The air was so dark around him, he had no idea if he was going away from fire or toward it. Every second might be his last.
A grimmer death than the one he’d faced on an ambulance gurney and then in the operating room. A much less peaceful death than he’d imagined when he’d moved back to the Sur a year ago.
He tried to work up some sense of outrage about that to fuel his forward movement, but it took too much energy.
A gust of cool wind suddenly buffeted him, clearing the smoke. Ahead was Lainey’s house, he could see it! There was the front door and the curving driveway. The back of the house and the pool area weren’t visible from here, but all looked well.
His gaze focused on the intact beauty of it, he managed to stumble forward a few more steps. Then his mind registered the presence of the car on the drive.
Katie and Angel were still there.
His feet sped up. He was running, sucking in smoke-filled air. With a jerk, he undid the fabric from around his mouth and nose and pressed on. Katie and Angel were just ahead!
Then his heart slammed once against his chest, then jerked back like a shotgun cocking. Oh God. Oh God. He could see more now. Fire had creeped up and was now running down the hill behind the house. The advancing flames were heading right for it.
He picked up his speed, the smoky oxygen burning in his lungs, the weight of good intentions and horrifying regrets riding like beasts on his back. The path took a bend, putting the house out of sight, and he felt his heart stutter again, that shotgun jerk.
He wondered if now was his moment to die.
If it might not be better that way.
But he was alive, still moving, as the front of the house came back into sight. Though he couldn’t see from here what had happened behind the place, it appeared as if the ice plant and other flame-retardant landscaping had done its job. From what he could see, the fire must have swept around the property, then swept on, burning harmlessly out as it traveled down the near-barren cliff to the ocean. With a final press of speed, Cooper reached the Whitney front door.
It swung open to his hand, but no one answered his hoarse cries. He ran through the living room and into the kitchen, then glanced out the French doors, froze.
And in the next instant found himself on the pool deck, staring across the patio at the tall, still-smoking, but completely torched matchsticks that had once been flourishing pines. They would have gone up like Christmas trees in one of those public service spots produced by the SF Fire Department. Hot and fast.
His eyes moved to the charred top of the hedge he’d trimmed last week, the fried fringe on one striped umbrella, the blackened surface of the pool, and then, barely discernible, the—
—bodies at the bottom.
He didn’t need air or energy or even will to dive into the water. Operating on pure anguish, he wrapped his arms around what he found there and shot to the surface.
Waist-high in murky pool water, he was in possession of two females, their hair, faces, and clothing smeared with a sticky, ashy concoction. But they were moving. Alive.
Thank God! Gloriously alive.
In his right arm, Katie hiccuped, wheezed. In his left, Angel started coughing, stopped, started coughing again.
Then she looked at Cooper, her blue eyes redrimmed but startling in her blackened face. “You almost gave me a heart attack.”
He grinned at her—what else was there to do? “That makes two of us.”
“Three,” Katie added. “We didn’t see you were here because of the ash on top of the pool.”
Still holding them tightly, he slogged toward the steps. “What the hell were you two doing in the water?”
Angel started coughing again, so Katie answered. “Getting away from the fire. When we couldn’t leave by car and it looked as if the pines would catch, Angel decided we’d be safe from the heat and flames there. We came up for air when we had to, but we weren’t sure if it had completely passed through yet.”
Cooper’s heart did a milder echo of that double-jerk again and he collapsed on the top step of the pool, taking his niece and Angel with him. They pressed close, his arms still over their shoulders.
“Thank God you’re all right,” he said, kissing Katie’s cheek. “Thank God.” He turned to kiss Angel but then hesitated, bowled over by a fresh wave of horror. “You can’t swim.”
“Shallow end,” she said, her voice hoarse. She sucked in a breath. “But I confess I’m pretty happy to see you.”
They were silent as the smoky air became clearer and clearer and their breathing became easier and easier. Katie dropped her head onto his shoulder. “It was hot, when the pines caught. Really hot.”
His stomach churned, though he tried to hide it from her. “I imagine so. But you were okay in the water?”
“I dragged Angel to the middle,” she said, “and I held on to her tight because she told me she can’t swim.”
Imagining it only made his stomach worse. He cleared his throat, reminding himself they were here with him, and safe. “What made you think of the pool?” he managed to ask Angel.
Her voice was still hoarse. “Read about it in Woman’s Day magazine. A lady saved herself, her dog, and twelve place settings of heirloom Lenox.”
“Yeah?” He ran his hand over Angel’s wavy, now almost inky hair. “Well, then, I guess you two didn’t need a hero after all.”
“Oh, Angel said you’d come for us,” Katie put in. “She was positive about that.”
“She was?”
Katie nodded. “But we saved ourselves, Uncle Cooper. I think…I think my dad would be proud of me.”
Though he was looking at his niece, he caressed Angel’s wet hair again. “I’m certain of it, Katydid. I’m certain he’s very proud.”
Again, a few minutes passed in silence as they caught their breath, caught up to the knowledge that they’d survived. But then the phone started pealing from inside the house. They looked at each other.
“Mom,” Katie said with certainty, jumping up with the young’s incredible powers of recovery. “I’ll go tell her we’re okay.”
