The Fireman Who Loved Me

by Jennifer Bernard

  “Let’s get married. Right now. I called up a friend who has one of those online minister’s licenses, and he’s on his way over.”

  “What?” She looked desperately at her computer as if the entire Internet had betrayed her.

  “Aren’t you the one who said it could be like it almost was? We could be a family?”

  “Yeeess. But—”

  “But what? You’ve been living here like you intend to stay. You know I’m not the kind to live in sin.”

  “But Harry . . .” He found her alarm almost comical. “We aren’t living in sin. We’re like roommates. We aren’t doing anything.”

  “I am aware of that.”

  “Are you saying you want to start having sex? But the baby . . .”

  “Exactly, the baby. At some point the baby might want brothers and sisters.”

  “We can worry about that when the time comes, can’t we?” Her eyes darted to the side, checking her computer once again.

  “He’s not there,” said Brody.

  “Who isn’t . . . what . . . what do you mean?”

  With one part of his mind, he knew he shouldn’t be enjoying this quite so much. On the other hand, it felt too damn good to finally be free of Rebecca and his need to protect her. He knew the exact moment things had changed for him—when Melissa crouched over Rodrigo’s battered body, while Rebecca clung to him in fake terror. He’d known it was fake. He’d pulled enough people out of danger to know what real terror felt like when he held it in his arms. How dare she use a beaten boy to gain sympathy for herself?

  At that moment, everything had looked very clear. It wasn’t the first time Rebecca had tried to manipulate him. The other times it had succeeded. Now he knew the truth.

  Things hadn’t worked with Rebecca because she was utterly, completely selfish. Even if he never saw Melissa again, she’d shown him the truth. He could have a happy personal life—but not with Rebecca.

  Now his ex-wife was looking everywhere but at him, like a child caught stealing candy, and he couldn’t help enjoying it.

  “Thorval isn’t there. That’s why he isn’t e-mailing you, and why you aren’t having online sex with him at the moment.”

  Rebecca’s jaw dropped open. “You heard us?”

  “No windows,” he said apologetically, with a gesture at the open frame.

  “It wasn’t anything . . . we just got carried away . . . It’s safer than actual sex . . . better for the baby. And you didn’t seem interested. If you are . . .” Rebecca let her feathery robe fall open just a bit.

  “I’m not.”

  “Then why . . . why are you doing this?” Rebecca snatched the robe closed, and a few feathers drifted into the air. With her eyes filled with tears, she looked like a lost duckling. In the old days, he would have been at her feet, petting her, comforting her, soothing her. But those days were over.

  A knock at the front door made her jump. “Harry, I can’t . . . I can’t marry you.”

  “Really? Why not?” he said, moving toward the front door. “The minister’s here, ready to go.”

  “Because I don’t . . . because I love . . . Oh, you’re being horrible! I hate you! You have no compassion, no sensitivity, no . . .” Her voice followed him as he left the room. When he returned, followed by a giant man with bleached-tip hair and thick muscles bulging through his tank top, she broke off from her long list of his failings. “Thorval!”

  She leaped to her feet and launched herself into the giant’s arms, with Brody stepping aside just in time. Did he feel a tiny pang at the joy in her face, and the way the two of them clung to each other? To be perfectly honest with himself, he did—a pang of regret that he and Rebecca had never been able to make each other happy like that.

  “Lady B, boy did I miss you, baby.” The blond man covered her face with surprisingly delicate kisses.

  “Me too, T, me too! But how did you know? Why’d you come here?”

  “Your ex here called me up. Dude’s not such a bad guy, you know.”

  “Thanks,” said Brody. They both ignored him.

  “He found some little sayings for me. What’d you call ’em? Little quotes, you know, words of wisdom through olden times.”

  “You mean like affirmations?” Rebecca wrapped her legs around his waist, like a feathery vine around an oak tree. She leaned back to peer at his face.

