by Lizzie Shane
“Shit, shit, shit.” Her house was on fire and her brain couldn’t seem to catch up. What was she supposed to do? She knew throwing water on grease fires was bad, but what were you supposed to do with electrical fires?
Obviously not throw 90-proof liquor on them, but she hadn’t been thinking. Her hand had jerked out throwing the alcohol before she’d even registered what she was doing.
Daniel had poured wine over a brazier in Spain to smother the fire and it had worked like a charm. Maybe there was something about the percentage of alcohol?
The flames roared and crackled.
Shit. Her apartment was on fire and her brain was jabbering about alcohol content.
Think, Caitlyn. Call 911. Find a fire extinguisher. Save the piano.
Priorities.
A rain of thunder pounded against her door. “Ms. Gregg?” a deep voice bellowed through. “Are you all right?”
Oh thank God. Help.
But was she supposed to open the door? Adrenaline wasn’t burning away the alcohol fast enough and she couldn’t think. Something about oxygen feeding fires and not opening doors and windows?
The fire spit and sprayed, raining flaming embers of wall down onto the gauzy kindling of the veil. The tulle went up in flames.
A scream ripped out of Caitlyn’s mouth.
The door exploded inward.
He was huge. Magnificent. A dark god storming down from Olympus. This was no angel, no savior. This was Mount Freaking Doom coming calling. The entire world went into slow motion. She could see each individual particle of ash floating in the air as he loomed there, framed by the doorway. Her jaw dropped, what remained of her mental functions abandoning her, leaving only one word echoing in the empty cavern of her mind.
Wow.
Chapter Eight
Will took in the situation with a single sweeping glance.
The fire seemed relatively contained—flames licking up a five square foot patch around a light switch on the exterior wall—but he knew how quickly that could change. Sprawled on the floor in front of the fire lay a tangle of long alabaster limbs and auburn hair, swathed in skimpy boy shorts, a clinging green tank top, red heels and what appeared to be twenty feet of wedding veil, twisted around her and burning in places.
He’d thought Ms. Gregg might have a granddaughter. He just hadn’t expected her to be so gorgeous. Or so obviously out of her mind.
First things first. Get the crazy lady away from the fire.
Will dropped into crisis mode—calm and focused. He lunged into the room as she gaped at him. Something clear dripped down the base of the wall where she’d clearly tried to put out the flames without success. He was at her side in a blink. “Are you hurt?”
A wave of sticky-sweet alcohol scent fumes hit him and she blinked as if trying to bring him into focus. “You’re too sexy to be an angel.”
I’ll take that as a no. He patted out the tiny fires on the veil and lifted her to her feet, her slim arms surprisingly muscular beneath his hands. “Where’s your grandmother?”
She gazed blankly up at him. “What?”
He resisted the urge to shake her. Maybe Ms. Gregg was a great-aunt. “Ms. Gregg.”
“Yes?”
Christ. “Is there anyone else here?” he said with excruciating patience, herding her quickly toward the door with a hand on one arm. “Anyone else we need to get out?”
“The piano.” She said it with such vehemence it actually took him a moment to recall the piano was inanimate.
“Right.” She was officially shitfaced to the point of incoherence. He’d search the place himself. Right after he got her out of here and contained the fire. It was small now, but it might not stay that way for long. “If I were you I’d be more worried about that Christmas tree catching.”
Will shoved the girl toward the door, scooping an abandoned cell phone off the floor and tossing it at her. She caught it awkwardly, fumbling it against her chest. “Go outside,” he demanded. “Call the Fire Department.”
He ran back to the fire, shoving the Christmas tree, the sofa and anything else that might catch farther away from the blaze and grabbing a blanket to smother the flames. He batted down the flames, but no sooner had he extinguished them than they seemed to crawl out from inside the wall to reignite. Shit. The fire seemed to be centered around a switch. Electrical. It could be spreading through the walls to places he couldn't see. He needed to cut the power.
