Where There's Smoke (Holiday Hearts #1)

by Kristin Hardy

  And in that moment, she knew that she loved him. She couldn’t say when it had happened, couldn’t say how, only that her life was bound to his in some irretrievable way. And his life was hanging by a thread.

  With a snarling roar, the rest of the roof collapsed and flames shot toward the sky, smoke boiling upward.

  Sloane turned to stare at the inferno, a horror deeper than torment coming over her. She stared at her display, at the motionless blue dot. Nick was still inside. “No,” she whispered, trembling. “No!”

  She sprinted over to the door. Knapp caught her around the waist, turning her half-around, stopping her. His face was tight and drawn.

  “He’s right there, at the bottom of the stairs,” she shouted hysterically, fighting to get loose.

  “We know he is. They’re going after him.” He pointed to where the engine companies had doused the flames by the entrance.

  The smoke blew back in her face, making her dizzy. Knapp shook his head. “You can’t help,” he shouted. “You’re going to wind up in the hospital if you don’t watch it. Now go back to the ladder truck and sit down.”

  Numbly, she watched the rescue team step inside with their tools and hooks. How could it have happened? How could he be gone, and now, when she’d only just realized she loved him? She wanted to rage to the heavens, rage at the fates for giving her this bitter pill to swallow yet again. How could she have lost another person she loved?

  Suddenly a shout went up. “Over there.” Knapp pointed to where the rescue company was stepping out of the wreckage of the warehouse. With them, still on his feet, was Nick.

  Adrenaline surged through her system, making her shake. She blinked back the tears that slipped crazily from her burning eyes. He was safe, he was whole, he was coming back to her.

  For now.

  Sloane sat abruptly down on legs that would no longer hold her. Suddenly she saw it, the pattern of the future. Day after day, night after night of having Nick make it through one more shift, never knowing which fire would be the one he didn’t escape, never knowing which night she’d open her door to see the deputy chief standing on her doorstep, white hat in his hands as he searched for the impossible words.

  The knot of men around Nick slapped him on the back, laughing and whooping. Her stomach rolled with nausea.

  She couldn’t not love him, it was woven into the fabric of her self. She didn’t have to wait around to watch him die, though. The decision was swift, the need to escape immediate.

  She turned to O’Hanlan, at the ladder behind her. “I have to go. Can you tell Nick that I won’t be going back to the firehouse?”

  “Hold on, are you sick?” he demanded. “Did you get too much smoke? Go to the medics.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “But—”

  “Tell Nick,” she said briefly, then ran.

  It wasn’t until he’d seen Sorensen to the ambulance to be taken care of by the paramedics that Nick gave himself the luxury of thinking about Sloane. Flanked by Beaulieu and Knapp, he headed toward the ladder truck. His shoulder ached a bit where it had been pinned against a wall, but that same wall had supported a layer of fiery debris, keeping them from being crushed and burned. The brush with death had left him giddy and supercharged.

  “You were lucky, Nick old boy,” Knapp said, slapping him again on the back. “Someone up there likes you.”

  “I’d like to think a lot of people like me, Knapp,” Nick returned, looking around for Sloane. “Where’s Sloane?”

  “I told her to go sit on the ladder truck,” Knapp said. “She was pretty upset when we thought you were trapped. She’s probably in the cab.”

  Behind them, O’Hanlan shook his head. “She took off. Said she wasn’t going to go back to the firehouse.”

  Nick frowned. “Was she sick? How much smoke did you get out here?”

  “Not too much. She said she was fine.”

  “Then why did she leave, dammit? She didn’t have any way to get out of here.” Cursing, he unsnapped his turnout coat swiftly. “You didn’t let her walk, did you?”

  “I was stuck on the ladder. I couldn’t very well run after her. She headed out that way.” O’Hanlan jabbed a thumb down the street.

