They’d pulled out twenty bodies.
The fire was moving fast. He could hear his men clearing the rooms. He could see it in his mind as easily as if he’d been in there himself. They were good men, trained properly. His mind was clear as he barked out orders. Everything was going down perfectly.
Until he heard Trev call out. “Chief, she’s hurt!”
At that point, it was like lightning struck his heart, and he instantly knew who Trev was talking about.
Jamie. The candidate. The new girl who had only shown up a week ago.
Without thinking, his feet went into motion.
“What the—!” He called, running to the truck and donning his air mast. He’d already had turnouts and SCBA on before they even arrived.
Corey was by his side as he moved toward the building. “Cap, you can’t go in there. You have command. We need your eyes out here. There are still ten guys in there.”
But come hell or high water, Damon was going in there. Time lost all meaning. He barged through the burning doors, sucking air from his tank and trying to see her, trying to feel her. He keyed his radio. “Trev, where is she?”
“I … part of the wall has fallen up here, I can’t get her out.”
Climbing the stairs quickly, he rushed straight to where he’d sent Trevor. The smoke was awful, and he could barely see through it. The hungry flames snapped at him as he made his way to Trev who was trying to figure out how to get her free. Springing into action, he rushed to the beam that had fallen, using all his force to push it off, but it wouldn’t budge.
On the radio, he heard the battalion chief. “Freestone, what are you doing? Get your butt out here.”
He ignored it, struggling to find a way to free Jamie.
The battalion chief ordered everyone to abandon the building then started calling out his crew one by one, telling them to get out. Air horns blared long blasts of four tones, the symbol to evacuate. The fire had burned long enough that either this thing would flashover soon or the whole building might come down.
Even though Damon could feel the blow was coming, he couldn’t leave yet. He scrambled to get another board and make a lever to push the beam.
Trev stayed by his side without asking and helped him push the lever.
“Freestone! Clark!” The battalion chief barked, calling the two of them.
Damon pointed at Trev. “Get out!”
Trev shook his head. “I’m staying with you, Cap.”
The battalion chief’s voice pierced the radio. “Then you are both fools that are going to lose your jobs.”
They pushed and levered the wood until Jamie’s leg came loose. Damon picked her up and carried her out of the apartment, down the stairs and into the pandemonium outside.
The building had the decency to not flash until both he and Trev were out. Flames tumbled over their heads and the pressure forced Damon down to his knees. He climbed to his feet and ran toward the medics.
As he laid her body on the stretcher, ambo crews and firefighters swarmed them, helping them take off their equipment. Damon sucked in the cool Boston night air.
The battalion chief walked over with anger in his eyes and stared at him. “Freestone, you made the wrong call.”
All Damon was concerned with at the moment was making sure Jamie was okay. He saw them intubating her.
“Is she breathing?” he asked Craig, the main paramedic.
When Craig didn’t answer, he began investigating the equipment they were using, and then the other medic pulled out an AED and shocked her chest.
“Breathe.” He commanded her, getting on his knees and feeling emotion bubble up in his throat. Emotion he never let out anywhere besides a punch to the face of his sparring partner at the gym in the morning.
His battalion chief was next to him, his hand on his shoulder, as Damon watched the crew frantically try to get a pulse, get all the smoke out of her so she could breathe.
Shedding his turnouts, he hopped into the ambo with them. The medics worked efficiently, doing everything they could, but in the short ride to the hospital, he watched her unresponsive lips go blue. He watched her die.
When they pulled the stretcher out and ran her into the hospital, he ran with them down the hall, listening to the paramedics give their report to the doctors.
Can’t find a pulse, too much smoke in her lungs, gave her albuterol, cortisone, a plethora of other drugs.
His mind couldn’t decipher all of it. In truth, it was the first time he didn’t feel absolutely involved in the scene, but more like a bystander watching it all unfold.
As he watched them cover her with a sheet, he knew it was his fault. She’d died because he’d sent her in too soon.
He wished it had been him instead.
