by Nikki Duncan
Two firefighters moved toward him, one from behind and one stepping around Ashley to reach him. He wanted to tell them to get Ashley out, to leave him, but his voice failed him and only allowed a tiny grunt.
The firefighter in front of him pulled out an odd-looking tool. Talking to his partner who seemed to have a similar tool, they lifted the beam.
The relief from the pressing weight was quickly replaced by a rush of agony as air and smoke hit strips of his still-flaming body. He wasn’t even going to think about the smell of burned flesh—his burned flesh—but it was an odor he’d never forget.
The firefighter who’d called out for help, the woman, moved closer while telling her partner, “Get the woman.”
“You carry her. She’s smaller.”
“Get over yourself, Andy.” Their words were hard to make out, but attempting to do so gave him something to focus on. The firefighter stepped over him, her booted feet entered his field of vision first. “You’re closer and I can carry him.
“Stay with me.” She squatted down and looked at Logan. “We’re going to get you both out of here.”
Orange, red and yellow glowed behind her, giving her an unnerving aura. Her hazel eyes promised understanding. As if she knew more about what might have driven him into the fire than he did himself. As if she knew the worst side of fire, of life, and accepted it.
He met her eyes and tried not to cry when she patted the fire out. Each tap of her gloved hands on his body was an agony he couldn’t describe. Her words were the only encouragement he needed.
When she met his eyes again, everything in her gaze said she was a fighter and that she’d stand up against anyone who tried to get in her way. An instant later she broke the connection and tossed him over her shoulder like he weighed nothing.
Turning his head, Logan saw the man, Andy, lift Ashley the same way. The flames hadn’t reached her, but she still didn’t seem to be breathing. How long had it been? Wasn’t there a time limit to be without oxygen before there was no hope of recovery?
As the firefighters moved out of the office, slashes of pain had his vision going dark at the edges. He craved the bliss of unconsciousness, but he wouldn’t give in to the weakness until he knew they were both out.
He focused on the firefighter’s booted heels moving forward, carrying him away from death and the destruction of the latest chapter in his and Ashley’s lives. The fire grew hungrier, eating paths along the charred floors. The pale gray, almost blue walls and mahogany-stained trim in the lobby were unrecognizable.
Then they stepped outside. The popping and snapping of the fire that had been almost deafening inside suddenly seemed like hushed whispers. Raised voices shouted over the traffic that rushed along the nearby highway and boots smacked the concrete of the parking lot.
Logan saw his dropped phone and Starbucks cups as the firefighter carried him farther from the building. It had probably been no more than twenty minutes at most since he’d called 9-1-1. It felt like lifetimes had passed. He’d be okay if he never saw another Starbucks cup.
Gurney wheels rattled.
“Keegan,” the woman said. “He’s in bad shape.”
“I see that. Roland, we need oxygen and fluids.” Keegan, who seemed to be pushing the gurney, greeted the firefighter carrying him. “I heard you landed at the 10th, Delancey.”
“Wanted something a little easier on my days off.”
The woman carrying him was named Delancey, and she claimed fighting fires was easier. What in hell did she do for her other job?
“Clearly,” Keegan responded in a cultured tone. The feel of their words more than the words themselves said the two knew each other and were being sarcastic. The distraction of their byplay almost kept Logan from thinking about his situation.
Until another paramedic—Roland if he was tracking people right—came up. “Looks like mostly third-degree burns. We’ll need to leave his clothes in place until we get him to the burn unit.”
Third degree. Shit.
The firefighter, Delancey, dropped the tool she’d been carrying and helped lower Logan to the gurney, laying him on his stomach rather than his back. The moment she was no longer holding him, he began shaking. The breeze against his exposed nerves was hell.
Logan tried to see Ashley but only saw another set of paramedics moving around her.
“He doesn’t seem to be in as much pain as I’d have thought,” Delancey said. She took the mask from one of the medics and put it over Logan’s nose.
Agony was less pain than she’d have expected to see him in? Was she a sadist or a fool?
“He’ll only feel the edges of the burn site where the damage is less severe,” Keegan said, sticking an IV needle in his arm.
“Until his nerves begin to regenerate anyway.” Roland’s response held the promise of more pain to come. Then he covered Logan with something that didn’t feel like a comfortable blanket, but it stopped the air from hitting him. For that he was grateful.
He still wanted to scream over the pain and the need to know how Ashley was. He could only breathe in the oxygen coming from the plastic mask.
She was still at his side when they reached the ambulance. Logan moved his unburned hand from beneath the blanket and grabbed her wrist. At least he thought it was her wrist.
She leaned down, getting close. She’d taken her mask off at some point, which allowed him to clearly see the sympathy and understanding in her hazel eyes. “You’re in good hands. Let Keegan and Roland take care of you.”
Still unable to talk, afraid that the first sound he’d make would be screams, he nodded toward Ashley. As if she understood, Delancey covered his hand. “I’ll check on her. They’ll take as careful care of her as Keegan and Roland will you. Focus on that.”