Another pair of hands with another blanket appeared beside him.
He shot an incredulous look at the crazy redhead in the veil. She was lucky the damn thing hadn’t caught again already. “What are you doing?”
“I can’t leave the piano!” she shouted.
“Jesus.” He did not have time to deal with a drunk girl flinging herself on the flames to save a freaking musical instrument.
He grabbed both blankets, bent and flipped her up onto his shoulder in a single, practiced move that was made somewhat less smooth by the yards of tulle that wrapped around both of them like a boa constrictor. She squealed, but thankfully didn’t fight him, one of her hands gripping the back of his jeans for balance as he bolted out of the apartment and thundered down the stairs.
He was just glad he’d been clothed when he heard her scream. He tended to sleep naked and he didn’t want to think about what she might be grabbing for leverage if he’d shown up in the buff.
He swore as his feet hit the driveway, snow instantly soaking into his socks and freezing his feet. The crazy redhead’s smooth bare legs dangled in front of his eyes, red high heels hanging off her toes, but she was just going to have to wrap herself in that idiotic veil to keep warm.
Looking for someplace reasonably sheltered but away from the potential spread of the fire—which wouldn’t be an issue if he could get back in there and stop the damn thing before it spread—Will jogged across the driveway to the carport, bouncing Miss Crazy as he went. His Jeep and Ms. Gregg’s Subaru were parked close to the building, but beneath a tarp under the carport sat a massive sprawl of classic American machinery—his baby. A shiny red Thunderbird convertible. The top didn’t go up anymore and one of these summers he was going to rebuild the engine, but right now it seemed like the perfect place to park his armful of trouble.
Will flipped Miss Crazy off his shoulder, tossing her onto the tarp where the backseat would be. She yelped as she sank down into it in a tangle of tulle, one of her little red heels flopping off. He jabbed a finger at her. “Stay.”
A hard sprint back into the building. The breaker box was in the basement laundry room. He’d found it the day he moved in. Will bolted down the stairs, throwing open the laundry door, and cursed a blue streak. The entire side of the room where he remembered the breaker box was blocked with boxes. The owner was using the space for storage. By the time he got back to the breaker box, half the building could be gone.
“Fuck.” Will ripped the fire extinguisher off the wall. At least the less-than-stellar landlord had kept the damn thing full. It was a solid weight in his arms as he took the stairs two at a time.
Back in the second floor apartment, the fire still hadn’t moved beyond that one wall—though it was twice the size it had been. Black smoke rose to the ceiling.
Why the hell hadn’t the smoke alarm gone off?
“Ms. Gregg?” he shouted, with no reply. If she was up in the loft, she was getting a lungful of smoke. He wanted to check to make sure she wasn’t unconscious up there, but seconds might count when it came to saving her home and he’d just have to have faith that even the drunk veil lady would remember the presence of another person in the house.
Hopefully Miss Crazy was using that cell phone to call help.
There weren’t many house fires in Tuller Springs. He’d been on the volunteer fire brigade for three years now and only three times had he been called on to save someone’s home. Other than that it was mostly helping out with regional wildfires and responding to false alarms at the Lodge when some high
-off-his-ass snowboarder yanked the alarm or caught his sheets on fire. And in all the fires he’d dealt with, he’d never been the senior man on the scene, never alone, always just keeping a calm head and following orders.
But this was different. This was all him.
He laid down a blanket of foam, liberally coating the wall and hoping like hell that the fire ran out before the canister did.
It felt like hours, but it must have been only a matter of seconds before the scent of the chemical foam replaced the scent of smoke and the last of the flames disappeared beneath the white.
“You did it.”
Will spun around at the awed murmur. Miss Crazy stood on the landing outside the broken door, snow clinging to her feet in her little red heels, though she had gotten rid of the boa constrictor veil.
Of course she couldn’t stay where he put her. “Jesus, lady, do you have a death wish or something?”
