First,
he saved me.
I
lived because he was a hero.
And
then he was gone.
FROM
THE WRECKAGE by Melissa Collins is
Now
Available!
Blurb
First, he saved me.
I lived because he was a
hero.
And then he was gone.
Uprooted by the fire that
destroyed our home, my family moved away and I never saw David
Andrews again.
Then, he found me.
Eighteen years later, he
rescued me again - in much simpler terms, of course. By loving me, by
giving me the fairy tale I’d always hoped for, he provided me with
the perfect life.
Now, he needs to be saved.
It’s my turn to be
strong, to be brave, to be valiant.
When flames threaten to
turn us to ashes, it’s up to me to pull us From the Wreckage.
Prologue
The cool, crisp winter air
whips through the evergreens dotting the yard. Powerful and
unrelenting, the harsh winds bend the trees almost to their breaking
point. Whirring and howling sounds crack through the night air with
an almost ghost-like quality. The black expanse of the sky is
speckled with a million points of light, some of which are
occasionally covered as the clouds pass by on the whim of a blast of
wind. On a particularly gusty howl, the newly hung Christmas lights
are loosened from their window clips and they skitter across the
frosted-over window panes.
Snow piles up thick and
heavy into banks against the McCann’s small Cape Cod-style house.
The family of three – Mom, Dad and six-year-old Grace – have just
recently been welcomed into the neighborhood. Wanting their daughter
to go to a good school, Walter and Meredith fought tooth and nail in
the crazy bidding war for the house. Luckily, they won and their
daughter started first grade in a new and better school district just
a few short months ago.
After her parents tuck her
under her frilly pink, princess comforter, they kiss her forehead and
wish her sweet dreams. Exhaustion washes over little Grace, who
hasn’t quite recovered from her exciting day of getting her picture
taken with Santa at the mall. Despite the blizzard brewing outside,
Grace falls asleep before her parents softly click her bedroom door
closed.
She sleeps so soundly in
fact, that nothing short of the tree branch crashing through her
bedroom window wakes her from her dream-filled sleep. “Daddy!”
Grace screams from her now frigid bedroom. Tears streak down her face
as her fear-laden paralysis keeps her from moving a single inch. She
calls out for her father again – a tiny, wobbly voice shaking with
tremors and chills.
“Hey, pumpkin.” Her
father bursts through the door – her knight in shining armor.
Scooping her up out of her bed into his strong arms, she nuzzles into
the safety of his chest. He kisses the top of her head. “Shh. It’s
okay, Gracie. Daddy’s got you.” She sniffles and wipes her tears
on his flannel pajama shirt. “Puppy,” she whines, reaching out
for her stuffed puppy dog.
Bending down with her tiny
body still tucked into his arms, he grabs the raggedy stuffed animal.
“Of course. How could we forget Puppy? He can’t sleep in here by
himself.” She squeezes her beat-up rag doll of an animal as her
daddy carries her into his room.
“Mommy!” Grace squeals
with delight as her mom reaches out for her baby girl. Folding back
the covers and patting the mattress, Grace practically leaps out of
her father’s arms to cuddle up with her mommy. “There’s a tree
in my room.” Grace’s voice is a bit calmer, but she’s still
fiercely gripping her Puppy.
“I heard it! You’re a
very brave girl, Gracie.” Her mom pops a sweet kiss to her cheek
before Grace nuzzles into the pillow. Inhaling the sweet scent of her
mom’s coconut shampoo immediately helps Grace relax even more.
Standing in the doorway,
Walter smiles at his wife and daughter. “I’m just going to go get
a tarp from the garage and cover the window up for the night.”
Meredith nods as Grace
cuddles closer to her. Her light snoring starts to filter into the
room as Walter tiptoes out of the master bedroom. Grabbing his heavy
winter jacket and slipping his feet into his slippers, Walter heads
out to the garage to grab what he needs to put up a make-shift fix
for the broken window.
Twenty minutes later, he
crawls back into bed, shivering like crazy from the icy cold air that
rapidly filled Gracie’s room. Spooning up behind his wife, she
nearly shrieks as his ice cold hands grip her waist pulling her into
his body.
“My God! Walt, you’re
freezing!” He chuckles into her neck and she feels the smirk
quirking his lips.
