Fade the Heat

by Colleen Thompson

  Was that Jack—the real Jack—she was hearing?

  “Reagan!”

  Real or not, the sound of her name sent a jolt of pure energy shooting up her spine. What the hell was she doing, waiting for the fire to eat its way into the trunk?

  Coughing too hard to call out, she fumbled desperately to find the tire iron she had dropped. Maybe she’d been hallucinating in her terror, but the Jack who’d hugged her to him had been dead right. So she had a softer side? It didn’t have to make her any less of a competitor—a warrior when it counted.

  If she was going to die here, she was damned well going to go down swinging.

  Jack should have known the driver had not simply disappeared so quickly. He should have known that Paulo must be nearby, watching from the trees.

  But the sight of flames burned everything from Jack’s mind except Reagan. It was all he could do to fumble through the dialing of three digits, then shout the location to the emergency operator as he pulled his rental as close as he dared to the burning vehicle.

  Leaping out of his car, he saw that the initial flare had died back. Though a column of black smoke rose, the fire had settled back to feasting on the car’s interior. But the heat was still intense enough to drive him back, forcing him to raise his arm to shield his face as he cried out Reagan’s name.

  Every fiber of his being, every atom, blazed the message that Reagan was still in there—maybe burned to death already.

  Get back from it, his better judgment warned him. Get back or you’ll be killed, too, when it blows.

  Yet when the trunk lid suddenly sprang open, he raced toward the inferno, tossing aside self-preservation for that one chance in ten thousand that the woman who owned his heart was still alive.

  In the end, it was Reagan’s lungs that failed her. Not her courage, not her grit, but the simple lack of oxygen that left her powerless to climb free of the trunk she had forced open.

  Her awareness constricted, shrinking to the primal struggle to draw another breath. Her world turned to swirling grayness, maybe from the thick smoke, or perhaps her eyes were going. And mercifully, she felt nothing at all.

  Her brain was shutting down now—failing. Resorting to hallucinations of a rescue, of Jack rushing in, his head ducked, of powerful arms lifting her free, strong legs pumping, running. The scene played out like a movie, as if she were looking through a camera from the treetops.

  She watched Jack lay her body flat before a pair of shining headlights, watched him tilt her head back and pour his breath into her body.

  Stared down as his head pressed to her chest—and traced the progress of a tear trail cutting through the soot that covered his face. And as her vantage spiraled skyward, she saw the figure, too, coming up behind Jack, clutching a branch as thick and solid as a major leaguer’s bat.

  No!

  At the sight of it, her lungs seized, and Reagan felt herself falling. Plunging like a hawk out of the treetops, then tumbling back into herself.

  Where she lay coughing. Hurting. Weeping. And fighting to get out the words, as Paulo’s arms drew back in preparation for what would surely be a crushing blow to Jack’s skull.

  “Ja-Jack,” she moaned.

  “Reagan,” Jack cried, pulling her to his chest in an embrace so tight it threatened to choke off her air again. “Oh, God—Reagan, you’re alive.”

  “Behind you!” she barely managed to choke out.

  Later, Jack would be called upon a score of times to tell what happened. But he would never find the right words to describe the way knowledge passed between him and Reagan in that instant.

  However it happened—whether it was the panic in her voice or a more mysterious force at work—Reagan’s warning arced straight to his muscles, so that he let go of her and spun around, his hand already darting for the pocket of his jacket.

  His eyes already seeing Paulo’s silhouetted form as the branch swung toward his head.

  The crack echoed in the clearing, louder than the flames, louder than the approaching sirens and the sounds of Reagan’s weeping. But loudest of all, to Jack’s ears, came the sound of Paulo Rodriguez crashing to the ground.

  And the sound of his death rattle only moments later.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Jack raised his voice to speak over Reagan’s choked and intermittent wheezing—the most terrifying thing he had ever heard.

  “I can wait for treatment, and I’m riding along with her,” he told the paramedic, a small man, thin as a whippet and at least as high-strung.