“You told me to call the fire department.” She held up the cell phone. “I can’t call on this phone. Besides, you put it out.”
Shit. He must have tossed her a cell with a dead battery. This was why people needed freaking land lines. Since it looked like she wasn’t going to wait outside like a good little civilian… “Come here. Make yourself useful.”
She rushed forward so quickly she tripped over her feet a bit. He caught her with one hand, shifting the fire extinguisher to the other. He frowned down at her huge black pupils, framed by thin lines of blue. “Have you been drinking?”
“Oh yes.”
“Before the fire?”
“Mm-hmm. I’ve never seen it go whoosh like that before.”
Great. Now he was going to need to get the arson investigator out here. But first things first.
He slapped the fire extinguisher into her hands. “Do you know how to use one of these?”
“Yes?”
He frowned. “Is that a question?”
“Well, I mean, I know in theory, but I’ve never actually done the spray spray thing.”
Jesus. She was drunk off her ever-loving ass. He put her hands where they needed to be. “The visible flames are gone, but I think the fire was electrical and it might still be spreading in the walls. If you see sparks, aim at them and squeeze this. Got it? And if it looks bad, you get your ass out of the building, understand?”
She nodded, way too dazed for his comfort, but he wouldn’t be relying on her for long.
Leaving Miss Crazy in charge of the fire extinguisher, he scrambled up the steps to the loft, quickly checking that there was no one up there unconscious from smoke inhalation. Empty. “Where’s Ms. Gregg?” he called to Miss Crazy as he descended.
“I’m Ms. Gregg,” she said, without relaxing her vigilance with the extinguisher.
Will’s feet hit the floor at the base of the steps with a thud that sent realization shuddering up through his bones. Of course she was. If he hadn’t been trying to save her crazy ass maybe he would have put the pieces together himself. He didn’t know why he’d assumed his neighbor was a senior citizen when he moved in—maybe the lack of visitors other than her students, or the early-bird special hours she seemed to keep. He’d never even seen the woman, but it had never occurred to him for a second that she might be a hot little redhead in her twenties with more than a few screws loose.
Or maybe that was just the alcohol talking.
“Keep watching that wall,” he told her. “And shout if anything happens.”
“Where are you going?” she asked as he started for the door.
He kept one ear open as he jogged back down to the basement, but didn’t hear a peep from the lovely Ms. Gregg. Hopefully that wasn’t a sign that she’d passed out from alcohol poisoning. With that lovely thought as motivation to hurry, he fought his way through the boxes, finally managing to shove a path to the circuit-breaker box. He flipped all the switches, shutting off the electricity for the entire building. If a short at the light switch had caused the fire, he didn’t want to risk running power anywhere until the entire house was checked out.
Ms. Gregg squealed when the house suddenly went dark and he cursed to himself. “Sorry!” He shouted up toward her place. “Should have warned you about that.”
She should still be able to see a little, thanks to the lights illuminating the mountain for night skiing. On his way back up, he took a quick detour into his own apartment, grabbing a flashlight and his cell phone, already dialing emergency dispatch as he jogged back up the stairs to pretty little Ms. Gregg.
Her door was hanging strangely, listing to one side and he realized he’d busted one of the hinges and cracked the wood when he kicked it in earlier.
Ms. Gregg was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the low light, the fire extinguisher resting in the circle of her legs as she stared at the ashy black patch on her wall.
He’d seen other people in the aftermath of fires. Stunned. Horrified.
She just looked puzzled. Like she couldn’t quite figure out how the burned area had appeared on her wall.
Will quickly filled the dispatcher in on the situation and then tucked his phone into his back pocket when he knew the cavalry was on the way. The fire could spark up again. Technically they should wait outside, but it was cold and she wasn’t exactly dressed for the elements.
He slowly approached the woman who had unknowingly serenaded him for months.
“Ms. Gregg?”
“I think you saved my life,” she said softy, without looking away from the wall.
