From The Inferno (Firemen Do It Better Book 3)

by Leah Sharelle

  “Ready, Chase?” Hoove asked.

  Through his mask, I could see his shit-eating grin. Dylan ‘Hoove’ Grant loved being a fireman as much as I did, and there wasn’t a single thing he was scared of.

  Except for maybe his wife, Tate, I thought with a small laugh.

  “Let’s do this,” I answered him with a grin of my own then headed in the same direction Carson took with his buddy.

  Following under the stream of water being pumped in by Percy and some of the other tanker operators, I led the way to one of the large barn-style doors.

  “This looks like as good as any way in, what you think, Hoove?”

  “Do what you do best, Chase,” he said, standing back enough to give me the room I needed to swing the axe and break in the door.

  Getting a good grip on the handle, I swung the head of the blade into the wood several times before it gave way, not that it was hard. The whole building was so dilapidated it was a wonder it had survived for so long.

  “Okay, fifteen minutes. Keep me in your sights, mate,” I called out to Hoove before dashing inside, Hoove hot on my heels. The first thing that hit me was the intense heat the fire had created from the flames licking well up beyond the second story

  “Jesus Christ, how long has the place been on fire for?” Hoove’s question came through the headset built into my breathing mask, not quite as clear as he had been outside of the burning building. The noise of a fire cannot be explained. You needed to experience it for yourself to understand the deafening ferocity of it.

  “Not more than thirty minutes to my understanding. This has arson written all over it, Hoove.”

  Hoove grunted through the speaker. “Just like the last one.”

  “You read my mind, mate. Be careful. We don’t know what is fuelling this, but whatever the accelerant, it is doing its job.”

  For the next ten minutes, I led the way around the massive room, looking for anything or anyone that shouldn’t be there. Around us, walls collapsed, and windows not already broken exploded from the severe heat.

  I pressed the button on my comm. “Shit is getting too real in here, Hoges. We have searched the whole ground floor and haven’t seen anyone.”

  I kept my eyes trained on Hoove, who had moved further into the back of the building near the staircase that was currently burning. He was looking up at the landing area where the second floor started. The hairs stood on the back of my neck as I watched his body language change from alert to tense.

  “Knox! Get the fuck down from there!” I heard Hoove shout.

  “Oh, that fucking idiot,” I shouted and ran as fast as I could through the flames engulfing the old wooden floor. “Carson, get water to the second floor. The recruit is up there.”

  A string of expletives streamed through my headset. “What the fuck are you talking about?” Carson shouted back at me, and I could tell he was running from his position on the east side of the ground floor.

  “Knox, get back, and go out the way you came in,” I yelled.

  “I can’t. The fire has reached the only exit from up here,” Knox yelled back to me. I couldn’t see his face behind his mask from down here, but the fear in his voice was coming through plain as day.

  Looking around me frantically, I looked for anything I could throw him to use as a makeshift ladder, but the place was bare of anything useful.

  “How the fuck do we get him down, Hoove?”

  The staircase was nearly engulfed in flames as was the railing above. It was only a matter of a few minutes before the whole top landing collapsed down right where Hoove and I were standing.

  I realised the other problem we faced was the thick plumes of toxic black smoke that was coming from what I gathered used to be a storage area. Even with the mask, I could smell the filthy acrid smoke.

  “Hoove, this is not—” I was about to state the obvious when a loud cracking sound vibrated over the sound of the roaring fire, followed closely by a high-pitched scream.

  “Fuck, Chase!” Hoove roared as he grabbed me by the strap of my oxygen tank and yanked me clear out of the way and to the ground, not three seconds before the top landing fell burning to the ground. The screams of fear, which turned into screams of pain and terror, flooded my ears, and I had no other choice but to listen to the recruit burn to death.

  “Chase, Hoove, let’s get the fuck out of here,” Chase yelled, coming out of the flames like a charging bull. Stopping beside me, he grabbed hold of mine and Hoove’s arm and heaved us up.

