Hell's Hilltop

by J. A. Dennam

  Ty hesitated, let the suspense build. “No more butcher knives.”

  When it sank in, a bright, hopeful smile transformed her beautiful face into an angelic vision that stole his breath. This was a woman who was finally, truly happy. Unable to stand the distance any longer, he dipped and captured that smile with his mouth.

  Her arms wrapped tightly around his neck as she kissed him back with matched hunger. Ty loved the feel, wanted nothing more than to consume every inch of her that very moment. Desire, raw and demanding, rushed to his groin and all but set him on fire. He groaned against the only pain he felt anymore. The pain of having to leave her.

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” Rena gasped against his mouth. “I forgot about your wounds.” As if ashamed, she grabbed his suspenders in both hands and buried her face in his neck. “I promise I’ll never hurt you again.”

  Though she’d misinterpreted his pain, Ty absorbed the reverence of her words. When he finally drew back, it was to find her eyes glassy with emotion.

  Oh, man, he was in deep. Although he’d escaped her flames, he now found himself in danger of drowning.

  “It was my own damn fault I got blown up,” he admitted for the first time. “I should have moved you all out sooner, but you couldn’t take your eyes off that fire… and I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

  Her heavy lashes closed briefly and, when they opened, they were bright with longing. “Keep saying things like that, Ty Ferguson, and I just may fall in love with you.”

  The fact she even uttered that profound four-letter word bespoke of her bravery; a word that usually signaled the time for a hasty retreat on Ty’s part. But this time it promised something so spectacular, something so wonderful… it could change the course of his life. “I’ll hold you to that, Rena Hellberg.”

  With a sigh of regret, he touched his forehead to hers just before lifting off. “My shift ends at eight,” he informed as he walked backward. “Don’t burn down my house.”

  Rena moved around the bookshelf to watch him go. “Can I make you dinner if I promise not to burn down your house?”

  Apparently he’d need to explain the twenty-four hour shift thing. “That would be eight o’clock in the morning. And, honey, food will be the last thing on my mind.”

  Her lips moved into a sultry smile.

  As an afterthought, Ty leaned back through the door. “But feel free to burn the calendar.”

  EPILOGUE

  Halloween. A favorite holiday in the Ferguson household, mainly because one could dress up, deck out the house and scare the crap out of people without being arrested.

  At least, that was Ty’s excuse.

  Rena suspected it was more of a way for him to appease that inner child she’d come to know so well. Nothing obnoxious or immature, just a healthy need to play. Enjoy life to the fullest. It was one of the things she loved most about him.

  Since Ty’s neighborhood was a notorious hotspot for trick-or-treating, the gang was all there, enjoying the unseasonably warm weather over a hot grill, cold beverages, and easy conversation. It was also Derek’s first holiday with his son, which made it even more special for everyone.

  The last of the guests filed through the door as Rena and Ty busied themselves in the kitchen. Greetings were issued from a distance since the Cahills were stuck on the welcome mat with a doting aunt.

  “It’s such a little bump for twenty-five weeks,” Melanie crooned, hands flattened over Danny’s growing belly. “It must be a girl. I was twice this big at this stage.”

  Rena shook her head while she continued to fill treat bags with candy. Since her hair was gathered in a messy up-do, Ty leaned in, brushed a kiss along her exposed neck. “It’ll only get worse until they cave.”

  Melanie straightened and sent a droll look in his direction. “I wasn’t trying to bully them into finding out the sex, I was just making an observation.”

  Danny laughed while Austin took the jackets they’d brought for later. “It won’t happen, Mel. We want to be surprised.”

  “Anticipation is highly overrated,” Melanie mumbled under her breath, clearly vexed at having been shut down again.

  Ty moved to the back door with tongs and a plate of uncooked hotdogs. “Derek and Mac are fighting over the barbeque again,” he said on his way out. “Stand down, gentlemen, the fire expert is coming!”

  Austin entered the kitchen with a tray of deviled eggs which Rena immediately relieved him of. He grabbed a soda from the cooler and looked around. “Boy, you guys really get into Halloween, don’t you?”