You can pick up Rescue Me HERE.
Now, to read an excerpt from Two Hearts Rescue, turn the page.
Excerpt from Two Hearts Rescue
Chapter One
Poppy Mercier stared down her enemy. “I own you,” she said, eyes held steady. “Today you’re going to be the one in pain.”
The treadmill stared back, its beady little red and green flashing lights taunting her, daring her to bring it.
“Oh, I’ll bring it,” said Poppy. “I’ll make you wish—”
“Everything okay?” asked a gym employee, who had been working her way up the machines wiping them down. Her name tag read, “Alta.”
Poppy cleared her throat and stepped up onto the treadmill. With an embarrassed grin, she said, “Y-yeah, sorry about that. Just psyching myself up.”
“I hear you,” said Alta. “Sometimes you gotta let them know who’s boss.” She was medium-height, a few inches taller than Poppy, had gorgeous mocha skin, and a body that made it clear she showed the machines who was boss on a regular basis.
“Here’s goes nothing,” exhaled Poppy, then held the up arrow and jogged as the belt picked up speed. She always used the manual option for speed and incline because she hated it when the stupid machines demanded she input her weight. It was none of their business.
At 3.3 mph Poppy had to jog to keep up. Dang her short legs. At 6.0 she pulled her finger from the button and resisted the urge to use the handrails like an old woman with a walker.
This wasn’t too bad. She could keep this speed for 3.1 miles. It was her first day as a member of the gym. Hopefully the monthly fees would be enough to motivate her to finally keep going with a workout plan for once. If she could just drop ten to fifteen, then keep them off …
New city—well, old city second time around—new lifestyle, new body? The spirit was willing but the flesh was, the flesh was severely lacking oxygen and Poppy’s second wind was nowhere in sight. Any second now, she told herself. Push through. Even the voice in her head was out of breath.
She stared straight ahead at the pillar in front of the treadmill. She had picked this particular machine because it was the only one with an obstructed view of the enormous mirrors.
Don’t check the distance yet. A little farther.
With things so slow at the shelter, Daria could hold down the fort for an hour. Once Poppy got a few days into a habit of working out, she could take the next step and drag her butt out of bed early enough to come before the shelter opened.
A line of TVs displayed various sports shows and middle of the day talk shows. Neither held any interest for Poppy, so she put her wireless headphones in and resumed her Cami Checketts suspense novel.
As she set her phone back into the cup holder on the treadmill, Poppy accidentally glimpsed the display: .09. Not even a tenth of a mile. The self-torture was going to last all day. But she couldn’t take all day, she had to get back to shelter.
She also couldn’t keep up this pace. If she died on this treadmill she’d leave exactly 27 animals hanging. For the sake of the animals, Poppy decreased the speed to 5.8. It still felt incredibly fast, but it was slower than a ten-minute mile.
A bright red vehicle passed in front of the gym�
��s windows. Poppy looked up to see a fire truck and an ambulance pass slowly right along the curb. Was something wrong? Maybe she couldn’t hear the alarm over her audiobook. She pulled out one earbud and looked around for flashing warning lights and saw everyone in the gym just carrying on with their workouts.
The sound of doors closing outside had to come from the fire trucks. Maybe someone had called 9-1-1 because she looked as bad as unwell as she felt. Poppy gripped the handrail and leaned to the side. Her hair was still in its ponytail but her face was only a few shades shy of heat stroke.
The gym doors opened and group of firemen came in. Nope, one of them was a female, so she guessed that made them firefighters? They were all dressed in gym shorts and t-shirts, and the only equipment they carried was radios. It didn’t appear to be an emergency.
They could have been straight out of a beer commercial. One guy was gray-haired and one was, well, for lack of a better word, fat, but as a group they were smokin’. If she hadn’t seen the Park City Fire Department vehicles pull up, she would have wondered if they were here to pose for a photo shoot. Between the six of them, they had some serious muscle and fitness going on.