  Moving at double-espresso speed, the paramedic ripped open the packaging for a plastic air mask. The assembled police cars, fire trucks, and two other ambulances strobe-lit him in red. “Hurley’s one of our own, Doctor. We’re doing everything we can. Now if you’ll step aside and let an EMT see to your burn…”

  Though she’d been drifting in and out of consciousness, Reagan raised a shaking, bloody hand and clamped down on the paramedic’s forearm. “Please,” was all she managed, but it proved sufficient to melt the man’s resistance.

  “All right,” he said. “If that’s what you want.”

  Jack’s knuckles were as blistered as Reagan’s arm, but he let her hold his hand when all three were settled inside the ambulance. With a mask strapped to her face and a breathing treatment humming, Reagan’s eyes closed and her tight grip eased.

  Jack shot a worried look at the paramedic, who said, “We’re giving her some good meds, and we’ll get her to the hospital in no time flat.”

  As if to underscore the point, the ambulance started, sirens blaring, and the driver called back, “Hold on. It could get a little bumpy until we’re back on pavement—and we’re not slowing down for anything.”

  In spite of the crew’s haste, Jack knew things could go south quickly if Reagan’s airway swelled shut and cut off her oxygen completely. By the time they reached the closest hospital, she could be gone forever, lost to either death or a brain injury so severe it would amount to virtually the same thing.

  “You can’t go,”he told her, hot tears scalding his eyes. “Reag, you can’t die on me. Because I love you. Because I want to marry you and make a life with you.”

  The paramedic, who was rechecking her blood pressure, faded from Jack’s consciousness. With his attention focused on Reagan’s wheezing, he felt a hot tear course down, then drip onto her cheek.

  Her eyes fluttered, and she looked up into his face.

  “We’ll give my mother those nietos,” Jack swore; “a little boy with your chin and my cowlick, a tiny girl with dark hair and a stubborn streak a mile wide. Can’t you see them, Reagan? Can’t you see our children in your mind?”

  Her eyes flared, and he heard her sharp gasp. Her hand squeezed his hard enough to send pain shooting up his arm.

  Was this it? Was she dying?

  “She’s sounding better,” said the paramedic, and that was when Jack realized that her breathing had quieted, falling below the level of the ambulance’s siren.

  “Vitals are improving, too,” the paramedic added.

  Reagan’s eyes closed once more, and her tight grip loosened.

  Jack gusted out a sigh, his entire body trembling with relief. “Thank God,” he said. “The medications must be working.”

  “I don’t know.” The paramedic shot a grin his way. “It could just be that bedside manner you’ve got goin’. If she doesn’t marry you, I figure maybe I will.”

  Jack laughed—when only moments earlier he couldn’t imagine ever smiling again.

  Though the day had grown cool and Reagan’s hospital room felt chilly, Jack’s face was sheened with perspiration when he came in the door, as if he’d been rushing to get to her.

  Still drowsy from her long nap, she smiled up at him. “Hey, stranger. I was afraid they might have changed their minds about keeping you at police headquarters.”

  Her throat hurt, and her voice remained hoarse from the combined assaults of smoke and the breathing tube she’d had remove
d the day before. But she was determined not to fall asleep on him again.

  Jack shook his head. “No chance of that. I won’t be charged in Paulo’s death, and since Sabrina’s run off with all that money from the mayor’s campaign fund, she’s not exactly in a position to file a complaint against me.”

  Bending down to kiss her cheek, he asked, “How’re you feeling?”

  “Better. The doctor said my tests look good. There shouldn’t be any permanent damage to my airway, and the other injuries are superficial.”

  “That’s wonderful,” he told her, and gently squeezed her wrist above the burned spot.

  She noticed that like her hands, which had been scraped raw in her efforts to escape, his right hand was bandaged.

  “You’re hurt,” she said. “I didn’t notice it yesterday when you were here.”

