Where There's Smoke (Holiday Hearts #1)

by Kristin Hardy

  Frustration surged through him. He was allowed to get close, but not too close. He was supposed to keep his distance, pretend he didn’t feel what he felt when he knew it, he’d known it for days.

  He was in love with her.

  Sloane sat in her living room, staring at the walls. She couldn’t avoid Nick forever. He wouldn’t let her, for one thing. More than that, he deserved better. She might not be able to give him her heart, but she could at least offer him honesty. Breaking it off like an adult was the only way to go. She owed it to him to be up front. And she would.

  As soon as she could do it without falling apart.

  It would be all right, she told herself. After all, he surely wasn’t expecting happily ever after. A light fling, they’d said, nothing more. A light fling with an exit clause and she was invoking it.

  So why was she sitting on the couch and shaking?

  When her phone rang she jumped, heart hammering against her ribs. She couldn’t talk to him yet, not yet. Another day and then she’d be able to go forward.

  The machine clicked and the speaker buzzed a little. “Sloane?” said a voice.

  The relief was only momentary. It wasn’t Nick, it was Candy. Candy, whose life was the sum of all Sloane’s fears. Candy, who’d lost the man she loved. Candy, who’d sat on the couch beside her in the nightmare hours after they’d heard the news that firefighters were missing, clutching Sloane’s hand so tightly that her fingers went numb. And they’d waited with dread for the knock at the door.

  The knock that had put the final blow to Sloane’s world.

  She reached out and picked up the phone. “Hi, Candy.”

  “Happy late Thanksgiving. How are you?”

  Terrified. Desperate. Falling apart. “I’m okay.”

  “You don’t sound so great. Something going on?”

  She wanted so much to pour it all out, but how could she? To tell the woman who’d lost her husband that she was breaking up with a firefighter because she feared the same thing? Candy’s face, her voice, conjured up the ghosts that haunted Sloane. Candy was a reminder of the worst that could happen. A reminder of why she had to walk away. “Nothing’s going on,” she said aloud. “Just working a lot.”

  “You didn’t work over the holiday, did you?”

  “No, I took a couple of days off. I’m paying for it now though.” She was paying for it, all right. Sloane swallowed. “So how was your holiday?”

  “It was nice. We went to my brother’s house. I missed you, though.”

  And I miss you. “Maybe next year.”

  “Hey, Pete loves his guitar, by the way.”

  Sloane grabbed at the news like a drowning person snatching at a rope. “Does he really?”

  “It’s perfect. What made you think of it?”

  Nick, she thought, and tried to push it away. “A friend suggested it.”

  “It’s been like a miracle, Sloane. He’s finally got an outlet. He’s been pouring himself into it, playing nonstop. You’ll have to get down here sometime and listen to him.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Great,” Candy said, “how about Christmas?”

  “What?”

  “Please come, Sloane. It would mean so much to have you here.”

  There, in the house where every turn reminded her of Mitch. Of what she could lose when she got involved, when she let herself care. “Oh, Candy, I don’t—”

  “Now don’t worry that it’s going to be a mob scene,” Candy hurried on. “Mom and Dad will be coming, but that will be it. Dan and Rob are spending the holiday with their wives’ families.”

  Sloane groped for a way out. “It’s a lovely invitation.”

  “It’ll be fun. We can hang out like we used to on the holiday, do jigsaw puzzles, maybe even ski if the snow holds out.” Enthusiasm bubbled in her voice. “I’ve got a soup recipe I’ve been itching to try. It’ll be like the old days.”

  Like the old days. “I’d like to but…”

  “But you can’t.” Candy’s voice went flat. “Of course. Do you have plans already?”

  “No. I just…”

  “You just don’t want the reminder.”

  Sloane’s throat tightened. “It’s not you.”

  “I know.” Candy gave a brittle laugh. “That makes it worse, doesn’t it? God, you know it’s been five years and not an hour goes by that I don’t think of him. There’s a hole there that’s never going to be filled, but you go on.” Her voice caught, shot through with pain. “You don’t just keep your life empty, Sloane. You don’t cut everyone off.”

