by Sey, Susan
But that wasn’t what turned her heart to stone in her chest.
“Oh good lord,” she breathed, panic shoving her to her feet. “Matty.”
Chapter 13
JAX WAS ON his feet before the floor stopped trembling. Addy was faster, though. Figure that. The rest of the family sat stunned, blinking at each other in the hollow silence the blast left behind, but Addy had already shot out of the dining room like an Olympic sprinter.
He snatched up his cell phone and dialed dispatch even as he raced after her. He ran through the foyer and out the open back door, skidded to a halt at the porch railing. He stared in horror at the carriage house, at the flames roaring from its roof, streaking high into the dark sky. His gut screamed for him to get to Matty and Addison — wherever the hell they were — but training was stronger than panic. He bolted instead for the mini-pumper which he’d parked nose-out at the far edge of the circle, poised as always for a quick get away.
Even as adrenaline stole his thoughts and lit up his brain, he yanked open the side compartment to retrieve a drop kit and an oxygen canister. He suited up with steady, automatic hands even as he and the dispatcher went back and forth in the staccato shorthand that had become his second language.
Trucks en route, paramedics responding. Thank Christ. But the truck from Hornby Harbor was eighteen miles out and his own staff was all volunteer. Which meant a scramble out of a day job and into firefighter mode. Which meant he could be on his own for the next two minutes or for the next fifteen.
Fifteen minutes was an eternity when it came to fire.
He’d do what he could. And he wouldn’t think, wouldn’t feel, wouldn’t panic until it was over.
He glanced at his mother and Georgie behind him on the veranda, staring at the flames, eyes huge, mouths open. Bianca ran down the steps to him as he fastened his helmet. He took — wasted? — a precious moment to snap, “Stay here. Both of you.” But he looked only at his mother. She was the one he had to convince. He stabbed a finger toward the house. “Get on that porch and stay there until I or a uniform tells you otherwise.” He leaned in, pinned her with a hard stare. “Don’t screw with me on this, Mom. Understand?”
She snapped her mouth shut, nodded once and went back to the porch.
Jax turned his back on her, threw an axe over his shoulder and ran toward the fire.
Addy stood frozen in the line of giant pines behind the blazing carriage house. Oily black smoke poured into the sky, clogging her throat and burning her nose. She panted through her mouth — lord, the smell — and squinted at the flames sprouting from the shingles. A white metal sphere squatted right in the heart of the blaze, ripped open and vomiting up a geyser of flames like some kind of hellish egg. Good heavens, was that a propane tank? How on earth had a propane tank ended up on top of the carriage house?
There were a limited number of answers to that question, too, but if pressed, she’d say it probably had something to do with Matty, his air rifle and the row of old propane tanks that had been peacefully rusting behind the garage for as long as she’d been in Devil’s Kettle. Especially given the way the kid was sprawled at the base of a massive pine tree, the gun still cradled in his arms.
She ran to him as he wobbled to his feet, blessedly whole and healthy if dirty and shocked.
“Matty!” She snatched him into her arms and hugged him fiercely. His collar bone was a sharp ridge under her cheek and the stock of the gun poked into her stomach. She drew back to look into his dear, dirty face. “Are you all right? What happened?”
He stared blankly past her to the fire that waved and undulated on the roof like prairie grass on a windy day. “The turkeys came back. I got my—” He broke off. Jiggled the air rifle in his hands. “And then—” He shook his head. “Oh my God, Addy. The garage.”
She followed his gaze over her shoulder to the carriage house. “It’s just stuff, Matty,” she said. “You’re safe, and that’s all that—”
Matters. She was going to say you’re all that matters but horrified realization stopped the words in her throat. He was all that mattered, she told herself. Keeping him safe, keeping him happy, giving him the chance to grow up like a normal kid and not Diego 2.0? That was the most important thing here, and she’d go to war for it if she had to. But love didn’t win wars; ammunition did. And hers was burning down with the carriage house.