  “You didn’t notice much of anything. You were still out of it from the medicine they gave you when they scoped your lungs. I wanted to come back later, but the police—”

  “That’s all right.” She was still focused on his bandage. “Did you get that saving me, Jack?”

  He smiled. “It’s just a little burn, not much of a war wound.”

  She looked into his dark eyes. “It’s everything to me. I love you, Jack. And never again will I hesitate to say it.”

  The moment stretched between them like a strand of spider’s silk.

  “Ah, Reag, you had me so damned scared.”

  “I know. I remember the ambulance, that ride with you.”

  A slow smile warmed his handsome features. “You heard me? You remember?”

  A tap came at the door, and a nurse stuck her head inside. “I have another delivery for you.”

  “You can bring it in,” said Reagan, “but I’m not sure where you’ll put it.”

  Already, her room was packed with fruit baskets and balloon bouquets, even a box of gourmet cookies from the mayor—who was claiming to be as shocked as anyone about his campaign manager’s crimes. Not that it much mattered, in terms of tomorrow’s election. Since the latest polls were indicating a large-scale—and surprisingly well-organized—Latino voter backlash against Darren Winter’s on-air rhetoric, it looked as if Thomas Youngblood was a shoo-in for a second term.

  “Oh, I think I can find room,” the red-haired woman told her as she carried in a stand-up cardboard cutout of a huge bouquet of flowers. By way of explanation, she said, “When I told him respiratory patients can’t have flowers, he left and came back with this instead.”

  Laughing, Reagan asked, “Who brought it?”

  “Here’s a note. He made me promise to give it to you personally. I’d love to stay, but I have meds to pass out.”

  Reagan thanked the woman and opened the sealed note. As she read, tears welled in her eyes, “Oh, Jack. It’s from C.W. and the rest of my old crew. Even—even that jackass Beau. Telling me how sorry they are for making me into a scapegoat after Joe’s death, for blaming me so they wouldn’t have to blame themselves. And asking if I would consider…coming back to help them put out fires. C.W. wrote here—”

  She had to stop to wipe her eyes. “He’s written, ‘Even at half speed, you’re a damn sight better than most firemen.’ C.W.” He said that. About me.

  Jack shifted in his seat. “So. Will you try to go back?”

  Shaking her head, Reagan explained, “I’m putting in for paramedic’s training, Jack. It’s what I want now, more than anything.”

  She searched her feelings, but she found no trace of bitterness, only a newfound optimism and a bright, fresh set of dreams. “Or I should say, more than anything but one thing.”

  “What would that be?” he asked.

  “What you said inside that ambulance,” she told him. “The future you described. Unless you just felt safe proposing because you figured I’d kick off.”

  He moved to sit on the bed’s edge and wrapped his arms around her. “You’re saying you mean to hold me to that?”

  Leaning back in his embrace, she smiled into his eyes, “Every last word, Jack Montoya. Every syllable.”

  Epilogue

  Seven months later…

  Jack pulled on the sunglasses Reagan had bought him this past Christmas, turned up the volume on his favorite CD, and opened the red Explorer’s sunroof in homage to the coming weekend and the glorious June day.

  He didn’t mind the thirty-minute commute home from Fort Bend County. For one thing, he rarely bogged down in traffic, since most drivers were leaving town this time of day and not coming home to Houston. For another, the drive gave him time to unwind from his workday. Though his new position was in a better-funded, less politically vulnerable clinic, he was still confronted with many of the challenges that he had faced in Houston: long hours, uninsured patients—many of whom spoke English as a second language—and poverty, which limited far too many lives. But here, he felt he was making a real difference. After months of meetings with area medical administrators, doctors, and pharmaceutical representatives, he had set up a program to get more drug samples to patients in the greatest need. So far, they were concentrating on making sure that children, especially, received needed medications, regardless of the legal status of their parents.

  But this particular Friday evening, Jack wasn’t thinking of his job, but of Reagan’s new one, which was to start next week. Tonight, he thought, he would take her out for a nice dinner to celebrate the completion of her paramedic’s training. Maybe he would even whisk his gorgeous wife to Galveston for a spur-of-the-moment overnight, if Peaches could be talked into dog-sitting.