That left Cooper alone with Angel. He took her by the shoulders and turned her to him. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”
“I was worried about you,” she whispered.
“Hey, I was coming. Nothing was going to stop me.” He tried to smile. “Katie said you were certain of that.”
She nodded. “I had faith in you. But I didn’t want or need you to play the hero. Not a superhuman one, anyway.”
He lifted her chin with his hand, looking into those heavenly eyes in the dirty, to-hell-and-back face. He’d almost lost her and now he couldn’t bear to waste another instant of this second chance. “What about wanting and needing a very human, very frail man who’s in love with you?”
Her eyes widened and her lower lip trembled. He saw her swallow. “Frail of heart?”
“Faint of heart, maybe.” He couldn’t get enough of looking at her. “But I’ve taken a lesson from you and toughened up. After surviving that fire, I figure I’ve proved to myself I have another thirty years or so in me.”
Her lip firmed and her spine steeled. God, how he loved every noncompromising, soldier-in-an-angel’s-disguise inch of her.
“I won’t settle for less than fifty, even if that means we both eat tofu,” she said.
She was too precious to lose. He smiled. “For that sacrifice, then fifty it is, as long as you promise to be beside me.”
As if a dam burst, she sagged into his arms, a wash of tears brimming over her bottom eyelids to run down her face.
“What’s this?” he said, concern clawing at him again. “Are you hurt somewhere?” He ran his hands over her shoulders, down her arms.
She shook her head, more tears washing her face clean. “More like…more like I’m healed.”
And as their lips met, Cooper thought, That makes two of us.
As sweet as these new, committed kisses were, Angel could tell that Cooper was as exhausted as sh
e. So she insisted on pulling out of his embrace and walked over to grab a couple of towels that were hanging, unscathed, on hooks against the side of the poolhouse. The pines behind the structure looked like something out of Armageddon, but its paint had merely blistered.
The pool itself had proved their sanctuary, she thought, looking over her shoulder. Her eyes narrowed, something about it suddenly striking her as…odd. She’d noted the two-sided, mirror-image shape before, but hadn’t really thought much about it.
“It looks like a pair of wings,” she said to Cooper, who was coming toward her. She gestured at the pool. “It’s shaped like wings.”
He glanced over his shoulder, then took both towels and tenderly wrapped one around her. The other he slung over his neck before pulling her into his arms again.
“What were you saying?” His mouth moved against hers.
“The pool.”
“Oh yeah.” He lifted his head and looked over his shoulder again. “It’s in the shape of Stephen’s W—the one he used to sign the paintings. But you’re right. Upside down, it looks like wings.”
Angel wings.
Angel. She’d never quite understood why she’d selected that name for herself when her mother and she had emerged from hiding. But now she thought of that memory again—Fly, angel, fly!—and smiled.
Then she pressed her cheek against the steady thump of Cooper’s heart. In her time of most dire need, maybe both of the only men she’d ever loved had come to her rescue after all.
Epilogue
Angel hurried through the crowd in the bar at the Ça Va Restaurant, heading without hesitation to the corner, where she knew her husband would be waiting at their table. Her husband. Their table.
The thoughts put a smug smile on her face as she slid onto the stool opposite him. “Sorry, sorry, I know I’m late.”
He captured her hand, squeezed. “I thought we had a deal. We both agreed we wouldn’t get caught up in overtime.”
“Uh-huh. I know.” Her customary glass of wine was sitting on the tabletop in front of her, but she ignored it. Instead, she slipped her hand from Cooper’s to unfasten the buttons of her trenchcoat.
He half-rose. “Do you want me to hang that—?”
She was already shaking her head. “Thanks, but not quite yet.” There were a few things she wanted to say first.
But apparently Cooper had a few things he wanted to say too. He captured her hand again. “Angel, I’m not kidding about the overtime. You’ve been exhausted the past two weeks.”
“I know, but—”
“All work and no play makes a dull wife.”
She rolled her eyes. “Considering we spent last weekend lazing around Tranquility, rousing ourselves only to indulge in activities I defy you to describe as ’dull,’ I think I’m not going to worry.”
He grinned. “It was great, wasn’t it?”
She smiled back at him. “Yeah,” she said softly. “It was great.”
The retreat had survived the fire nine months before, with some damage. All the cottages had been spared, though the common building had burned to the ground. It was rebuilt now, with a fancy kitchen that Angel thought was a terrible shame to waste on organic, vegetarian cuisine. Judd and Beth had completely taken over the running of the retreat and planned to be married there in August.
Angel couldn’t imagine waiting to be Cooper’s wife for that long, though it was he who had insisted they marry right away. And insisted they move back to San Francisco. And insisted he start back to work at his firm.
She snitched his bottle of Perrier off the tabletop and took a long swig, checking him out from the corner of her eye. He didn’t appear exhausted in the least. She thought marriage was good for him. And after today, no one could say she wasn’t doing her part to get him home every night at a decent hour.
“So what are you smiling about, Mona Lisa?” he asked suspiciously.
