Kansas City’s Bravest

by Julie Miller

  “Of course, I do. That drama, that pain and joy, is what viewers tune in to see.”

  “What about the firefighters?” She wedged the board beneath the window latch and heaved with all her might. The wood snapped in two and she tumbled to the floor.

  “Viewers love it. American heroes saving the day.” Now Meghan could see the reporter wasn’t just sitting there, bragging about her plan. She was working loose the knots. “And you, dear girl, were the icing on the cake. When Jack took an interest in you, I knew I had a ground-breaking story on my hands.” She stood, wrapping each leg of the hose around her wrists and pulling it taut between her fists, arming herself with a strangulation device. “The perfect ending would be to find you and your stalker dead together in his last, fiery masterpiece.”

  Meghan picked up the larger of the two pieces of wood and wielded it like a baseball bat in her hands. “If you kill me, you’ll die in here, too. Haven’t you noticed? The smoke alarms aren’t going off.”

  “I took out the batteries.” Saundra advanced slowly. “And Dennis, my cameraman is already on his way to meet me here. If I don’t show up, I’m sure he’ll come looking. Imagine. Me happening upon this tragic murder-suicide, and then getting caught in the fire. How courageous I am to cover this story.” She smiled a wicked smile. “My rescue will be the lead story, I’m sure.”

  “There are children sleeping upstairs.” How could this woman ever justify endangering a child’s life? “If they get caught in this fire, you’ll have mass murder on your hands.”

  “Who are they? Orphans? Wards of the state? Who’s going to miss them?” She was now circling around Meghan. “It’ll make a tragic little sidebar for my story.”

  A fierce, red-hot rush of maternal emotion kindled every protective instinct inside Meghan. “You bitch.”

  She swung the wood. Saundra ducked and lunged, hitting Meghan in the gut and driving her back into the wall. But Saundra Ames was merely fighting for her own survival. Meghan was fighting for her children.

  The wood made a satisfying whack against Saundra’s back. It was enough to loosen her grip. Meghan shoved and Saundra stumbled backward and lost her balance. She hit her head on the side of the furnace and collapsed to the floor.

  As much as she hated the woman, it was still part of Meghan’s training to check her wound and to feel her neck for a pulse. Out cold, but living. “Good,” said Meghan, damning charity for the moment. “I want you to pay.”

  But she still had one tiny, little problem. She looked up at the smoke gathering near the ceiling and slowly filling the room.

  “Gideon.” She whispered his name like a prayer, sinking down onto her knees and hugging herself, wishing his arms were around her now. “Come find me.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Where the hell is she?”

  Gideon wiped the moisture from his watch and checked it again. Twenty minutes ago they’d run outside to secure the house against the storm. He and Josh had been outside when the transformer had blown. Handing his keys to his brother, Gideon found a flashlight in the kitchen and ran upstairs to check on its occupants.

  Mark had been startled awake, but Dorie was rocking him back and forth in a chair to soothe him back to sleep. Alex, standing guard in his big brother sort of way, stifled a yawn. And Eddie asked a question about how many fires were actually started by lightning.

  “Go to sleep, Poindexter,” Gideon teased him. By the time he’d explained that reference to the curious kid, several minutes had passed.

  “You, too, big guy.” He squeezed Alex’s shoulder. After all his hard work, the young man was practically asleep on his feet. “Time to turn in.” With the younger boys taken care of, Gideon and Alex came back downstairs.

  And found no sign of Meghan.

  “She can’t have wandered off.”

  “She was outside in this?” asked Alex, perking up with concern.

  “Maybe the dog got away from her.” Josh slicked the water from his hair and wiped it on his pants leg.

  “Maybe.” But Gideon’s radar was screaming at him. Meghan was alone. And “worried” didn’t begin to describe what she was feeling. “You want to take the basement or outside?”

  “There’s a flashlight in my truck,” offered Josh. “I’ll brave the rain.”

  “I’ll help,” Alex volunteered.

  Gideon spared a smile for both men. “Thanks.”

  “We’ll find her.” Josh nodded to Alex, and they headed out onto the patio.