Delancey might have said more, not that she had anything of importance to say, but her voice faded as the darkness around his vision moved in. The last thing he heard was a paramedic saying, “Passing out is good. It’ll bring relief.”
Chapter Two
Fists of sympathy and dread gripped Delancey’s heart as the man’s hand fell away from her wrist and he was lifted into the ambulance. He had to be in unbearable pain, but even when he’d had to know he could do nothing he’d reached for the woman at his side. He should be screaming at the agonies the fire had caused and every breath would have aggravated, but he’d tried to ask about the woman.
He was a man capable of great love. Why else would he have gone in?
The impression of his gaze, green and piercing more from the intensity shining in them than their color, remained on her mind long after she’d gone to help her team clear the scene. It weighed on her and made her remember things she’d rather leave in the past.
The weight grew heavier when they loaded into the truck to return to the station and Andy gave them all an update from one of the paramedics who’d taken the man and woman to the hospital.
“Shawn called,” Andy said. “The woman didn’t make it. The man has burns on over forty-five percent of his body. They’ll be keeping him in a chemically induced coma for a while. He has a long road ahead of him, but he’ll survive.”
The news could have been worse, but Delancey couldn’t see it as good. Nothing good came from being burned.
“Media’s going to jump all over this one,” Married Man Mike said. Soot turned his normally brown mustache black and obliterated the gray hairs making their appearance more known all the time.
“Delancey’s going to be a city hero.” Jarrett’s smile held more mockery than pride. It didn’t surprise her; he’d been one of the men against having a woman on their crew.
“I don’t want the attention.” She’d witnessed the excitement of reporters covering fatal fires. The questions made it impossible to continue moving on and healing, but more importantly they would get in the way of the job. “I’d be okay if the word of me being a woman never got out.”
“Gidge,” Charlie said with the charming smile that earned him his nickname and the r
eputation with women to go with it, “not even that turnout gear can hide the fact you’re a woman. It’s going to get out.”
“It doesn’t have to get out that I carried anyone from the fire.” She wouldn’t have to work at convincing them, but she’d gladly swap chores with any one of the men for a month if it meant they’d keep her secret. Of course, she wasn’t going to tell them that unless it became absolutely necessary.
The only necessity for her, aside from doing her job and earning her crew’s respect, was escaping the weight of the man’s destitution-filled gaze and the memories it awakened. Experience-honed instinct told her there was only one way she’d get past it. That was to face it and that meant facing the man. Facing him meant she’d crossed a line of professional entanglement she’d never crossed before.
In over ten years as a physical therapist she’d only been tempted by one patient. She’d empathized with them, but keeping a professional distance hadn’t been a problem. Except the one temptation. Even then nothing had happened while he’d been a patient.
This man was different, from the way he handled the pain, to the piercing intensity that came from the anguish and desperation in his gaze as he again reached for the woman near him.
The look lasted only a moment, little more than the span of a breath, but in that moment a curious connection was born. Having distance between herself and the man and the scene should minimize the connection, but it didn’t. Nothing would.
They pulled into the station. The men jumped out of the truck and began stripping off their turnout gear. Delancey couldn’t move.
She couldn’t think of anything other than the man she’d saved, the look in his eyes, the idea of the look he’d have when he woke up to face the harsh realities of his burns and the woman’s death.
Delancey’s heart, when she thought of him, pumped harder and faster. The pressure of loss became a fresh wound filling her with the need to weep. It grew until her breaths came in ragged gasps and she had to lean forward, resting her elbows on her knees.
“Gidge.” Andy rested his hand on hers. “You okay?”
She shook her head. “Sure.”
“Liar.”
She could be honest with Andy. She could be honest with all the men, it was just easier with Andy because he knew her story. “Seeing how that man tried to get to that woman… I’ve felt what he felt.” What he will feel.
Jarrett, in a rare moment of sincerity, leaned into the truck from the other open door and said, “It’s never good when we fail to save someone, but it’s easier if we focus on the ones we get out alive.”
“Thanks, Jarrett.” It was sound advice, similar to advice she sometimes gave her patients working through physical therapy after a loss. It didn’t help, because memories had a way of wrecking best-laid intentions.
“You held it together at the scene. Don’t throw that away by going girl on us now.”
And just that quickly Jarrett gave up the pretense of sincerity and went for the hard hit. She actually liked that about him.
“The closest thing to a girl in this house is accessory queen Charming Charlie,” she retorted.
With a nod of approval, Jarrett backed out of the truck. Andy and Delancey followed suit. She was saved from thinking about the fire, the man or how it had gotten to her when a young teenager entered the bay. Wearing tattered jeans that hung halfway down his ass and a T-shirt declaring him as VULGAR, he was unexpectedly good-looking.
“I’m looking for my brother.”
“Who’s your brother?” Andy asked.
“Jarrett.”
Andy pointed toward the door that led to the dining area and admin offices. After the kid lumbered off with a, “Thanks, man,” she and Andy exchanged glances.
“I didn’t know he had a brother,” Delancey said.
“He doesn’t. Not anymore.”
She didn’t have to ask what that meant to know the brother had died, and the details of how didn’t really matter. She was more curious about the rebel on a mission calling him “brother”.