“Okay, I want you to stay here.” She gave him a little shake and waited until his eyes drifted to hers. “Matty. Stay here. Got it?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed and he said, “Stay here. Got it.” His knees folded and he planted his butt on the ground, skinny arms draped over his knees, chin on his forearms, gun on his lap as he stared at the rapidly disappearing roof.
She eyed the flaming shingles herself, then squinted at the carriage house’s back door now hanging drunkenly on its hinges. She had no idea what the ramifications were, structurally speaking, of a flaming propane tank being catapulted onto a garage roof. The shingles were disappearing at an alarming rate, but so far the interior looked relatively flame-free.
Good thing, too, because she was going in there.
She said a brief prayer — she didn’t know to whom — then bolted inside before she could think better of it.
It was dark and oppressively hot but she could still see the cars under a greasy blanket of smoke at the far end of the space, nearest the rolling doors. The fourth stall — Joe’s once upon a time — had been allowed to catch all the household junk for the better part of fourteen years, and that was where Addy raced. Fire clawed at the ceiling above her. She could hear it even if she couldn’t see it yet, gnawing and smacking its lips on the roof like some ravenous beast trying to eat its way inside. Panic made her hands fast and slippery as she shoved some old lumber aside and hurdled a tool box. Or tried to. It caught the toe of her clog and dropped her to one knee. Pain radiated all the way up to her hip, bright and hot as the fire above. It was noticeably cooler there on the floor, though, so she didn’t bother getting up.
She scrabbled ahead on her hands and knees, toward the stack of old doors leaning tip-tilted against the far wall. She reached them and leapt to her feet, tore at them with shaking hands. She threw them to the ground one by one until finally she found it sandwiched between a couple of old closet doors — the plain brown folio that held her own personal hell. The ugliest thing she’d ever encountered, experienced or — God help her — owned. Diego’s version of an insurance policy. His last little joke on her.
The beast on the roof tore through the ceiling with a roar and she cried out as flames raced hungrily along the beams above her. Sparks showered down, melted holes in her fleece jacket and stung her arms and shoulders. Smoke poured in like a flood, shoved the breath from her body and stole her sense of direction. Panic replaced the oxygen in her aching lungs but she clutched the oversized folio to her chest, guessed for the door and ran.
She crashed headlong into something solid and unyielding. Her knees tried to fold in blind terror and then she recognized Jax. She’d run straight into the brick wall of his chest. Gratitude rushed through her in a wave so intense she went the rest of the way to her knees. Jax dropped the muscular axe over his shoulder and caught her by the upper arms. He yanked her upright, his eyes wild and furious behind a light plastic mask. He didn’t bother speaking, just snatched the folio from her hands and ripped open his coat. He spread the fire-proof jacket like a great sheltering wing and shoved her under it. Then she was cool and safe, her nose filled with hot plastic and that delicious Jax-smell she’d only recently discovered but already equated with safety.
She stumbled but it didn’t matter. She knew he wouldn’t let her fall, and he didn’t.
Jax hauled ass away from the burning garage, Addy nestled against his side like something newborn and fragile. He doubted her feet hit the ground more than once or twice as he dragged her toward the mini-pumper at a forced march, but he didn’t care. The sight of those brave shoulders and that curl
y head disappearing into a burning building had unleashed within him a terror the likes of which he’d never even imagined. And he was pretty familiar with terror, given that he did burning buildings for a living.
But he’d found her. Thank God, he’d found her. And the instant she was in his arms — warm, sweet, alive — he’d discovered a gratitude as astounding as his terror. The kind of gratitude that tried to close his throat, unstring his knees, open his heart. He wanted to laugh, to shout, to roar. Because holy hell, she was everything that mattered, and she was alive.
And now that he knew it, he was going to kill her.
He nodded tersely to his crew, to the men he’d known most of his life who’d dropped everything and raced up the hill to save his family’s garage.
“Anybody else in there?” Mason asked. They’d brought the big rig, and he and Frank were wrestling a hose into place while Graham clambered to the top of the engine to position the floodlights.