  “Knox,” I protested weakly, the wind having been knocked out of me from the fall to the ground and Hoove’s massive form falling on top of me.

  “It’s too late. He is gone, mate,” Carson replied, his voice stony.

  “Fuck! Fuck! Fucking idiot,” I cursed over and over. Why the fuck had he gone into the building? He was supposed to be manning the water, not climbing the ladder and entering an unsafe building without the proper training and experience, which was exactly what he must have done. He had no business being inside with us, no goddamn business at all. Fucking hell, he had no business being a firefighter, I thought with so much anger for the recruit.

  “Move it, Chase. In two seconds, the whole second floor is going to cave in and take us out,” Hoove ordered, getting his head back into the game.

  Shaking the sound of Knox’s last screams from my mind, I held my breath and ran for the door I broke through to get in, doing my best not to breathe in too much more of the acrid smelling smoke. Not until I reached the outside and felt the heavy spray of water on my turnout gear did I release the breath I was holding and rip off my mask.

  The chilly night air was like a frigid blast down my throat and nose.

  Relief poured through me, and I gladly dropped to the ground, taking in a lungful of clean air, Hoove and Carson doing the same as me.

  I rolled to my butt and pulled my knees up, my hands in my hair as I watched the old building along with the life of a young man barely in his twenties, who hadn’t gotten a chance to experience real love or heartbreak yet, being engulfed in huge flames.

  9

  My hand gripped the armrest on the door so hard my fingers were turning white.

  I wanted to say it was because of Lake’s erratic driving as she navigated the turns and roundabouts. The woman was a crazy driver, and from the gasps coming from Tate in the front seat, I wasn’t the only one with that opinion.

  Five minutes ago, Tate and I were enjoying a glass of wine while Lake had orange juice. We were watching an episode of Chicago Fire when Lake got a phone call from the station to tell her the guys had been taken by ambulance to the hospital, and she and Tate needed to get there as quickly as they could.

  Logically, my mind knew that the station guys didn’t know about Chase and me yet, so I shouldn’t have been hurt for being excluded, but it did.

  Whatever it was that we were, he was important to me, and I wanted to be important to Chase, too. Important enough that I was the one to get the phone call, not his mum as Lake had already told me.

  “I’m sure they are fine, right? The hospital would have called you two if something was wrong, right?” I said, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice. It wasn’t that I wanted to replace her in his life. I just wanted… something more.

  Him to need me.

  To crave me.

  To be his first thought.

  I didn’t think that was too much to ask, right?

  We found a space in the car park pretty quickly, and Lake turned off the engine. Her grip on the steering wheel loosened when she looked over to the entrance of the emergency department. What did she see that I didn’t? It was Tate who filled me in without having to ask her.

  “Oh, good. There is no truck, which means they can’t be too bad,” Tate said, relieved.

  “Huh?” I asked, confused.

  “If they were hurt bad, the other guys would have come straight from the scene. No fire truck means no one was hurt bad,” Lake finished off
the explanation. There was still trepidation on her face, but I guessed getting any kind of call that your husband was taken to the hospital wasn’t much fun.

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Honey, they didn’t call you because you aren’t on his list of numbers to call in case of an emergency. I told you Chase told Mike to tell you that he was okay,” Lake assured me in her sweet way. Despite her own worry over her husband, she took the time to make sure I was okay, too.

  Reaching over from the back seat, I grasped Lake on the shoulder.

  “Remind me to tell you a story one day soon, yeah?” I said quietly, first looking at Lake and then at Tate. It was about time I came clean with these lovely, kind women who had done nothing except accept and help me.

  The two women smiled kindly at me. “Sure, honey, right after you tell Chase. He should be the first you tell,” Tate said. “Now let’s go see what trouble our men got themselves into.” She was already opening the car door and getting out.

