Inextinguishable Love: Firefighter and Interracial Romance

by Kathleen Bunker

  Gary slowly followed her nod and immediately caught one of the reporters looking him straight in the eyes. They were over twenty yards apart, but there was no denying she could identify him.

  Damon exhaled. “Fine. I get you’re mad, but you should understand I was caught in a dilemma. The team was understaffed. I couldn't look away and if for anything, I’m not even on the run sheet. The management doesn't need to know about this. Okay?”

  Matt looked him straight on in the eyes for a few moments. “You never quit taking dangerous risks do you?”

  "I'm sorry for saving a life in this manner," Gary replied sarcastically. Chelsea stifled a chuckle.

  “Don’t get cocky now. Today might just be your lucky day. Take the back exit and head straight to your house. No visits to the hospital. Not a word to anyone. Like you said, you were never here.”

  “Yes sir,” Gary replied immediately just as a vehicle pulled over close to them.

  "Now hop in and get the fuck out of my scene before you get me in trouble with the council."

  Not hesitating, Gary got into the vehicle as the chauffeur opened the passenger door for him to get in.

  As the started to drive away, Gary’s phone rang. He picked up shortly after identifying the name of the caller. It was Sophia.

  "Gary! Where the hell are you?” she demanded in a scolding tone. "You are supposed to be in Manhattan already. This is past midday and I still haven't seen any signs of your shadow."

  Gary closed his eye momentarily and scratched his forehead with his head slightly bowed down. She deserved to be mad at his after the so many times of promising and failing her. But there was no way he could afford to attend a dinner in his battered state.

  “I’m sorry Sophia,” he apologized in the most apologetic tone he could manage. “An emergency came up—”

  Sophia squeaked. “Yeah? Tell me more about that,” she said sarcastically.

  "What happened?" she asked a second later in a more concerned tone after a very flitting silence between them. Gary went ahead to explain how events in the morning unfolded, carefully skipping the part where he was still finding impossible to stop thinking about the lady he had rescued.

  Everyone close to him knew of his attachment to the victims he had saved personally, but this felt so much different. Every time he remembered the deep plea in her blue turquoise eyes, his heart drummed against his chest quicker than any tensional situation he had ever found himself.

  Gary couldn’t place his finger on it. It was inexplicable how in an amazing guiltless way, a part of him seemed to want to desperately reach out to her soul.

  "Wow. Okay," Sophia uttered after his narration of the morning. "So, uh, I take it you didn't get to purchase the items on the list I sent right?"

  “Unfortunately, no,” he replied her. “But, if-if you don’t mind, I could still do it later in the day and get them delivered to you,” he quickly added to prevent her from starting an argument but her reaction was even worse than he anticipated.

  “Wait! What do you mean by ‘deliver’?” Sophia demanded. “Do you plan on not coming?” she added and Gary found it to be a tricky question to answer.

  He was pretty in a terrible state, emotionally and physically still, Sophia was not going to buy that as an excuse. The main reason he didn’t want to go to the dinner anymore was that of the lady who had clung to his arms like he was her messiah of all time the moment he had lifted her from the elevator system. He could still feel her soft, tender hands holding tightly to him with all the strength she could muster. This wasn’t the first time a victim held on to him so affectionately, but hers stirred some feelings with him. Something he didn’t want to tell his loving sister just yet. Not when he planned on visiting the hospital that evening against attending her NGO’s fundraising event.

  “Gary, you there?” she recalled his attention.

  “Uh, yes.”

  "Yes to what?" she asked immediately just as the driver crossed the intersection between 6th Avenue and the West 26th Street to head toward his neighborhood.

  Gary exhaled and made up his mind to tell her the truth when there appeared to be a rowdy disorderliness at her end. Sophia immediately told him she would call him back before she hung up the call.

  Chapter 5

  The receptionist at the hospital’s desk flashed him a weird smile as she tilted her head a little and raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Making an exception to the rich, huh?” she asked him teasingly in a low.

