Loe raamatut: «Bold And Brave-hearted»

Chapter One

The show must go on.

Those were the first words that popped into Kimberly Lydell’s head when she felt the beginnings of the earthquake right through the seat of her panty hose. She’d been through plenty of California earthquakes and knew that’s where you felt it first. In your butt, if you were sitting down. No big deal.

So she kept on reading the news report from the teleprompter as if nothing were wrong, looking straight into the camera, forcing an easy smile.

“In the Mideast, the prime minister of…”

She grabbed the studio set to steady herself as the vibrations of the earth escalated to an undulating roll. Overhead, the kleig lights began to swing in ever-increasing arcs. A roar like an approaching subway train resonated through the studio walls and shook the floor.

“…We seem to be experiencing…”

“Geez, let’s get out of here!” Her co-anchor for the local six o’clock news kicked back the stool he was sitting on and made a dive for the far side of the room.

The cameraman and floor director headed for the exit, and in the control booth the show’s director waved frantically at Kim to get off the set.

She got the message.

But trying to move was like fighting a riptide. The floor rose and fell in angry waves. The noise was ear-shattering. A camera fell over. A light crashed to the floor. The plywood desk where she’d been sitting offered no protection. Nowhere safe to duck, cover and hold.

Struggling like a drunken sailor, Kim got her legs tangled in her mike cord. She yanked herself free, only to trip over a cable in her now-frantic effort to escape. Panic clawed at her. She’d never been at the epicenter of an earthquake. Now she suspected she was. A big one.

In response to a high-pitched screeching sound, she looked up. The overhead light right above her had broken free. The screws pulled loose.

That was the last image she had before the room fell into total darkness. An agonizing pain sliced across the left side of her face. Screaming in terror, she fell to the floor. An instant later something impossibly heavy collapsed on her, pinning her legs. Dust filled her lungs.

And then there was only eerie silence followed by the sound of sirens.

THE FIRE ENGINE from Station Six roared to a stop outside the KPRX-TV building. Jay Tolliver hopped out as he had a hundred times before in response to fires, explosions and other disasters, man-made and otherwise. The earthquake had been a substantial one. He’d heard calls for help coming into dispatch from all over Paseo del Real, a moderate-size town in central California.

Their dispatcher, Emma Jean Witkowsky, had loudly announced between calls that she’d predicted this was earthquake weather. She hadn’t, of course. But that never stopped her from claiming she had psychic powers—all due to her gypsy blood, she assured them.

A controlled surge of adrenaline shot through Jay as he pulled his helmet down tight. His job was to concentrate on this one building, saving lives and property where he could—the former more important than the latter.

In the cab of the truck, the fire station’s mascot, Mack Buttons, a chocolate dalmatian, waited to see if he’d be called upon to calm traumatized children—or adults. Everyone at Station Six had a job to do.

The battalion chief was already at the scene shouting orders.

“Tolliver and Gables, we’ve got a partial collapse of the back third of the building and reports there are still victims inside. Do a preliminary search.” He turned away quickly and ordered another pair of men into the neighboring building that had fared somewhat better, at least from outward appearances.

Jay snagged a fire ax and so did Mike Gables. Together they jogged toward the TV building’s entrance. In the adjacent parking lot, car sirens set off by the earthquake screamed. Lights from emergency vehicles flashed red across the Spanish-style stucco building and the surrounding scaffolding that suggested the TV station had been in the process of remodeling—or maybe earthquake proofing.

Too little too late, Jay thought grimly.

He pushed through the front door into a lobby where only an emergency light shone from high up on the wall. The floor was covered with broken stucco and the furniture had been rearranged as though by some decorator gone mad.

Gables said, “Looks like KPRX evening news is off the air.”

Flicking on his flashlight, Jay thought about Kimberly Lydell, the news anchor with the face of an angel and the smoky voice of a blues singer. He’d known her in high school but only from a distance. With a typical eighteen-year-old’s raging libido, every time he’d heard her voice back then he’d gotten aroused. The past dozen years hadn’t changed anything. Watching her on the tube was still an exercise in frustration—she’d gone from sixteen-year-old prom queen material to star quality.

He hoped to God she wasn’t one of the victims trapped inside this old building.

They made their way along the hallway to the stairs.

“Anybody here?” Jay shouted, his voice muffled by the hard plastic shield in front of his face.

Cautiously they started up the stairs. Gables was a good partner to have. Experienced. Someone you felt safe with protecting your back.