  The place was strategically littered with strings of pumpkin lights, fake cobwebs and giant plastic spiders. The motion-activated ghost hanging by the front entryway went wild again when Danny moved off the welcome mat.

  “There are a lot of kids in this neighborhood,” Rena explained without apology. “Ty said his house gets bombarded every year, so he decorates inside and out.”

  “We noticed,” Danny said dryly, taking the bottled water Austin handed her. “We got sprayed by your fog machine on the way to the front door.”

  “I’m going out back to lend my expertise,” Austin murmured against her hair. “Coming?”

  Danny, who cutely showed off her bump in a casual striped Henley, shook her head and settled onto one of the bar stools. “I’ve had enough testosterone battles dealing with your salvage crew this week.”

  Austin kneaded her shoulders from behind. “Don’t you mean our salvage crew?”

  A groan escaped as she leaned into his brief massage. “Only when they behave. And, as much as our child and I love you, we need some girl time.”

  “Ha!” Melanie burst out. “You see? She said girl time.”

  After a good eye-roll, Austin planted a kiss on Danny’s awaiting mouth, then joined the others outside.

  Danny watched him go with pure lust in her eyes until the door closed behind him. “We’ve been married over two years and I still get palpitations when he struts like that.” She popped a pretzel into her mouth and turned to the women. “So, who carved the vomiting pumpkin?”

  Rena hid her smile while she continued her chore of filling treat bags. “Ty did. According to him, the grosser the better.”

  “Kids love gross stuff,” Melanie said, settling back down behind her own treat-bag station. “Ty would know since he’s like one big kid himself.”

  Rena grinned. “I know, right?”

  “Look at you,” Danny drawled, chewing another pretzel. “You’re glowing more than I am.”

  Melanie sighed, added more bags to the tray. “She’s in love with a guy she hated at first sight. How romantic is that?”

  “Is she?” Danny asked way too innocently.

  Rena fixed her with an ardent look. “Very much in love.”

  In response, Danny swiveled around, studied the fireman’s pole by the stairs and sighed. “Damn. Darla would have loved this place. I mean, there’s a stripper pole. Right. There.”

  The back door opened and closed, letting in a brief burst of hilarity from outside. Derek passed by, holding a giggling DJ by the ankles, a black Shepherd dog hot on his heals.

  “What’s going on?” Danny asked.

  “Poo-poo!” DJ squealed, one of his favorite new words.

  “Figured I could use the law of gravity to buy us more time,” Derek said on his way to the bathroom.

  Danny reared back on her stool. “Seriously, Derek? I don’t think it works that way.”

  Melanie rolled her eyes and briefly clasped Rena’s hand in a gesture of camaraderie. “Some day we’ll compare notes on which one of us has the bigger kid.” She put down her sack. “I better go with them.”

  The thought struck Rena that Derek looked much different than when she first saw him hovering over her prison bed three months prior. It wasn’t because he was drug free, or that his appearance had changed. He always kept in peak physical condition, a requirement of their job.

  Maybe he looked different because his only current obstacle
was keeping his son in a clean pair of drawers. Yes, that was definitely it. He was relaxed. Happy. Free to live the life of his choosing.

  Now that she and Danny were alone, Rena dug through the candy bowl and spoke low. “Everything still going good?”

  Since Chewie had been banned from the bathroom, he pranced around the new arrival for a chance at a proper hello. Danny reached down, gave the dog a good rubbing. “I told you there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I can’t help it,” Rena said with a shudder. “You took a pretty hard hit up there. And the fact you aren’t living in a plastic bubble means Austin still doesn’t know what you did.”

  Danny’s look shadowed a bit. “He saw my bruises that night. I convinced him I lost my balance. After that, I was banned from anything more than two feet off the ground, but it was better than the alternative.”

  Rena could imagine.

  “Listen,” Danny continued, fidgeting as if the words were physically painful to say. “I never thanked you for not telling on me. Falling is one thing, but—”

  “You can thank me by staying out of physical altercations,” Rena chastised. “At least while you’re pregnant.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “I got that, but it truly was a knee-jerk reaction. It’s not in me to stand by while someone else is being assaulted.”

