by Kim Loraine
“Okay. We’ll find them both.” He put his hand on the older woman’s shoulder and looked straight into her tear-filled eyes. “This isn’t your fault.”
After getting all possible details from the principal, he strode to his crew. “Oliver, there are two unaccounted for, I need you and Grant in on search and rescue. Miller, you and I will do an exterior sweep. We’re looking for a five or six year old little girl named Sophie and a teacher, male, his name is Beckett.”
Donovan nodded and they set off around the perimeter while Alex and Justin went inside. The ladder truck crew was already venting and readying the hose. A search of the grounds came up with nothing, until Sully spotted the groundskeeper’s shed. The door was open just a crack, and his intuition told him they had to get in there. He opened the door and called, “Firefighter, call out. Is anyone in here?”
A small voice answered, “Me.”
The little girl was huddled between a riding lawn mower and the wall, her cheeks tearstained but she looked unharmed. Sully didn’t want to scare her, so he removed his helmet, crouched, and held out a hand. “What’s your name, sweetie?”
Big brown eyes blinked up at him as she crawled out of her hiding place. “Sophie. Am I in trouble? I didn’t know where my teacher went.”
“No, Sophie. You’re not in trouble. We wanted to make sure you were safe. Everyone was worried about you. Are you hurt?”
She stood and shook her head. “I’m okay. The fire alarm was loud. It scared me.”
That little voice trembled with the threat of tears. “It can be really scary. Can you come with me? We need to tell your teacher you’re okay and I want to take you to get checked out.”
She nodded and walked toward him. He scooped her into his arms and backed out of the shed before calling in on his radio to let the crew know he had the girl. As they rounded the corner of the building, Alex’s voice came over the radio.
“I found the teacher. He’s gonna need medical attention ASAP. Call the hospital and let them know we’ll be transporting a burn vic.”
Sully’s stomach twisted as he delivered Sophie to the waiting medic unit and watched a second aid car pull up. “Sophie, thanks for being so brave. I’m sure your teacher is really proud of you.”
She smiled as the paramedic checked her over and when he was sure she’d be okay, Sully turned back toward the blaze. Alex and Justin came out with Beckett in their arms, Alex’s SCBA mask over his face. The angry red burn covering one arm caused phantom pain to spread over Sully’s burn scars on his lower back. If he made it, Beckett was in for a long, painful recovery. The man was moving, his head thrashing from side to side, the pain causing him to fight the hold Alex and Justin had on him, but that was a good sign. He was conscious. Breathing. Fighting.
He was loaded onto a stretcher and in a few short minutes, the ambulance left, siren blaring, lights flashing. Sully turned his focus to the lines of students watching with stricken faces. He needed to see Sloan, to know she was okay after seeing her friend injured so badly. When he found her, she had tears rolling down her cheeks, and she was holding her friend Meg’s hand. Her eyes locked on his and he offered her a nod, hoping he was able to convey that Beckett would be okay. Even if it was a lie.
What he really wanted to do was go to her, pull her into his arms, and make it all better. But he couldn’t. Instead, he tore his gaze from hers and went to do his job.
~ ~ ~
Sloan sniffed her hair and grimaced. She’d washed it twice already and the strands still smelled faintly of smoke. She couldn’t get the picture of Beckett out of her mind, his ash-streaked face, the angry red burn on his arm. If Alex Oliver hadn’t gotten to him in time, they’d be burying her friend instead of planning to visit him in the hospital. A sob welled in her chest. The fire had spread so quickly from the copy room to the hall and across the ceiling.
She dropped her robe and stepped into the shower, turning the water up as hot as she could stand. The spray hit her back, drenching her freshly dried hair. The smoke scent curled in her nostrils, a phantom she couldn’t escape. She poured a generous amount of her pomegranate shampoo into her palm, lathered and scrubbed, over and over, letting the suds sit on her scalp and wishing the residue of the fire away.
“Sloan, baby? Are you in here?” Carson’s voice made her jump. How the hell had he gotten in here?
“Carson? What the hell are you doing in my bathroom?”
A low chuckle filled the room. “Shift’s finally over. I thought I’d come check in on you. Hell of a day. Any word on your friend?”
That was it. She lost all hold on her control at his question. Tears streamed down her face as she worked to hold in the sobs shaking her body. He couldn’t see her from behind the shower curtain, thank God. The last think she wanted was for him to think she was weak. He dealt with shit like this every day. She hadn’t even been hurt.
“Baby?” His voice was closer now, and before she could stop him, he’d pulled aside the curtain and his deep blue gaze was trained on her.
“I can’t get the smoke out of my hair,” she whispered.
Carson didn’t say anything else. He just tugged off his shirt and unbuckled his belt. In seconds he was naked and stepping into the shower with her. “Come here,” he murmured, wrapping her in his strong arms and holding her tight. He stroked her back until she stopped crying, then he began scrubbing her hair, his fingers working the already thick lather. “Lean your head back,” he said and she complied. Gently, he rinsed the suds from her hair, and when she was clean, he turned off the water before reaching outside of the shower for a towel.