  And Nick looked away up the empty sidewalk.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She walked up Columbus to Mass Ave. without seeing a cab. By the time she made it to the Back Bay, she’d hit a rhythm. As long as she walked, she didn’t have to think. And if she didn’t think, she didn’t have to miss Nick and if she didn’t miss Nick, she didn’t have to face what she was walking away from.

  So she just kept moving, down Mass Ave., over the Charles, through Cambridge and home.

  It took her two hours of walking but finally she let herself into her flat with her hidden key, her head pounding—with the effects of smoke inhalation, not with the efforts of fighting back the tears. There was nothing to weep about. Nick had survived and she’d learned her lesson.

  That walking away was the best thing for her.

  The hour might have been late, but sleep eluded her. When she drifted off momentarily, it was to restless nightmares of fire and loss, running in terror down endless hallways only to look down and find her hands empty of the treasure she’d been trying to preserve. When the sky began to lighten, she rose, exhausted, to start her day.

  The hot, sluicing water of the shower let her find a certain oblivion. The trick was to avoid letting her mind wander, to avoid thinking about Nick.

  To avoid thinking about what she was giving up.

  From her closet, she took whatever was closest at hand. She didn’t spend much time on her makeup—there was a haunted look to her eyes that she didn’t want to face.

  Sometime that day, sooner or later, she was going to have to talk to Nick. She was going to have to find the words to tell him that their relationship—and it was, she could now admit, a relationship—was over. Tell him she loved him? Not possible. Not now, not ever.

  A breath of pain whisked through her. Ignore it, she told herself. She’d kept her feelings locked down for all these years. She needed to keep them locked down now.

  Because if she let them loose for one moment, she might fly all to pieces.

  She slipped on her coat and picked up her purse. Going into work early was good. Putting in a few extra hours would allow her to catch up the time she’d missed. It was a way to keep focused. She’d catch a cab to the firehouse to pick up her car then hit the office. Check in with Bill Grant at the fire office, let him know that she’d seen enough so that testing could proceed without her on site. Move on with her life.

  It was a beautiful day outside, a day to be savored by lovers. Something twisted inside her and she pressed it fiercely down. She was locking her door when she heard a sound behind her. She turned to see Nick striding up the stairs, his boots thudding hollowly on the gray boards of the porch.

  And the numbness dissipated like early-morning mist.

  “Where the hell have you been?” He stopped before her, anger sparking in his eyes.

  Hold it down. Don’t feel it. Sloane stared at him. “What are you doing here?”

  “Trying to keep from going nuts. One minute the roof is falling in and I’m getting my guy out, the next I look around and you’re gone. No clue where and your car’s still at the station when we get back. We were there overhauling until one in the morning and I spent the entire freaking time wondering if something had happened to you.”

  “I told O’Hanlan I was leaving.”

  “And walked off into Dorchester in the middle of the night. You know the statistics on violent crime in that neighborhood? I called when I got back to the station, over and over, and you never picked up.” His voice rose.

  “I had my phone unplugged.”

  “Like it was unplugged this weekend? What’s going on, Sloane? Last night you said it wasn’t the time or the place. Well, it’s sure as hell the time now.”

  A look at his face, at the li
nes carved by worry and fear took the punch out of her sharp retort. She let out a breath. It had to happen, she knew that. It might as well be now. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  By the time they’d gotten into her flat, some of the tension had gone out of his shoulders.

  “Coffee?”

  “Sure.” Nick followed her into the kitchen. He took a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry I jumped all over you. I was just really worried. You shouldn’t have left that way.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Honesty. She owed him that much.

  The coffee she’d made that morning was still hot and she poured each of them a cup before sitting down at the kitchen table. “How’s Sorensen?”

  “He’s fine.” Nick pulled up a chair to sit next to her. “He needed a few stitches and they wanted to keep an eye on him overnight because of the head injury. A light fixture dropped on him. It knocked off his helmet and his mask, which put his Orienteer out of commission.” Nick tapped his fingers restlessly on the table. “He made it through, though. Couple of weeks, he’ll be back raring to go.”