  The instant Gideon opened the basement door, Crispy shot out between his legs. The smoke billowed up seconds later. “Meghan!”

  Gideon charged down the steps, but his path was blocked by the wall of flame that engulfed the basement. “Meg, answer me! Are you down here?”

  Intense heat singed his skin and he lifted his arm to shield his eyes. He didn’t even consider the possibility of one of Eddie’s lightning-strike fires. The flames themselves provided enough light to see the damning pattern of arson. Whatever chemical had been splashed across the carpeting and walls was a quick burner and already hot enough to start melting the plastic fibers and blistering the paint.

  This lady was alive. The fire extinguisher upstairs couldn’t put it out. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called it in. Address. Description. Number of occupants in the house.

  He leaped back a couple of steps as flames shot up like grabbing hands. “Meg!” he called again, feeling the sting of toxins unleashed by the heat burn his eyes and throat. His heart thumped an uneven rhythm, charged by adrenaline and weighted by fear.

  If the response wasn’t quick enough, and the fire contained down here, the whole house would go. Why the hell hadn’t the smoke alarm gone off down here? He’d run a fire inspection himself after Matthew’s mishap. It had been working fine. This fire was well established and the smoke would already be working its way upstairs.

  No alarms.

  The boys.

  “Meghan?” He coughed and called her name again as he backed up the stairs. The one reassuring observation he could make was that the door to the furnace room was shut tight. If she was in there, and the fire out here, she could safely secure herself for several minutes before the smoke ate up all her oxygen. He’d find another way into that room if he had to. “I’ll find you, sweetheart,” he whispered, praying Josh or Alex already had.

  Torn between responsibilities, Gideon ran up the stairs to wake the house and to find his brother. He’d better stumble across Meghan, too.

  If not, the fire and the past and the future be damned. He’d cross through hell itself to save the woman he loved.

  MEGHAN COUGHED. A hammer pounded inside her head with each jerking movement. The blackness around her swirled and flickered as she opened her eyes and breathed through the pain. When had she lost consciousness?

  “Gideon?” She could barely mouth the word. But she’d sensed his presence a moment ago. She could feel his love and strength filling her heart and answering her prayers.

  Smoke had filled the room, robbing her of precious air. Saundra Ames still lay unconscious beside her accomplice. Meghan had no intention of becoming the third body in that pile. She needed to do something. She rolled onto her hands and knees, staying close to the floor. “Help me!” She grabbed a chunk of wood and hurled it against the glass. “Help me!”

  “Meg!”

  She heard his voice like an answered prayer.

  “Gideon?” She saw him at the window and her heart melted into a puddle of relief. “I can’t get it open,” she shouted through the glass. “We’re trapped. There’s no air.”

  “Stand back.”

  Obeying the order without question, she hunkered down behind a stack of boxes. She lost sight of Gideon a moment before she saw the soles of two big shoes brace against the glass. He kicked once. Again. The whole window shattered and flew out into the room. Meghan shielded her face from the rain of glass. The sudden influx of oxygen sucked the air from her lungs. With a
flood of new air to consume, the fire licked itself into a tiny flame at the cracks of the door. It was coming.

  Meghan didn’t wait for Gideon’s command to climb. Knocking aside the big shards of glass, she tiptoed onto the first crate, found a safe spot to step on the second. He spread a turnout coat at the base of the window to protect her from the ragged glass frame.

  “There are two victims down here,” she reported, her firefighter training temporarily overriding her fear. “One unconscious, one dead.”

  “EMT’s are on their way,” he assured her in his commander’s voice. But then that hard tone softened. “You don’t look in that great a shape yourself. I’ve got you, sweetheart.” And then a long, strong arm reached in through the window, promising shelter, care, rescue. “Give me your hand, sweetheart. That’s an order.”

  Latching on, hand to wrist, she met his offer strength for strength.

