A Firefighter's Ultimate Duty

by Beverly Long

  Before Blade could form words to respond to that, Marcus had turned and was walking back to the living room. “Come on,” Marcus said, looking over his shoulder. “It’s getting late. I’ll take care of getting this door secured. You need to get these two settled at your place.”

  * * *

  Two hours later, Daisy wasn’t quite sure how it all happened, but she was climbing into Blade Savick’s bed. His empty bed. That now had clean sheets and fresh pillowcases. He’d insisted upon stripping the linens once they’d gotten to his apartment, which was a nice two-bedroom on one side of a duplex.

  Sophie was settled in Raven’s room, and it was a testament to how tired they must be because both were already asleep. Sophie had had almost no reaction to the news that they were temporarily relocating to Blade’s. She’d packed quickly and had been waiting, bag in hand, by the time Daisy had her own suitcase ready.

  On the way to Blade’s, they’d stopped at Savick’s Garage and dropped off her car keys. Blade had written his phone number on the tag. Then they’d driven to his house. He had been quiet. She wanted to know what he was thinking. Was he disgusted that she’d been so stupid? Well, join the club. She was pretty disgusted with herself. Was he regretting the impulse to offer temporary lodging? Well, he didn’t need to worry much about that. Because if Jacob had found them, they were going to have to move on.

  Fortunately, the story that her grandmother had left her money wasn’t completely false. It wasn’t a lot. But enough that she and Sophie wouldn’t starve. Enough that she could afford not to have a paycheck come in for a month or two. Enough for them to start over again.

  It would be so hard on Sophie.

  It would be hard on her. To leave Jane. To leave a promising job. To leave Blade. Funny, brave, hard-working Blade who was a good son and a good father. But she would do it. No matter how much it hurt. She would never allow Sophie to be physically harmed.

  She could hear Blade moving around in his living room, probably getting his bed ready. He must be tired. She certainly was. Thank goodness tomorrow was the weekend. Raven and Sophie had play practice from ten to two. Maybe she could get a nap in.

  In the morning, she intended to go back to her car. She wanted to be there when Savick’s Garage arrived, and she wanted to see her car in the light of day. She knew next to nothing about vehicles, but maybe she’d simply have a sense for whether Jacob was behind her troubles. Not that she’d ever had much of a sense about Jacob.

  He’d fooled her. Fooled Sophie, but then again, she was a kid so that wasn’t a great deal of consolation. Had fooled her coworkers. That was maybe more significant. She’d taken him to a few after-hours events, and he’d been charming. That was why it had been important that nobody from her work know where she was headed. They knew the relationship had ended—she’d told them that much. But she hadn’t given them the gritty details. No one really needed that. She hadn’t wanted them to unwittingly cough up information about her whereabouts.

  Although now both Marcus Price and Blade Savick had it. She trusted Blade and he clearly trusted Marcus. That was good enough for her.

  She’d lived in Knoware for less than a week, and her home no longer felt safe. It wasn’t Knoware. It was her. She’d brought the trouble.

  Not a great feeling. She closed her eyes, hoping that tomorrow would be a better day. It really had to be.

  * * *

  Daisy was in his apartment. More specifically, in his bed. Blade stretched out on his couch, feeling the bottoms of his feet jam up against the end. He turned on his side and bent his knees.

  Blade knew it was possible that it wasn’t Posse. The car thing could have been a fluke. For all he knew, maybe she didn’t maintain her vehicle well. The house door, well, it could have been teenagers. Or someone homeless looking for a warm place to stay. The place had been empty for a few months up until the last week, so maybe they didn’t realize that someone had moved in.

  All kinds of reasonable explanations.

  But none of them felt right. Not after hearing the things Posse had said and done. Tomorrow, he and Daisy were going to have to talk about how to make sure that she and Sophie stayed safe. For now, he was content that they were with him, under his care.

  Chapter 15

  Daisy woke up at seven thirty, more than an hour later than usual. It was a testament to the comfort of Blade’s bed. She lay still, looking around. It was a simple room, just a bed and a dresser. Mission style. No chair, no shelves. Not even a rug on the hardwood floor. But there was a beautiful piece of art on one wall—it was a sleek combination of an intricately carved four-foot section of wood mounted on a five-foot slab of polished metal.

  Masculine. Unique. Unforgettable.

  Much like Blade himself.

  She desperately wanted a cup of coffee. Did not want to wake up Blade. She could not hear any sound of movement from the living room. Nothing from upstairs, either. No surprise there. If allowed to, the girls would sleep, likely rolling out of bed just in time for play practice.

  Daisy slipped from under the covers. She’d worn yoga pants and a T-shirt to bed. No bra. She took the time to put one on now. Then ran a brush through her hair.

  She stopped in the bathroom on her way to the kitchen, closing doors quietly along the way. But she needn’t have worried because he was up, dressed and eating a bowl of cereal at the table.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Good morning.” He studied her. “How did you sleep?”

  “Really well, thank you. It was a big week. I was tired.”

  “Stressful night,” he added.

  “It was.” She pulled out a chair and sat down. There was no way to avoid the conversation they needed to have. “I suppose you think I’m pretty gullible or maybe even stupid.”