  “I haven’t cut you off.”

  “No. You just avoid us. Cards and presents don’t do it. It’s not about money and time, it’s about you. That’s all we want, the person we used to know.”

  “I’ve got responsibilities right now.”

  “Sure you do, and when that’s done you’ll find some other way to hide.”

  She felt backed into a corner. “What do you want from me, Candy?” she cried out.

  “I want my friend back.” The words shivered in the silence. “I didn’t just lose Mitch that night. I lost you, too. God, Sloane, we were like sisters. It killed me to lose him, but then you were gone, too.”

  Sloane blinked back the sting of tears.

  “We used to know every detail about each other’s life. Now you’re like a stranger. I know something’s wrong and I can’t help because you won’t let me. There was a time you’d have told me instead of lying and saying everything’s fine.” She paused. “I loved him, too, Sloane, you know? We all did. But you’ve got to get past it and live your life. He’d have wanted that.”

  “It hurts too much, Candy,” Sloane whispered.

  “It hurt to lose Mitch, it hurts me every single day, but you know what? That’s being alive. Try, Sloane,” her voice caught on tears. “Just try. We need you.”

  “It’s too hard.”

  “Hard? You want to talk to me about hard?” Sudden bright anger filled her words. “Tell me what I’m supposed to say to Pete when he asks about whether you’re coming to Christmas, just like he asked about his birthday. You could help him, Sloane, you could help him figure this out. Maybe we could help each other. But instead you’d rather hide out in your little bunker.”

  “I can’t!” It was as though for years she’d held herself together with string and packing tape and bare will, terrified to let loose for even a moment, terrified of what might happen. Suddenly, it was all threatening to fly apart.

  And she didn’t know how she’d survive if it did.

  Seconds dragged by during which she didn’t speak over the ache in her throat. She couldn’t.

  “All right, then,” Candy said finally.

  Sloane’s hand tightened around the telephone receiver.

  “You know, I keep thinking if I try one more time I’ll get through to you, that you’ll let it all out and go back to the person you used to be. I miss her so much. You have no idea.”

  Don’t leave me.

  Candy sighed. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe you’re happiest where you are. I hope so.” Her voice was empty now of both anger and tears. “Happy holidays, Sloane.”

  Then the line clicked and she was gone.

  And finally, finally the tears began to fall.

  Sloane drove into the station parking lot the next evening, dreading the moment she’d have to turn off her key and go in. The night before she’d walked for hours, trying to clear her head, trying to make herself believe that things were okay. But they weren’t okay and she knew it.

  She just had to figure out a way to live with that.

  Push it away. Don’t think about it. That had been the way she’d always coped.

  Somehow it didn’t seem to be working anymore.

  As for sleep, it had been nearly impossible. The only upside was that so far, at least, so far she’d managed to avoid Nick. She had to talk with him, she knew that. Just not now, not while she was holding on by a thre
ad. She rested her forehead for a brief moment against the steering wheel.

  Then she steeled herself and headed into the station.

  The door to the apparatus floor was open and Ladder 67 was gone. A little surge of relief went through her. They were out on a call. Not a fire, she diagnosed rapidly by the presence of Engine 58. Just a rescue call. And if she hoped for it to be a nice, time-consuming rescue call, that didn’t make her a coward, did it?

  It was later, much later, when she heard the rumble of the approaching ladder truck. When it stopped on the apron, all the rest of the crew piled off.

  “Hey, you missed out, Sloane,” Knapp called as he waved. “We had a jumper all ready to go. Guy sittin’ out on the ledge, threatening to take a header if we brought up a ladder. We had the nets out and everything.”

  “Did he go?”

  Beaulieu snorted. “Do they ever? The ones who really want to off themselves do it quietly. Guys like this, they’re not serious.”