  Back to dance on the edge of death. Sloane’s stomach tightened. “You were lucky.”

  “If we were lucky, it was because of you.” He looked at her soberly. “If it weren’t for your units, we would have died in that building.”

  “I know.”

  “If nothing else, you should have stayed around so we could thank you.”

  She gave a halfhearted smile. “I didn’t need to hear it to know you were grateful.”

  “No? Then how about you should have stayed around because you were the only one I wanted to see when I finally made it out? I was so damned worried when I didn’t know where you were.” He kissed the palm of her hand, then laid it against the side of his face. “I don’t think I could handle it if anything happened to you,” he said softly. “I love you.” His gaze was gentle, unwavering. And sudden tears swamped her.

  “What is it?” he asked, as they rolled down her cheeks.

  “Nothing.” At first she battled them, dashing them angrily away and then it all just broke over her like a wave, the fear, the tension, the fight with Candy, the déjà vu of the fire.

  And the anguish of watching the roof fall in, certain that she’d just seen Nick die.

  The sobs racked her body. He said nothing, seeming to understand words were not what she needed. He simply pulled her to him, cradling her head to his neck, letting the salt damp of tears soak into his shirt.

  When at last Sloane raised her head, long moments had passed. Nick kissed her hair. “Talk to me.”

  Sloane rose and moved away from him. If she continued to touch him she’d never be able to say what had to be said. She walked to the bathroom to wash her face with icy water. When she came back, She didn’t sit but leaned against the counter. “I’m sorry about getting upset.”

  “Don’t be. I get the impression it was long overdue.”

  “Maybe.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Nick, I…” The words lodged in her throat. It took an effort to force them out. “I can’t be involved with you anymore.”

  His expression didn’t change, he just looked at her steadily. “I can’t say I’m surprised to hear you say that. You’ve been working yourself up to this for a while now.”

  “I haven’t been working myself up to anything. It’s just what I need to do. I’m sorry if it hurts you.” She cleared her throat. “We talked about it at the beginning, remember? No promises.”

  Nick stared into space for a moment, nodding his head as though to music only he could hear. When his eyes cut to hers, it was with the impact of a punch. “That’s right, no promises. No one’s allowed to care for you, nothing’s allowed to matter. It must get lonely in that little box where you live.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly. “I live the way I have to.”

  “You’re going to have to do better than that. Something happened the other night when we were together. You can’t look at me and tell me that it meant nothing to you.”

  She gave him a level stare. “I wouldn’t even if I could.”

  “Then why are you walking away? Why won’t you try to make this work? I know the fire was bad and it probably spooked you, but it’s like anything else. You get used to it, you get past it.”

  “No you don’t,” she burst out. “I don’t. I can’t sit back and watch what you do. I lived with Mitch and his wife. I saw what she went through every single time he went off to work, every shift, never knowing what would happen. The night he was killed I was over at their house. I was there when the battalion chief knocked on the door.” Her voice died away and she bit her lip, staring fixedly at her hands. He wanted to go to her then, but something held him back. “You have no idea what it’s like to sit there, knowing that they’re coming. Hearing the knock, and you don’t want to answer it because you think if you don’t hear the words it won’t be true, that you can just sit in the dark and close your eyes and make it all go away except you know that it won’t, and you know that it’s real and there’s nothing you can do to change it.”

  And she looked fixedly ahead but he knew she didn’t see him. In that moment and that time, all she could see was the nightmare inside her head.

  “My God, Sloane,” Nick said helplessly. “Why haven’t you talked to anyone about this? You can’t just let it sit there and eat you alive. You’ve got to deal with it. You either get a hold on it or it gets a hold on you.”

  “Been tuning into radio psychology shows lately?”

