Mary Sullivan - These Ties That Bind

His twelfth birthday was less than two weeks away. His feet were getting big, almost man-size. That vulnerable neck, though? That was still little boy.

She’d thought she’d taught him how to be careful, but his streak of—of sheer recklessness worried her. What if he was like his father?

That left a bad taste in her mouth.

Adolescence barreled down on Finn, heedless and full of dangerous potential.

She glanced at his profile and saw his eyes widen.

“Mom, look,” he shouted.

Farther down the road at the entrance to the Caldwell ranch, a car sent plumes of smoke into the air. Rem’s place!

Sara pushed the accelerator to the floor and the car surged forward.

“Wow, looks bad, Mom. Unbelievable! Check out all that smoke.”

“Get my cell phone and dial 9-1-1. Tell them we need the fire department.”

As she drew closer, she noticed two people in the road, one lying down.

“Tell them we need an ambulance, too.”

The other person was running toward the burning car. Rem! What was he doing? Going in? Was he nuts?

She came to a gravel-spewing stop across from the accident, just shy of a large buck on the shoulder.

“Stay here,” she ordered Finn, and jumped out of the car.

The first thing that struck her was the noise of the deer lowing pitifully, in pain, of the woman groaning, also in pain, and of the fire crackling, eating up the car that Rem was about to jump into.

She grabbed her first aid kit from the trunk and yelled, “Rem, what are you doing? Don’t.”

REM’S BODY HAD GONE COLD. Geez, there was a kid trapped in that inferno.

The driver’s door stood ajar and he wrenched it open all the way.

Weirdly, he thought he heard Sara Franck’s voice.

The child screamed again.

“Melody!” the woman lying in the road screamed, lucid and hysterical now.

Afraid she would run to the car, Rem whipped around to tell her to stay put.

Sara knelt beside the woman, restraining her. Where had she come from?

“Rem,” she called, “don’t be stupid! Don’t go in there.”

“Can’t wait.” He coughed on smoke. “She’ll die.”

Turning back to the smoke swathed car, he cried, “Where are you?” even while he leaned toward the burning passenger seat.

“Here.” The terrified young voice came from the backseat. Thank God. He slammed the driver’s seat forward into the steering wheel and climbed into the car, the heat intense.

The scent of burning skin and hair choked him. The fumes from melting fabric and metal stung his eyes. The child cried out again, her screams terrible.

Rem barely made out a small form huddled beside the window in the only corner of the car not engulfed in flames. She beat her fist against the glass.

Reaching blindly, he grasped a leg.

“Gotcha!” Rem pulled hard. A small body crashed into his chest sending him backward against the door.

With a jerk, he dragged her out with him. He batted at her burning hair with his bare hands, then checked her over. Fire had touched only her hair.

He blinked hard. His eyes watered from the smoke.

As he carried her away from the burning vehicle, putting distance between them in case it blew up, Rem stared into her wide eyes. “You were lucky you were in the only corner of the car that wasn’t burning.”

“Was on…other side,” she gasped.

Hacking coughs wracked her thin body.

“When I woke up, there was fire everywhere. I undid my seat belt and moved over.” She lifted her shaking hands to show him her burnt palms.

“I couldn’t get Mom’s seat out of the way.” Her lower lip trembled. “I couldn’t get out.”

“Shh. You’re safe now,” Rem crooned, the same way he would to a balky horse. He wanted to rest his head on hers to soothe her, but he feared hurting her damaged scalp. Or maybe he wanted to soothe himself.

“Who are you? Where’s my mom?” She should be crying more, he thought. Her scalp had to hurt like crazy. She was probably going into shock.

“I’m Rem. Your mom’s okay. She got out of the car.” No sense mentioning her mother had been injured. Or that she’d stumbled out of the car on her own, likely forgetting about her daughter because of shock and a head injury.

Rem laid the girl on the grass, but hesitated to let her go. Maybe if he held on tightly enough, he could keep her safe.

The child looked older than her tiny body would indicate—about eight or nine, at a guess.

This close he could smell her burned skin and it gripped him with the talons of a familiar helplessness.

Sara was a nurse. She’d know what to do for the child. He searched for her.

“Sara?” She still knelt beside the injured woman wrapping her arm against her chest with gauze.

“Sara!” he barked. “Get over here. This girl’s hurt.”

Sara ran over.

“Fix her,” he said.

Gingerly, she checked the girl. “I can’t. They both need to get to the hospital.”

“I’ll take them.”

“We shouldn’t move the mother. The ambulance is on its way.”

“Ambulance is probably still on the other side of Ordinary. How long will it take?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Each way. Too long.” He gestured toward the injured woman. “She’s already moved, sat up just as I got here. If one of those ribs punctured a lung, she’ll get bad fast. We need to go.”

He ran to the still-disoriented woman. “I’m going to lift her.”

“Careful,” Sara said.

Reaching under the woman’s legs and with one arm across her back, Rem picked her up as if she were a porcelain doll, trying to keep her in the same position she was already in.

He was beyond gentle, but she cried out anyway. There was no way to do this without hurting her.

While they placed her into his Jeep, Sara supported her bloody head. Before resting the woman back onto the seat, Sara shimmied out of her sweater and balled it up to cushion her head.

“That sweater will be ruined,” he said.

“Doesn’t matter.”

She’d never had a lick of vanity.

“We can’t put her seat belt on,” Sara said. “Drive carefully.”

Yeah, right. While I speed like a demon. “I’ll do my best.”

“Do you keep a gun in the Jeep?”

“Yeah. A rifle. Why?”

“That stag’s in pain. He can’t be saved and he’s dying too slowly.”

“Let me get my kit and I’ll give him an injection.”

“We don’t have time. Where’s the gun?”

“I’ll get it.” Rem rushed to the back and reached in for his rifle.

When Sara tried to take it from him, he said, “Move.”

“I can do it. Get those two to the hospital. Go. Now.”

Here in full force was übercapable Sara. She charged through life taking care of everyone and everything around her.

Rem and Sara had practically grown up together. He knew she loved animals as much as he did and he wanted to spare her this ugliness. But he also knew that look of determination. Fine. She could do it.

He shoved the rifle into her hands, then returned to the sobbing child, whispering inanities as he lifted her. A little bit of a thing, she whimpered against his chest like a kitten. So vulnerable. So helpless against life.

Rem cleared his throat of the fear blocking his breath. She’ll be fine. Have faith.

He put her into the front passenger seat where he could keep an eye on her. Her chest seemed to be fine, so he buckled her in, ran around to the driver’s side and pulled onto the highway.

As he sped off with his window open, he heard one rifle shot.

Sara had been a thorn in his side over the years, but he couldn’t deny she had guts.

Sheriff Kavenagh’s cruiser approached, barreling down the highway from the opposite direction, toward the cloud of dirty smoke the car threw into the air.