Rolando Hernandez has now become a Guardian who will help watch out for all Firefighters as they respond to emergencies. He is now in the wind with every jump his brothers will take.
Rolando Hernandez completed his tour as a Firefighter in this life. His final jump is done. Last call sounding off.
Be safe until we meet again.
Control clear at 1326 hours.”
Through blurry eyes covered in tears, I look at Kale. His breathing is heavy yet again at the final tones of the radio as Lando’s final call comes to a close. We make our way in a line out of the chapel. Devin and Zeke flank Lando’s mom on each side to escort her out. As she reaches the doorway, I hear the sounds of an aircraft approaching.
I move over to watch as Team Tango escorts Lando’s mom out of the church. With the six remaining members surrounding her, their team DC Twin Otter jump plane flies over with one last swoop over for Lando.
Piper and I hold one another as the realities of all that is lost and all that could be lost washes over us both. Pulling away from me, she hands me her car keys. I take her silent cue to give her space and make my way to her vehicle. Needing a moment myself, I do all I can to try to pull myself together.
After getting Evangelina, Rolando’s mom, settled into the Town Car, I blow out a breath. My mind is everywhere. Mason is falling apart right beside me. My heart is aching for the loss of my brother and my girl. Paige squeezing my hand in the service is the only moment my heart wasn’t beating out of my chest. I want nothing more than to rip this uniform off and run until my legs can carry me no more.
“Damn, Lando, your mom handles this better than me,” I call out to the air around me.
“That’s for damn sure,” My sister’s voice comes from behind me.
“Pipe-,”
“Don’t you Pipe me, mister. Do you think Lando would want you to throw everything away, Kale?”
“Low blow, Piper. Tread lightly, little sis.” I warn her as my aggravation grows.
“Go to hell, both of you,” she yells waiving her hands at Mason and me.
“Both of us?” Mason questions. “I’m far from your problem, sweetheart.”
Pipers face pales as Mason’s dismissal hits her. “You can have everything that Lando can’t have. EVER! He will never get to hold the warm curves of a woman again. He will never get to kiss Evangelina and tell her he loves her again. He will never again get to slap one of his buddies on their backs and say next jump. No, Lando gets to watch helplessly from the sky as you both piss it all away.”
Seeing the tears on my sisters’ face is hard, but I don’t reply. The frustration builds and she lashes out, pounding her Kleenex clenching fists into my chest and then Masons’, only stopping when he grabs her wrists as she sobs some more. “You guys are alive, so live! If not for yourself than live for Lando.” She cries.
Something in her words clicks with me. I am alive, I may feel like shit, but I’m alive.
“Piper, calm down,” I try to get her to stop yelling enough for me to find out where Paige is.
My sister is right. Lando can’t hold a woman, or kiss his mom, but me, my girl is here somewhere and I pushed her away selfishly. She needs me to hold her right now as she lost a friend too.
“Calm down, hell no! Mason is drinking his liver away and you are a brooding asshole. Today, I sat in that room as everyone had to say goodbye to a good damn man. To say goodbye to a hero. It could’ve been either of you. It wasn’t, but you are shutting everything good out to drown in the bad. Lando’s life was about living it to the fullest not being swallowed in the sorrows.”
“Piper!” I yell. “Shut up enough to tell me where Paige. I get your point. I’m sorry that you are hurting, too. I need to find Paige, though and fix this.” Her blank stare rests on me for only a second before snapping back to Mason as he shoves his way by me.
“Don’t think you know me for a minute, Piper Benson.” Mason states and storms off, gutting my sister once more.
Is this how Paige looks because of me? I am ashamed to have hurt her in my misguided thoughts of protecting her.
“Where. Is. She?” I state my question firmly.
“My car,” Piper answers as tears fall down her cheeks, her eyes following the disappearing form of Mason as he weaves angrily through the mourning crowd.
Not wasting another second, I take off running for my sister’s car. For once, I am thankful for the crazy color as it stands out amongst all the other vehicles in the lot.
Rounding the passenger door, I yank it open. Before Paige can realize what is going on, I have my arms under her armpits and I am lifting her gently out of the car. Setting her on her feet, I cup her chin in my hands. Meeting her eyes, I see the trepidation in her eyes as she doesn’t know how to take me now. The mascara lines from her tears streaking her cheeks make my heart twist in knots. How could I have been so dumb?
Brushing my lips to hers, I wait to see if she is going to push me away and tell me I am too late. When she brings her small hands up to grip my wrists, I kiss her again, this time, sliding my tongue over the seam of her lips. As she opens to me, I close the space between our bodies as I deepen our kiss, pressing her into the cool metal of the car. Her glasses pushing into me when they slide down her nose, but it doesn’t matter, I can’t get enough of her.
Wetness touches my face. Pulling away, I rest my forehead on hers.
“I am so sorry, Paige. I’ve fucked it all up.”
“Kale,” she whispers my name, pulling at my heart.
“I love you, I’m so sorry. Please, please, forgive me.”
“Don’t push me away again, Kale. I can’t do this again. I love you, but you can’t shut me out every time something bad happens.”