On the second floor the debris was thicker, glass and plaster under their feet. A beam down. They’d passed the door to the first office when they heard a sound.

“I’ll check it out,” Gables said.

Jay kept going down the hallway. An electrical wire dangled from the ceiling, clicking a slow rhythm against the wall. No danger there unless they suddenly regained power. Then the wire would be hot and could start a fire.

“Help!”

He stopped in his tracks. The call had been weak. Female.

“Help me!” she cried again.

He followed the sound. “Keep talking, lady. I’ll find you.”

“In here.”

Giving his shoulder to a jammed door, he pushed it open and swept the room with his flashlight. A broadcast studio, he realized, and his adrenaline kicked up a notch. Kimberly did the six o’clock local news. He ought to know. Like most of the men in Paseo del Real, he caught it as often as he could. The earthquake had struck at 6:14. It was probably 6:45 by now.

Whoever was here had been stuck for a half hour. Dangerous business.

The beam of his flashlight zeroed in on a woman with collar-length blond hair. His gut clenching, he called on all of his professional training to keep calm. Not to race in there and make matters worse.

Pressing the talk key on the mike attached to his jacket, Jay said, “I’ve got a female victim on the second floor, third door on the right. I’m going in.”

Gables’s voice warned him to be careful. His male victim was conscious and Mike was moving him to safety. He’d be back.

“Please…I’m…hurt.”

“Stay put. I’m on my way.” Jay worked his way around toppled cameras and other debris. The roof had collapsed on the far side of the room, bringing down part of the ceiling with it. A wooden beam, one of those heavy Spanish-style numbers, had fallen into the middle of things. It’d be hell to drag out of there on his own and he saw immediately that the beam was resting right across her legs.

He knelt down next to her, forcing a calmness he’d been trained to communicate but one he wasn’t feeling at all. “Hi. How’re you doing?”

“Outside of being scared to death, you mean?”

He grinned behind his visor. One tough lady—

Then he noticed her bloody face. From what he could see, there were deep lacerations on her left cheek, her creamy complexion already showing signs of discoloration.

Pulling out a sterile compress stored in the lining of his hat for this very purpose, he fought a wave of nausea as he ripped open the package. Hell, he’d seen injured people before. Dead people, too. But not Kim—every man’s dream woman.

“Looks like you’re doing a little bleeding. Let me put this compress on your wound and then we’ll see if we can get you out of here.” He placed it on her cheek and she winced but didn’t cry out. Tough. And brave. “Can you hold it in place for me?”

She nodded, watching his every move.

It didn’t take Jay long to determine he’d need help to lift the beam off Kim’s legs. He couldn’t get enough leverage with his ax. Sitting back on his haunches, he keyed the microphone—

And that’s when the second quake struck.

Instantly he grabbed his hat and placed it over Kim’s head to protect her from falling debris. He covered the rest of her slender body with his own to shield her as best he could. She felt fragile and vulnerable as more stucco and plaster rained down and the building shook on its foundation. Wood splintered and metal groaned. Sirens wailed.

Finally the ground stopped shaking. But he didn’t. A good, solid quake could give even a professional a bad case of the jitters.

“You still with me?” he asked, lifting the hat from her face.

“I wouldn’t think of leaving the party early when it’s as exciting as this.” She gave him a tremulous half smile.

He chuckled.

Over his mike, Gables said, “Jay, you okay?”

“We’re both enjoying the ride,” he replied. “But any time you can get us some help, I’m sure the lady would like to dance with somebody else for a while. She’s pinned under a beam. I’m going to need a pry bar and some extra muscle. A paramedic would be helpful, too.”

“Gotcha. Unfortunately, that last roller knocked the staircase loose. It may be a while before we can get to you.”

Jay checked on Kim. She wasn’t bleeding heavily but he was worried about her pinned legs. Loss of circulation could have serious effects. But he couldn’t do much about that at the moment.

“We’ll be here when you get here, buddy,” he said into the mike. “Just don’t take a long lunch break, okay?”

“Understood.”

Looking up at him, Kim said, “If there’s another quake, this whole building could go down. Maybe you ought to—”

“I’ve got no plans to leave the dance without you, Kim. Just relax. My buddies will get us out of here.”

“You know my name?”

“Sure. Everybody in Paseo del Real knows you.”

A little frown tugged at her forehead, though it didn’t appear to be because of pain. Probably experiencing some confusion from the trauma she’d experienced.

“Should I know you, too?”

“Probably not. But we did go to Paseo High together.”