She batted her lashes at him, all innocence, wanting to hold on to this last secret between them for as long as she could. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” To stall the inevitable cross-examination, she let her gaze wander to the television hanging over the bar.
Her eyes widened and her heart rocked inside her chest.
“What? What is it?” Cooper said. “Are you all right?”
“I—I—” Her attention still on the screen, tears filled her eyes.
Cooper’s voice sharpened. “Angel. Honey. What’s the matter?” He glanced over his shoulder, trying to figure out the cause of her distress.
“Th-the TV,” she managed to choke out, even as two fat tears plopped onto her cheeks. Then two more.
“Something on the TV?” His head whipped around again even as he passed his handkerchief to her. “Did I miss something? It’s a commercial.”
The handkerchief that was stemming the next little flood of tears muffled her voice. “It’s a Hallmark commercial. You know, the one where the sisters are shopping together.”
Cooper stared at her, obviously baffled. “Is this about Katie?”
Angel shook her head, as another wave of tender emotion pulled at her heart. She had a sister! It still amazed and delighted her. Cooper’s entire family now knew that Angel was Stephen Whitney’s daughter. They’d accepted her apology and her bare-bones explanation that she and her father had lost touch over the years and that after his death she’d been reluctant to claim kinship.
But she happily claimed it now. Their trial by fire had created a strong bond between her and her half-sister. Katie would spend the month of July with them in San Francisco, and Angel couldn’t wait. There was all sorts of fun shopping that needed to be done—
“Damn it, you’re getting all weepy again! What the hell is going on?”
Angel blinked, realizing that not only had she drifted off on one of those daydreams she was so prone to lately, but that Cooper was right and she was tearing up again too. Wiping her eyes with the handkerchief, she decided to take pity on the man and put an end to his ignorance.
With a determined sniff and an only slightly watery smile, she stood up and met his gaze. “I have something to tell you.”
“What?” An expression of such concerned alarm crossed over his face that her throat closed up with emotion. He cares about me. He loves me.
With words beyond her now, she told him the only way she could. Shimmying her shoulders, Angel let her trenchcoat slide off and fall to the barstool. Now she stood in front of him wearing only her brand-new dress—the one she’d been shopping for that afternoon when she’d realized she was running late. With her arms held out, she executed a half-decent pirouette.
Confusion joining the concern on his face, Cooper continued looking at her, his gaze running from her head to her high-heeled pumps. “Angel, I’m lost. What is it?”
She managed another watery smile and waved her arms to indicate the full, pale blue-and-pink garment.
He blinked. “Something about the dress? Well, it does look several sizes too big for you, but is it really worth crying about?”
Angel shook her head, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry some more. Swallowing the big knot in her throat, she stepped up and put her hands on either side of the face of the man she adored. “It’s a maternity dress, Cooper. I know it’s early, way early, but I couldn’t resist.”
His jaw dropped and Angel’s happiness was suddenly edged with a little panic. They hadn’t planned the pregnancy, not exactly, but the minute she’d suspected, she’d been thrilled. To have a husband, a family, their baby.
“I’ve thought it all through,” she said quickly. “I can work part-time, and we have two spare bedrooms. The one across from our room would be perfect.” She’d been planning how to decorate it. Soft yellows and cool vanilla. In a place of prominence, she’d hang the one Whitney canvas she owned, the only one that had survived the fire—a painting of a gilt-haired infant that was rendered with all the tender love of a father.
The new father-to-be in front of
her blinked rapidly a few times, then reached up to take her hands in his. He held them, linked, against his heart. “You’re pregnant?”
“Confirmed by the doctor today.” It still wasn’t clear what Cooper thought about it. “I hope you’re not—”
“I’m going to be a father?”
There was an elated note in his voice that made her smile. That made fresh tears spring to her eyes. Hormones, she thought. She’d read a long article about them in Maternity magazine. “Yes, my love, you’re going to be a father.”
“Oh God.” He pulled her into his arms, holding her gently against him. “Oh God, Angel. I—I never thought I’d feel this way.”
She looked up into his face. “I never thought I’d feel this way either.” She’d never thought she could love anyone so much, let alone love so much the idea of having his child.
A grin broke across his face. He laughed out loud, then turned to the group at the next table, slapping a complete stranger on the back. “Hey, guess what? We’re going to be parents!”
After a moment of surprise, the people smiled and congratulated them. They even lifted their glasses in a toast, and Cooper, in turn, lifted his Perrier bottle. “To my wife, who has given me everything worth living for!”
Angel teared up again. “Darn hormones,” she muttered. But unwilling to be outdone, she regained enough control to swipe the bottle from Cooper’s hand.
Raising it, she caught Cooper’s gaze with hers. “To my husband and my love,” she declared to the entire room, “who is…who is one of the good guys!”
It felt like just the right thing to say.
The world should know the truth about men like this.
Acknowledgments
With thanks to author and San Franciscan Candice Hern for her help with details about “the City.” More gratitude to Michael Pundeff for providing answers to my attorney questions.
Elizabeth Bevarly and Barbara Freethy are wonderful people to bounce story ideas off of…thank you! Barbara Samuel and Teresa Hill continue to provide the kind of support every writer needs.
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