  Gary looked up from his phone to meet her accusatory stare and phony smile, “Sorry?”

  “I asked if…”

  A familiar nurse in fitted white scrub Gary had noticed earlier from the corner of his eye approaching them cut off the receptionist before she could repeat herself and also shot a warning glare.

  “Captain Gary!” she exclaimed and opened her arms to embrace him politely. “Wow, good to see you. It’s been like what, ages?” She chuckled looking into his brown eyes after she released him from her embrace.

  Shortly, she motioned him to take a walk with her. He followed her on cue.

  Gary was no stranger at the hospital. Most of the staff knew him too well for his penchant to visit fire victims after rescue operation by his fire company. Especially those he had personally saved. But he stopped all of a sudden over a year ago. And a number of them, who knew him were pretty surprised to see him come around after a long time.

  Gary clutched the flowers he had purchased in his left hand carefully as he turned into another corridor after the nurse.

  The nurse with a shiny silver hair slowed her pace as she approached a door that appeared to lead into an office.

  "When I heard you'd come around I thought it was an April Fool's trick by colleagues," the nurse laughed heartily as she opened the door to usher Gary in. "But unfortunately your ‘lady' you've come to pay a visit was discharged about two hours ago." She informed him while giving him a careful gaze. “Please sit,” she said politely, offering him a seat opposite her.

  My lady? Gary first thought before looking disappointed. “Two hours ago?” he asked.

  "Yes," the nurse replied while giving him a suspicious guided stare. She had thought as the receptionist that Damon had an idea of the victim he had saved, but it appeared he had none, even when rumors were seeping through the local media and blogs.

  Gary scratched his forehead gently with his fingers like he was contemplating a decision. He stood up seconds later, thanked the nurse and started out toward the door when she stopped him.

  “Gary,” she stopped his advancement and called back his attention to herself. “You have no idea, do you?” she asked when he turned to look at her.

  Gary assumed she referred to his many months of it been since the last time he paid a visit to fire victims he and his department had saved.

  "I'm truly sorry," Gary started to apologize looking sober. "I know I've disappointed a lot of you all, but I've been going through…."

  “No!” she stopped him in midsentence gently. “I didn’t mean that,” she said and Gary looked lost for a second.

  He shot her a questioning stare after he had recomposed himself almost immediately but before she could satisfy his curiosity, an emergency call came in, and she stood up simultaneously.

  “Watch the news!” she informed him as she rushed out of the office in urgency.

  Chapter 6

  Gary couldn’t believe his eyes as he looked fixedly at Miss Richards where she sat at the table toward the front of the luxuriously decorated banquet hall. She looked radiant and so beautiful like she wasn't the fragile and tender lady he had carried out from the burning Spa that he had later found out to be hers.

  After he discovered from the news that the lady he had saved and his heart had been reaching out to was Eleanor Richards, a business tycoon and billionaire lady, he had tried to force himself to stop thinking about her. His ego kicked him hard even to imagine anything could grow between them.

&nb
sp; Although the media still speculated on who was the actual hero firefighter was that had saved her, even as his department remained mum and his chief smartly dodged reporters' questions on the issue. He somehow knew Sophia knew it was he who had saved Miss Richards. Still, she pretended to be oblivious and didn’t inform him that the special guest and the chief fundraiser for the NGO’s cause was the same Eleanor Richards he had rescued. He didn’t see that coming, although he was aware that his sister was very unpredictable with her surprise moves, he wasn’t prepared for this.

  Damon’s heartbeat picked up the pace the longer his eyes lingered on Eleanor's beautiful spotless creamy white skin. She was wearing a long sinuous backless verbena-purple gown. He had caught her walking gracefully across the room just before she had taken her seat. And the way her dinner dress hugged her curvy body so fittingly to reveal the outline of her sexy and hot body like a revelation, left him completely breathless.