She studied him a moment before her eyes widened—eyes the shade of the blue lupines that grew on the hillsides around Paseo del Real in spring. “Jay? Jay Tolliver?”

He grinned, pleased in spite of himself that she recognized him. “Guilty as charged.”

“Oh, my gosh—” She winced, this time from pain.

“Easy, Kim. It’s best if you lie still.”

“I know…” Her battle not to panic was bright in her eyes along with the courage it took to stay calm. He held her hand and felt it tremble. “I remember you.”

“I’m flattered.”

“You shouldn’t be—” She groaned and bit down hard on her lip.

“Let me see if I can get some of this weight off of you.” Using his ax, he worked to wedge another piece of wood under the beam. Raising it only a fraction of an inch would help. But he couldn’t get much leverage and the beam was damn heavy.

“Wait!”

Her cry stopped him.

“Why don’t we just talk till someone comes? I mean—”

“Sure.” Her lips had grown pale and that worried him. She was likely going into shock. Where the hell were his buddies? This woman was in deep trouble or would be soon enough if someone didn’t get her out of here. “So what would you like to talk about?”

“You. I often wondered what had happened to you. How’d you get to be a fireman?”

“Firefighter. That’s the politically correct term these days.”

Her smile was weaker than before. “So?”

“I figured eventually I’d rescue some damsel in distress and she’d fall into my arms pledging her undying love.”

“Count me in on that one, hero. What girl could resist?”

A lot of them, Jay suspected. Particularly those who knew his background—raised by a single mother on disability, the two of them living every day only inches away from disaster. A kid who had to work his way through high school, let alone community college, which he’d squeaked through during night classes, working extra jobs and trying to support his mother. Not exactly the kind of man who conjured up romantic dreams in the life of a high-school prom queen like Kimberly Lydell.

Damn, he’d wanted to know her so much better. But there hadn’t been time. Not between his classes and two part-time jobs. Not when he knew damn well she was dating the most popular jocks on campus.

He shrugged off his memories. What he needed to do now was to keep her alive until help came. That would take all of his concentration. The only thing that mattered.

Adjusting his hat on her head to shield her from the plaster dust that continued to drizzle from the ceiling, he sat back.

“I don’t think it’s quite my size,” she said as the visor virtually covered her eyes.

“Looks fetching though. Who knows, you could start a new fashion trend. You’ve always been the most stylish girl in town.”

Hesitantly, she slid her free hand into his again, slender and delicate in his much larger palm. “Jay, how badly is my face cut? It feels…I need to know.”

“Superficial.” He wasn’t a doctor but he suspected he’d just told her a lie. “You know head wounds bleed like hell and can hurt like crazy. You’ll be fine.”

She squeezed his hand tight, stronger than he had expected. “Thank you for being here.”

“All in a day’s work.”

IT TOOK the urban rescue unit an hour to extricate Kim from the wreckage of the building. Jay held her hand the whole time; she wouldn’t let him go until they lifted her into the ambulance.

Jay spent the night handling more calls because of the quake and couldn’t get to the hospital until his shift ended at eight the next morning. Still grubby from work, he went directly to the nurses’ station. His timing was perfect. The doctor was filling out Kim’s chart.

“How is she, doc?” Jay asked.

Harry Plum, an old-timer in the community and everybody’s favorite doctor, looked haggard. It had been a long night for the medics, too. “We’re not releasing any information to the media yet.”

“Doc, I was the one who found her in the building. I’d like to know.”

He nodded. “She’s in critical but stable condition.”

“Her legs?”

“Not so bad—extended loss of circulation in her right leg, but we don’t think she’ll lose it. Lucky you fellows got her out of there as fast as you did.”

That was a relief. “How ’bout her face? It didn’t look good.”

Plum turned his attention back to the chart. “Plastic surgery isn’t my specialty.” He shook his head. “I’m not optimistic. Some serious damage to her left cheek and the wound is ragged. They’ll do their best, I’m sure.”

Jay exhaled. He’d been afraid of that. “Any chance I can see her?”

“Not now. They’re just taking her up to surgery. The OR has been going full blast all night.”

The next day he tried to call Kim, but the telephone operator reported Miss Lydell wasn’t accepting calls. No visitors either. He sent flowers and included his phone number on the card.

But he didn’t hear back.

That was okay. She’d probably gotten hundreds of flowers from her fans. Jay was just another guy with a crush on her.

He didn’t even mind the guys at the station razzing him about rescuing the prettiest woman in town, at least not much. He’d been doing his job. That’s all any man could ask of himself.