  “Ding-ding! That’s the word, my petite. She’s a whiz with words,” he told Brody. “These affirmation thingies really did a number on me. Especially the one about the ocean, because of my expertise in water sports. Helped me work through some issues, you dig? I’m not scared about the baby anymore. Be as the wave, baby, be as the wave.”

  “Oh T, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t care. I love you so!” She snuggled her head between his broad shoulder and his chin, and he nuzzled the top of her head.

  “Me too, baby, me too. I’m never letting you scamper away from me again. Me and the baby are going to be tight as a couple of sand fleas. I already got a boogie board for the little guy. He’s going to be the Tiger Woods of surfing. That’s another thing your ex thought of.”

  “Harry, you’re a genius! How can I ever thank you?”

  “You don’t have to thank me.”

  In Brody’s pocket, his pager jumped. He was off-shift, damn it. The station could survive for a few more minutes without him. He ignored the beeping.

  “I know! T, why don’t we name the baby after Harry! I always liked the name Harry,” said Rebecca.

  “Sure, babe, whatever you—”

  “No, no,” said Brody hastily. “I absolutely refuse. Besides, what’s your last name, Thorval?”

  “Mats. In Swedish, it means ‘gift of God.’ ”

  “Harry Mats, Rebecca?”

  “Okay, maybe that’s not such a great idea,” she said quickly. “We’ll find another way to thank you.” She slid down from Thorval’s chest, and held a hand out to Brody.

  “There’s no need. I’m happy you’re happy.” But he took her hand anyway.

  “No hard feelings?”

  “No hard feelings.”

  “Will you go to Melissa now?”

  Brody pulled his hand away from hers. “Melissa’s with someone else now. An ex.”

  “Oh Harry. Exes aren’t always what they seem, you know.” And with a last peck on his cheek, she danced back into Thorval’s arms. “Take me home, you big kahuna.”

  As Thorval carried Rebecca over the threshold, like a wedding night in reverse, Brody heaved a sigh. Now he could get back to life as normal—or at least, normal before the appearance of Melissa. The station, his house, station, house.

  Again, his pager beeped.

  It had better be important. He pulled it out, and saw the flashing code that meant an emergency. Damn it! Running into the Airstream for his cell phone, he cursed himself every step of the way. The one time he ignored a page, of course it would be an emergency. What was he, some kind of rookie?

  Ryan answered his call on the first ring. “Captain, where are you? The McGuires’ house is on fire. Engine 1 and Truck 1 are already headed over there, but I knew you’d want to know . . . and Nelly McGuire said for me to page you, which I would have done anyway, because she said Melissa’s trapped inside the house . . .”

  Brody was already out the door, running at top speed for his truck. “My turnout’s at the station, can you get someone to take it to the house?” he yelled toward the phone, which he tossed into the passenger seat as he jerked the key in the ignition.

  “It’s already in the rig, Cap.”

  “Paramedics?”

  “On their way.”

  “Hoagie, you’re a champ.”

  “Drive safe, Cap.”

  As he reached over to end the call, he nearly swerved off the driveway. Idiot. He cou
ldn’t help Melissa if he wound up under a pile of metal on the side of the road. Just let her live, God, let her live.

  The “curse” flittered through his mind. Was this what happened when a San Gabriel firefighter dared to dream of real love? I won’t ask for anything else. Just let her live. I’m begging.

  A strange smell woke Melissa up. It had a bitter taste that made her throat tingle. At first it made her think of the nightmare she’d been having, in which City Hall was burning down with Brody inside. But as she came awake and her head cleared, the smell didn’t go away. In fact, it grew stronger.

  Smoke. Fire. Had Nelly set something on fire in the kitchen? It was time to get her grandmother to stop messing around with the burners. She jumped out of bed and raced downstairs, hollering as she went.

  “Grans! What happened? What’s burning?”

  No answer. Her grandmother’s bedroom door was open. She poked her head inside. It was empty. Nelly must be in the kitchen. But no one was in the kitchen, and no burners were on. She spotted an empty bowl in the sink. The oatmeal had been left out on the counter. So Nelly had been in the kitchen. Had there been a small fire, which Nelly had managed to put out? Melissa frowned at the stove. She saw no signs of charring or blackening on any of the burners.