  “That someone was me, Danny. Your stalker, remember?”

  “Who incidentally had a stalker of her own,” Danny reminded with a pointed pretzel stick. “And, you’re not so bad… when you aren’t trying to kill me.” The pretzel went into her mouth.

  All production came to a halt as Rena absorbed Danny’s words. Could it be the woman was actually moving past what happened between them? It was a strange relationship they shared. Not one they could call an actual friendship; more like a respectful understanding of the other, hampered only by the inability to forget. But Rena found encouragement in her last statement. Perhaps in time….

  Since it was still too early to knock on houses, everyone piled into the back yard where food was being gathered in the center of the long picnic table. The threat of rain was past, but a thick layer of cloud cover remained. Smoke billowed from the charcoal grill. Music flowed from outdoor speakers. Ty waved at the retired neighbor who had stepped out to water his plants.

  “What’s wrong?” said a voice beside her as Rena took in the entire scene. As she waved at the neighbor, too, she shook her head, released a long shaky breath. “Oh, same ol’ same ol’.”

  Crystal nodded, her nape-length hair having grown almost two inches since her liberation from IGP. “Yeah, it still hits me like that, too.”

  Rena and Crystal had visited their hilltop once since that fateful night Rafferty met his end. They paid their homage to the stars, thanked the Man upstairs for allowing them their second chance, remembered their family who sacrificed so much. Instead of two teenage girls sitting side-by-side, dangling their feet thirteen stories off the ground, they were grown women doing the very same thing.

  The atmosphere up there had changed for Rena, though. The memory of Rafferty’s horrifying sneak-attack was too fresh. Too violent. And the girls no longer needed Hell’s Hilltop as a symbol of hope since their dreams were finally coming true. So they’d said goodbye to their secret place with a vow to never look back.

  Rena glanced down at Crystal’s left hand, where Mac’s engagement ring sparkled with dignified elegance. “So, have you two set a date yet?”

  Crystal sipped lemonade from her glass, nodded. “We’re thinking some time in December. Didn’t want to have it too close to Mel and Derek’s wedding.”

  Which had been six weeks prior. “I think you’re safe.” Rena popped a potato chip into her mouth as she laid bundles of silverware on each plate.

  “So, when are you and Ty going to—”

  Rena cut her off with a wide-eyed look. She didn’t want talk of that kind bantered about when it was obvious Ty wasn’t ready to get married. “Let’s just focus on your wedding for now,” she murmured low, out of hearing range.

  “But you two looked so cute when you played that honeymooning couple in Guadalajara,” Crystal argued with an impish smile. “Mr. and Mrs. Jones. You really got into that role.”

  “The rings came off as soon as we hit the plane.”

  Though Rena couldn’t help but smile. They’d drawn out the hotel manager with obnoxious complaints about their room just long enough for Derek to break into the man’s office and abscond with his imprisoned seven-year-old son. It had been a bittersweet rescue, the boy having been severely abused since the day he’d been forcefully taken from his home against court order. But he was now back in the USA with his mother, and they were already working the next rescue scheduled for the weekend.

  “We’ll need Ty in Mexico,” Crystal said as Mac sidled up behind her. His mustache had filled out again, but Rena suspected her sister had grown fond of it as a part of the man she’d fallen in love with. Crystal automatically leaned into him as he draped an arm over her shoulder. “Think you two can show up early tomorrow before we take off?” Crystal asked Rena. “There’s a lot to go over.”

  Rena shook her head. As one of three full-timers, it was a given she would be there, but…. “Ty has a shift tomorrow.”

  “But these kids are in a heavily-guarded compound.” Crystal tilted her head way back to look up into Mac’s face. “Mac and Austin are coming.”

  Mac rubbed her upper arms. “Because we have the weekends off,” he reminded her. “Most of us guys are only part-timers, we help when we can.”

  But, Crystal remained persistent as the man at the barbeque grill continued to ignore. “It’ll just take a day. Quick in, quick out. I even borrowed us a corporate jet.”

