AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Grant pointed over to the dresser under the window. “I don’t really have pajamas, but I keep some lounging pants in the bottom drawer.”
That would have to do. He stood up while she unbuttoned and tugged down his pants, then he stepped into the soft, flannel pajama pants she found. Pepper stacked all the pillows behind him, then helped him ease back into bed. She pulled up the blankets and propped his burned arm on a few smaller pillows. Last, she turned off the overhead light, leaving on only the small lamp beside his bed.
“All comfy?”
“As comfortable as the Human Torch is going to get.”
“I’m going to bring you a glass of water and leave it here with your pills, so you have them if you need them.”
Grant’s brow furrowed at her. “Are you leaving?”
“No. But I think you need to sleep, so I’m going into the other room.”
“Don’t. Stay.” Grant patted the empty expanse of mattress beside him. The last time she’d laid in the bed, things had been very different. They’d indulged in hot, sweaty sex all night and she was certain as she left, that she’d never return to the scene of the crime. Yet here she was, back in Grant’s bed, this time, playing her boyfriend’s nursemaid.
She would stay, but only until he fell asleep. Pepper got his water and medicine situated, and then eased onto the bed so she wouldn’t jostle him. She curled up near his side without touching him. His arm and his head were the most serious injuries, but he was peppered with tiny cuts and abrasions. Every inch of his body had to be sore.
Looking up at the dark ceiling, she said, “You scared me today, Grant.” She wasn’t good at talking about her feelings, but in the darkened room with a drugged listener, it was easier somehow. Maybe he wouldn’t remember this discussion in the morning. That alone inspired her to be more honest. “What happened out there?”
He shook his head and put his good arm around her shoulder. “I don’t know. Everything that could go wrong seemed to. Sometimes you just have those days. Fire is unpredictable, and so are the people around you. Anything can happen. This is my first serious injury since I joined Fire and Rescue. All this time I’ve taken care of other people, but today, I was one of the patients. It was weird to wake up in the ambulance and realize what had happened.”
“I haven’t really thought about the consequences of your job and just how dangerous it can be. It finally hit me today how scary your work is.”
“Life is dangerous. Sure, being a firefighter has its risks, but what about the guy we rescued today? He was just a guy driving down the highway, minding his own business. He could’ve just as easily been killed today.”
“It worries me more than I thought it would. I’m afraid . . .” Pepper said, then hesitated. She needed to speak her mind and get this off her chest. “I’m afraid to get attached to you, Grant. Not just because of the work, but for a dozen different reasons. It’s hard. I feel myself falling for you and I’m fighting it.”
Grant’s finger lifted her chin and turned her head to look at him. “Fight it,” he said, surprising her. “You don’t want to fall in love with me, Pepper. Don’t get me wrong, I want you to. I think you and I are fantastic together. You’ve made me consider things that have never crossed my mind before. I feel myself falling for the first time in my life. And I should be happy, but like you, I’m fighting it.”
He was falling for her? Pepper was stunned. She felt something building between them, but she hadn’t let herself think of it as something serious. The “L” word was an impossibility, especially considering everything she knew about Logan. “Why are you fighting it?”
“Because I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to be like my father, and it scares me every single day we’re together that I’m going to abuse your trust in me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you I had secrets, too. Mine is that my father is a pig, and I worry I’m doomed to be just like him.”
Pepper’s eyes widened at his blunt words. “You . . . think you can’t be faithful?”
Grant shrugged. “I don’t know if I can. I’ve never tried. But I know my father has failed time and time again.”
Pepper couldn’t stop herself from asking a question since the morphine had loosened his tongue. “What happened with your father? You said something about it at the hospital, too.”
Grant sighed. “My father was my hero. That’s the way it should be for a little boy, you know? I co
uldn’t wait to grow up and be just like him. I wanted to make him proud so he would notice me. He was so busy and my other siblings demanded so much of his attention, it was hard to feel seen in my house. One day, when I was eleven, I earned the scouting badge that I’d been working on all year. It was one of the big ones. I was so proud to get it, but my dad had to work late and couldn’t come to the ceremony. When our troop meeting was over, my mother was going to take me to Scoops for ice cream to celebrate.
“We met in the Jaycee’s Building, so I told my mom I wanted to run across the street to show Dad my patch real quick before we got ice cream. She waited there for me, chatting with another mom as I jogged over to his offices. I opened the door, quietly. Anytime we went to Dad’s office, we were trained to be quiet and behave. I think that night I was too quiet. I slipped down the hallway to my dad’s office, where I could see the light on. I figured he was working at his desk. Everyone else had gone home. But when I got near the doorway, I realized something wasn’t right. I heard voices. I heard a woman’s voice.”
Pepper winced. She already knew how this story would end. It had to be hard to face that at such a young age when your father was your hero.
“I stopped just outside the doorway. From there, I could see my dad with his pants around his ankles. Some blonde was on his desk with her bare legs wrapped around his waist. She was shouting her head off. I was barely old enough to know what was going on, but I knew it wasn’t something he was supposed to be doing with some random woman. So I turned around and walked out.”
“Did he see you?”
Grant took a deep breath, her head rising and falling with the gentle movement. The arm that was wrapped around her shoulder tightened just slightly, as though he needed her support to get the words out. “If he did, he never said anything. When I got back to the car, I told my mom that the door was locked, so I’d just show him when he got home. I got a banana split at Scoops that night and made myself sick eating it. To this day, I can’t eat one. And to this day, I’ve never shown my father the patch I earned.”
“I’m so sorry, Grant.”