“It wasn’t a big fire.”
She looked at him then, all big blue eyes and pale, pale skin in the dim light from the mountain and the moonlight. He frowned. She might be going into shock.
He knelt down in front of her. “How are you feeling? Dizzy? Lightheaded?”
She blinked. “Who are you? Are you a real person? I was freaking out and then wham, there you were.”
“I’m Will. I live downstairs. I heard a scream.”
“I’m Caitlyn. I don’t remember screaming, but it sounds like something I would do if my house suddenly decided to burn to the ground with me in it.”
He gave a half-hearted laugh at her attempt at humor.
“How did you know what to do?” she asked, staring at him so steadily he began to think she wasn’t in shock after all.
“Tuller Springs is too small to have a standing fire department, but I volunteer along with some of the other citizens. We’re trained to contain fires until the big boys from Aspen can get their asses out here.”
“I’m lucky you were here,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
He settled down on the floor next to her. “No problem. I figure I owe you for all the free concerts.”
It was hard to tell in the low light, but he thought she blushed. “You can hear me?”
“I’m developing quite a taste for Classical music.”
Now he was sure she was blushing, her gaze flicked down. “I have a damper pedal. So it wouldn’t be so loud. I can’t use it when my students are here, but when it’s just me—”
“No. I love hearing it.”
Her eyes lifted. “Oh.” Then her blush grew even more heated and she couldn’t hold his gaze. “What happens now?”
“The rest of my guys are on their way to make sure the fire is really out. Then there’ll be an investigator from Denver to tell us what started the fire and an electrician to make sure the house is safe. Do you have some place to stay tonight?”
“I have to leave? But my piano…”
“Is it insured?”
“Well, yes, but…”
“I’m sure you love it like family, but it’s an instrument. No instrument is worth dying for. Do you have someone you can stay with tonight?”
“Yes.” The word was whisper soft.
“Hey.” He hooked one finger under her chin, tipping her face up so he could see those dark blue eyes again. “Hopefully we’ll both get to come home soon and you can serenade me some more, but better safe than sorry
, right?”
She wet her lips, staring at his eyes and giving a minute nod. Then her gaze slid, heavy and slow, down to linger on his mouth.
And suddenly he couldn’t help himself from looking at hers. The curve of it. The lush, rosy temptation.
His breath grew shallow. And damn if hers wasn’t coming short as well.
He hadn’t really looked at a woman in so long. Hadn’t been interested. Hadn’t wanted. Not like this. Attraction hit him like a mule kick to the gut. Suddenly her pale, soot-stained skin looked pearlescent in the lights from the mountain. Her eyes were huge and vulnerable—but not weak, just hopeful, like everything she had ever wanted was piled into each look and it all hung on him. She looked at him like he was a god or a genie—or the angel she’d called him when he first appeared—someone who had the power to make all her dreams come true if he just said yes.
And damn if he didn’t want to say yes to her. He didn’t know how a man would ever be able to tell this woman no. Not when she was looking at him like that.
His free hand lifted of its own volition to tuck a stray auburn curl behind her ear, the little brush of her skin against his finger impossibly soft. And still she watched him. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. She listed forward, just an inch, her eyelids going to half-mast.
“Caitlyn…” He breathed her name like a caress, soft and inviting, but it broke the spell.
She flinched, blinking rapidly, jerking back. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I—” She shook her head, hard.
“No.” He came to his feet in one movement, occupying himself with the flashlight. “No, it was me.” He yanked his cell phone out of his pocket, extending it down to her. “You should call your friend. It’s late.”
“Right.” She took the phone, blushing, looking down, whispering again, “Right.”
The wail of the approaching siren sounded like salvation on multiple levels.
Chapter Nine
Caitlyn groaned at the throbbing in her skull, then coughed as the groan shredded against the rawness in her throat, then whimpered as the volume of the coughing made the jackhammer in her head pick up the pace.
