Page 112 of Grumpy on the Mountain
The smell of gasoline is getting stronger, and I notice a dark puddle spreading beneath the car. Fuel leak. With the engine block still steaming and the electrical system potentially compromised, we're sitting on a potential bomb.
I could mention it to the team above. Could take my time with the extraction, maybe wait for additional equipment that might not arrive in time.
Or I could do what I was trained to do.
Save the life in front of me, regardless of whether that life deserves saving.
"Why are you doing this?" Riley asks, his voice getting weaker. "Why are you helping me? After everything I've done to you. To her."
The question hangs in the cold air between us, heavy with the weight of our entire fucked-up family history.
"Because the woman I love taught me something," I say, working to get the backboard positioned behind him. "She taught me that I get to choose who I am. Every single day, I get to choose."
I think about Molly's face when she called me out for trying to protect her like Riley used to. How she stood up for herself, demanded to be treated as an equal partner instead of a fragile possession.
"And I choose to face my demons now. Not run from them. To be the kind of man who saves lives," I continue, signaling to Jamie to start the lift. "Even when those lives belong to people who don't deserve saving. Even when it would be easier to walk away and let them die."
"She's going to leave you," Riley says weakly, but there's no conviction in it anymore. "When the novelty wears off. When she realizes you're just another damaged man like me. You haven't saved her, Beau."
"Maybe," I admit, securing the straps around his torso. "But until she does, I'm going to love her like she deserves to be loved."
The backboard starts to rise, and I clip myself to the secondary line. Below us, the gasoline finally finds an ignition source.
Flames lick at the undercarriage of the car, spreading faster than I expected in the wind. In another few minutes, the whole thing is going to go up.
But we're clear. Riley's clear.
And despite everything he's done, everything he's put Molly through, he's going to live.
Because I'm not him. I'll never be him.
I'm the man who builds instead of destroys. Who chooses mercy over revenge. Who loves without conditions.
I'm the man Molly Jennings chose to love back.
The explosion comes, sounds like thunder rolling through the valley. I feel the heat of it against my back as Jamie's team hauls us up the cliff face, Riley strapped to the backboard below me, now unconscious but breathing.
By the time my boots hit solid ground, the wreckage is a fireball lighting up the night sky, sending black smoke into the falling snow. In a few hours, there won't be anything left but twisted metal and scorched earth.
But that's okay. Because she's still here. Still choosing me. Still believing that I'm worth choosing.
The medical team immediately takes over Riley's care, loading him into an ambulance with Sheriff Cooper riding shotgun.
There will be questions later. Charges filed. Consequences for stalking, harassment, theft. I'll make damn sure of it, and any legal case Riley was plotting will be thrown out of court before it's even seen.
But right now, I don't care about any of that.
All I care about is the woman running toward me through the snow, her face streaked with tears and relief.
"You did it," Molly breathes, throwing her arms around my neck with enough force to nearly knock me over. "You saved him. You beautiful, amazing, impossible man, you saved him."
I bury my face in her hair, breathing in vanilla and snow and the scent of home.
She pulls back to look at me, her green eyes bright with tears and awe.
"I love you," she says simply. "Not because you saved him. Not because you're a hero. But because you chose to be the man I fell in love with."
Around us, the emergency crews are packing up, the immediate crisis over. Jamie claps me on the shoulder with pride. Sheriff Cooper gives me a nod of respect through the window of the ambulance. The town that adopted a broken soldier three years ago watches their boy come home.
