quick move around the room. He was getting frantic. He couldn’t breathe. The heat was intense against the door. He was out of time.
As a last shot he went to the bed and suddenly realized he hadn’t looked under it. Sure enough, a small child was bundled under there, crying. He heard her as soon as he went down on one knee. Brown curly hair surrounded the child’s fearful face. Big brown eyes, filled with fright, locked on to him. In her arms she held a white teddy bear. Her breathing was uneven and labored as she stared at him, frozen under her bed.
“Come here, honey,” Ben said, and without waiting for a reply grabbed her. She dropped the bear, her arms clutching at his neck, to his ever-lasting relief. “It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart. We’ll get you outta here.”
The little girl whimpered in his ear, clutching his neck and burying her head against his shoulder.
A sense of purpose took over him. He’d get this little girl out.
The door was too hot, out of the question to go back that way, so he chose the window. Covering her with the blanket from the bed, he went to the window. Using his hands, he managed to get the glass out, then kicked out the screen. The mother was on the other side of the window, unsteady but working to help. Her deep blue eyes were determined and steady. She wanted her child out of the burning house and in her arms.
He’d never seen that look in a woman’s eyes before. It was a mother’s willingness to do anything to protect her child.
He gladly handed the coughing child to her mother before slipping through the small square exit and landing unsteadily in the flower garden, going to one knee. He forced himself to his feet, slipped an arm around the tiny frame of the mother and pushed her farther from the house. “Others?” He rasped the word out, trying to breathe in the warm muggy morning air but feeling like he was breathing in razors over raw skin.
“No. None. Oh…” Gasp, cough. “Thank you.” Hugging her child closely to her chest, she dropped to her knees.
Between her sobs and her coughs, Ben couldn’t make out much of what the pink-enshrouded woman said. Falling to his knees, he knelt and worked on breathing.
The crunching of gravel as a fire truck pulled in mixed with the sound of the corner of the roof collapsing on the house.
In what seemed like seconds a fireman was beside them administering first aid, giving them oxygen and easing their painful attempts to breathe.
Ben watched the ambulance arrive. Technicians checked out each of them. He noted that the woman, her long blond hair smudged with soot, clung to her daughter. The little child, who had dark hair and big brown eyes, looked like the mother except in coloring. She looked more scared than ill from the smoke.
The technicians took no chances and gave the child oxygen. Then it was his turn. The two ambulance technicians worked on them as the firemen shouted back and forth, spraying water on the fire to get it under control.
Finally, with the woman on a stretcher and the child and Ben strapped into seats across from her, the ambulance headed for the hospital in Zachary.
Over and over he heard the woman saying, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” And the entire time, as he watched the woman try to comfort the child and be brave while coping with the fact she’d just lost most of her house and nearly her life, he thought, Where’s your husband?
Chapter Two
Women are a species all to themselves, with the ability to cause you to make crazy decisions.
—Ben’s Laws of Life
Okay, okay, I admit I was ashamed not to know my neighbors. But when you see a good-looking woman with a kid you expect to find a husband attached.
At least I did. Of course, I was going to find out many of my bachelor ideas were inaccurate, to say the least. But first, I had to learn just how out of touch with the real world I was.
And boy did I get a dose of reality right after we arrived at the hospital.
“You don’t know her name?”
Ben shrugged. “No.” He could feel the dull flush creep up his cheeks as the nurse inspected him like he was some odd microbe under a microscope. Turning to the bed next to him, he asked, “Can you tell me your name?”
He wondered why the nurse had asked him instead of the woman, anyway.
Through the oxygen mask she wore the woman muttered, “Nie…ebber.”
Glancing at the nurse, he said, “Annie Webber.” He remembered the name Webber on the mailbox.
The nurse studied him. “This is your wife, sir?”
Shaking his head, he admitted, “No. We’re not married.”
The woman next to him grabbed his hand.
“I see,” the nurse said, looking pointedly at their hands.
“St…nie,” the woman said, jerking on his hand.
The little girl, who shared a bed with her mother, got down from the cot and moved next to Ben. She grasped his jogging sock.
Ben glanced from the woman’s hand, which was soot-covered, to the small child, who was suddenly hanging on him, and imagined just what the nurse thought she saw. “No, you don’t understand. I don’t know—” He started coughing.
The nurse tsked and adjusted the mask on his face then lifted the little girl to sit next to him.
He stared at the child, trying to figure out just why the nurse would put her there.
The little girl smiled beatifically then pulled at her mask, adjusting it, before leaning against him.
“St—nn—nie.” The woman stuttered again, drawing his attention from the alienlike being who’d just claimed one of his arms as her own.
This was unreal, he thought, looking from the woman to the child to the smirking nurse.
“I was jogging and came upon the—” His voice broke as he fell into a fresh spasm of coughs.
The nurse adjusted his mask again—and then slipped the clipboard under her arm. “Just relax. Breathe in and let the oxygen do its work. Give me a license and I’ll have the desk clerk finish this, Mr….?”
“I don’t have a license,” he said between gasps. “I told you. I was jog—”
“Ah, here is the doctor now.” The nurse didn’t act as if she cared that he hadn’t gotten to give her a lick of information. Instead, she was all business as she nodded toward the man who’d entered the room.
A young man full of energy strode into the curtained area where the three of them sat—or rather two sat and one lay, he thought, glancing at Annie.
“We’re going to get some X rays and do some blood gases and then, most likely, you can go home.” He went from Annie, checking her eyes and fingernails, to Ben and then the child. He paused long enough to listen to their hearts and lungs. Ben gratefully used that time to catch his breath and relax so his throat would stop clenching in pain against his attempts to talk.
“No burns,” the doctor said, nodding approvingly. “That’s good. From what the techs say, you guys were really lucky getting out of the house when you did.” He didn’t ask questions or stop to get to know the three of them. Instead, he offered a smile and added, “Don’t you worry now, everything will be fine.” With a quick nod he replied, “Gotta run. Busy morning. By the way, you have a cute daughter,” he added to Ben as he strode out.
“She’s not—”
The nurse followed the doctor.
Ben raised his hand to stop her and then gave up. He leaned back on the bed and realized the child still clung to him.
Glancing at her, uneasy at such a close proximity to something so