“It was actually snowing
in her room. What do you expect?” He shivers once more as he pulls
the fluffy comforter up over his shoulders. Wrapping his wife in his
arms, as she tucks their daughter into hers, they fall asleep all
comfortable wrapped in each other’s warmth.
A hand slaps across his
face. “What the hell?” More than startled, Walt shakes his head
and lets out a grunt.
Somehow, Meredith manages
to choke out her words through the thick, black smoke that’s
billowing under the door. “Can’t breathe. Walt…”
Suddenly, his senses go on
high alert. He coughs, lungs like razor blades. His eyes tear as he
tries to rub the soot away from his brow. “Mer… where’s
Gracie?” he manages through the pain.
Reaching out in front of
her, Meredith sighs in relief that Gracie is still curled up against
her. “I’ve got her, Walt. We need to get out of here.”
They clasp hands as they
roll to the floor. Meredith stretches Walt’s hand up to Gracie’s
tiny body. “Take her…. I don’t know if I can.”
His strong and capable
arms encircle his daughter’s still sleeping body. Secretly, he
prays that it’s actually sleep keeping his daughter so still. Who
knows how long the smoke was filtering into their room.
Remembering the most basic
lessons of any fire safety class, Walt drops to the floor, cradling
his fragile baby girl in his arms, hoping to avoid the thickest of
the smoke. Reaching out, he finds Meredith at his side. Lacing their
fingers together, he communicates what doesn’t need to be spoken.
They both crawl,
army-style, to the door where the smoke is almost unbearable. Again,
calling on common knowledge, Walt reaches up to the doorknob and
skims it with the back of his hand. Recoiling instantly, he chokes
out a “Fuck!”
Pressing his cheek up to
the door might be unconventional, but it lets him know that there is
most definitely a fire raging on the other side of his second floor
room – one which he is not willing to let his wife and daughter
withstand.
“The window, Mer…”
More coughs and choking, but she understands his instructions.
Crawling back to the other
wall of the room, Meredith reaches behind her to make sure that she
never breaks contact with her daughter and husband.
If they don’t survive,
then I don’t survive.
Though it offers little
solace, she repeats the mantra in her head – over and over again
–until she rams into the wall that she just can’t see.
Reaching up to the window
frame, she tries to slide the lock open, but her fingers just aren’t
working. “Help me…” She can’t even finish her sentence. The
smoke is so thick and the fire, which was once raging on the other
side of the door, is now racing toward them.
With time no longer on
their side, Walter pulls off his shirt and wraps it around his fist
before using it to break the glass. Precious oxygen pours into the
room as Meredith desperately realizes that Gracie still hasn’t said
a word.
For all the times she
wished her life was a little bit quieter, for all the times she
wished Gracie would just grant her five minutes of freedom, she prays
for a loud wail, a scream, something to let her know that her
daughter is still alive.
But nothing comes.
Walt climbs across
Meredith’s frail frame, hefting the weight of his daughter’s limp
body across the floor. “Let’s go, Mer.” He manages to hack out
those words through the thick fog of soot that’s crushing down on
his lungs.
Somehow, she registers his
voice through the crash and bang of beams collapsing down in the
hallway. The sound of wood splintering sets Meredith into high gear.
Curling her slender fingers around her husband’s bicep, she clasps
onto him for dear life. Somewhere in the back of her oxygen deprived
brain, she registers the sounds of Gracie’s pained coughs.
“Mommy,” she rasps
out. Clinging to both Puppy and Daddy for dear life, Gracie is roused
from her deep sleep as the bitter winter air bites at her exposed
skin and her lungs gasp for precious and clean air. “Daddy,” she
wails as she curls Puppy into her chest.
Gracie is alive.
That’s all Meredith is
capable of registering as Walt slips from her grasp. Realizing she is
suddenly all alone in her fire-encased room, Meredith cries out in
fright. “Noooo! Walt! Wait for me!”
Lifting her body up and
over the window frame, Meredith gashes her belly on a jagged piece of
glass. Clasping her hands over the gushing wound, all she hopes is
that the brand-new baby growing inside is still safe and sound.
“Walt!” she cries
aloud as he reaches back through the window. With all of his
strength, he lifts his wife’s body through the window as he gently
lays his daughter down on the deck built to the side of their
bedroom.
The smell of burnt plaster
and carpet fibers infiltrates his nostrils as the smoke-induced vomit
rises in his throat. By the grace of a God who he now questions, Walt
stands from the slumped form of his family and hacks out the
blackest, filthiest spit he’s ever seen in his life.