  Memories of the moments he had lifted her from the elevator that was filled with smoke and burnt fallen interior fittings, surged forward in his mind. He remembered the plea in her beautiful eyes, begging him for something more than just the hope of survival. He remembered how tender her body felt in his arms. He remembered how she had surrounded to him when she wrapped her arms around him as he carried her out. He felt like he was her messiah at that moment.

  Gary sipped wine slowly from the goblet he had been holding since he first set his eyes on her. He savored the rich taste of the wine like an accomplice to enjoying the memories that were taking over his memory lane, but that very same moment, Eleanor turned her head where she was sitting and looked him directly in the eyes.

  Gary froze immediately their eyes locked. So much that the other two individuals sitting on either side of him at table 27 gave him a fleeting curious glance.

  Eleanor held his stare for a few seconds than usual. Her blue turquoise eyes appeared to glow and give the already lavishly decorated hall a more outstanding shine, like the shimmering reflection of the silver moon on the surface of a peaceful lake.

  In her eyes, he could still see that plea, but there was, even more, this time. There was a yearning in them too. A yearning he felt only him could satisfy.

  Miss Richards flashed him an affectionate smile that revealed the whiteness of her perfect set of teeth before she turned away. It weakened him completely.

  “Damn,” Gary muttered in a choking breath before he realized he hadn’t been breathing all the while they stared at each other.

  What’s going on with you man? Gary thought to himself as he tried to regain his composure after Eleanor had stripped him completely with her smile.

  Unconsciously he found himself checking out his outfit, even though he already did that for several minutes before the mirror. He was wearing an impressive soot black tuxedo. Sophia had asked him to dress his best, that he did, but after seeing Eleanor, his confidence in his appearance melted gradually.

  Somehow, he didn’t see himself fitting into the class of men she would ever want to have a relationship with, but the look in her eyes was telling him otherwise.

  For the rest of the night, Eleanor and Gary continued to exchange glances until it appeared to Damon that they were flirting with each other.

  Even when she was called upon the podium to deliver her speech, it looked like she kept her eyes fixed on him the way he enjoyed but also felt uncomfortable at the same time.

  She delivered her speech fluently without looking at the teleprompter unlike most of the other individuals that had been asked to deliver a speech. She spoke with an accent that sounded British and Gary snickered to the idea that she was trying to impress him. He already knew she was from Cincinnati, Ohio but she’d spent a number of years growing up in West London. At least that was he read up about her from her Wikipedia page.

  Her entrancing speech lasted for about six minutes. Before she was done, Gary got carried away with her in his thoughts. He was daydreaming. He fiddled with thoughts of what it would be like to have a romantic relationship with her. She would be his first white woman—if they ever happened. Repeatedly he cautioned himself against such wild goose chase imagination, but again he found himself nursing the crazy thought of a romantic relationship with her.

  At the end of her speech, the resounding applause of the guests dragged him back to reality. When he looked up the stage, he met her stare still fixed at his direction and smiling. Her smile appeared to light up the glow of her blue eyes the more, and it was the only light he seemed to notice that very moment.

  Everybody else in the room was standing in ovation and applauding while he remained seated admiring Miss Richards.

  Gary had no idea she had recounted her close shave with death before the firemen came to her rescue. The guests were applauding the team quick response bravery.

  It wasn’t until Gary followed her stare when she looked lazily and reluctantly away from him that he noticed the picture of the fire crew who had been on duty that morning projected on the big screen. It was then he realized what was going on. His picture was missing and he smiled weakly in a non-jealous manner.

  Matt Pierson wasn’t mincing his words to keep Gary's participation under lid away from the eyes and ears of the management.

  “I could pitch you closer to your flirt queen’s table if you don’t mind,” a female voice suddenly whispered into his ear moments later as the event continued in an eerie fashion that nearly frightened.

  The voice was funnily strange, but familiar still. Gary turned to discover it was his sister.

  “You sly devil,” Gary accused her with a feigned frowned as he stared into her pretty olive brown face.

