by Amie Denman
But something had gone wrong. The early-morning call with smoke already pouring from upper windows suggested the fire had a head start. Maybe a piece of construction equipment had been left on overnight, or sparks had smoldered inside a wall until something encouraged them into a full-blown flame. The chief wouldn’t have sent crews into an unoccupied structure, but there’d been a report of two guys on the construction crew who were unaccounted for. Stories conflicted. Had they shown up to work early? Coworkers reported an extra truck out back. It could mean a lot of things. But the fire department couldn’t take a chance. If there were victims inside, they had to try to save them.
Knowing two men might be trapped in the burning building, several crews had moved in to attack the fire from the inside. The building was a disorienting maze from the first entrance. Half floors, a missing wall, an elevator door gaping open with no elevator inside. Dangerous as all hell.
He and Charlie had knocked down a fire on a lower story and nearly fallen through a half-finished section of floor. Following a search pattern, they moved as swiftly as they could, looking for the possible missing construction workers.
About five seconds ago, as they were moving carefully up a stairwell hauling a charged hose with them, Charlie was suddenly gone.
And the next second Kevin knew why.
He was falling, fast and hard. Flailing. The hose gone, his partner gone. He hit something hard, his air pack and helmet rattling, blackness swirling in front of his eyes. How far had he fallen? One story? Two?
The force of his landing knocked the wind out of him and he lay still, stunned but forcing himself to stay calm. Kevin struggled not to breathe rapidly and kill his air tank. He still had air. He still had a chance.
But where was Charlie? Maybe he’d fallen onto a different floor and gotten out. Found the hose. Followed it.
Kevin rolled to his knees. Was anything broken? Did it matter? He only had one choice if he wanted to live, and that was to move. Something was not right with his foot...why did it feel funny? He breathed, ragged pain stabbing him in the ribs. He compartmentalized it, controlled it. He had to find a way out.
Where was Charlie?
On his knees, ignoring the pain and exhaustion, he opened his eyes. Focused. Saw gray concrete floor through his mask. Smoke passed over him like clouds, obscuring his vision and confusing him. He’d trained for this. Stay low. One hand on the wall. Breathe. You have to find an exit sooner or later.
He hoped for sooner. How long did he have on his air tank? Five minutes? One minute? He tried to remember how long he and Charlie had been in the building. Had he lost consciousness when he fell?
As if in answer to his question, the low air alarm sounded. He had only two minutes to find a way out.
He crawled to a wall, put his gloved left hand on the surface and started to move along it. Five feet. Ten feet. How much longer? If he passed out or ran out of air, he was done. He’d die there in the stairwell. He thought of his parents, his brother, his uncle, shaking their heads in grief at the loss. A vision of Nicole flashed through his mind. Even in his confusion, he remembered. The feel of her skin under his fingers. The light in her eyes. How much she’d already suffered losing her brother.
He had to get out. Just to see her again. It was worth everything he had.
He lunged forward, moving down the wall faster now. Where was the exit? He knew he was in a stairwell, maybe even at the bottom. How far had he fallen?
Suddenly, the wall was different. Where it met the floor, there was a doorstop. A threshold. Hope surged through him. He moved his hand up, struggling to see and feel. The low air alarm on his tank ticked down, measuring off the seconds. He had no time left.
Kevin shoved on what he hoped was a door. He rolled through it, expecting to fall down another staircase, maybe an external fire escape.
But he was on the ground outside the building. He caught a glimpse of an industrial-sized construction Dumpster. A truck. Heavy equipment.
He had to be at the rear of the building. He’d gone in the front...hadn’t he? Wasn’t that where the fire was? How did he get here? He couldn’t breathe. Knew his tank was empty. But he was disoriented. He tried to think.
Where was Charlie? He had to save his partner.
Kevin tried to drag himself to his feet. He had to find someone, tell them Charlie was still in there. He rolled off his back. Made it to one knee. Tried to push himself to standing. He made it halfway up and his body collapsed. Why did his foot feel so strange and leave him so unbalanced?
He fell on his back, his aluminum air tank striking a piece of steel on the ground and clanking loudly. Kevin tried again, fighting his way to his knees, but a dark wave of nausea and heaviness took him back down.
The last thing he heard was shouting as he felt his face mask being torn away.
CHAPTER TWENTY
TYLER AND CHIEF RUGGLES finally stopped their wrestling match and listened to one of the police officers who had stepped between them. They dashed around the building where the cop pointed, and Jane and Nicole followed them. Although the trucks and firefighters were concentrated out front, something interesting was happening in the rear of the hotel, facing the beach.
Nicole followed them around the corner and saw one of the cops on the ground next to a fallen firefighter. The cop was struggling to remove the helmet and face mask from the man on the ground, who appeared to be trying to get up.
She ran closer, the need to know outweighing everything else. The firefighter rolled away from her, his air pack and bulky coat hiding his identity. It had to be Kevin. He was the only missing man. Tyler and the chief reached the fallen man first and their reaction told her the truth before she got close enough to see for herself.
