Cutter (Laurel Springs Emergency Response Team Book 4) Read online

  “I mean, I think of you like my sister, Ro.” He makes a face. “I’m probably not the best person to ask about this.”

  I get the feeling he’s trying not to hurt mine. Which makes me even more suspicious and sends a sinking feeling deep in my stomach. It’s doing nothing for my self-esteem, but I need to know. I need someone to talk to and right now he’s the only one I’ve got.

  “If you didn’t think of me like your sister,” I huff, damn near begging. “C’mon, you know I haven’t been on a date or even looked sideways at a man since I got divorced. I’m so far out of the loop, I’m in another country. Just give me an honest answer.”

  “Okay,” he sighs, looking closely at me. I see him try to not be my friend, but be someone who might be interested in dating me. “You’re cute.”

  That’s exactly what I don’t want to hear. Cute isn’t what men like Cutter go for, I know that like I know the back of my hand. And here I go again, wondering what Cutter would like.

  “I was a wife and a mother. When I think of cute, I think of someone with no past. Someone who’s gone about life without any bumps in the road. I’ve had so many bumps that I they’re nearly plastered on my forehead. If I were the undercarriage of a car, I’d be dragging the ground.”

  He stifles a laugh.

  “Everybody has a past, Ro. Your past doesn’t define you.”

  Easy for him to say. He doesn’t have a hole in his heart that will never be filled, and he doesn’t have to see his mistakes staring back in his face some days.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You do know,” he insists. “You have every bit of confidence in your job. You know you can do it and there is no one who can make you feel inferior. When are you going to take that confidence to your personal life? It’s been three years.”

  “To me it feels like three months, three days, maybe even three hours,” I sigh. “I can’t remember what she sounded like sometimes,” I admit softly. “I have to pull up one of the videos I have on my cellphone. Her little laugh was the best.” I grin.

  “She got it from you.”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  “Yes, she did. You haven’t truly laughed in so long that you just don’t remember what it sounds like.”

  I wonder, is he speaking the truth? Am I too close to the situation and I just don’t see it?

  “You’ve got to loosen the straps you use to hold yourself up to these high as hell standards you’ve adapted. Never having fun, never letting your hair down isn’t the way to memorialize her.”

  “I let my hair down.”

  His eyes cut at me. “Yeah, at night, before you go to bed. I haven’t seen your hair down since high school.”

  This is the worst thing about living in a small town where everyone has known you you’re whole life. “It tangles easily,” I argue.

  “Yeah,” he laughs. “Just like life, Ro. None of it stays straight, life is meant to intertwine and weave. Our lives are one braid in a head of hair that makes up our whole story. Each of us is one strand, who do you want to be grouped with? It doesn’t mean you’re expected to spend your whole life being known as that curl too stubborn to straighten. It just means sometimes it takes a little prodding and that spray shit you girls like to use on your hair.”

  I shake my head. “Your analogy is insane, but believe it or not, I get what you’re saying.”

  I’ve tried to make my life as separate from everything else as possible. No weaving, no getting so close to someone it would hurt when they left. When I lost my daughter and my marriage, I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover. I’m not sure I can put myself out there again. Most people get a huge blow once in a lifetime, I got two at once.

  Before I can think more about what a mess everything is, our radio is blaring. Meaning someone needs my help, and that’s how I fill the loneliness now. By helping others and making sure I don’t get too close.

  Chapter Six

  Cutter

  I’m draggin’ ass. It’s been the longest day we’ve put in since we got here. All I want is a cold beer and an even colder bed. My skin is burning like fire from the heat of the day.

  But that won’t be what I get.

  Not to mean I’m not thankful. We at least have a roof over our heads and air conditioning. No matter how shoddy the AC is.

  What I’m missing tonight are the cool sheets of my bed, slipping between them with nothing on, cranking up the AC in my bedroom, and turning my mind off to everything going on around the world.

  I can’t do any of those things right now.

  Tucker and I are still rooming together, and I have to think he wouldn’t be too happy with seeing anything I might inadvertently show while asleep. Our AC sucks, and the sheets are scratchy as fuck.

  “You look done today.”

  “I am,” I tell him as I enter the hotel room. Major comes over, giving me a sniff, before he licks my hand. It makes me smile, the first thing that’s made me smile all day. “We pulled some bodies today,” I say, my voice soft.

  The bone-deep weariness finally gets the best of me, and I collapse onto my bed. It feels like I literally deflate.

  It’s taken everything I have in me to get through this day and I’m all out of fucks to give at this moment. When I signed up for the LSERT, my vision had obviously been short-sighted. I hadn’t thought about disasters like this. About what it might do to me mentally, or even physically.

  “Was that your first time?” he asks, his voice as soft as mine was when I told him.

  “Yeah.” I rub my hands through my hair. “Never had to do anything like that before.”

  “You’ll never forget it.” He rubs his head. “But you have to realize it has to be done.”

  Somehow the fact it has to be done makes me more pissed off. “It shouldn’t need to be done.”

  Tucker looks at me, I can see the pity in his eyes. “The first time you realize how easy it is for life to be snuffed out, it’s hard.”

