of loneliness, despite the revolving door of staff entering and exiting his room, he received one of his two wishes. Sort of.

The door opened and Dr. Hyatt entered. “Mr. Mathis. How are you today?”

“Same as yesterday and the day before.”

Nurse Lexi walked in behind Dr. Hyatt. She carried a tray with all the things they used in the torture sessions they called bandage changes.

Logan scowled. “Ready to go home. Ready to be finished with all of this.”

“Then good news,” Dr. Hyatt said. “After Nurse Lexi removes your bandages today we’ll be leaving them off.”

“So when do I get to go home?”

“When you can dress yourself and walk to the nurse’s station without assistance.”

Sitting up in bed and turning so his feet dangled over the edge, his muscles and skin grafts pulled against each other, resisting the move. The effort sapped him of energy, but Logan cared more about the glimpse of hope Dr. Hyatt’s words awakened.

Nurse Lexi set the tray on the bed table and smiled, waiting for the signal to begin.

“Sounds simple enough,” he said in hopes of believing himself. Except he hadn’t managed to walk across his own room without help, let alone to the nurse’s station. Hope deflated, because he didn’t know how he would do it without help.

“
Sounds
simple, yes.” Dr. Hyatt nodded at Nurse Lexi. “It’ll be tougher than you anticipate.”

Logan accepted the challenge and met the doctor’s steady stare. “Easier without the restriction of these bandages.”

“Ready?” Nurse Lexi pointed at his bandaged arm.

The unwrapping of the outer layer of gauze wasn’t the painful part. The lower layers where the bandages stuck to the blood or still-raw sections of skin were a different story. When those layers were changed, with each inch of gauze that Nurse Lexi lifted, his skin pulled as if she’d tugged at a Band-Aid superglued to a festering wound.

And then there was the final step they called debridement. It was a simple word to describe the popping of large blisters and the removal of damaged skin that hadn’t been replaced by grafts.

The pain was indescribable and though it had lessened considerably over the last week its memory was a vital sensation that sprang to life at the thought of a dressing change.

With his muscles trembling and his nerves tingling, he raised his arm in front of her and closed his eyes. He could handle the pain, but he couldn’t make himself look at his burned flesh. Not after the one time he’d looked.

The areas where they’d given him donor skin were smooth while the outer edges and other nearby areas surrounding the graft sites were hideous. He would have to live with the scars, forever hideous. He didn’t have to share his hideousness with the world. It was one good thing about having sent Delancey away before he got more attached to her.

Absence failed to diminish her impact, because she entered his thoughts every day. And every day he was more curious about her. About why she’d become a firefighter. Why she’d come to visit him. Why he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

“Can you stand?” Nurse Lexi broke the spell of his somber thoughts.

He wasn’t sure how long it had taken her, but she’d unwrapped his arm, all the layers, and he hadn’t even felt it.

“My favorite part of the day,” he said, barely looking at his favorite nurse, “stripping for women who couldn’t care less. Except when you deliver those home-cooked lunches or dinners.”

She would say nothing about the food. She never did, which kept him wondering who was cooking for him when no one tried to visit. All he knew was that the food was amazing and it comforted him more than he’d have imagined.

“My job isn’t to ogle you, Logan.”

He inhaled, bracing himself, and then controlled his exhale as he slid his feet to the floor and stood. For once the pain of movement wasn’t an all-encompassing agony. Unsnapping and dropping the hospital gown, he muttered, “Nothing worth ogling anyway.”

Nurse Lexi shook her head and began removing the bandages from his back and torso, leaving him without a layer of protection. She was almost finished removing the first layer before she spoke again. “Would you believe it if I said you were worth ogling?”

“No.”

“And that’s perfectly normal.” She rolled the gauze backward, tugged at a piece that had stuck to his skin.

Logan closed his eyes and focused on pulling air into his lungs and pushing it back out. He’d realized breathing through the dressing change made the agony more manageable.

“Do me a favor, Logan.”

“What?” he asked on an exhale.

“As much as I like having you as a patient, don’t let feeling sorry for yourself stop you from healing. You still have a life outside of here.”

“Not really. I’ve lost my sister. Our clients have moved on to new firms. I’m sure to lose the house before the year is out, given that I’m buried in debt and have no income. I didn’t even get to be there to bury my sister.”

“I didn’t say it was a happy life,” Nurse Lexi said with a stark honesty.

“Not an optimist, are you?”

“Realist. You’re facing some shitty times.” She didn’t speak again until he opened his eyes and found her standing in front of him, staring. “You’ll have to tell yourself every day that being alive is a blessing. Eventually you might come to believe it.”

“Doubtful.” He wouldn’t dishonor Ashley by wishing for death, but viewing life as a blessing? Not possible.

“Also a natural way to feel given what you’ve faced.”

“Don’t tell me it’ll pass or that what you’re saying isn’t a lie.”

“Deal. I will tell you that if you repeat the lie every day it will give you a reason to reach for recovery. The lie will help you get stronger and get out of here. The lie might one day, even a long time from now, become your reality.”

Logan was still thinking about Nurse Lexi’s advice hours later as he lay in bed, staring at the insides of his eyelids. She hadn’t put fresh bandages over his burns, which meant expending effort to not look at them.

Escape came when he focused his thoughts on one sense. The easiest, because it hurt least of all the others, was scent. Specifically the tangy scent of grapefruit.

He’d smelled grapefruit at the fire and during Delancey’s previous visits. It had been faint beneath the oppressive weight of smoke and burning flesh, but it had been there. The scent had slid into his awareness and pulled him away from the instinct to go into the darkness. The scent had aroused his curiosity despite the horror facing him. It had given him something to cling to, a reason to wake up. When he had, he’d met a piercing gaze that was as compelling as the scent.

Compelling and lasting and soothing.

A knock landed on the door a moment before a tall, long-necked man wearing a crooked tie, wrinkled blazer and slightly gray shirt entered. “Logan Mathis?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Inspector Schneider.” Raising a badge, he introduced himself. “I hear you’re going home soon.”

“Maybe.” Logan said nothing else, hoping the inspector would take a hint and leave him alone. Lady Luck was visiting someone else.

“I’m looking into the fire at your office.”

Logan stiffened his back, sending a series of crackles up his spine. If he could move easily and without inciting agonies, he’d get up and pace. “Isn’t that old news by now?”

“No. I’d like to ask you a few questions.” Schneider pulled a pad and pen from his suit jacket’s inside pocket.

Logan shook his head. He only talked about the brutality of his fire during the therapy sessions. And he barely brushed the surface then. Though so far he and his therapist had talked more about what it would be like to go home.