  He shook his head. “Would you like some coffee?”

  Was he deliberately trying to change the subject? “Uh...yes.”

  “Black, right?”

  She nodded. He got up and poured her a cup. He added some to his half-full cup. “Toast? Cereal? I can make eggs,” he said.

  “Coffee is great,” she said. She waited until he sat back down. “I should have said something the night you found that gift basket on my front door. But I was trying very hard not to let my old life spill over into my new life.” She took a sip of coffee. It was good. “I don’t like to talk about Jacob. I’m embarrassed about how...dumb I was.”

  “He sounds like a con artist, somebody who works hard to cultivate an image that allows him to get what he wants at no thought to the consequences for anybody else.”

  It was a very succinct and accurate way to describe Jacob. “But still,” she said.

  “He’s the bad guy here, not you,” Blade said.

  “Do you want to know what I was most thankful for?” she asked. She had never told anyone this.

  “Yes, what?”

  “That my grandmother was dead before I found out the truth about Jacob. She never cared for him, but it would have been so painful for her to know how badly I was deceived. How badly I was hurt. For her to know that he continued to threaten mine and Sophie’s safety... She never had to, and for that, I will always be eternally grateful.”

  He reached out for her hand. Held it tightly. His hands were warm from holding his coffee cup. His touch was firm, yet gentle.

  “You do not have to be afraid,” he said. “I will not let him hurt you or Sophie or anyone else for that matter. I’m going to stop this bastard.”

  That scared her. “He’s got no moral compass, Blade. He won’t fight fair.”

  “I had that pretty much figured out when you told us that he knocked you out of a chair.”

  Harsh. The words were harsh. And her body gave an involuntary flinch.

  “He’ll never get close enough to you again to do something like that. You have my word,” he s
aid.

  Tears came to her eyes. Her grandmother hadn’t been there to tell. Sophie had gotten the sanitized version, and even Jane had simply gotten bits and pieces. It was the first time she’d ever told anyone the whole ugly truth. Well, almost all the truth.

  “There’s one more thing,” she said. “Nobody knows this. Well, that’s not true. The police in Denver know this, but nobody else. After he hit me, I made the decision that I was going to leave him. But I didn’t do it for a couple weeks. During the interim, I found an opportunity to look at his laptop computer.”

  “And you saw something that bothered you?”

  “Scared the hell out of me,” she corrected. “Over the past couple of years, there have been a couple stories that made headlines about women who were held captive for years. Sometimes in relatively plain site. In the basement of a house. In a shed in the backyard. Undetected while they were abused in horrible ways.”

  “Right,” he said, encouraging her to go on.

  “He had set up files in his computer. He’d downloaded articles about these poor women from newspapers. He’d scanned magazine articles. He had a document that listed a bunch of links. I clicked on some of them. They were for rope and other restraints. Even steel brackets that could be drilled into concrete.”

  “What did the Denver police say?”

  “About what I expected. That it wasn’t illegal to keep an electronic file of publicly released news articles. Or to look at odd things for purchase. I just wanted it documented somewhere what I had seen. In case.”

  “In case you disappeared.”

  “Yes.” And damn it, her eyes filled with tears.

  “Hey, hey! Don’t cry,” he said, somewhat pleadingly.

  She did not want to. She sniffed and blinked and still a sob escaped.

  In one smooth movement, he was out of his chair and kneeling next to her. He gathered her in his arms. And he held her, her head resting against his chest, and he rocked her gently.

  “It’s okay. That is not going to happen to you. I promise you that,” he said.

  “I know. It’s a crazy thing to worry about.”

  “Not crazy. Not one bit crazy.”

  She lifted her head. “Thank you for saying that.”

  Their faces were close. So close.

  And he leaned in and kissed her.

  And holy hell, she kissed him back. And it went on and on.

  A groan of pleasure. A gasp of joy. His. Hers. Sweet God in heaven, they were consuming one another.

  His hands found the hem of her T-shirt and slipped under. Her back arched and she threw back her head, giving him access to her neck. “Daisy?” he whispered.

  Yes, yes, her body begged in response. “Take—”

  The slam of a bedroom door had them springing apart, like balls in a pinball machine, back to their respective chairs.

  The girls came around the corner. “Morning,” they said, almost in unison.

  “Good morning,” Blade said. His voice sounded so normal. “You’re up early.”

  “We’re hungry,” Raven said.

  “Famished,” Sophie agreed.

  “French toast?” Raven asked.

  “Sounds good,” he said. “We’ve got bacon, too,” he added.

  What the hell? she wanted to scream. Ten seconds earlier he’d been about to eat her for breakfast. Now he was reciting the menu.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?” Sophie asked.

  All eyes turned to her. She resisted the urge to lick her lips so that she could have one more taste of Blade. “Nothing. I’m good. Just need another cup of coffee. French toast with bacon sounds delicious.”

  * * *

  Raven and Sophie fell upon breakfast like starving wolves. Daisy ate a half a piece of French toast and one slice of bacon. He had no idea what he ate because his mind was going about a hundred miles an hour and he wasn’t thinking about his breakfast.