  She came around from behind him and dragged the empty seat to Gary’s left closer to him. The gentleman sitting there earlier was talking to a lady in maroon mini gown toward the East of the hall.

  “What?” Sophia retorted, a teasing look in her delightful brown flecked hazel eyes.

  “You could have given me heads up,” Gary playfully chided in a low tone.

  Sophia scoffed, “So you could easily bail out on me, right?”

  “And why would I do that?”

  "The very reason why you wished I had earlier that she was our special guest," she replied him quickly. "I'm not fooled like the rest you know. I know what you did. Wait scratch that." She gestured amusingly. "I know the things you've done in the past two days. I'm your sister remember," she added reclining on the seat and crossing her leg.

  "I'm so glad you are finally giving love a chance," she uttered shortly, and Gary choked on the wine he was sipping.

  “What?” he managed to exclaim before coughing.

  Sophia rolled her eyes at him. “You think I hadn’t noticed the both of you exchanging seductive glances like teens who newly found love?” she laughed jestingly.

  Gary continued to cough and she handed him a glass of water just as she caught Eleanor glancing their direction. She had a look on her face, one that appeared to be a concerned look. Sophia couldn’t tell if it was the concern that Gary was in discomfort or the concern that she was jealous he was with another lady which was her—his sister.

  "I'm just his sister," Gary heard Sophia whispering, and when he looked up, he realized she was referring to Eleanor who was also looking their direction.

  “Shit,” he cursed, stood abruptly and started walking away toward the back of the room.

  “Aww, big brother, is shy," he heard her giggling softly as he walked away.

  Chapter 7

  “Running away so early?” Gary heard a feminine voice ask him in an accusing tone as he was about opening the door to his royal blue Chevrolet. There were no assumptions. It was Eleanor.

  Gary didn’t immediately turn to face her as she approached him. He couldn’t understand what was wrong with him. He had wanted so much to reach out to her, now here she was, alone with him in the underground parking lot and somehow he seemed to restrain himself from testing the theory she felt the same way h
e was feeling.

  He listened as her heels squeaked against the ground as she approached him.

  “I understand what you are going through,” she said when she was a few feet from him.

  Gary turned around slowly. “You do?” he asked gleefully, finally finding his voice.

  "Totally," she said. "I mean, I would feel even worse to have been the hero of the day to have saved one of the richest women in New York and not be recognized with the rest of the team. That’s hard to contain if you ask me,” she added.

  That’s it? Gary’s enthusiasm to pour out his feeling drained off.

  He had hoped she would say how she felt toward him but she was rather talking about something else.

  He looked down briefly and cleared his throat. When he looked up, she was smiling again affectionately again. It was then he noticed her dimple. He hadn’t noticed earlier. It made her look even more beautiful.

  Gary had to muster all the strength he could to say the next words he said. His feet were weakening beneath him already, but the thought that she wasn’t feeling the same he felt, spurred him to sum up the strength to brush aside the prospect of anything happening between them.

  “You were barely conscious. How could you even tell it was me?”

  Her eye brightened when he asked the question like she had been anxiously expecting him to.

  "Are you kidding?" she chuckled. "How can I ever forget those beautiful brown eyes," she pointed fleetly at his eyes, "or your rock solid arms that were like a stronghold that guaranteed my safety?"

  She closed the little distance that existed between them.

  Her perfume enveloped him as she stepped closer. He wanted so much to take her in his arms again like he had some days back. To assure her he would always be ready and willing to protect her if she gave him a chance. But he stopped himself with the reminder what he felt for her was not reciprocal.

  He remembered Sophia’s words from earlier that night when she had said she was glad he was giving love a chance again.

  Is this love? Damon asked himself because it seemed to have possessed him all of like the explosion of a million orgasm happening simultaneously. It was almost like he couldn’t control his thoughts and coordination around her. Since Debby, no other lady had been able to make him feel the way he was feeling.