  The ER was buzzing with people with everything from being sick with flu to broken limbs. Children cried, and the older people grumbled at the noise the children were making, and I could not have cared less. All I wanted to do was get my eyes on Chase and see for myself that he was okay.

  “This way,” Lake called out, running by the charge nurse and through an automatic double door.

  I followed quickly behind the two ladies who knew where they were going. We ran down a long, brightly lit corridor, passing nurses and doctors, looking into the cubicles as we passed each one.

  It wasn’t until we saw three large men, dressed only in baggy yellow pants and red suspenders, standing at the end of the hall laughing with a doctor that my heartbeat started to calm.

  “Carson!”

  “Hunk!”

  Lake and Tate called at the same time, causing their men to turn and watch our progression to them. I noticed Carson’s smile fell, and a frown replaced it when he noticed his wife.

  “Lake, don’t run,” he scolded her, jogging his way to her and taking her in his arms.

  Dylan’s giant steps ate up the distance to his wife, and she threw herself against him, his large arms engulfing her small frame.

  I halted my steps and watched the two couples embrace. I tried not to let my gaze linger too long, but to see such love and devotion caused an ache to build in my chest.

  “Hey, don’t I get some special running jump into my arms, too?” Chase asked from about ten feet away, a grin on his soot-covered face, his arms out and waiting for me.

  Choking back a sob, I ran and launched myself at him. With my height being close to his, my legs wrapped snuggly around his waist, and my face was level with his.

  “That’s better. Can’t say I have ever had—”

  I slammed my mouth down on his, cutting off anything else he wanted to say. It could wait, this couldn’t.

  My kissing experience wasn’t much, but the second my lips fell on his, instinct took over. Chase stood frozen for no more than a second or two before his hand came from my waist and up to the back of my neck, holding me firmly to him as he slanted his mouth on mine and deepened our kiss, taking over.

  A growl resonated from deep in his chest when my tongue touched his in the lightest of touches. I wasn’t sure if deep tongue kissing was appropriate for the hallway of the emergency area, but I couldn’t help myself. Kissing Chase was like— Well, to be honest, I didn’t know because this was my first deep tongue kiss. Tingles and sparks radiated from deep within me, from parts of me I’d never expected to feel them.

  Reluctantly, I tore my mouth from Chase and dragged in a deep breath.

  “Wow,” I whispered, my mouth swollen from the passion we just unleashed on each other.

  “Definitely another wow, legs. Let’s go home and see if we can wow each other some more,” Chase suggested in a flirty tone.

  I let my smile answer for me because, after that kiss, full sentences were not possible.

  “Are you sure you are okay, Chase?” I asked for the fifth time since entering his kitchen.

  When we got out of the hospital, we all piled into Lake’s minivan, and Carson drove Chase, Tate, Dylan, and me back to the station where Chase and Dylan’s cars were. I was thankful that Carson was the one to drive this time because I wasn’t too sure my frayed nerves could take another trip with Lake behind the wheel.

  “Legs, for the fifth time, I am fine. Dad came by earlier like he always does when I’m on late and fed the animals for me. Now all I need is you and me on the couch, sitting close and watching something quiet,” he said with the grin I had come to love.

  “I like the sound of that.”

  “Legs, why are you all the way over the other side of the kitchen?” Chase asked me.

  “Um, because I’m nervous,” I said honestly.

  “And why are you nervous.”

  “Because I’m not sure what you thought of my very public display of affection at the hospital,” I admitted shyly. I still couldn’t believe I jumped into his arms, wound my legs around him like a dog in heat, and practically dry humped him.

  “Legs, look at me,” Chase commanded gently, his voice so low and soft I acquiesced immediately.

  “Did my wow give you a hint at all that I enjoyed you being in my arms and kissing me,” he said smartly.

  I poked my tongue out at him, and the smoulder in his eyes heated my cheeks.

  “Legs,” he growled in warning.

  Really? Just from poking out my tongue. I had so much to learn. Lake and Tate needed to give me some facts about the male race.