  “Grans!” she called again. No answer.

  A sound caught her attention. A sound from outside the house—a kind of flickering, flapping sound, like a sail in the hissing wind. She padded through the kitchen to the door that opened onto the back porch. She opened it, screamed, and slammed it shut. A pillar of flame was shooting from the far end of the porch.

  And then it sank in. The back porch was on fire. And she had no idea where her grandmother was. “Grans!” she shouted, opening the door again to peer past the flames. On the backyard lawn, she made out the shape of a body, still and limp, wearing her grandmother’s lavender cardigan. A trail of smoldering ashes led from the fallen body to the porch.

  “Grans!” she screamed again. “Wake up!” Her stubborn grandmother must have tried to put out the fire by herself. Melissa darted out onto the porch, but a wall of heat stopped her. She ran back into the house. On her way through the house, she looked for the phone, but the cradle was empty. Her cell phone was all the way upstairs. No time to get it. Barefoot, still in her tank top and pajama bottoms, she raced out the front door and around the side of the house.

  It seemed to take forever to reach that still body. When she dropped down on the dew-soaked grass next to Nelly, pure fear streaked through her at the look she saw frozen on her grandmother’s face. She looked desperate, or maybe terrified. Her skin was a sickly shade of bluish-white. Melissa felt for a pulse in the loose folds of her neck. “Please, Nelly, please be alive, please be alive.” The heat from the flames on the porch shocked her. It felt like noon on a midsummer day, not the beginning of December.

  After an agonizing moment, she felt a faint pulse. “That’s good, Grans, you’re still alive. Now wake up, darling, we have to get you out of here.” She gently shook the frail body and patted Nelly on the cheek. But the unconscious woman showed no reaction. “That’s okay. That’s okay. I can carry you. You probably weigh about as much as a cat.”

  Nelly might look fragile, but she still weighed over a hundred and twenty pounds. Melissa gathered her in a hug, and tried to lift her to her feet, only to fall back to the ground under the weight. As the two of them tumbled to the grass, she spotted the cordless phone that had been hidden under Nelly’s body.

  “Oh, Grans, were you calling for help? Why didn’t you just yell for me?” She reached for the phone to call 911, but at that moment the flames on the porch gave a terrifying bellow. The fire had reached the roof. If the whole house caught fire, she and Nelly would never be able to get out of the backyard. She had to get Nelly out, now.

  Melissa left the phone alone and crouched next to her grandmother. She pulled Nelly onto her back, and tried to wrap her grandmother’s arms around her neck. But Nelly slipped off, almost rolling onto the hot ashes on the lawn. Melissa snatched her away from the ashes just in time.

  “Oh Grans, please,” she begged, panting. If this didn’t work, she’d have to drag Nelly across the lawn, and she didn’t know what kind of injuries her grandmother had. How did those firefighters do it? They just picked people up as if they weighed nothing. How did Brody do it?

  The thought of Brody gave her a burst of energy.

  “Let’s try this one more time, Grans.” This time, finally, blessedly, it worked, and she staggered to her feet with her grandmother draped over her back, cardigan-covered arms dangling over her shoulders. As a burst of heat fanned the backs of her legs, she took one step forward, then another, and then stumbled to her knees. She groaned with frustration and crawled forward on hands and knees across the grass, her grandmother on her back.

  The fire roared like an angry lion and the bitter smell felt thick in her throat. Her world shrank to the square of grass in front of her. If she could just get that far, then she could focus on the next square. But the next square of grass seemed so far away, and the voracious heat beat against her body. The world had no more air. Her body had no more strength. Everything shimmered and began to go black.

  Then, in the blurry darkness, a powerful figure appeared in silhouette. Manly and dynamic. A hero in action.