The clawing at his calf
brings him back to the here and now. “Take her…. Please…”
Meredith calls as she gasps for air. Hefting his daughter over his
shoulder, he claps her on the back, trying desperately to wake her
up. “Come on, baby girl. Cough for Daddy,” he calls out almost
frantically as Meredith rises to his side.
Curling over the gaping
wound at her belly, she mumbles, “Gracie,” before collapsing to
the wooden slats, which lie beneath her feet. Off in the distance,
Walt hears the screeching sirens of fire trucks and ambulances as
they race down the block. Kneeling beside his injured wife, Walt
notices the bloodstains on her nightgown. The scarier sight, however,
is the fire licking at the window frame. It won’t be long before
the fire reaches the deck. They needed to move. Now.
“Come on, Mer. Can you
walk?” His question is only met with low groans, which are quickly
followed by hacking coughs. When she doesn’t move, Walter scoops
her up and over his shoulder. The thick snow makes it difficult to
walk across the deck, but somehow, Walt easily manages the weight of
the two most important women in his life as he makes the icy trek.
Luck, however, is not on
his side as he begins his descent down the stairs. Fire is raging
behind him, blasting from the window through which they just escaped.
The loud crackling distracts him momentarily and he loses his
footing. Before his skull crashes into the step, Grace and Meredith
fly out of his arms. As unconsciousness claims him, Walt realizes
that both of his girls have slid down the entire flight only to land
in a snowdrift piled high against the house. His eyes close, but not
before he hears the frantic calls from his neighbors.
When he comes to, he’s
laid out on a stretcher with an oxygen mask secured over his nose and
mouth. It doesn’t take long for reality to settle in. The house is
wildly ablaze. Despite the spray of multiple hoses, flames pour out
of each and every window. The entire west side of the house, where
their bedrooms used to be, is incinerated and nearly gone. The deck,
which used to be visible from the front yard, is no longer there,
having been consumed by the fire. That’s when the panic sets it.
Walt tears the mask away
from his face and with strong arms levels the paramedic, who was just
taking his vitals, down to the ground. “The girls…where are
they?” His voice is thick with emotion even though speaking feels
like swallowing razor blades.
Righting himself beside
Walt once again, the paramedic replaces the oxygen mask when Walt
begins coughing in frenzy. “Please calm down, Mr. McCann.” The
paramedic drapes a blanket over Walt’s chest, but it does nothing
to warm the bitterness blooming in his heart.
Clenching the collar of
the paramedic’s navy blue uniform in his balled-up fist, Walt
stares pleadingly into the young man’s eyes. “My wife and
daughter were with me. I dropped them…. My God, I dropped them.”
Overtaken by sobs, he barely hears Meredith’s small and broken
voice call out to him.
“Walt…Gracie?” she
cries out as her stretcher rolls alongside his.
“Mer…” he gasps her
name, but he only feels partial relief at knowing that his wife is
okay. He needs to find Gracie.
That’s when the sweetest
sound in the entire world rings out through all of the chaos. “I
found her!” David Andrews, their ten-year-old neighbor calls out,
but before Walt can look up to see where he is, he’s gone. The only
sight he catches is that of the paramedics racing away from him and
his wife to the side of the house where the deck used to be.
Needing to feel contact
with him, Meredith wiggles her hand under the blanket on Walt’s
stretcher and laces their fingers together. “They’ve got her,
Walt. It’s going to be okay.” Her last words are barely choked
out past the lump of emotion clogging her throat.
“I dropped her...” he
repeats over and over again as guilt sits heavily on his chest. Grace
has to be okay. She has to survive. He won’t be able to….
Pushing down any thoughts
of a life without his daughter, Walt squeezes his wife’s hand as
they wait for Grace to emerge from behind the wreckage that used to
be their home.
It takes forever, but
finally, the paramedics round the corner of the yard. Grace is
wrapped in a thick, grey wool blanket. Her lips are blue and her skin
pale, but she’s alive. She stretches out her tiny arms when she
catches sight of her parents next to the ambulance.
“Mommy…Daddy…”
Grace’s teeth chatter and her body shakes with chills, but she
practically leaps out of the paramedic’s arms to go to her mom.