“No more, babe. You and me, always together. Please, tell me you forgive me.” I beg. I will get on my knees right now if I have to. I need her more than I need my next breath. “Please tell me I haven’t lost you, tell me I haven’t lost everything. I love you, Paige.”
“I love you, Kale. I’m with you, Kale, for as long as you’ll let me.” She smiles sweetly at me.
Silently, I send up a thank you to Lando for looking down on me and my girl. She is one of a kind special and I promise my dead friend that I will live every moment I have with her to the fullest.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“The weeds always grow up faster than I can pull them out, baby. Even in winter, there manages to be something to pull out.” I say to the stone in front of me as I sit on my knees.
My routine to when I am out here never changes. After cleaning the weeds from covering the marker, I trace each letter in front of me, one after the other.
J- E- F- F- R- E- Y K- A- L- E B-E- N- S- O- N
Beloved husband, father, and hero.
Sighing, I run my hand along the cold cement of the tombstone. It is agonizing torture as much as it is healing. Today, I am bundled warmly as tomorrow is Christmas Eve. The cemetery gets crowded on holidays so I try to come out early since I visit regularly.
“I miss you, honey. Our babies are growing up. I know you are proud of them. In Heaven, do all the angels watch with you? Is it like opening your wallet to show pictures of them?” I smile, remembering how at Christmas parties with friends my husband would pull out the newest pictures of the kids and proudly talk about their newest hobbies or achievements. He was a great father.
I wipe away a tear as I feel the breeze wrap around me while I spend my time at my husband’s gravesite.
“In the short time we had you here with us, you did it, baby. You were the example. You were the man for Kale to look up to. He’s so much like you it hurts to watch him sometimes. Even though you were taken from us too soon, the foundation was there and he’s a fine man. Paige is just what he needs.”
I smile to the sky.
“You were right. That first time Paige came over. You said to me, ‘that one, she’s gonna be tough as nails and be a strong woman for a stubborn man one day’. Well, she is tou
gh as nails, even if she doesn’t see just how strong she is. Push comes to shove, Paige will always be the rock for our baby boy. Kale, that boy.”
I run my hand over the stone again as if he could somehow reach out and hold my hand once again.
“The nurse handed him to you first. You held him and he was kicking out at the blanket. Always wanting to be free, trying to get away. That’s his first instinct, to run away. Teaching him to throw a ball, you tried so hard to teach him, to be firm. ‘Plant your feet, son. Gotta have a solid foundation in everything. You would say. Paige is giving him a solid foundation, honey. I know you see it. They think it’s me. Mom knows everything. Funny, they don’t think back to all the things you said and did before you passed on. I remember. I remember every moment with you, my love.”
And I do, God, I do. They carry me through. Wiping away the tears that are sliding down my face, I inhale deeply at the pride I have for my husband and the things he instilled in our children when they were young.
“I’ve watched Paige love our boy for years. She will be good for him. They have moved in together. Since Kale lost Lando, he doesn’t want to waste any time. He took me shopping a few days ago. The diamond he picked for Paige is perfect. Not big and not small, just uniquely her. Things are good for our boy now. It took him a long while to get over losing you. It took him even longer to take his blinders off and see what was right in front of him. He’s okay now, in love, happy, and not afraid of the fires inside anymore.”
Two leaves float in front of my face before settling over his stone. Picking one of them up, I twist it in my fingers, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time.
“Honey, our baby girl…she’s a woman now. A beautiful, intelligent, loyal, and very lost woman. Piper, she handled losing you, when she was little, much better than Kale. Now, though, now she worries me. You were an amazing father. You were everything for her to look up to, everything for her to look for in a man. Only, honey, they broke the mold when they made you. She’s got herself wrapped up in Mason. He’s Kale’s friend I’ve told you about. Good, young man. He’s had it rough. Piper, though, she pushes him. Sometimes, maybe a little too hard. She hasn’t found herself yet. It’s like she’s playing with matches around gasoline and dried paper. She’s not ready for the consequences of striking too soon and not being prepared. They both have uncontained emotions. Watch over her, my love. Show me where I can guide her. We helped our son, now we need to give Piper her happily ever after.”
Two more leaves blow past me. They separate and one lands on the stone as the other takes a path of loops through the air before finding its resting place on a bench nearby. Much like our two children, one has found his way to solid ground while our baby girl is floating around in the air, landing here, landing there, but not yet settled.
Chelsea Camaron was born and raised in Coastal North Carolina. She currently resides in Louisiana with her husband and two children but her heart is always Carolina day dreaming.
Chelsea always wanted to be a writer, but like most of us, let fear of the unknown grab a hold of her dream; she realized that if she was going to tell her daughter to go for her dreams, that it was time to follow her own advice.
Chelsea grew up turning wrenches alongside her father, and from that grew her love for old muscle cars and Harley Davidson motorcycles, which just so happened to inspire her ‘Love and Repair’ and ‘The Hellions Ride’ series.