  “Maybe he just wanted help and didn’t know how to ask for it,” Sorensen said. “It can happen, you know,” he defended against the hoots and the eye rolls.

  “Just as long as we’re not sitting around for a time-waster like that when someone in a burning building really needs help,” O’Hanlan said. “Guy like that needs to go to a crisis center.”

  Maybe that was what she needed, a crisis center. And then she glanced up and saw Nick.

  He stood back, just watching her while the rest of the crew made their way inside. He took his time, waiting until O’Hanlan was backing the truck into quarters before he walked up.

  “Hey.” He tapped a fist lightly against her shoulder. “You’re late.”

  “I was here at six. I must have just missed you. Something came up.”

  Something flickered in his eyes. “There’s been a lot of that lately, hasn’t there? I tried to reach you yesterday.”

  She should have known he’d brook no evasions. “I was—”

  “And today,” he continued, not allowing her any. “I left messages. I even dropped by. You weren’t around.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “I guess. Look, we need to talk. Something’s going on with you and I’d like to hear what it is.” He locked eyes with her without blinking. “I don’t want to walk away from this, Sloane.”

  “This isn’t the place or the time, Nick.”

  “Then name the time and the place. Don’t just disappear on me, Sloane. You’ve got more guts than that.”

  Once again, she found herself pushed into a corner. “You seem to think you know a lot about me.”

  “I want to know a whole lot more than you’ll let me, that’s for sure. I—” He broke off and raised his head.

  “What?” Sloane stared at him.

  “Smoke,” he said slowly, walking out onto the apron and searching the sky. “There’s a fire.”

  At the same moment she smelled it, the bells sounded. “Thirty-three Ramsey Street,” Knapp, on house watch, read out over the PA system. “Abandoned building, fire showing. Everybody goes.”

  They didn’t need to check the map. They didn’t need help finding it as they pulled out of the station, siren blaring. They had only to drive toward the twisting column of black smoke that blocked the lights of downtown.

  Streamers of smoke drifted past them as they turned toward it. Nick pulled on his gloves. He knew this building. He knew its history.

  And it was trouble.

  The four-story brick structure had started out more than a century before as a furniture factory that had been converted to a recording studio, then a gentlemen’s club. Nick had inspected it a couple of times and knew that above the nightclub level on the ground floor was a warren of private rooms, and above that a maze of sound-baffled recording rooms, still coated with foams and plastics. When fire hit them, they’d create an inferno and release every toxic chemical under the sun.

  As they drove up, flames shot around the edges of the plywood that covered the few windows on the third floor. It had blown the glass in places. At least it was partially vented, Nick thought, although all the airflow had done was strengthen the burn. Flame streamed fluidly up into roiling smoke, the crimson-streaked black churning like the fires of hell.

  “First in.” O’Hanlan pulled the ladder truck to a stop in front of the warehouse. “All the fun for us.”

  “Looks like there’s going to be enough fire for everyone,” Nick told him. “I’m calling in a second alarm. In the meantime, get the stick up.”

  O’Hanlan nodded and the rest of the crew hit the pavement. Gone were the jokes as they pulled equipment out of lockers. Now it was all about focus and efficiency. This was going to be a bad one and everyone knew it.

  “Am I going to go inside, cap?” It was Sorensen, raising his voice over the sounds of the motors, the approaching sirens, the roar of the flames.

  Nick looked at him. He wasn’t doing the probie any good by protecting him. It was time for Nick to back off from being the big brother and let Sorensen take a few steps on his own. “Stand by for directions. You might get your chance.”

  With a whoop of sirens, Deputy Chief McMillan’s red Expedition pulled up. They’d need the chief to coordinate something this big, Nick thought as he walked over. Seven engines, four ladder trucks, a rescue company and a tower company to drown the fire from on high. They had a crowd coming.

  McMillan finished talking on his radio and got out of the truck, reaching in the backseat for his turnouts. “Trask, what’s the situation?”