It was the last one through the door who really caught her eye. He wasn’t a muscle head like a couple of them, but his chiseled face and prominent cheek bones gave him a rugged handsomeness. His dark hair was buzzed on the sides, but more than long enough to run a hand through on the top.
After taking a couple steps into the gym, the fireman looked directly at Poppy, as if sensing her eyes on him. Their eyes met, introduced themselves. They didn’t slide off of each other and go on their way. Her eyes and his eyes said hello, sat down for a speed-date, and ended up having an intimate conversation, backing up all the other speed daters but still not parting ways until the event coordinator was summoned to force them apart. It was much more intimate than she was comfortable with a perfect stranger, but it still took effort to pull her eyes away.
Is it hot in here? wondered Poppy. She looked down at her phone and reached for it so she could rewind the book … and next thing she knew she was head over heels, executing a perfectly awkward and painful dismount from the treadmill. One second she was running for her life, the next she was laying on the ground, butt in the air, staring up at her knees. The treadmill was still running, grinding against her bare back and trying to rub all of the skin off.
Oh good, at least her shirt had nearly come completely off in the display of grace.
Poppy found herself chuckling through her grimace as she pushed away from the belt of the treadmill. In the face of pain that would break most POWs, she could either laugh or shout every swear word she knew at the top of her lungs. She couldn’t extricate herself from the awkward position, just push off enough to prevent third-degree abrasions. Hopefully.
A few second later someone ran up, hit the emergency stop, and braced her until the torture device stopped spinning its belt.
“You didn’t have to do that,” grunted Poppy. “I was kind of looking forward to having my back covered in skin grafts.”
“Here,” said a man’s voice. A hand reached through her tangle of legs and grabbed her hand. It was a man’s hand for sure, solid and much larger than hers. “Lean to your left and we’ll get you right-side up.” Another hand rested against her knee and moving in harmony they guided her so that she was lying on her side, finally able to breathe normally.
Poppy’s ponytail had exploded and her hair now obscured everything. “Maybe I’ll just breathe for a minute?” It was impossible to tell if the labored breathing was due to the exercise or the feat of unimaginable poise.
“Let me just …” Someone started adjusting her shirt, pulling it down over what Poppy’s mother referred to as her “disproportionate roundness”.
“Okay, then,” said Poppy, shooting up to a sitting position, realizing abruptly how exposed she was. She did a quick look to make sure her sports bra hadn’t somehow been splattered across the wall behind her, and breathed a little easier when her hand brushed the strap. While she pulled her shirt to a state of public decency, she flipped her head back to clear her hair out of her eyes.
It smacked the hot fireman in the face. The hot one with the eyes.
For a second he sat there, eyes closed, mouth open. Stunned. Then he lifted an arm to wipe the residue of her sweaty hair off of his face.
Nice one, Poppy. You’ve reached an entirely new level of smooth.
“Well, Cap,” said the huge-fat fireman to the huge-muscular fireman. “Looks like Booter gets to fill out his first exposure report when we get back.”
“Funny, JFK,” said the man she had drenched with her mop. Looking back at her, he said, “I’m Slade. I’m an EMT. Did you hurt yourself?” He was crouching next to her as the rest of his crew gathered behind him.
Poppy somehow looked away from his dark blue eyes. “Hurt myself? What do you mean? Isn’t that how everyone dismounts from these instruments of torture?” The abrasion on her back stung, especially with her sweaty shirt laying across it, but there was nothing the fireman could do about the pain.
“It’s one way to do it,” said Slade. “I won’t judge. Here, lean back against the wall.” He had a small grin on his face and Poppy realized she was smiling through the blush on her own face.
With his help, Poppy was able to relax against the wall, keeping the raw skin on her lower back arched away. “I’ll just finish my workout down here. Since you didn’t let me complete the dermabrasion session.”
“She seems fine,” said the one Slade had called JFK.