When she is not spending her days writing you can find her playing with her kids, attending car shows, going on motorcycle rides on the back of her husband’s Harley, snuggling down with her new favorite book or watching any movie that Vin Diesel might happen to be in. She hates being serious and is still a big kid at heart. She is a small town country girl enjoying life and, Chelsea hopes that her readers remember not to take life too seriously and to embrace your inner five year old, because five year olds know how to enjoy the simple things in life and how to always have fun.
Connections
Email [email protected]
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Website www.authorchelseacamaron.com
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Theresa Marguerite Hewitt is a very laid back person; enjoying the simpler things in life more than most sometimes. She grew up in a very, VERY small town in Central New York and she will always be a Redneck Woman.
She loves reading, writing, taking long pointless drives and long dusk time walks. Fall and winter are her favorite times of year and she spends more time outside then than in the summer. She loves hearing from fans and isn't above fan-girling on those that show her tons of support.
She donates the profits from the Amazon sales of her military series, The Wakefield Romance Series, to various military charities including; Wounded Warrior Project, Red Circle Foundation, Boot Campaign and others.
She is addicted to the cheap-Harlequin romances you can pick up in most drug stores and can't go in and out of a store without picking up at least one. She resides in Buffalo, NY, for now.
LIGHTS TO MY SIREN
By
Lani Lynn Vale
CHAPTER ONE
A good man breaks your headboard, not your heart.
-Rules to live by
Baylee
I watched out of the corner of my eye as the man, two yards down from my own, stepped up onto the diving board, faced me, and then laid his hands against the top of the fence. Then, unsurprisingly, he leaned his head down until his chin rested on top of the hands that rested on the fence. His eyes were on me as I screwed another screw into the board between my legs.
“If my stupid brother were here, I wouldn’t have had to worry about some creepy, old man watching me while I worked out in the yard.” I grumbled, as I tried not to notice the creepy old man.
I regretted taking off my shirt now, but it was so unbelievably hot out that it was either take the shirt off, or give up on the deck until fall. The weather in Texas was absolutely boiling. In the summer months, it reached upwards to 110 degrees. If I lived to be a hundred, I would never get use to this horrid Texas heat.
It was a far cry from the cooler summers in Casper, Wyoming. At least there we had defined seasons. In Texas, one day it could be sunny and stifling, and the very next it could be dreary and cold.
My brother was the one who’d recommended project ‘fiasco,’ saying it would help the resell value of my house to have a deck around the pool. He’d even planned the deck out, bought the wood, and built the framing. Then it sat for two months before I’d finally decided to just do it myself. Apparently, they’d been super busy at the station lately, and he hadn’t been able to utilize his free time like he’d previously done.
Sweat dripped down my chest and back, in slow moving rivulets, disappearing in the waistband of my shorts that said ‘cheer!’ across the ass. The bra I put on that morning was thoroughly soaked through with sweat, restricting my breasts like a serpent. The thick material was anything but forgiving, and I cursed my mother for passing down the big boob gene that required me to wear extra supportive bras, instead of thin cute ones like normal women.
On top of everything else, my knees were killing me. Two years after my accident at work, and I still felt the effects of that night.
That night, my life changed forever. I’d been working my third 24-hour shift of the week. There’d been a call involving a fifty-year-old man complaining of chest pain, while out for dinner with his wife.
My former partner, Cory, and I were dispatched.
After loading the patient, Cory had taken lead, which left me driving to the nearest hospital.
We’d been ten minutes out when a car had run the stop sign, barreling into the ambulance before anyone had even noticed it was there.
When I’d come to, the patient that had been coding in the back was dead, and Cory was unconscious and fighting for his life
. I hadn’t been as severe, but I wasn’t able to feel my legs from the knees down at the time, either.
The loud roar of a motorcycle pulling up outside signaled the arrival of my new partner. Winter had learned of my side project during last night’s shift and immediately offered her assistance once she caught up on her sleep.
Winter was a fellow female medic at Station number three. She’d been there just shy of a year when I had arrived. We’d gotten along instantly. We’d been paired together ever since.
From then on, we spent quite a bit of time together, and over the past six months, I’d gotten to know the other women that lived in the same compound as Winter, as well. Winter’s husband , who was former military. When his old team had gotten out, they’d started a motorcycle shop and then moved in behind it.
There they’d established quite a reputable custom bike business, and had flourished since.
Winter said she’d be asking her husband to drop her off so she could drink if she felt like it afterwards. I told her she wouldn’t have the desire to do so after being outside so long, but what did I know?
The doorbell chimed a few moments after the sound of the bike shut off, and instead of getting up to answer it, I just yelled. Honestly, I was beyond tired. If I got up, it would be to lay down on the couch and crack open an ice cold Coke. “Come on in! I’m in the backyard!”
Winter’s answering yell confirmed that she’d heard me, and I went back to screwing.
I laughed at how idiotic that sounded. I had what you would call a very naughty sense of humor. Anything you had to say, even the most normal of statements, I could turn it into some sort of sexual innuendo.
With one hand, I lined the tip of my screw gun with the notched head of the screw. With the other, I pushed down while depressing the button. A movement out of the corner of my eye had me looking up in time to see the man a few yards down taking a picture of me.
Kale (The Fire Inside #1) Page 15