Kevin. His brother’s face was pure relief and joy, as if he’d just dug up gold in his backyard and his favorite team won the World Series. At the same time.
Nicole ran up behind Tyler and saw for herself the man she’d spent the entire previous day with, whom she’d spent the previous thirty minutes terrified for. His face was contorted with pain and he breathed hard and fast, but he was alive.
Kevin saw her and a brief flash of happiness crossed his face. His eyes focused on her for only a second, but Nicole knew the emotion in them. She saw the one thing she feared most. Love. Overpowering love that could only lead to heartbreak.
Kevin held her gaze and Nicole wondered what he saw in her eyes. Her emotions were on the surface, as uncontrollable as the sea. She was glad when Kevin looked away and gripped his brother’s shirt front.
“Charlie,” he gasped out. “I lost him.”
Tyler shook his head. “Charlie’s out front getting a massage right now.” Tyler swiveled and addressed the small crowd. “Somebody ought to run around and let him know—”
“I’ll do it,” Jane said. She took off running and Nicole pictured her delivering the news to Charlie that Kevin, too, had made it out of the building. She and Jane had been friends for years, but never had they waited together for two men they cared about to emerge from a smoky building. The look on Jane’s face could not be mistaken. Jane loved Charlie desperately, whether she would agree to marry him or not.
Nicole felt shy outside the group of men forming a circle around Kevin. Should she squeeze in there? Jane hadn’t hesitated to fuss over Charlie, but that was different. She knew these men. Her father was a fire chief. Jane was comfortable in situations like this.
Nicole was not. And she felt certain she never could be.
Still, she tried to see what was going on. An ambulance crawled around the building and backed as close as the construction equipment would allow. Tyler and another man were unbuckling Kevin’s air tank and easing him out of it.
The other firefighters were all business. Was this kind of danger and heart-punishing fear part of their daily lives? How did they stand it?
&
nbsp; One man propped open the back doors of the ambulance, like he probably did every day. As soon as he’d determined that Kevin was alive and talking, Chief Ruggles walked off, shouting into his radio and running the fire scene. Tyler knelt, assessing the patient as if he had done it a million times, no matter that it was his only brother.
His only brother. Nicole closed her eyes as an image of her baby brother so painful it almost took her to her knees crowded her vision. Who had been there when they pulled the blankets away and found Adam’s crew? Were there shouts of joy when they discovered some of the crew alive? Who had assessed her brother and learned he’d never graduate from college? Did that scene in the wilderness a thousand miles away look like this one?
This is different, she reminded herself. Kevin is alive. She should go to Kevin. Kneel next to him and ask if he was all right. Be glad to see his smile. Wipe the dirt from his face, smooth the lines from his forehead. Take his hand.
All those things she wished she could have done for her brother, but fire stole him from her. She couldn’t face that again. Ever.
She backed off a few steps. The paramedics and his fellow firefighters would take good care of him. She put more distance between herself and Kevin...until she was far enough away to get back her sense of perspective. The sense that told her getting into a relationship with Kevin had been a dangerous idea from the start.
Maybe she should start listening to that voice in her head, the one that told her to put up her guards or risk crushing her heart.
If she didn’t love him, it would be easier to stay.
Tears blurred her vision, but she kept going. Jane met her as she came around the front of the building and gripped her upper arms, stopping her.
“What happened?” Jane asked. “Is Kevin all right?”
Nicole nodded. “I think so. They’re taking care of him now.”
“Did you talk to him?”
Nicole shook her head. “Not my place. I would be in the way.”
Jane cocked her head to one side. “Are you kidding? Come on. We’re going back there. Just for a minute. You’ll feel better if you talk to him, even one sentence.”
Nicole wanted to protest, but Jane had a firm grip on her arm as she pulled her back toward the ambulance. They stood together, watching as Tyler hovered over Kevin. She saw Kevin glance in her direction and wondered if he wanted her by his side.
She wished it was that simple.
Jane smiled reassuringly and put an arm around Nicole, but nothing would make her feel better right now. Jane meant well, but she had misjudged Nicole’s reasons for running away. Jane probably thought she was leaving because she was afraid. Because today’s near-catastrophe had taken her right back to her brother’s death.
Absolutely true. But there was more. She was afraid to look into Kevin’s eyes right now because he knew she would see his feelings reflected back. It wouldn’t do either of them any good. Because the nearly fatal fire had shown her something clearly today.
She loved Kevin. And that was why she had to leave.
Cape Pursuit had lulled her into thinking she could let go of the anguish in her past. But she’d been drawn right into the lion’s mouth—the one thing she couldn’t face. And her punishment would be leaving town before her heart broke all the way.
* * *
“I DON’T NEED an ambulance,” Kevin told his brother. “Just get this coat off me before I roast and see if you can get my boot off. My foot feels weird.”
Kevin stayed still, his head pounding, sweat soaking his fire department T-shirt. He still wore his turnout pants with suspenders snaking over both shoulders. The ambulance idled and added diesel exhaust to the other smells of the fire scene. He was used to those smells. And the sounds of trucks, radio traffic, water moving, shouting.
