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“How was it?”
“Just like you’d expect, only worse.”
“Devon, I’m so sorry,” Lila said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m coming home. Aisling is bringing Ralph up for a couple of days. I’ll stop for my dog.”
“That will be a good place for her to recover. Tilly will be happy to see Ralph, too,” Lila said.
“My battalion chief wants to meet you, too,” Devon said, glad for the change in the conversation.
“Not that older guy I met last week?”
“Jeez, Lila, he isn’t that old. I bet Charlie isn’t fifty yet.”
“He’s at least ten years older than I am,” she said.
“And he’s not married, by the way, has a good job, and he has a fabulous house in Rancho Santa Fe.”
“Rancho Santa Fe? Maybe you firemen are making too much money,” she said, laughing. “Although that does make it more inviting.”
“You’ve done worse.”
“Now that you mention it…and he’s got a bod on him. And a nice head of hair.”
“Okay, let me set something up. Anyway, I’m on my way home,” he said. “Life sure changed fast.”
“It sure did,” Lila said before they said goodbye.
The familiar ride home brought comfort to Devon. He rolled the windows up; the wind hurt his skin. He’d call the doctor about getting a visiting nurse in. Passing familiar places through town that he and Mike had frequented over the years brought fresh waves of pain.
“I miss you, buddy,” he whispered.
Lila had a container of vegetable beef soup and a loaf of homemade bread ready for him. Tilly was ecstatic, but she kept sniffing him.
“She can probably smell the burned skin,” he said, grimacing. “Can you smell it?”
“No, silly. Let me help you carry all this out. There’s a chocolate layer cake, too. I was going to take it over to the Saints’, but since Aisling’s staying with you, you two can enjoy it.”
Standing watching Devon’s car roll down the steep driveway to the street, Lila waved to him, wishing she could do more. The truth was he did smell differently, like salves and bandages and sickness. Flicking a tear away, her heart went out to him. He’d had so much loss in the past five years, first Ray and Marie dying in a terrible car crash, and now Mike dying right in front of Devon. She wondered how he was going to survive it.
Home loomed ahead. The house was visible from his car down below, a mid-century ranch on a sprawling twenty-acre parcel at a thousand-foot elevation with no other house around it. The road into Elfin Forest wound throughcoastal scrub, bush forest, elfinwood, heath scrub, and chaparral. The salt spray and constant wind helped to define the twisted dwarf trees, hence the name Elfin Forest.
The entrance to the Lyon propertywas defined by a heavy iron gate flanked by, what else, two granite lions. No matter what the circumstances, Devon was never able to approach the property without grinning. His father had a sense of humor. Their death was such a shock, totally unexpected, and made worse by the fact that the accident was Ray’s fault. After Ray and Marie visited their vineyard north of Fallbrook, he must have had a heart attack and veered off the winding road into the gorge below. Years of nagging him to take care of himself had fallen on deaf ears, and Marie had lost her life because of it.
The engine strained making the steep ascent. Tilly stood up with her paws on the dashboard. “We’re almost there!”
As he came around the front of the house to the parking area at the side of the garage, Tilly’s ears perked up; Aisling stood in front of the garage, still wearing her funeral suit, but with flat shoes and a suitcase and Ralph sitting next to her. They smiled at each other, but at the same time, they tried not to cry. They’d never been together at the Lyon house without Mike, so this was going to be something new to navigate.
“How’d you get out of going to the luncheon?”
“I just said I was sick, and no one questioned me. My sister brought me home, and I told her I wanted to be alone. I threw stuff into my bag and told Ralph to get into the car, and the rest is history. Oh, one more thing, my car is also full of food. We won’t have to cook again for a week.”
“Ha! Great news because I’m sure my refrigerator is full of garbage.”
He scratched Ralph’s head and looked over at Aisling. “Should we unload?”
“Yep, might as well. Then I’m getting a blanket and climbing into that lounge chair by the pool and not moving again until Sunday night.”