  He ignored her, knowing she was striking out at him because of her vulnerability. “You lost your brother in the worst way, the worst way, but it’s part of life. And I know it hurts like hell but we all go through it. I’ve lost friends. I lost my father.”

  “Funny, so did I,” she said in a brittle voice. “Only it happened to me when I was eight and I lost my mother at the same time.”

  “What?” His eyes widened in shock. “How?”

  “Car accident. Mitch and I went to live with my grandparents, then, only my grandmother got breast cancer three years later. My grandfather lasted a little longer. With him, I think it was just a broken heart.” Tears began slipping down her cheeks again. “Mitch took me in, gave me a place to live while I finished high school. And then I lost him, too.” She looked up at him. “Oh God, don’t stare at me like I’m some kind of freak. There’s all kinds of bad luck in the world. It happens, isn’t that what you said?” She swiped furiously at her cheeks. “I’ll get over it.”

  “But you haven’t really, have you?” He was just barely beginning to understand the magnitude of the disaster and how deep it all went. “This isn’t just about firefighting, is it? It’s about getting close to anyone.” It twisted viciously at something inside him, knowing what she’d been though, knowing there was no way for him to fix it but to love her.

  And that was the thing she feared above all.

  Her eyes burned at him. “Every time, every time I’ve cared for someone, really loved them, I’ve lost them. I can’t do that again.”

  “So you stay detached from people for the rest of your life?”

  “I don’t know. Right now, I survive.” She raised her chin. “You risk your life and maybe you have to, but I can’t watch while you do it. I can’t jump every time the phone rings while you’re at work. I love you too much to wonder every shift, Will this be the day someone knocks on my door? Will this be the night I get the call from the hospital? Will this be the night…will this be the night your luck runs out on you?” She shook her head blindly. “I can’t, Nick, I just can’t.”

  “What if you don’t have to?” Nick crossed to her. “I took the promotional exam last month to get moved up to district chief.” Believe me. Trust me. “I’ll find out the results next week. If I pass, I’ll be on the street supervising more than I’ll be actually in the fires.”

  “And you’ll hate it. You’ll want to be right up next to the burn in every fire you overs
ee. I know it, it’s like an addiction with you guys.” Unable to hold still, she paced across the room.

  “I’ve been fighting fires for thirteen years. It’s time to do something else.” And if it took giving up firefighting to be with her, he’d do it. Even if it meant giving up part of himself.

  She turned back to him. “How can you be sure this is what you want?”

  “I can’t, until I try it,” he said simply. “But the chances are good that I will get to try it. We’re going to be losing half our district chiefs to retirement and promotion in the next five years. I can’t promise that I’ll hit the top five percent in the exam, I can’t promise how soon I’ll be promoted, but I will do my damnedest to get out of the day-to-day fires.”

  “And what if you change your mind once you’re there and want to go back?”

  “Then we talk about it. Yeah, you’re right, I can’t guarantee how I’ll feel in the future. Then again, I can’t guarantee I won’t drive down the street and get broadsided. I could walk past a building and have a wall collapse on me.”

  Her eyes sparked at him. “Don’t give me that. There may not be any guarantees but there are statistics, Nick. The more often you risk yourself, the higher the likelihood that something will happen.”

  “You know how many career firefighters in the U.S. died on duty in 2004? Twenty-nine—out of almost three hundred thousand, and half of those were natural causes. Less than a hundredth of a percent. It sounds scary but the reality isn’t so bad.”

  “Tell that to my brother’s widow,” she snapped.

  “Sloane.” His voice was quiet. “I took the test. I think I can make a difference further up the command chain and I want to try it. I’d be lying if I tried to guarantee anything more, except that I love you and I think we’ve got a chance to be happy.” He held his breath, willing it to be enough.

  Sloane stared at him, eyes haunted.

  “Please tell me you’ll try.” And in the space of a heartbeat his world reduced to the two of them, outside of space, outside of time, suspended only in the moment of her decision.