  He’d kissed a fair number of women in his lifetime. Nowhere near as many as Marcus, but then again, he was only human. And kissing was nice.

  It was, however, not generally a damn explosion that made his knees weak. His mouth had found Daisy’s, and it was zero to sixty in about three seconds. Speed. Sensation.

  Sex. That was where his head had gone. He wanted her. Flat on her back, in his bed, on his couch, on the damn floor. He wanted her naked with her legs wrapped around his waist. He wanted her wet and hot and...

  That had been about the point that his daughter and her daughter had tumbled down the stairs. He supposed he should be thankful. If they had come down five minutes later, it might have been a whole lot more difficult to separate quickly.

  “I’m going to change clothes,” she said. “I’d like to be there when the garage comes to get my car.”

  “Uh...yeah. Sure, we can make that happen,” he said without making eye contact. “I’ll call it in now.”

  Daisy nodded and pushed back her chair. The girls followed her down the hall. He picked up his cell. His dad answered.

  “Hey, Dad, I dropped off a set of keys last night,” he said.

  “I saw that. What’s going on?”

  “Daisy Rambler, my...my cochair for the Spring Spectacular, had some car trouble last night. Her vehicle is parked outside of Know Your Scoop. Can you send a truck to tow it in?”

  “Of course. I have one available right now.”

  “Excellent. Daisy and I’ll meet you there.” Blade ended the conversation.

  In ten minutes, Daisy returned. She was dressed in a green-and-blue-striped flannel shirt and blue jeans. It should not have been sexy, but it was. She was holding up her cell phone. “I just got a text from Marcus. He said he showed Jacob’s photo to the staff at Gertie’s and Feisty Pete’s, and nobody thought it was the same man.”

  “That’s a relief,” he said.

  “I know. Big one, right.” She shook her head. “Maybe Sophie and I should—”

  “No. There’s still the issue of your car and your house.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “I know I’m right. We should get going. Raven has a car. Is it okay with you if she drives Sophie to play practice? She’s really a very good driver.”

  “That’s fine,” Daisy said.

  Blade walked down the hall and knocked on his daughter’s bedroom door. She opened it a crack. “If we’re not back in time, you can drive Sophie to play practice,” he said. “But straight there and you don’t go anywhere afterward.”

  “But there’s this party where there’s going to be all kinds of drugs and alcohol,” she whined. “I was planning to go.”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’m serious, Raven,” he added.

  “I get it, Dad. We both do. We’re not going to be stupid.”

  He thought that perhaps sometime during the night Sophie might have confided in Raven what she knew about Jacob Posse. It wouldn’t be everything, based on what Daisy had said, but likely enough that his daughter knew not to mess around with it.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  He walked back to the living room. “Did you hear that?”

  “I did. I trust them. And anyway, it’s Saturday morning. There’s no parties this early,” she said optimistically.

  He smiled, opened the door and looked outside. He didn’t see anything that concerned him, and motioned for Daisy to come. He checked the door behind him to make sure it was locked. They walked to the carport in silence.

  He really didn’t know what to say.

  Weren’t public relations people supposed to be good communicators? Why the hell wasn’t she saying something?

  He started his SUV and pulled out. He drove two blocks. The silence was killing him. “I guess we got lucky earlier,” he said. “Things kind of got carried away.” Damn. That didn�
�t sound right. “I didn’t mean in a bad way,” he added quickly. “It was good. Very good.” He gripped the steering wheel. He slowed down the SUV. “You should probably get out. I’m just going to run myself into that tree over there.”

  She laughed. For a good long time. In fact, for a whole block. “That seems drastic,” she said finally.

  “I know. But it appears that I’m doing things in a big way this morning.”

  “Yeah,” she mused.

  “I’m going to have to call Marcus up and tell him that I’m a jerk.”

  “Why?”

  “He told me not to take advantage of you.”

  She turned her head. “Marcus told you that?”

  “He’s got quite a bit more depth than you might imagine at first glance. I, of course, told him not to worry about it. And then...well, we both know what the and then was.”

  “I wasn’t resisting,” she said.

  “I didn’t think so,” he said. He turned down Main Street. “But still, the timing might have been bad,” he added.

  She didn’t respond.

  He guessed that was his answer. He tried to ignore the pain in his chest. And focus on what was important—finding out what was wrong with her car.

  He parked behind her vehicle. He could see a truck from Savick’s Garage heading toward them. It was his father.

  Blade and Daisy were standing by the vehicle by the time his dad got out of the truck. “Daisy, this is my dad, Larkin Savick. Dad, Daisy Rambler.”

  “It’s a pleasure,” his dad said, extending his hand. “So you had some trouble last night.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I drove here with my daughter. The car ran fine. Like it always does. But when we went to leave about forty-five minutes later, it wouldn’t start. I tried it about five times.”

  “Okay,” his dad said. “Maybe you should try it one more time this morning.”

  She nodded and used her keys to unlock the door. Blade could tell that she wasn’t hopeful. She turned the key and the engine immediately caught. “What!” she exclaimed.

  She turned her head to look at his dad. “I’m so sorry to have had you make a wasted trip.”