And he’d do it all over again in a heartbeat if it meant keeping Kim Lydell safe.

KIM HAD STOPPED answering her door four months ago, right after she’d come home from the hospital. Isolated from the world, she’d been content with books to keep her company and her amateur efforts at sculpting clay to express her artistic nature. It wasn’t that she was vain, although she’d always taken pride in her appearance.

Despite the doctor’s best efforts, her scars hadn’t healed properly. Her fair complexion meant every jagged line showed even with heavily applied makeup—which only made her look like a wax reproduction, as though one side of her face ought to belong to a macabre clown.

No, she didn’t answer the door any longer.

Except whoever was out there now was damn persistent.

She slipped quietly to the window and eased back the curtain. The house she’d so proudly purchased when she’d first landed her job at KPRX-TV was small but secluded, perched on a hilly five acres covered with California live oaks. From her porch on a clear day she could see the sunset on the Pacific through a notch in the coastal range.

Unfortunately, a man now occupied that porch and he wasn’t one to give up easily.

She sighed. From her days of reporting local news, she recognized Paseo del Real’s fire chief, Harlan Gray. She couldn’t ignore him.

Opening the door, she stood back so he couldn’t see her clearly through the screen.

“Chief. What brings you out this way?” As far as she knew, no wildfire was about to burn over the top of the ridge. And she’d cleared the brush from around her house per local regulations.

He took off his hat, revealing a head of almost white hair that he kept neatly cut in a butch. “Good morning, Miss Lydell, it’s good to see you.”

“Is it?” Not everyone would think it a pleasure to look at her these days; certainly looking in her own mirror was a less than pleasant experience.

“I wonder if I could come in?”

“I’m sorry, Chief. I’m afraid I don’t entertain much these days.”

“I see.” Idly, he fingered his cap. “Well, then, did you happen to hear about the explosion at the plastics plant a few days ago?”

“I rarely watch the news any more.” It was too much of a reminder of the career she’d strived so hard to achieve and then had lost.

“One of my finest men was injured in that explosion. He’d given his helmet to a victim he was trying to get safely out of the building and some glass containers blew up on his face.”

“I’m sorry.” She was. Truly. But she was barely coping with her own disfigurement. How could she possibly help—

“The young man was blinded—the glass cut the corneas of both his eyes. We think the blindness is temporary but the doctors can’t be sure.”

Blinded. Guilt gave her a sharp jab to her conscience. She’d been so devastated by her own problems, she sometimes forgot others were far worse off. “I am truly sorry, but I don’t understand why—”

“The young man is Jay Tolliver. I think you may remember him.”

It was almost as if the fire chief had struck her. The air left her lungs; her knees went suddenly weak. Fate had played an odd trick on her to have the boy—now a full-grown man—on whom she’d had a huge crush in high school be the one to rescue her after the earthquake. She’d known as an adolescent, as she knew now, it was not a relationship she’d ever be able to explore. Not because in the past she hadn’t cared. But because he’d barely acknowledged her existence. And now it was too late.

When she didn’t respond to the chief’s revelation, he said, “Jay tends to be a little macho. He’s out of the hospital but he won’t let any of us help him. He’s got this burr under his saddle that makes him want to be independent, even if it kills him. Almost literally. He’s determined to do everything he’s always done, despite the fact he can’t see.”

“I don’t see how I could—”

“Miss Lydell, after the earthquake Jay talked about you for days—even when his buddies gave him a hard time about it. If he would accept help from anyone, it would be you.”

Panic shot through her like a thousand-volt current.

She couldn’t! The fire chief was asking too much of her. For months she’d only gone out of the house to doctors’ appointments and then only when wearing dark glasses and a scarf to cover as much of her face as possible. Not that the medical profession had done her much good. Everything else she needed, she ordered by phone to be delivered. As much as she might like to help Jay…

She began to tremble. Dear God, she couldn’t! The thought of anyone seeing her. Pitying her. Or more likely being revolted by her appearance was too much to bear.

“I’m sorry….”

“He needs someone, Miss Lydell. I’m afraid—”

She shoved open the screen door and stepped out onto the porch. Into the afternoon sunlight. It took all of the courage she possessed to lift her face so the chief could get a good look. She had to make him understand so her own guilt wouldn’t rest so heavily on her shoulders.

“Do you really think anyone who looks like I do could help anyone else?”

Unflinching, she waited while the chief studied her.

“He’s blind, Miss Lydell.” He spoke quietly, persuasively, as a father would. “I don’t think he’ll care.”