  At a red light, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket, with the intention of calling his and Reagan’s neighbor. But before he could start dialing, the phone quacked, a sure sign that Reagan had once again been playing with his ring tones.

  Laughing, he answered without glancing at the ID, “Hey, Reag.”

  “You can save the phone sex. It’s me,”Luz Maria said excitedly. “I had to tell you—they finally bulldozed it. And I was right there, whistling and cheering.”

  “They tore down the apartments? That’s terrific.” Months ago, Las Casitas Village had been condemned due to toxic mold. Working in her new role in a private charity, Luz Maria had been instrumental in relocating the tenants to new and healthier housing over the past months. She had also worked behind the scenes to make sure the buildings would be demolished so crackheads and dangerous criminals would not move into them.

  “So what’s your next project, now that you’ve gotten that accomplished?”

  “Badgering the mayor and the city council until they finally make good on their promises to do something about the flooding in the East End.”

  “If they weren’t politicians, I’d almost feel sorry for them, having a professional pest on their case.” The phone gave a warning beep and he asked, “Can I call you back? My battery’s running down, and I don’t have my charger.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I have a hot date tonight.”

  “Another one?” If he’d ever needed proof his sister had recovered from her ordeal, her burgeoning social life provided it. Though both Sabrina McMillan and many of the principal players in BorderFree-4-All had at last been apprehended, Luz Maria seemed too immersed in her personal whirlwind of activity to care whether her former lover was ever caught.

  They wrapped up their conversation just before the phone went dead.

  By the time he arrived home, Reagan, dressed in a silver robe, was sitting back with her feet propped on an ottoman and her eyes closed. At the sight of Jack, Frank Lee raised his head from the blue sofa and yawned prodigiously.

  “That’s quite the welcome home,” Jack said. “Rough day with your mother?”

  Reagan smiled and stretched. “The woman dragged me from one end of the Galleria to the other. She’s still hell-bent on making up for lost time by teaching me the womanly art of combat shopping. And no matter what I do, I can’t convince her she doesn’t need to pay for all my purchases.”


  “So other than that battle, how are the lessons coming?”

  Rising from her chair, Reagan allowed the robe to slip off one shoulder and flashed him a knowing smile. “You tell me,” she said, her voice as whispery as silk sheets. “I picked this up today at one of those froufrou, girly shops. What do you think? Is it me?”

  Grinning, Jack made a show of unbuttoning his shirtsleeves. “Honey, if it’s lingerie, you can bet it’s you—until it’s off you, which won’t take me five min—What is that?”

  She had removed the robe, revealing what she wore beneath. In a pale shade of turquoise, the dress would have been quite pretty—except it hung on Reagan like a sack.

  “I’m—I’m very sorry,” he said carefully, mindful of how sensitive she had been these past few weeks. “But it looks almost like a maternity dress. It really doesn’t fit you.”

  When her eyes lit up, he guessed her news, even before she told him, “But it will, Jack. In just a few months, according to the obstetrician.”

  “Oh, baby,” he said as he took her into his arms and swung her into his embrace.

  “Great diagnosis, Doctor,” Reagan answered. “Now how about we move on to the bedroom so I can show off that other little number I picked up?”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to a number of people who helped bring Fade the Heat from an idea to a finished novel.

  First of all, thanks to my husband, Houston Firefighter Michael Thompson, for sharing the stories, the traditions, and the special bonds that connect the men and women of his department. Special thanks, too, to Acting Paramedic Supervisor Jim Turnbull for answering so many questions and allowing me to tag along throughout a memorable night shift. You’ll both be happy to know I left out the part about the rat.

  I would also like to express my appreciation to Detective Roben H. Talton of the Harris County Sheriff’s Department for sharing her law enforcement expertise and to Bryony Aldous for research assistance. Any factual errors and omissions are my own.