He didn’t trust himself to speak yet so he just waved a flat hand in front of his face shield, giving them the all-clear. He glanced at the veranda where his mother and Georgie were clucking over Matty. The boy sat on the porch swing between them, his eyes blank and a little shocky. He shot to his feet when he saw Jax, scattering the women like autumn leaves, a question urgent on his face. Jax gave him a brief thumbs up and relief hit the kid in a visible wave. He sagged back down onto the swing in a boneless heap. Bianca flew to his side, put her arm around him and murmured to his hair. Georgie headed for the porch steps, though, murder in her wide-awake eyes.
Oh, hell, no. Nobody was going to yell at Addy right now but him.
Jax stabbed a furious finger at the porch. Stay.
Georgie froze, startled, but she stayed.
Jax marched Addy to the far edge of the circle and stopped by the mini-pumper. They weren’t as far from the fire as he’d like but Mason and Frank already had the first stream of foam arcing onto the roof with a sizzling howl. He could see the porch from here, too, so he could keep an eye on the rest of the family if they decided to get into yet more trouble. A fresh wave of fury tried to overtake him but he shoved it down. He’d deal with Matty later. With his mom. With all of them. Right now, though, he had to shout Addy out of her goddamn death wish.
He peeled open his coat and she blinked up at him like a baby bird, all giant eyes, loopy curls, and shaking hands. His own hands were none too steady, he realized grimly.
“Can you stand on your own?” he asked gruffly.
She didn’t answer but she didn’t buckle to the gravel when he stepped away, either. He propped the over-sized folio he’d taken from her against the mini-pumper, then pulled off his gloves, jacket and face shield. Procedure, he reminded himself. Protocol. Rules. They existed for a reason. So he piled his gear neatly on the ground, then took her by the shoulders and dipped his head to check her pupils.
Equal and reactive, thank God, but he was shocked at how fragile the bones of her shoulders felt under his cupped palms. He’d spent years noticing everything about her whether he wanted to or not. How had he missed the fact that the girl was built like a damn china doll?
Fury drained away, leaving him hollowed out and weary. Worried.
“Addy, hey. Right here. Look at me. Are you all right?”
“Jax?” She blinked one more time then her mossy green eyes finally focused. “Oh, hey, Jax. Matty blew up the carriage house.”
“Yeah. I saw.”
“I had to go in.”
Fresh terror swirled through him, anger right behind it. “Not sure I agree with you on that one.”
“You saved me.”
“Well, I couldn’t let you die. I’m planning to kill you later.”
Her dimples flickered. “For being stupid?”
“For giving me a goddamn heart attack.”
“A heart attack?” That seemed to confuse her, and he blinked at her, startled. He’d kept her at arm’s length, sure, but did she really think he wouldn’t care if she died? “I’m sorry, Jax. I didn’t mean to—”
“Shut up, Addison.”
“Oh, but I—”
He hauled her into his arms. Just yanked her right into his chest and nestled his chin into the wild chop of her hair. It took all his concentration to breathe through the vicious ache of gratitude in his throat and the mortifying sting of tears in his eyes. Because, God, he could have lost her today. She could have died but here she was in his arms instead, whole, healthy, and beautifully, gorgeously alive. Smoke and sunshine filled his nostrils and the soft, warm weight of her filled his arms and all he could think was finally. Oh, God, finally.
He’d never before regretted fighting what he felt for Addy. It was pretty clear she was happy playing Diego’s Angel, and he had better things to do than tilt at windmills. Or so he’d told himself. But in that throat-closing moment of pure terror when he’d watched her disappear into the gaping black mouth of their burning garage, he regretted with every cell in his body that he had no idea whether her dimples were as soft as they looked. He’d kept his hands to himself for four long years, and why? Loyalty to his brother at first, then later respect for Addy’s grief. Okay, fine. But lately? Habit. And maybe to keep the peace with a mother who didn’t know the meaning of the word. But screw it. Life was too goddamn short.
“Jax?” She squirmed in his arms. “A little air?”