  “It’s abandoned and boarded up. Looks like it’s fully involved. We’ve got some partial venting on the third story and one of my team reported flames showing in the back. Must be a mess inside. We’re getting our stick up to vent it.”

  McMillan nodded. “I just called in another alarm. I don’t like the looks of this building.”

  “It’s one tricky mother inside. Used to have a strip club on the bottom two floors and a recording studio up above that. Floor two has all these private rooms with back hallways for the club people and floor three still has most of the soundproofing materials in the sound studios. Lots of flammables and toxins in the walls there. We’ve inspected it a couple of times over the past five years.” He hesitated. “It’s a maze, sir. We’ve gotten turned around each time.” Without the smoke, the heat, the pounding risk of a fire.

  “You found your way out, though, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we need your company inside leading. You’ll split the job with the rescue company. They should be here soon. Brief them before you go in.”

  Nick nodded and turned to go.

  “Hey, Trask?” McMillan called.

  “Yeah?”

  “Watch your guys.”

  Sloane stared at the fire. This was nothing like the harmless blaze at the triple-decker. This was a ravenous beast, unleashed and ready to devour. Its red glow flickered over the faces of the men. Like gladiators, they girded up, snapping closed turnout coats, pulling on air packs, picking up their tools.

  Hands shaking, she pulled out her master Orienteer unit and turned it on, staring down at the LCD display. When she’d hoped for a chance to test the units, she’d never wanted the men to be put in harm’s way, she’d never wanted a fire like this.

  A fire like the one that had killed Mitch.

  A sudden scream made her look up. A teenage girl fought to get past Beaulieu and Knapp, her beaded braids flying wildly as she struggled toward the building. “Dontrell!” she shrieked. “Dontrell’s in there.”

  Sloane ran over to her. “What’s going on?”

  Hysteria had her gasping. “My man’s in there. The Dudley Street Doggs pulled him in there and torched it. They going to burn him up.” Her voice rose again in a shriek and she twisted to get out of their arms. “Dontrell!”

  Sloane’s eyes widened in alarm. “Nick,” she cried.

  “I heard.” His face was grim as he turned to the deputy chief behind h
im.

  McMillan raised his voice. “Okay, we can’t wait for the rescue company. Trask, you get your men inside along with Ladder 61. I want three hose teams stretching two-and-a-half-inch lines, one to each of the three involved floors. All right, go!”

  And with sudden horror, Sloane realized the obvious.

  Nick was going inside.

  She wanted to scream, she wanted to beg, do anything to keep him from stepping over that threshold into peril. But all she could do was stand frozen while he slipped on his breathing apparatus and hefted his ceiling hook and Halligan tool.

  Engine 58 was already stretching a line into the front door of the building. She heard the whine of the aerial ladder as O’Hanlan sent truckies from other companies up to the roof to ventilate the blaze. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered except that Nick was walking toward the building with his team.

  And she couldn’t do anything to stop it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nick stopped in front of the service doors on the front of the building. Smoke thickened the air around them and he could feel the hot breath of the blaze. He turned to his crew.

  “The stairwell is just to the left, straight across the corridor,” he told them, raising his voice over the growl of the fire and the roar of the power saws on the roof. “Okay, the place is supposed to be abandoned and empty but we’ve got one or more civilians inside. Floor one was a club, three main rooms plus bathrooms, production rooms and a line of offices to the left.” He squinted through thickening smoke. “Floor two is honeycombed with a bunch of private rooms, orgy rooms, dance studios, who knows. Floor three is the worst. It was a recording studio for a few years. It’s a maze of sound studios and the baffling’s still up in a lot of places. Knapp, Beaulieu, we’ve been here before, so we’ll take the upper floors. Sixty-one, you take the bottom floor. Sorensen, you stay with them.”

  “Cap, you said I could go with you.”

  Nick looked at him and hesitated. Stop being the older brother, let him loose.

  “You take Beaulieu and I’ll watch over the kid,” Knapp offered.