Fire at Sunset: The Firefighters of Darling Bay 4 by Lila Ashe Read Free Book Online

Castro, said that she could tell what he wanted by the tilt of his mouth, but Caz thought she was full of it. His father had been the strongest man he’d ever known. To see him reduced to this—slack jawed and empty eyed—Caz was just glad his dad was too out of it to really understand his own state.  
    He and Joyce eased Tony into the wheelchair. Caz placed a small wooden horse he’d whittled at work into his father’s lap. Sometimes it seemed to help, something for Tony to hold, to work his fingers over.  
    “There,” Joyce said. “You got your horsie now. You’re gonna feel great today, Mr. Tony. Just great. It’s your son’s day to take care of you, and I know those are your favorite days.”  
    Caz knew they were her favorite days, her days off. She lived at the ranch in a room next to Tony’s, so she’d be back tonight, but two days a week, Joyce went into Darling Bay and saw her daughter and her friends. It was only fair. Everyone needed days off.  
    It hadn’t stopped Caz from wanting to hire another part-time nurse for those two days.  
    That would be stupid. He was a paramedic. Tony was his father, after all.
    “I think we should go sit on the porch this morning,” Joyce said. “It’s supposed to be spring out there, but it feels like summer’s coming. Would you like that, Mr. Tony?”  
    As if he would answer. Caz pushed the chair, moving it smoothly across the old hardwood floors, over the planks his father had put in by hand. In a movie, his father would wake up every once in a while and say something soul-stirring. Sadly, though, this wasn’t a movie. Or if it was, it was the worst one he’d ever had to sit through.  
    Today, Caz would spend the day on the covered porch with his father. He’d read an old paperback Western out loud, not because he thought his father cared, but because he hated it to be so quiet, with nothing but the harsh sounds of his father’s breathing to break the day into manageable pieces.
    “You go have a good day off, Joyce.” He tried to mean it.  
    “Okay, I will. He had a rough night last night. He might be tired today.”  
    Like father, like son, Caz figured. They’d lost a guy this morning who was supposed to get married on Saturday. He’d sat with the girlfriend on the couch for a while. It had been terrible.  
    Bonnie had held the woman’s hand, she’d said those things that women always said, over and over. “There, there. We’re here. It’s going to be okay. We’re here. It’s okay.”  
    That was the problem with women—they didn’t tell the truth.  
    It wouldn’t be okay for Shelley. It would probably never be okay again. Bonnie telling her it would didn’t help anything.
    Words never helped. They only hurt. He’d learned that young from his mother when she’d playfully asked, Who do you love more, Caswell? Me or your father? He’d said the wrong thing, thinking of the way his father let him sit on the horses saddle-less, the way his father let him hold his best carving knife. It had been a lie—he’d loved her the most, with her soft hands and the way she kissed him goodnight, the way her eyes lit to see him each and every time. Caz had been teasing his mother. Of course he loved her best.  
    His mother had left after his flippant lie, had left the ranch and her husband and her kid, to go find stardom. Tony Lloyd had raised Caz the best he could on his own, which included TV dinners and a lot of swearing. Words had chased away Caz’s mother, and words—all the words he’d been able to fit into his letters to her in Nashville—hadn’t brought her back. She’d died there of an overdose, still trying to get a record deal. Sometimes Caz wondered how good the medics had been who’d responded to the call. How hard had they worked to try to save her? Did they know how incredible her voice was? She’d have been the next big star if she’d lived. Probably. If Caz hadn’t chased her away.  
    Caz and his father both