  I busied myself around the kitchen, opening cupboards and sorting out the fruit bowl on the bench, doing anything to avoid acknowledging the sparks flying off Chase, and he slowed his advance towards me.

  Not that I didn’t want him, I just had no clue where to go from here. Without the adrenaline rush I had at the hospital, my boldness of earlier was replaced with my usual shyness and stumbling.

  “I’m… I’m very sorry about your friend. I can’t imagine what you must be going through right now,” I said to him as I backed up against the far end of the L-shaped bench, creating some distance. Tonight, Chase not only nearly choked on toxic fumes in the fire but he also lost a workmate. This wasn’t about me or my sexual desires for the man standing before me.

  Chase studied me for a minute, and the mask I saw him put up when he spoke of his daughter the other night was back in place, and his smouldering eyes were now angry.

  “He should never have been in the building. His job was to look after the water going to the hoses.” Chase shook his head as if to clear it or to make some sense of what happened. “He had no right being there,” he said adamantly.

  “How did he get in then, and why?” I asked. To hear Lake tell it, Chase didn’t like to talk, and she should know since she’d known him longer than I had. But I got a feeling that he wanted to talk about the fire and accident that took the life of Knox.

  “Since he was on the second floor and the staircase was on fire when Hoove and I got in there, I can only assume he talked one of the guys from another company to let him use the ladder on their truck. As to why?” Chase’s hands went to his hips, and his shoulders shrugged. “Maybe to prove himself, or maybe he was sick of being the screw up of the team. All I know is we lost a fellow fiery in a fire that was more than likely deliberately lit.”

  My hand covered the shocked gasp from my mouth. “Deliberate? Seriously, Chase, who would do that?”

  “You know, I like it better when you call me honey like you did at the café earlier today,” Chase said, his smirk back.

  Okay, serious talk time is over, I thought. I would give him this—for now. I may have some information about myself that I still had to divulge to Chase, and I would, but he needed to do the same with me, too. Yes, he’d volunteered Prue’s story to show me he was in this with me, and I appreciated that. His job as a firefighter was dangerous, and understanding how I should treat him after a
traumatic event like this was a crucial element in our budding relationship.

  Lake said that after something like this, she stood back and let Carson come to her. For Tate, she wrapped herself in Dylan so tight and him in her. I needed to find what would work for Chase and me.

  Raising my eyebrows at him, I waited.

  Chase sighed at me, and his head dropped as he lowered himself into a kitchen chair.

  “Since day one, Knox has been useless as tits to a bull. He messed up equipment, failed most of his training elements, and copped a lot of flack from all of us. Carson reckons he saw something in the young bloke, and I tried to see it, legs, I did, but I just couldn’t. There was no trust, no faith that he had our backs. Tonight proved that.” He sounded so defeated and tired that my heart ached for him.

  Sitting down next to him, I covered his large hand with mine. My heart soared when he quickly laced his fingers through mine.

  “From what I’ve heard, Carson is a very experienced leader. I’m sure he wouldn’t have let just anyone on his team,” I said gently, careful that I wasn’t seen to be disrespecting either man.

  “Yeah, I know, and maybe given some more time, what Hoges saw in him might have been apparent to the rest of us. The only thing I know is Knox put himself in danger, and in doing so, he put Hoove and me in danger, too. Our time in there was at an end, and we were on the way out when Hoove noticed the recruit standing on the second landing. We wasted precious minutes in there and all for nothing,” Chase ground out the last word, and his hand tightened around mine for a brief second before he loosened his fingers.

  “Now we have a possible arsonist out there, setting fires in abandoned buildings to add to our workload.”

  Acting purely on instincts I didn’t think I had, I reached out with my free hand and cupped Chase’s jaw. The stubble there tickled against my skin, and when he leaned into my touch and kissed the inside of my palm, my heart bucked in my chest.

  “How about that movie and couch time you were talking about,” I suggested, my voice raspy.