“How do you do that?” she asked, frustrated at how small she sounded.
“What?”
“You see stuff like that every day and you’re still . . . you.”
He wrapped her in the fluffy gray towel and grabbed another to wrap around his waist. “It’s different. I’m trained to deal. But you’d better believe if it had been you missing, I’d have torn in there with my heart in my throat. I’d have been a wreck until I knew you were safe.”
“I can’t stop picturing their terrified faces when we saw the smoke. And then Beckett . . .”
He tucked a lock of her wet hair behind her ear and let his fingers linger along the line of her neck. “I know. Shit, I know how that is. Just because I don’t talk about it doesn’t mean I don’t have nightmares.”
Somehow, that made her feel better. She didn’t want him to be struggling, but at least she wasn’t alone. “Becks is going to be okay, by the way,” she blurted. When his brow furrowed, she shook her head. “You asked but then I lost my shit. He’s got second degree burns on his arm, but he’ll be fine.”
“And the school? We got the fire out, but there’s a lot of damage.”
“I haven’t heard beyond the closure for the next week. We’ll see what happens.” She walked into her bedroom and sat on the bed. “How does a fire get that bad so quick?”
“It moves fast, but this was set intentionally.”
Shock raced through her replaced quickly by anger. “What? Who would set fire to an elementary school? There were kids in there. Kids.”
He ran a hand through his hair and let out a heavy breath. “The fuck if I know. But we’ll find the guy. I promise I’ll do everything I can to put a stop to this.”
“I know you will.” She loved him, really loved him. The determination in his gaze and the fierce protectiveness in his voice only added to her certainty. He was everything. He always had been. “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”
A slight grin tugged at one corner of his mouth, making him appear younger and so much the boy she’d fallen for. “Depends on you.”
“I want to stay here.”
“In bed?”
A light laugh escaped her. “Maybe. I was
thinking more like my couch, under a cozy blanket, binge-watching something.”
“Sounds perfect.” But then his face changed to an expression of concern. “Shit, I can’t leave Zeus with my neighbor all day.”
She didn’t want him to leave, but she wanted him to spend the day with her even more. “Go get him. I’m sure he’d like a cuddle on the couch, too.”
“I’m positive he would. You’re sure he can come over?”
She rolled her eyes as she nodded. “Yes. Now go get him while I get dressed and make myself more presentable.”
“Baby, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, bare faced, wet hair and all.”
She walked into his arms, pressing her cheek to his bare chest. His hands slid up her back until he cradled her head between them and pulled her into a kiss. The words were there, on the tip of her tongue as he showed her with his mouth that he felt exactly the same way. He may not have directly said the words, but she felt them in every glance, every touch, every smile he sent her way.
To her disappointment, he pulled away, then cleared his throat and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “I’d better get going before this turns into something else.”
She glanced down his body and couldn’t hide her smirk at the sizable erection straining against the towel around his waist. “Don’t worry, we have all night.” As she fought the urge to tell him to drop the towel and let her give him a preview, a thought came to her. “Wait. How did you get in my house? You don’t have a key.”
“I rang the bell a few times, but when you didn’t answer I got nervous. Your car was in the drive. I, um, I found the hide-a-key.”
“What? No. I don’t have one. I got rid of the garden gnome.”
Confusion turned down his lips. “What garden gnome? This was under the flower pot on your steps.”
She blew out a frustrated breath. “How many damn hide-a-keys did my grandfather have?”
He walked into the bathroom, dropping the towel just before he disappeared from view. His sculpted ass made her a little weak in the knees. God, that man. After a few moments, he returned, dressed, unfortunately, and holding a silver key.
“Here you go. If you want, we can look through the front and make sure there aren’t any more around.”
She took the offered key and grinned. “No, thank you. I’m not turning over every rock and flower pot. Tomorrow I’ll call a locksmith and have my locks changed. And this time, I’m only getting three keys made.”
“Why three?”
Her heart leapt in excitement. “One for me, one spare, and one for you.”
“You’re giving me a key?”
“Remember when you said we’d been wasting time?”
“Yeah.”
“I want you to be able to come and go as you please. If you get home from a tough shift, I want you to come to me, not wait until you can call.”
He smiled and his blue eyes shone with love for her. “Okay. Then you should have this.” Hands in his pockets, he fished out his keys and pulled the key for his house off the ring. “I’ve got a hide-a-key, too. Now I can finally use it to let myself in today.”
She held the small piece of metal in her palm. This was their first big step forward. “Thank you. Now go get your dog and come back to me.”
With sexy wink, he pressed a chaste kiss on her lips before walking out the door, totally unaware that he took her heart with him.
Chapter 16
“Shit, I’m in fucking love with her,” Sully said as he walked down the beach with no one but his dog for company. If the intensely intimate sex between them wasn’t enough, he couldn’t stop thinking about seeing her, being near her, talking to her. Every night when they talked, either on the phone or while she was wrapped in his arms, he had to fight the urge to tell her. To plan their future. He may have resigned himself to a life without commitment, but now that he had her, he was going to make her his forever.