  My head cocked to the side, I throw another question at him. “Are you insinuating eventually it won’t be hard?”

  “All I’m saying is at some point you realize this is the way life is. It’s messy, it’s painful, and it’s unexpected. We fall in love when we don’t mean to, we lose college contracts when it looks like our lives are perfect, and we witness the cycle of life into death, Cutter. It’s just the way things are.”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s easy.”

  “It was never meant to be easy,” he argues. “It’s meant to show us how to hang onto the good times, to make sure we understand how important it is to tell those we love, that we love them. It’s meant to teach us life is finite. As much as we want to believe we’re indestructible, we’re not.”

  My throat is closing, tight from the unshed tears I can feel building behind my eyes. I clear it, before getting up and gathering my stuff to take a shower.

  Time.

  Time is what I need to process everything I saw today. There’s a part of me that hates I have to take the time when others don’t have the luxury.

  My heart is pounding when I close the bathroom door behind me. My back hits it, and I do my best not to freak the fuck out. I’ve only had a panic attack once in my life, and I feel another coming on now.

  Quickly, I move over to the shower, cranking it on. It’s a blur as I take my clothes off, then step under the spray.

  It’s freezing cold.

  Almost as cold as my heart feels inside my chest.

  Am I alive? Can I survive this?

  The simple answer: I have to.

  The water doesn’t even feel cold anymore. It’s lukewarm, maybe that means my body is still hot from the sun. Another part of me wonders if it’s because the tears that’ve streamed down my face.

  I’ve never been one to cry, even when my life hit the skids and I lost everything I thought was important to me.

  But today, today broke me. Broke me in ways I’m unsure I’ll ever be able to recover from. Slipping d
own to the floor of the bathtub, I pull my knees up to my body and close my eyes.

  And I see it, just like I knew I would.

  “Have you checked over there?” One of the EMTs from this area is pointing to a pile of bricks. Someone told me earlier this was an assisted living home for the elderly. Not a nursing home, but a place they could live out the rest of their lives as independently as possible. There are three people missing, and we haven’t been able to find them yet.

  There are only two more piles of bricks to go through.

  As the day has gotten away from us, we’ve all become tenser, knowing there won’t be someone we can administer first aid to. If we find someone, they will most likely have already perished.

  “No.” I shake my head, pulling the make-shift mask over my nose and mouth. “I’ll go do it right now.”

  There’s a feeling of foreboding. You know the one you get when you go into a haunted house attraction. Someone is gonna jump out and scare the absolute shit out of you, but you do it anyway, because you have to know how you’ll react. That’s kind of how I feel right now.

  As I approach the rubble, I know what’s about to happen. Every inch of my body knows it, my bones almost tingle with the knowledge.

  I’m slow, because I don’t want this to happen. In fact I want to be anywhere other than here. If I could trade places with anyone in the world right now, I would, no questions asked.

  When I pry a large piece of brick, possibly part of the wall I see it. A lock of curly gray hair. The type of hair I imagine my mom will have when she gets to this age.

  Time stops for me.

  The sounds of everyone else working the scene goes away, and I go down to my knees, kneeling so that I can get a better look. A hand is reaching up over her head, frozen in time. A moment that will live on in my mind forever.

  I take note of everything.

  Her painted nails, the gorgeous engagement ring, a thoroughly loved wedding ring, and a watch that stopped at ten p.m. Not long after Hurricane Tatum made landfall.

  My mouth is moving, but for some reason my throat won’t work.

  “I found someone.” I can hear the words in my mind, but I know I didn’t say them out loud. No one comes running to help me, in fact no one stops whatever they’re doing. They’re all going about business as usual.

  “I found someone.” I try again.

  Still nothing.

  There’s a sick curiosity I have that needs to be satisfied. Is her husband with her? Did they at least die together? Why the fuck didn’t they evacuate.

  As I pull back more and more debris, I see exactly why.

  He’s in a wheelchair, and probably wasn’t mobile. They probably couldn’t evacuate. It looks like she was sitting on his lap, his arms wrapped tightly around her waist.

  Bile rises up in my throat.

  This could be my parents in a few years.

  Quick as I can, I run from the rubble, before becoming violently ill.

  This brings others to my side, all asking if I’m okay.

  Not even a fucking little bit, but instead I answer.

  “I’m fine, I found two of the three missing.” I point over to where I had been, letting someone else do the rest of the job.

  Now I wonder, did they have family?

  Have they been notified?

  Were they alone?

  Did they have children who are worried?

  Is no one waiting to hear if they made it through the storm?

  All of the questions make my gut churn, and suddenly I’m way too hot to be in this room anymore. The water from the shower is pricking my skin and I can’t fucking stand it.

  When I step out, I see that the bathroom door is closed. Panic rises up my back and to my neck. I’m not even drying off before I put my clothes on and swing the door open. I inhale, huge gulps of air.

  This air is recirculated from the room, but at least it doesn’t have the musk of the bathroom. The humidity hanging so thickly in the air. Out here I don’t feel like I’m about to pass the fuck out.