  It had to be a hallucination, of course. She would have laughed, if she’d had any air in her lungs. The poster from the bachelor auction was coming to her rescue.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Melissa felt her grandmother’s weight being lifted off her. Someone hauled her to her feet. “Come on,” said an urgent voice. “I’ll take her. Are you all right, Melissa?”

  Brody. Worried gray eyes scanned her. She blinked at him. The poster wasn’t a hallucination, or rather, Brody wasn’t a poster. She tried to clear her head. Where had he come from? It was as if he’d parachuted down from heaven.

  “Grans,” she croaked.

  “I’ve got her.” Brody turned his attention to the limp figure in his arms. He tilted her grandmother’s head back and listened closely to her breathing.

  For the first time, it occurred to Melissa there might be something wrong with Nelly, that she hadn’t just fainted from the heat and fear. Brody jogged to the street, carrying her grandmother lightly in his arms. She scrambled after him, wanting to ask what he’d heard, what might be wrong, but sobs choked her and she couldn’t get out a single word.

  A battalion of vehicles converged on the house in a circuslike blaze of flashing lights and clashing sirens. She recognized Engine 1, and saw Vader and Two jump out. “It’s the back porch and the roof,” she told Brody, as they reached the paramedic van. He gave one quick gesture to his crew, and they hauled the giant hoses around the side of the house.

  Brody seemed more concerned with Nelly. He handed her off to the paramedics, who immediately strapped her to a gurney in the back of the van and attached a battery of electrodes to her.

  “What is it? What’s wrong with Grans?” Panic gripped her. Everything was happening in some kind of time warp. It had probably been no more than a few minutes since she’d woken up to the smell of smoke, but it seemed like a lifetime.

  Brody put his hands on her shoulders and gently turned her to face him. “I think she may have had a heart attack. She’s alive, and the paramedics are giving her an injection to stop the clotting. But we won’t know the full situation until the doctors examine her.”

  Melissa stared at him in sheer bewilderment. “Heart attack?” she whispered. “Grans doesn’t have a bad heart. It’s her stomach.”

  “Her stomach?”

  “Pain in her stomach. But she says the doctor says it’s no big deal.”

  “Who’s her doctor?”

  Melissa searched her frazzled memory for the name. Nelly had always insisted on going to see the doctor by herself, and had rarely
even mentioned his name. “Daughtry,” she finally said. “Dr. Daughtry. I don’t know his first name.”

  Brody relayed this information to the paramedics, then drew her away from the van. “Are you okay? No injuries?”

  She shook her head. “No, nothing. It all happened so quickly. She’ll be okay, won’t she? She has to. You saved her, and you never lose anyone.”

  Brody didn’t answer directly. “You did really well, Melissa. You kept your head.”

  “No, no, I should have thought of a heart attack. I should have called 911. I should have—” She was interrupted by a rough shake from Brody that made her squeak.

  “Stop. She had already called the fire station. You did exactly the right thing. If you hadn’t gotten her away from the fire, she might have burned to death.” After one last squeeze, he drew away. “Now come on, hop in. I’ve got a sweater in here somewhere.”

  “Hop in?” she said, confused, as he led her by the hand toward his truck.

  “We’re going to the hospital. The ambulance is leaving.”

  “You’re coming with me?” Why did she feel so stupid, like she was one step behind everything he said?

  “Unless you have some objection.”

  She shook her head. Did Rebecca know he was here? But that was a stupid question. He was a firefighter. Just doing his job. “Don’t you have to stay and put out the fire?”

  “No, they’ve got it under control. It’s not much of a fire,” he said with a slight smile.

  She attempted a smile in response, but it felt more like a gruesome twisting of her mouth. “Could have fooled me. Is this what you guys call the growth phase?”

  “Very good. Been doing your homework. But don’t worry, it’ll be out before it gets to stage two.” Brody helped her into his truck. Which was a good thing, since her body felt so strange and heavy, as if she were walking through molasses. He draped a man’s crewneck sweater over her shoulders—it smelled like smoke, like everything else in his truck—then slid into the driver’s seat.

  “How come I feel so weird, like I can’t move right?” she asked him.