Wrapping her arms around
Grace, Meredith buries her face in her daughter’s hair. Though it
may be singed a little, she can still smell traces of the strawberry
scented shampoo she’d used on her earlier in the night. “Shh…it’s
okay, Grace. We’re all okay.”
Tears well in Walt’s
eyes and stream down his cheeks. His girls are safe. He’s safe.
Nothing else matters. Through the fog of everything going on, Walt
hears some of what the paramedics say. Grace has mild hypothermia so
they wrap her in heated blankets and let her lie next to Meredith,
hoping that her body heat will help as well. All three of them suffer
from smoke inhalation, but it seems as if they will all recover just
fine.
“Puppy!” Grace cries
out.
“It’s okay, baby.
Puppy will come in another ambulance. Don’t you worry.” Meredith
presses her lips against her daughter’s cold skin. Her little white
lie will go a long way to keep Gracie calm.
Walt goes in one
ambulance, but the paramedics promise that his wife and daughter
won’t be far behind. Meredith and Walt exchange a brief, but
relieved smile as they unlace their fingers. When a paramedic begins
wheeling Meredith and Gracie to their ambulance, a giant ball of
nerves forms in Meredith’s belly – the belly in which she hopes
her baby is still alive and well. She hadn’t even had the chance to
tell Walt yet, wanting to wait until Christmas next week to give him
the present he would never forget.
Meredith grabs at the
paramedic’s arm. “It’s okay, Mrs. McCann. We should be at the
hospital in ten minutes.” Her calm voice does nothing to soothe
Meredith’s concern.
Turning away from Gracie,
so that she doesn’t hear anything, Meredith faces the paramedic,
whose arm she still hasn’t let go of. “The baby…I’m…pregnant.”
Meredith registers the look of surprise on the woman’s face.
Quickly checking her reaction, the paramedic gently pats Meredith’s
hand and readjusts her oxygen mask.
“We’ll get you all
checked out when you get to the hospital,” she reassures.
“But the cut…the
glass. There was so much blood.” Meredith’s words fall to a
whisper as Grace squirms beside her.
“We looked at the wound,
Mrs. McCann. It should only require a few stitches, but the injury is
far from where the baby would be positioned at this point.” The
paramedic’s kind eyes crinkle at the corners as she conveys this
information to Meredith. Relief washes over her. Maybe things will be
okay. “We’ll do an ultrasound and some blood work when we get to
the hospital just to be safe, okay?” She brushes Meredith’s
soot-covered hair out of her eyes and Meredith nods in response.
Meredith pulls Gracie to
her side as a few other paramedics help load them into the ambulance.
The bumping and shifting causes Grace to stir at Meredith’s side.
Gracie pulls at the child-sized oxygen mask strapped to her face. Her
lips are less blue and as she coughs up some of the smoke she
inhaled, some of the color returns to her plump cheeks. “It’s
okay, Gracie. We’re going to be okay.” For the first time since
this horrible experience started, Meredith actually believes those
words.
The McCann’s spend the
night in the hospital for observation – just as a precaution the
doctors tell them, but Walt knows the real reason. They’ve got no
home to return to.
The next morning, after
Meredith is wheeled out of the room for a few tests, Walt and Grace
watch some cartoons and wait for her to return. He’s concerned that
they still need to run tests on his wife. Maybe her smoke inhalation
was far worse than his and Gracie’s. Or maybe it was the cut to her
side that has the doctors worried.
A half an hour later,
Meredith returns with tears streaming down her pink cheeks. “What’s
wrong, Mer? What’s the matter?” Walt stands from his bed and
practically runs over to his crying wife.
“The baby…” is all
she can work out past the lump in her throat. Walt’s initial
worries instantly morph into elation and then raw fear.
“What did you say?” he
whispers, shocked by this news. Unable to speak past her sobbing,
Meredith cries into the blankets. Walt looks up to the doctor who
came in with Meredith, hoping that she can offer some small sliver of
information – something to make his mind stop racing.
Extending her slender hand
to him, Dr. Meyers introduces herself. “We performed a routine
ultrasound this morning to check on the baby, to make sure everything
is okay.”
“What baby, Mer?” He
skims his knuckles across his wife’s cheek, brushing away the flow
of tears. “Please talk to me,” he begs and she wraps her fingers
around his hand. Bringing his hand to her lips, she plants a soft
kiss there.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t
tell you. I wanted it to be a surprise, but I’m…Walt, I’m
pregnant.” Giving herself over to her emotions, she wraps her arms
around his neck and hugs him as tightly as she can.