“Well, that’s obvious to everyone,” Donovan’s voice carried to his ears from behind him, making him jump.
“Shit, Miller. You can’t sneak up on people like that. What if you’d given me a heart attack?”
His friend caught up to him and rolled his eyes. “You’re healthy as a horse and you know it.”
Sully expected to see the baby strapped to Donovan’s chest, but the man was alone in the middle of the day. “No Connor today?”
“No. He’s with Val. She took him to her parents’ for the day since school’s still closed.”
“Sloan said they won’t have the school open until the second week in December. She’s not happy about all the time they’ll have to make up for in June.”
“Yeah, Valerie isn’t either.”
They walked in silence for a while as Zeus trotted along a few paces ahead. Then, Sully sucked it up and decided he needed to talk to someone about what was going on with Sloan. He knew how he felt, but couldn’t help but worry that his need for her eclipsed the reality of their situation. They had a lot to work through. What if he was rushing things? “How did you know Valerie was it for you?”
His friend shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket and took a long breath. “That’s like asking how I know the stars are in the sky. I . . . couldn’t see my life without her. I tried to live without her, to move on when we were apart, but for me, there’s nothing but her and me. I can’t see a future where she’s not by my side.”
Sully’s heart gave a squeeze at the thought of living life without Sloan again. But he couldn’t let Donovan see him that flustered, so he chuckled. “Jesus, man. You and Alex are like a fucking romance novel.”
Donovan laughed it off and shook his head. “Give me as much shit as you want, but I’d do anything for that woman. She’s my whole fucking world and then some. I’m not ashamed of how much I love her.”
“No, you shouldn’t be. I’m really starting to understand that. Sloan knocked me on my ass fifteen years ago, and here we are, grown adults and she’s done it again.”
“Why aren’t you telling her this?”
He shook his head and stared at the shore. “I don’t know.”
After walking enough to tire out the dog, Sully and Donovan parted ways, Sully heading home, and Donovan picking his pace up to a run. It was good to see his friend happy, and as Sully let Zeus inside his house, he understood he was one conversation away from his own happiness. Hands shaking, he pulled his phone out of his pocket, he dialed Sloan’s number. She answered on the first ring, excitement in her voice.
“Hey! I was thinking about you,” she said.
Electricity shot through him at the idea of her mind being on him. “Oh, yeah? Dirty things?”
“Well, if you must know . . .”
She didn’t finish her sentence, leaving the innuendo hanging in the air. His pants tightened as his arousal grew and thoughts of her, naked, under him as he told her over and over again how much he loved her ran through his head. “What would you say to me taking you on a date tonight?”
“I’d love that, but I made plans.”
Disappointment gnawed at him. “Really?”
“Yeah. It’s Beckett’s birthday and he’s finally feeling up to going out.”
“You’re taking another guy out for his birthday?” He couldn’t hide the frustration in his voice.
A soft laugh filtered over the line. “Calm down, caveman. Meg’s coming, and Beckett’s new girlfriend will be there, too. Oh, and Valerie is bringing Donovan. I didn’t invite you because you don’t really like Becks much.”
That eased his jealous heart a little. “Where are you guys going?”
“Just to Pete’s. Becks likes karaoke.”
“Yeah. What time?”
“Six. I’ll be at school all day trying to piece together
my classroom. I’ve got to see if anything is salvageable.”
“Okay. I’m going out to visit my mom after this, but I could come by and help out in your room when I’m done if you want.”
“That’d be great. I always want to see you.” The smile in her voice made his chest tighten.
“I always want to see you too, baby.”
She said goodbye and hung up, leaving him with anticipation singing in his blood. Tonight after they went out, he’d tell her how important it was for them to move forward. They’d skip all the bullshit dating and move right to the real heart of being together.
But first, he had to visit his mom. Every time he saw her, she was less and less herself. The last time, she remembered who he was for all of ten minutes, then started crying and asking for his dad. It broke his heart and the doctors said there was nothing to be done. He shrugged into his jacket, grabbed his keys, and lifted the steel wall he’d taken to encircling his heart with before seeing her.
~ ~ ~
A few hours later, Sully walked into Tilda’s Café & Bakery needing comfort food, and no one could provide that better than Tilda. Warm air filled with the scents of cinnamon, sugar, and freshly baked bread greeted him as soon as he breached the door. Something loosened in his chest at the simplicity of the small café. This place was easy and asked nothing of him. No painful past haunting him, no desperate need to prove himself, no mother who didn’t remember who he was. Here he could sit and soak up the quiet.
He sat at a two-person table in the corner where he could drink his cocoa and eat the caramel apple bread pudding he’d ordered in peace. Tilda meandered toward him with a stern expression on her usually smiling face.
“Did something crawl up your ass and die?” She slid the mug and plate across the worn tabletop and sat across from him.