  Holding tight, he pulled her free. Meghan tumbled into his chest as he fell onto his backside and gathered her into his arms. “Oh, God, baby.” He bathed her face in hundreds of tiny kisses. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought—”

  She framed his jaw between her hands and stopped up his mouth with a powerful kiss. “Thank you” was all she could think to say as he turned the kiss into a powerful affirmation of life and love. “And the boys?”

  “They’re safe. I want to work things out, sweetheart.” He kissed her once. “I have an idea to run past you.” He kissed her again. “I want to—”

  “Get a room, guys.” Josh Taylor cleared his throat to politely snag their attention. He towered over them as the rain pelted down around them. “Good to see you, Meghan. This guy’s been driving me nuts looking for you.”

  “Shut up, Josh. I’m trying to propose.”

  “What?” Had she heard him right?

  “There’s more.” Gideon kissed her once more and stood, pulling her up beside him without explanation as he ordered Josh to report their status on his radio. “Tell the chief I found her and give the EMT’s this location. But we’re not out of this yet.”

  “Got it.”

  “Josh, wait.” She grabbed his sleeve and stopped him. “I’ve got your arsonist. And my stalker. Jack Quinton. He’s the dead man. Saundra Ames is in the basement, too.”

  “Hell of a time for an interview.”

  “She killed Quinton.” Meghan knew she had a lot of explaining to do. So did Gideon. She nodded toward the basement. “If you want justice, talk to her. She’s got quite a story to report.”

  Josh crouched beside the opening and shone a light inside. He swore when he saw the body. Gideon hugged her tight and she gladly huddled close to his warmth. But she couldn’t bring herself to question what he’d meant a moment ago. There was too much going on right now.

  Josh pulled out his cell phone and punched in a number. “A.J.” Whatever his partner was saying, he ignored it to ask her a question. “Which of them gave you those bruises?”

  “Saundra. She was blackmailing Quinton. Getting herself the story of a lifetime.” She shivered as the rain hit her skin. Shivered as she realized how close she’d come to death. “This was supposed to be the grand finale. I didn’t want to be part of the story anymore.”

  As Josh left to fill in his partner, Gideon untucked his wet shirt and peeled it off. “Interesting outfit. You are okay, aren’t you?”

  Meghan’s blush heated her skin from the inside out. Her bra and panties were hardly the right uniform for fighting fires, but she still had the presence of mind to ask about the situation. “Can the fire be contained? And what did you mean by proposing while I’m in my underwear in the pouring rain while the house is on fire?”

  He grinned suspiciously. “I never claimed to be a romantic. Let’s take care of business first, then I promise I’ll do better.” He slipped his shirt over her head and pulled it down while she pushed her arms through the sleeves. “The rain’s helping suppress the fire. But it looks like Dorie will lose the basement and the dining room and den above it. The south end of the house and the upstairs might be all right.” The EMT’s and police were arriving on the scene as he pulled her back to his side and she hugged herself close to the warmth and scent of his rain-sleek skin. “Let’s go out front to the command center.”

  “Gideon!” They turned as one as Josh jogged up to meet them.

  “What’s wrong?” Gideon asked.

  “Dorie’s blood pressure spiked and she passed out. She’s gonna be okay. But in the confusion of getting her into the ambulance and stabilizing her, she lost track of Matthew.”

  Meghan clutched Gideon’s arm and felt it tremble. He sensed it, too. An awful, empty dread clutched at her empty belly. “Please don’t tell me this.”

  “I’m sorry. He didn’t know you’d been found.” Josh’s grim apology took in both Meghan and Gideon. “We think he went back into the house.”

  “I’LL GO.” Meghan’s weary resignation reverberated in the recesses of Gideon’s soul. “Matthew won’t be afraid of me.”

  He quickly assessed the way she shivered beneath the blanket the EMTs had draped around her shoulders, the stitched-up wound that was seeping blood, and the uncustomary fear that dulled her pretty eyes. He felt that same fear deep in his own heart. He put a hand on her shoulder and halted her march toward the nearest fire engine. “You’re not in any shape to go into that fire.” A sense of destiny thrummed along with the jitters of adrenaline flowing through his veins. “I’ll go.”