“So then the tests came
back okay?” His words are muffled by her soft, brown hair. He sees
the doctor nod as she steps away from the stretcher to give them a
minute of privacy.
“Yes, everything is
okay, for now. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you.” Her
chestnut-colored eyes beg for forgiveness, but there’s nothing to
forgive. They’re going to have another baby.
“Shhh, sweetie. There’s
no need to apologize.” He kisses her temple.
Before she leaves, the
doctor goes over a few last minute instructions – no heavy lifting,
drink plenty of water and see her regular doctor in a week or so for
a follow-up ultrasound, at which they should be able to hear the
heartbeat.
Grace is too entranced by
the television to even notice that her mom has returned, so Walt and
Meredith decide not to mention anything about the baby to her, just
in case.
The rest of the morning is
spent making arrangements to move in with Walt’s brother until they
can find an apartment of their own. Meredith calls Penny Andrews, her
neighbor and newest friend, who promises they’ll be up there
shortly with some new clothes. Hating to rely on others for support,
Walt almost tells them not to worry about it, but they’ve got to
rebuild everything. Somehow, refusing a few new items of clothes when
they don’t even have a roof of their own seems somewhat foolish.
An hour later, the Andrews
come to visit and in addition to the clothes they’d promised to
bring, David beams with pride as he hands Grace her ragged and
charred Puppy.
Grace leaps out of the
hospital bed. “You found Puppy!” She squeals with delight as she
tears the precious stuffed animal from David’s hands.
“Sure did. It was right
next to where I found you.” He’s grinning ear to ear, utterly
pleased with himself for being such a huge help last night.
“You found me?” Grace
asks, disbelief lacing through her words. When David simply nods and
smiles, she says, “Wow. You’re like a hero!”
Wrapping her tiny arms
around his waist, Grace squeezes David. The two sets of parents watch
in silence as the happy exchange occurs before them.
Letting go of David, Grace
tips her chin over at the TV that she was just watching. “Wanna
watch Frosty the Snowman? The nurses just put it on for me.” Grace
doesn’t even wait for David to respond before she pulls him over to
the bed. She’s determined never to let her hero move from her side.
“We really can’t thank
you guys enough, especially David. He really is a hero.” Walt
shakes hands with John Andrews as Penny and Meredith squeeze the life
out of each other – well, as best they can with Meredith’s
still-sore wound.
“We’re glad to help
out,” Penny says as she hands over the bags of clothing and
toiletries they’d picked up on their way over. “So what will you
guys do?” Penny asks cautiously, not wanting to upset Walt and
Meredith.
Pulling his wife to his
side, Walt kisses the top of her head. “We’ll be all right. We’re
going to go stay with my brother for a bit while we figure things
out.”
“Will you come back to
the neighborhood?” Penny and Meredith have hit it off pretty well
and she would hate to see them leave for good.
Shrugging and fighting
back tears brought on by uncertainty, Meredith looks over at David
and Grace watching TV. “I’d like to, but we’ll just have to
wait and see.” She swipes a tear away from her cheek and looks up
at Walt – her rock, her savior.
“Come on, Pen, let’s
leave them be for a while.” John extends his hand to Walt, who
thanks him for helping them out. “It’s time to go, Dave.” Penny
calls for her son and smiles warmly at the sight of little Gracie
staring in awe at him.
“See you around,
Gracie.” David ruffles her hair as she holds Puppy tightly at her
side.
If she would have known
that was going to be the last time she’d see David Andrews, she
would have done more than wave lamely at his retreating back as he
exited the room.
About the Author:
Melissa Collins
Melissa Collins has always
been a book worm. Studying Literature in college ensured that her
nose was always stuck in a book. She followed her passion for reading
to the most logical career choice: English teacher. Her hope was to
share her passion for reading and the escapism of books to her
students. Having spent more than a decade in front of a classroom,
she can easily say that it’s been a dream.
Her passion for writing
didn’t start until more recently. When she was home on maternity
leave in early 2012, she read her first romance novel and her head
filled with the passion, angst and laughter of the characters who she
read about it. It wasn’t long before characters of her own took
shape in her mind. Their lives took over Melissa’s brain and The
Love Series was born.