When Slade looked over his shoulder at him, Poppy couldn’t prevent her eyes from quickly dipping to Slade’s arms. The t-shirt wasn’t skin tight, but it was tight enough to tell that the gym wasn’t the torture chamber to him that it was to her. Was he flexing? He had to be flexing.
As he turned back to Poppy she brought her eyes up to his face.
“Would you like me to check you out?” he asked.
Check you out? Had he noticed the way she had ogled him when she thought she could get away with it? As in, My eyes are up here, ma’am. The lady firefighter and the muscle head looked at each other, focusing.
Oh no. They saw me checking him out.
The muscle head bent his ear toward the radio, which was blaring something that Poppy couldn’t follow. “That’s us,” he said.
The female nodded. “Behind the Rite-Aid.”
They all started jogging toward the exit. Except for Slade, who was still looking at her. “Are you sure you’re okay? We can send another unit to that call if you need us.”
From the doors of the gym, JFK yelled back, “Get on the rig, Boot!”
Slade didn’t budge, still waiting on her expectantly.
“Go,” said Poppy, smiling and hoping it looked thankful and not like a creepy Joker smile. “I’m fine.”
“Okay,” said Slade, rising. “Call us back if you change your mind. You know our number.”
She watched him jog with the grace of a dancer to the door. Oh man did she watch him. Why, in the name of all the exercise gods, did that have to happen at that moment? Riding the treadmill wave like an epileptic cow in front of the gym-goers was bad enough. But no, that wasn’t good enough for Poppy Mercier. She had to do it in front of a gaggle of good looking men. A herd of hotties. A flock of fire—
“Can I give you a hand up?” Alta was back, offering a hand.
Nice of her to wait until Poppy was done admiring Park City’s Finest. No wait, Finest was for police, wasn’t it? These guys were the Bravest. Though Poppy hadn’t met many finer than that Slade.
“I love it when they come in,” said Alta with a sly smile, helping Poppy to her feet.
“Oh, they’re regulars?” Poppy tried to sound casual.
“Yeah, they come in and play wallyball about once a week.”
“Oh good,” said Poppy. “I think that dismount was only about an eight. Next week I think I can pull off a ten if I land fa
ce down on the treadmill instead of head down on the ground.” She reached up and felt the goose egg forming on the back of her head. At least she hadn’t cracked her head all the way open. But hey, Slade would be back in a week or so. That might be enough extra motivation to keep Poppy’s butt coming back here.
“It looked pretty painful,” said Alta.
“Yeah, but in an agile, attractive sort of way, right?” The sting of sweat on raw skin hadn’t faded much.
Alta laughed. “Yeah, you were as nimble as an elephant in ice skates.”
“My mother’s right.” Poppy groaned. “I’ll die single for sure.”
Alta laughed again. “There’s no way. A funny girl like you with such a gorgeous smile? How have you not been scooped up yet?”
It was no surprise to Poppy that she was single, but it also wasn’t the time to drag out the Litany of Lack. “That’s nice of you to say.” Especially since you look like you should be on a magazine cover.
“Are you feeling alright?” asked Alta. “Need to sit down, or need someone to check you out?”
“I think everyone in the gym already saw more of me than they wanted to.” When she made it back to the shelter, Daria could bandage up the abrasion.
“Okay. I have some first aid training, and they give all of us a concussion class when we start working here, so I know a little bit about some danger signs.”
“That’s really nice of you, Alta. I’m actually a vet, so if I start walking in to glass walls or barking incessantly I’ll have a pretty good idea what’s wrong.”
With a chuckle Alta nodded and started toward the front desk. “I’ll be up here if you need anything.”
Quiet enough so no one else could hear, Poppy said, “I need to show you that you can’t throw me around.” She put on her pit bull face, the dog, not the singer. Her enemy couldn’t know that, like most of the Pitties that had come through her rescue, Poppy was a softie inside.
Show no fear, feel no compassion.
Poppy hit the start button and took a deep breath as the machine taunted her with the three-beep countdown, and started sliding.
Rescue My Heart: Park City Firefighter Romance Page 16