“Oh. Sorry.” He forced himself to open his arms and she stepped away. He fought the urge to snatch her up again. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I think.” She held her arms out to the sides and inspected them, as if her eyes could tell her something her nervous system couldn’t. A vision of her running toward the fire chased itself through his mind again and when left-over terror burst into fury he let it. Fury he knew what to do with. Fear? Not so much.
“Damn it, Addison,” he snapped. “What were you thinking?”
She looked away, her face dirty, her eyes as green as the pine forest. “I—”
“You know what? Don’t bother. I know what you were thinking.”
“You do?” Her eyes snapped back to his, wide and wary. “What?”
“Nothing. Because thinking people don’t run into burning buildings.” He rubbed the center of his chest, as if he could settle the panicked thud of his heart with his bare hands. “What the hell was so important that you’d risk your life for it?”
She held out her hands in mute appeal, in apology, and his rage faltered. Damn, she looked fragile. All huge bruised eyes and soft pale skin. Throw in the dirty face and the loopy curls and, God, who could stay mad at Addy?
He stepped forward to take her outstretched hands but her eyes flickered just past his shoulder and he realized she wasn’t reaching for him. She didn’t want forgiveness. She didn’t want a hug. She wasn’t sorry. She was reaching for whatever she’d risked her life to pull out of the flaming garage.
“That?” Fury spiked higher inside him as he followed her gaze toward the folio. “A painting? You risked your life for a painting?”
Chapter 14
“PAINTINGS,” ADDY SAID warily. “Plural.”
“Oh, that definitely makes it better,” Jax snapped. “So long as it’s more than one. Dying for just one would be silly. But paintings, plural. Well, that’s different.”
Jax wasn’t tall and lanky like the rest of his family. He wasn’t beautiful like the rest of his family. But what he lacked in elegance he more than made up for in raw, blunt strength. In width and power and force. Addy didn’t notice it that often because he was so friendly and nice. To other people, anyway. But she noticed it now. How could she miss it with him looming over her like an enraged angel, all hard jaw and fierce eyes? Fighting fires clearly brought out Jax’s inner alpha male. Big time. Wow.
“Well, then. Let’s see it, shall we?” He snatched up the folio he’d propped against the truck and went to work on the tangle of string that held it closed. “Let’s see what you risked your goddamn life for, Addison.”
>
“Don’t.” Her hands knotted into fists at her sides.
“Don’t what?” He gave up on unwinding the string and just snapped it off. “This?”
He jerked open the flap and shoved a hand into the thin cardboard packet and Addy said, “Yes, that. Don’t.”
He hesitated for the first time since he’d snatched her off her feet in the flaming garage. “Why not?”
“Because they’re mine,” she said desperately. “They’re private.”
“They’re private?” He laughed, a sharp, startling bark. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Addy. You shredded my private all to hell when you ran into a burning building. Why should your private get special treatment?”
“I don’t want special treatment,” she snapped. “I just don’t want—” She broke off. “Wait, your private? How did I shred your private?”
“Because I thought you were going to die!”
She stared, open-mouthed, transfixed by the raw fury in his face. Fury and something else she had no name for but that nailed her clogs to the gravel drive and had her heart knocking inside her chest. “I didn’t die,” she managed. “I’m fine. Jax, I’m—”
“And it occurred to me,” he interrupted grimly, “that if you died, I’d never get the chance to do this.”
“Do what?”
“This.”
He seized her upper arms, dragged her into that hard, hot body and kissed her.
Mercy, did he kiss her.
One big hand speared up into her hair and his hot, seeking mouth caught hers, sending her brain into a vicious tailspin. A bolt of white-hot shock ripped through her, knocking whatever was left of her reality right off its foundation.
He wound her curls around his fist and lifted her straight into the raw demand of that kiss. Shock disappeared in a mushroom cloud of nuclear heat, leaving behind the bare, bleached bones of something sharp and painful. Need? Hunger? She hadn’t felt either in so long, she wasn’t sure she recognized them, or could even tell the difference. It hardly mattered, though, because her brain had barely registered need when he shifted gears.