He was not used to being on the ground with a crowd circled around him. Between the group of men, Kevin saw Jane and Nicole. He could find Nicole in a crowd of a million people.
So why did Jane have her by the arm as if she was dragging her back here? Nicole must have fled as soon as she saw he was alive.
His chest tightened even more than it had against the ragged breath and possibly broken ribs. He could guess the reason for Nicole’s expression. Her agony was imprinted on her face. He’d made it out alive, but her brother hadn’t. All the time they’d spent together...he’d started to think she could let go of her fear and let herself love him despite his profession.
He was kidding himself. Believing what he wanted to. And today’s disastrous fire had taken a greater toll than bruising two hundred percent of his body. He had to talk to her. It was now or never, before she ran away again.
He tried to meet her eyes and smile reassuringly, but his brother interrupted him.
“Which boot are you talking about?”
“The right one,” Kevin said. He didn’t care about the stupid boot. He wanted to go to Nicole. He propped himself up on one elbow and tried to force his body off the ground.
“Stop,” Tyler said, putting a hand on his chest and pushing him down. “Did you hit your head when you fell?”
“Heck if I know. Why?”
“Because you aren’t wearing a boot on your right foot. Must’ve lost it in there.”
Kevin lay back on the hard concrete and breathed deeply. He closed his eyes. He wanted to talk to Nicole, but he did not want her to see him like this. Maybe Jane would realize and pull her away. Get her some coffee and take care of her. He wished he could take care of her.
“You’re going to the hospital for a date with a CT scan right now,” Tyler said. “I think you might have damaged your tiny little brain.”
Kevin heard the gurney from the ambulance rolling up. If someone would just make the world stop spinning...
He put his forearm over his eyes. Was Nicole still watching? He had to show her he was fine.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Just help me up and we’ll get back to work.”
“I don’t think so,” Tyler said.
“You think I can’t get up?”
Tyler laughed. “You’re just stupid enough to go back into the fire. But I don’t have any turnout gear, so I get the job of hauling you to the hospital.”
Tyler stood and reached a hand down to his brother. “But we can do this your way if you want. Easy now.”
Kevin took the offered hand and got his knees underneath him. His brother pulled him slowly to his feet and leaned close. “Now smile for the ladies and wait until you get in the back of the squad before you puke or pass out.”
Stars orbited in a frenzied pattern in front of Kevin’s eyes. He was afraid to look up to see if Nicole and Jane were still watching. He just hoped to get behind the closed doors of the ambulance.
“Better hurry,” he told his brother.
* * *
HOURS LATER, Tyler drove Kevin home from his emergency room visit. Bruised ribs, a concussion, a puncture wound on his foot that required three stitches and a tetanus shot that hurt like a son of a gun were the extent of the damage.
“You were lucky,” Tyler told him.
Kevin hobbled up his front steps, his sore foot slowing him down. “I feel like the luckiest guy alive.”
“Take some of the painkillers they gave you. And be glad you are alive.”
“And Charlie,” Kevin said. Being sore and having to lay low for a few days was nothing compared to the way he’d feel if he lost his partner in a fire. Getting separated was bad enough.
Kevin sat on his couch and Arnold laid his head on Kevin’s knee, looking up with soulful eyes as if he understood what a miserable day his owner had had. Tyler went in the kitchen and came back with a glass of water and a prescription bottle. He handed them both to Kevin and sat in the armchair across from him. “I had no idea they cut the staircase out of that place and gutted that much inside.”
They were silent a moment while Kevin swallowed two pills.
“They found those missing construction workers,” Tyler said.
Kevin’s chest felt hollow. Were they dead? Had he and Charlie failed to save them despite nearly dying themselves?
“They were with the construction boss looking at another job before they got started for the day. Met up at the site and took the boss’s truck. Drove over to Virginia Beach for a quick look at something.”
Kevin nodded, able to breathe again. They weren’t dead. They were never in the building. You never knew with reports of people missing in fires. You couldn’t take chances.
“The doc said you needed someone to stay with you for the rest of the day because of your concussion.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” Kevin said. “It was only a mild concussion.”
“You didn’t even know you were missing a boot,” his brother said. “And you need someone to get you dinner anyway. I’ll give you a choice. You can have either Mom or Dad, but one of them has to stay home with my girls because Hillary’s not coming back until at least tomorrow. I’d do it, but I’m going in to work my shift since you bailed on me.”
“Mom will fuss over me and Dad will eat all the stuff in my cabinets he’s not allowed to. He’ll go into a diabetic coma and we’ll both be out.”
“So...how about Nicole?”
Kevin blew out a breath. “I’m not sure.”
“What are you talking about? She went with you to the theme park. She was there at the fire scene with her eyes glued on you. I’m sure she’s forgiven you for slicing off her car door a few months ago.”
“It’s complicated. I’m afraid what happened today might scare her away.”
Tyler sat back, waiting for an explanation.
