“I think his color is better,” her mother said. She always had something positive to say about any sliver of improvement in his condition. Lucia studied her father through the window between the hallway and his room. He looked the same to Lucia, but she hoped the change her mother saw was indeed there. When her dad woke up, they had a lot to talk about. First on the list was the apology she owed him for an argument they’d had the day before he was shot.
“What’s with the coat?” Her mother pointed to the jacket in Lucia’s arms.
Lucia glanced down at the well-worn leather bomber jacket she had found in the chapel after she had checked on it the last time. Rafael Wright’s name was neatly printed on a label on the lining. She didn’t dare blurt out that the least she could do was return the man’s jacket since he had saved her life—at least not to her mother, who didn’t need to know how close a call it had been. “It belongs to a guy who rescued a couple of little kids in the chapel,” she said, striving for a nonchalant tone. “He was so kind that…”
“One of the staff can take care of getting it returned,” her mother filled in after Lucia’s voice trailed away.
“Yes, I’m sure they could.”
“But you’re taking it back to him.” A statement of fact.
Lucia nodded.
“He must have made an impression.”
He had and, though Lucia knew her mother would have figured that out anyway, she wasn’t ready to say so aloud. Her mother would say something to her brothers, and with their police and FBI connections, they’d probably run a criminal history on Rafe before allowing her to get close enough to return the man’s coat. It wasn’t like she was planning on marrying the man, or even dating him, for that matter. She just wanted to return his coat.
“Lucia?”
She jerked her gaze to her mother’s. “Don’t mind me. I’m just a little muddled, that’s all. Reverend Dawson has another prayer service scheduled for Dad tomorrow night.”
“I know.”
“Since I’ll be off work then, I’ll be there, too. And I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon to spend a couple of hours with Dad. Emily said she’d come after me so you can have most of the day to yourself.”
Her mother glanced through the window to the bed where her father lay, and Lucia’s gaze followed. For all her life, her dad had been the strongest man she knew—invincible. Logically, she knew he was in a coma, but emotionally—where she still felt like a six-year-old where her father was concerned—she wanted to believe he was merely taking a nap. Each day he remained in the coma added to her worry that he might never recover.
These long months since he had been shot by an unknown would-be assassin had taken on a grotesque normalcy, where her mother kept a vigil while the rest of them took turns spelling her and pretended to live life as though it wasn’t in limbo. Lucia wondered if she would recognize normal if it ever came again. She could only hope.
The one thing that had remained constant through these months of waiting for her dad to wake up was their sustaining faith. As her mother had often said, whether her dad awoke or not, he was in God’s hands. Though Lucia knew that, she longed for her dad to simply open his eyes.
“You better get going,” her mother said, ignoring Lucia’s filthy gear and planting a kiss on her cheek. “And I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Once more, Lucia resisted the urge to sink into her mother’s arms and managed a smile that, she hoped, hid how needy she felt. She moved toward the stairwell. “Tomorrow.”
When she came out of the hospital toward the pumper, she’d hoped to make it back to her crew without any further comment from Battalion Chief O’Brien. No such luck, though. He watched her approach with narrowed eyes.
“Any time you’re ready to go, Vance.” He had taken off his turnout gear and his slacks and shirt were crisply pressed, as though he hadn’t just been through a fire.
Gideon Jackson mildly said to him, “We just got the hose rolled back up, Chief. She’s not late.”
“She wasn’t here, which is more to the point,” O’Brien said. “You want to go on report, Jackson?”
“If you think you’ve got something that should be brought to my attention,” Gideon replied in that same calm tone.
Without saying anything more, O’Brien got in his red SUV, the insignia on the door identifying his rank.
After he was gone, the rest of the crew took off their turnout gear and finished stowing the equipment. Once they were underway, Gideon Jackson said to Lucia, “Don’t let him get to you. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on, and the rest of us know it.”
Donovan grinned at her over his shoulder from the front seat. “That happens when you walk around with your foot in your mouth all the time.”
“Did you guys find those two little kids’ parents?” Lucia asked instead of telling the two she appreciated their support. Donovan wouldn’t respond to anything mushy, and Gideon would be embarrassed.
“Yep,” Gideon said. “It was a happy reunion all around. You never did say how you found them.”
“I didn’t,” Lucia said. “I didn’t have any idea anyone was in the chapel. The explosion threw me across the hall and I must have landed near the chapel door. Next thing I knew, this guy pulled me into the room, and there were the kids.”
“All I can say is it’s a good thing Wright was there,” Gideon said, “and a good thing the door to the chapel was steel with reinforced glass. We were afraid for a few minutes that fire was going to get away from us and take the entire floor.”
Lucia shuddered, remembering the burn marks on the ceiling and wall in the hallway. She didn’t know what had led Rafe to be on the floor, but she was thankful. If not for him, today’s call could have turned out very differently. It was definitely something to include in her evening prayers later.
The rest of the shift went without incident, and though she was able to sleep during part of the night that finished her twenty-four-hour shift, Lucia was exhausted when she got home the following morning. She knew her emotional upheaval was the cause, not the lack of sleep. As usual, her big orange tabby, Michelangelo—nicknamed Gelo—greeted her at the door.
“Hey, you.” She picked up the cat, enjoying their ritual of being mutually needed. Emotion clogged her throat, and she pressed her cheek against the cat’s soft fur, a purr rumbling against her face. Gelo kneaded her arm and continued to purr loudly as Lucia headed for the kitchen to brew a pot of green tea. “Anything exciting happen while I was gone?”
The cat gave her a soft meow.
“Good.” She sniffed, then squared her shoulders, mentally going through the list of why she shouldn’t be so weepy. Setting Gelo on the floor, she brewed the pot of tea, choosing a favorite pot that she had purchased during a visit to Italy with her mother.
Lucia knew she was a good firefighter who had done her job well, no matter what Neil O’Brien thought. She hadn’t been seriously hurt. Her fellow firefighters had rallied around her. Compared to her father’s injuries and the worry that that was causing her mother, Lucia’s problems with Chief O’Brien were small potatoes.
The front doorbell rang, and the cat ran toward the door. Lucia followed, peeked through the security peephole, then held open the door for her good friend Colleen Montgomery. As the two youngest children of their respective large families and the only daughters as well, they had become allies early on.
Colleen breezed into the living room with her usual boundless energy. “I heard about the hospital fire. Just came by to make sure that you’re okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“According