  Ty flipped burgers.

  “He can ride in the cockpit….” The last-ditch effort carried through the air in a manner designed to cajole, but still earned no response. Dropping all pretense, Crystal said loudly, “That firefighter nonsense is really cramping our style.”

  Without looking back, Ty raised the tongs in salute, proving he’d been following all along.

  Mac winced. “Ouch, that was an acknowledgment and a kiss-off.”

  “Chewie’s coming, though,” Rena said. The mere mention of the canine’s name brought him to her side and she bent down to give his ears a loving toss. “You’ll keep those big, nasty dogs distracted, won’t you, boy?”

  Ty emptied the contents of the grill onto a platter. “The guys at the firehouse are gonna start wondering why I don’t bring him anymore.”

  Rena continued to circle the table as she laid out silverware, Chewie following her every move. “Just tell them the truth. He prefers my company.”

  As Ty sent her an over-the-shoulder look, a hotdog fell to the concrete. “Pruitt thinks you walk around with a steak in your pocket.” Chewie gobbled it up in two seconds flat. “Of course, he said that through a mouthful of your homemade cookies.”

  As Ty brought the loaded platter of burnt hamburgers and hotdogs to the table, Crystal elbowed Mac’s arm. “Here comes the fire expert.”

  “I like ‘em this way,” Ty defended riotously. “Carbon is good for the body.”

  After dinner, Melanie and Derek prepared little DJ for his second Halloween. Derek got the honors of helping the eighteen-month-old into his costume while Melanie outfitted the stroller with jacket, umbrella, diaper bag (just in case) and plastic bucket for collecting treats.

  “He won’t need a jacket,” Derek said, shoving his son’s arms into the fuzzy green dinosaur costume. “I’m breaking into a sweat just looking at this thing.”

  Melanie paused in her work. “You always bring a jacket. It’s like… in the parental handbook.”

  As the two entered into debate over whether or not such a thing existed, everyone took up their jackets and moved to the front door. Derek turned around long enough to offer his hand to Ty. “Thanks for the carbon, man, it was delicious.”

  Rena accepted his hug in blin
king confusion. “Aren’t you all coming back afterward?”

  “Nah, we have to get home and rest up. Big day tomorrow.” The last one out the door, Derek pulled it closed behind him, but paused to point a finger at her. “And don’t you stay up too late, either.” Then he pointed at Ty as if he’d be her only roadblock to a good night’s sleep.

  “Sure, boss,” Rena muttered as the door finally closed.

  As they stood side-by-side, patiently awaiting their first trick-or-treater, Ty spoke. “You have no idea how bad I want to go with you tomorrow.”

  Rena’s mouth quirked. “You just want to ride in the cockpit.”

  Before he could answer, the doorbell rang. Ty answered with flourish.

  “Tweeeeeeeet!” yelled DJ as he held out his bucket with two pudgy hands.

  The cameras came out as he collected his first loot of the evening. Rena even got a hug for her generous contribution, leaving her misty-eyed and grateful that she and Melanie had become good friends. Three months ago, the woman nearly knocked her out for getting too close to her son.

  As soon as everyone said their final goodbyes, DJ left with his entourage of six. It didn’t take long for things to get busy. Each time the bell rang—which had been changed to the standard “ding-dong” after Rena had moved in—the door would open, the ghost beside them would break into its ghoulish dance, and fog would roll in as kids yelled the customary adage, sometimes in groups of ten to twenty. It was exhausting work, and after a while, Chewie gave out and spent the rest of the evening curled up by the fireplace.

  During one of their rare quiet moments, Rena and Ty sat recovering on the couch. “Boy, you weren’t kidding,” she said as they held hands. “The tray’s almost empty.”

  “It’s a safe neighborhood.” Ty rubbed a thumb across her knuckles in a lazy caress. “People bus their kids in from all over.”

  She smiled, squeezed his fingers. “You must have been thinking ahead when you bought this house.”

  The remark was out there before she could take it back. It sounded too much like a hint, and Rena bit her bottom lip to prevent more verbal blunders.