Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 59231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
I crossed over to the little table by the front door and fished my keys out of the bowl there. My wallet and phone often ended up there too, but I already had them in my pocket on account of ordering my new meds twenty minutes before. I was easing off the painkillers slowly, but faster than they expected. I’d rather not take them at all, but if I didn’t, I’d never sleep. Much less be able to go to work.
My boots sat beside the little table, and I smirked at them. I’d never seen myself as a fireman. Lots of little boys do, at least for a little while. But it had never done anything for me when they came to the school with the shiny red truck and the giant ladder. I wasn’t impressed then. I knew in my heart I was born for a helmet and camo. It wasn’t until I got discharged and ended up at home that the thought even crossed my mind.
For months, I had sat around, living off my pension mostly while I decided what in the world I was going to do with my life now that the military didn’t have much use for me. I was honestly baffled by the idea of doing anything else, but the longer I sat around at home, the more the darkness took hold. I would wake up from a dead sleep in the middle of the day, ready to dive behind the couch and shoot at the door with a gun I didn’t have.
I might have left the battlefield, but the memory remained.
Getting active was the trick. I knew that, and it was reinforced by my doctors and physical therapists. The more active I stayed, the less my body was going to fight with me as I got older. I just had to get used to it all, and then I would be more or less fine. So one day while I was down in the town mailing off my taxes, I saw the help wanted sign outside of the fire department, and it was like a beacon. Suddenly, big, red, shiny trucks with giant ladders was something interesting. And the little bit of danger that came with the job was like a shot in the arm.
Training was easy enough, though tedious at times. I was used to a lot more physical demands, and while I was still fighting against body parts that didn’t always want to do what I told them to, I was still able to handle the demands of a fire department in desperate need and in a town that barely had enough people, but more than enough hot spots in it.
Doing so got me reconnected with Caden and Graham too. Caden wasn’t even aware I was back home, but when I got called out there for one of my first emergency calls, we reconnected. He was running a very successful ranch just at the north edge of town and was a bit of a local celebrity. He was a hometown boy, born and raised in Murdock, and when he bought the ranch, it was for pennies because it was about to go under. With hard work and a knack for the business, he turned it into the pride of the town.
Almost immediately, Caden offered me a job at the ranch, but I turned it down. I liked the fire department for one thing, and for another, I didn’t want to seem like I was taking advantage of my friend. But I did take him up on volunteering there. He needed some extra hands to help with the horses, and I found myself going down there rather often just to hang out with them, eventually pitching in and now getting put on the roster of people to call when they were shorthanded.
Like now.
The text message was still up on my phone, having interrupted my phone call. Caden wanted to know if I had a few hours to come help muck the stalls and do some of the general upkeep at the stable. He offered lunch and dinner as payment, but I would have brought my own if he hadn’t. Being around the horses was like therapy, though I’d never say that outside of my own thoughts. Physical therapy had been the only kind of therapy I had any truck with. The horses, though… they might make me rethink that position.
I grabbed the ballcap from the coatrack and stuffed it on my head. I had at least four of them, but this one was my favorite. It was from Graham’s ballclub, and he had sent it to me when he got drafted by the big leagues. He sent me a couple more while I was in the service, usually autographed by whatever stars were on his team at the time. I kept them all in a shadowbox, along with some of the other things he sent along.