  “Do we have any beer?” I ask quickly.

  “Beer?” Tucker questions. “No, we don’t have any beer. But I’d love some.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  I don’t even wait for him to say anything to me, I just take off, grabbing the keys to the truck and my wallet. For just a few moments I need the open road, a great song, and some fresh air.

  For just a little while I need to pretend like today didn’t happen and I’m the Cutter I was before I made this trip.

  If I can’t, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to find that Cutter again.

  Chapter Seven

  Rowan

  There’s not much open in town right now. Most of the stores and restaurants will take months, maybe even years to recover, if they even do. One place that always weathers the storm is Shucker’s, a family-owned barbecue joint.

  It started as a little roadside spot, and in times of uncertainty, they revert back. It allows them to get food to people who need it, while still putting money into the community by paying others to work for them.

  The parking lot is packed as I slow down, finding an empty space on the outskirts of the gravel. Grabbing my wallet and cellphone, I get out of the car, lock my doors, and go to where the line is extended. Looks like many people had the same idea I did.

  The group standing in line looks around as they wait. My high school English teacher sees me, and throws back a wave. “Hi Ro, thank you so much for helping at the apartment building. One of my fellow teachers was there and said how much they appreciated you.”

  I grin, happy to hear we were able to make a difference. “It’s my pleasure.” I lift my hand in a wave back to her.

  The person in front of me turns around. The first thing I get a look at is a ton of tattoos, and even if we had been in a life or death situation, I still would have taken the time to see what kind of tattoos they were.

  “Cutter.” I nod, glancing up into those green eyes.

  “Rowan, how are you?”

  The tone he uses as he asks the question makes me wonder if he really wants me to answer. Something pricks at the back of my neck. Like maybe he’s only asking because manners force him to. The way his gaze doesn’t stay locked on mine is a clue he’s not really interested.

  So I give him an answer that’s not completely the truth.

  “I’m good.”

  When in reality I’m so far from good, I might as well be on the other side of the planet. “What are you doing here?”

  His eyebrow quirks in surprise. Obviously he didn’t expect me to be the one asking questions tonight.

  “Hungry.” He shrugs. “Needed a beer.” His head tilts to the menu which has drink options on it. Then I watch a physical change in him, almost like he couldn’t hold up the pretense any longer. His shoulders slump, and this time when he speaks, his tone is truthful with a touch of vulnerability. “Had to get out of that fucking hotel room. It was starting to close in on me.”

  I know the feeling all too well.

  Even though he and I just met literal days ago, I still need to ask him, to make sure he’s okay. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  For a few seconds those eyes of his cloud, like he’s remembering something so painful it physically hurts. Then the look is gone and he shakes his head. “No, not right now, anyway.”

  I can relate and respect what he’s saying. I haven’t mentioned her name since she died. Haven’t been able to, and I’m not sure when it’ll change. I stopped counting the days because the numbers were getting so big. With the devastation of the hurricane, I just can’t keep doing it to myself.

  Failure was starting to swirl in my stomach, and I couldn’t take it any longer. I’d already failed so much. More of the same was too big of a burden to bear.

  The line is moving swiftly, and soon we’re the next two in line.

  “Would you like to eat with me?” Cutter asks. “I don’t want to go back to that h
otel room, but I don’t want to eat a meal alone either. I go back and Tucker’ll be talking to his wife. I’ll have worried text messages from my mother and sister-in-law. Tonight I just can’t handle it. Please say you’ll eat with me.”

  Because I understand more than I can ever express, I nod my head yes.

  Before I realize it, I’ve ordered along with him, and he’s paying for my meal.

  “You didn’t have to do that.” I reach into my wallet, pulling out enough to cover my share; wings and a bottle of Coke.

  “No.” He pushes my hand away. “You’re doing me a favor by agreeing to eat with me. There’s no way I’m gonna take your money, Rowan.”

  “Well at least let me pay you back somehow.”

  I don’t feel comfortable letting him pay without knowing I can return the favor.

  “Tomorrow night? Dinner again? It’s nice to have company other than Tucker and Major. He’s the epitome of family togetherness while I’m the epitome of single and not-yet ready to mingle.”

  I laugh, throwing back my head, because I never expected to hear those words out of his mouth. “Sure, why not?”

  For a few minutes we stand in silence while we wait for our food. I’m interested in why he’s not-yet ready to mingle. From the outside looking in, he seems to have it all together, doesn’t appear to have any of the hang-ups most men his age do.

  But that’s the problem with looking in; a lot can be hidden.. Once you get past the curtain, really see in the window, and get to know a person, there’s more than you ever could have imagined. I mean look at me and what I’m hiding. It’s enough for an entire episode of Dr. Drew.

  Our number is called, and while Cutter goes to get our food, I’m tasked with finding us a place to sit.

  Since most establishments are still closed, Shucker’s has added a bunch of picnic tables to the few they already had. If I had to guess there’s at least twenty set up out here. Most are full, but I see one at the very back. A small family has just gotten up from it, so I head over in that direction, putting my wallet on the table as I have a seat, throwing my leg over the bench.