The alarm went off announcing another call. Adrenaline surged through her veins, ramping her energy for whatever they saw next and forcing her mind into a sharper focus than she’d have thought possible before taking on this job.
Still dressed from the last call, Delancey was in the truck waiting when the rest of the crew climbed in moments later. She wasn’t sure how long it would take to appear as relaxed as the men, but she was quickly beginning to understand how they seemed to shift from one mood and mindset to another.
Compartmentalizing was a necessity to their survival and success.
“It’s going to be a long day if the calls keep coming like this,” Mike said as he got in.
She was still raw from the last call, but she called on the lessons she’d learned at her mother’s side to hide how she felt. Her fellow firefighters may think they were the kings of locking down emotions, but there was no one better than a society wife at putting on a façade.
Neither Delancey nor her brothers had ever been able to tell what Mother felt or thought. At least not until they were behind the closed and locked doors of their home when she voiced every disappointment in them. Most typically, though, those were aimed at Delancey.
Pulling up to the accident scene, the crew piled out. Chief Kroeger began calling out orders, moving onlookers back and dividing the crew between the car and the dump truck sitting crookedly across its hood and part of the top, trapping the driver.
No sooner did they wrap up that call than they were dispatched to a house fire that thankfully turned out to be a quickly controlled grease fire. Unthankfully, the homeowner was a high-maintenance woman who was more interested in throwing herself at any of the guys who would pay attention to her than she was in the damage to her home.
Delancey rolled her eyes as they walked back to the truck. “Woman gives women a bad name.”
“Why’s that?” Jarrett asked.
“Seriously? If she didn’t set that fire to have an excuse to call for some hunky firefighters she certainly wasn’t going to miss out when the opportunity presented itself.”
Ben whistled appreciatively. “Gidget thinks we’re Moondoggie worthy.”
“You will never measure up to Moondoggie.” The age range of the men she worked with spanned twenty-five years. Every one of them worked out regularly and stayed in prime shape, and she didn’t mean the shape of a donut. And every one of them was a babe in his own way, but she would never admit as much.
* * * * *
Logan couldn’t have said how much time had passed or what happened since he was lifted into the ambulance. At moments he felt awake. At moments he felt aware. In those moments he noticed enough to know he was in a hospital, and he heard the kind of screams he hadn’t been able to release himself. Screams of release that accomplished nothing.
At no moment, since being lifted into an ambulance, however long ago that had been, had he felt.
Words he didn’t fully understand like third-degree, nerve damage, graft, composite, donor, allograft and debridement flitted in and out of his fog-filled mind. Even his memories failed to flow in a sensible and accurate order.
Dressed in a black suit with a dress shirt and tie choking him, he stood beside Ashley in her high-collared black dress that fell below her knees. It was a strangling outfit for him and a severely sedate one for her, but they seemed fitting as they stood beside their parents’ graves.
He was fourteen. Ashley was sixteen. Neither had any control over what came next.
Logan fisted the hand that stuck out of his sling, welcoming the pain he deserved. He deserved worse. He deserved to be in the ground instead of his parents. At the very least he should be with them.
“It’s okay to cry, Logan.” Ashley linked her arm through his uninjured one and hugged him close. “It’s okay to miss them.”
The gesture had tears clogging his throat, making it tough to breathe or be strong, but he wouldn’t cry, because i
t wasn’t his right. “They shouldn’t have been there. I should be with them.”
“You’re wrong. They were there because they loved you. They wouldn’t want you to blame yourself.”
“It was a stupid prank.”
He’d let friends talk him into stealing some chips and drinks from a convenience store. The cop who’d responded to the store’s silent alarm hadn’t appreciated the joke. He’d scowled in naked judgment while Logan called his parents.
Ashley rested her head against Logan’s and sighed. “What happened at the station was not your fault.”
The cops had said the same, but his choice to rob a store had led to his parents coming to bail him out. Their being there to bail him out had put them on the scene when a druggie resisting arrest got his hands on a gun.
Four people had died. Three, including him, had been wounded. As life lessons went, it was a shitty way for a kid to learn the weight of their choices.
Logan shook his head and swallowed his tears. “Crying is for girls.”
“Then I’ll cry for you until you’re ready.”
He surprised himself with a laugh, because all he really wanted to do was curl up between his parents and cry. It’s what he’d done at night when a nightmare scared him awake. The need for their comfort was more real than ever, but there would be no comfort from the fresh graves.
His parents had been killed by an addict, and Logan and Ashley’s next home had been with an addict.
Unfamiliar voices broke into his consciousness. He didn’t grasp more than a fraction of what was being said, only a sporadic word here and there penetrated. What he did pick up was less alarming than before. But the improvement was only a minor one.
Logan trudged through the darkness in search of light. In search of Ashley.
“Did you finish your homework?”
Logan rolled his eyes and looked up at Ashley. She stood beside the heavily scarred and rickety table with mismatched chairs. She towered over him only because he sat. Her height advantage had disappeared shortly after Logan turned twelve. “At school.”
“You have it ready to show Uncle Dave?”