  Meghan looked up into his eyes with such hope, such faith, he knew he couldn’t fail. She made him stronger. She’d given him the precious gift of believing in himself again. And whether she knew it or not, she’d offered him the family he’d always wanted.

  “I’ll be okay with whatever happens to us, Gideon.” She sounded as if she was making some sort of sacrifice. But he didn’t have time to make her see, to understand. He released her only to pull on the pants and turnout coat one of the firefighters had brought him. “Just please…please keep Matthew safe.”

  “I heard the kid doesn’t talk.” One of the firefighters placed a helmet on his head, another handed him protective gloves. “How will you know where to find him?”

  “I’ll know.”

  Luke Redding’s face popped into his mind. But it wasn’t a guilty reminder. He felt the strength and trust of his former partner instead.

  Meghan squeezed his left hand when he hesitated. Tipping back his helmet, he bent and kissed her soundly. “I’ll be back.”

  MEGHAN NEVER TOOK her eyes off the front door where Gideon had gone in. He was such a noble man. Tall and dark and strong. Gentle and patient. And good. He had such a good heart.

  She loved him so much.

  Mark squirmed in her arms, sensing her tension if not quite understanding the danger his brother was in.

  “How long has it been?” she asked.

  “Six minutes.” Josh stood by her side, watching for his brother just as diligently.

  Other firefighters had retrieved the bodies from the basement. Saundra Ames was in an ambulance, handcuffed to her gurney while A. J. Rodriguez questioned her. The fire now engulfed the first floor of the house on the north end. Smoke would have filled the upstairs by now. She hoped Matthew was hiding in another closet, if not, the fumes…

  “He’ll be okay, Meghan.” Alex had his arm around her shoulders, acting far more confident and comforting than his sixteen years. “Gid takes good care of us.”

  “Yes, he does.” Tears stung her dry eyes. She’d been around too much smoke. She’d been staring too long. She blinked them away, trying to be strong. “You boys love him, don’t you?”

  Eddie snorted in front of her. “Well, yeah. In a manly man kind of way.”

  Meghan leaned over and kissed the crown of his head. That was quite an admission for the tough guy. “He’ll be all right.”

  Another minute passed. And while the fire was no longer spreading, she could see smoke streaming from the upstairs windows. She pr
ayed.

  The scene commander approached, his white turnout coat reflecting the lights from the trucks and the spotlights that shone on the house to direct the spray of water. “I’m sending in another team,” he announced. “He’s been in there eight minutes.”

  “No, wait.” Meghan latched on to his sleeve before he could give the order. “Matthew will be terrified. He knows Gideon.”

  “But to save his life?”

  She wasn’t above begging. “Please, Chief. One more minute.”

  “One minute.” He nodded and walked away.

  “Come on, Gideon. You can save him.” He’d saved her. Her heart, her soul, her self-esteem, her life—Gideon had saved them all. She wouldn’t believe he’d lost his way in the fire. She wouldn’t believe he’d give up without a fight. She wouldn’t believe he wasn’t coming back. “Gideon.”

  A minute passed and a tear streamed down her face. She hugged Mark tight in her arms as a new team of firefighters prepped for the rescue.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” she breathed. “I believe in you.”

  She jumped as one of the front windows exploded. “No!”

  They couldn’t have flashover. The whole house would be engulfed. “Gideon!”

  A heartbeat past hopeless she saw the ax strike the window again. “Gideon!”

  Unthinkable terror became heart-pounding joy as a black-clad firefighter crawled through the window, carrying a bundled-up blanket in his arms. And then she was running. Running to meet the hero who carried a precious little boy in his arms.

  “Meg?” He pushed off his helmet and tugged the mask from his face. “Meg! He’s all right. Matthew’s all right.”

  She threw her arm around his neck and thanked him and rewarded his soot-streaked mouth with a kiss. “Thank you.” She was weeping openly now. “Thank you.” Gideon pushed the blanket away from Matthew, but kept him in his arms. She hugged the boy and the man and kissed Matthew’s chubby face. “You scared me, sweetheart. I love you so much. I don’t know what we’d do if you got hurt.”