The Firefighter's Appeal (Harlequin Superromance) (17 page)

She crossed her arms, eyebrows coming together in a slight frown. “Ex-fiancé. Garrett, what’s wrong?”

He turned his back to her and walked to the desk, fiddled with something, anything. “The one who never bought you flowers? I knew I should have rearranged his face.”

“It’s okay. He took something I wanted to get rid of.”

Her footfalls padded behind him. The touch of her hand on his shoulder gave him a warm shiver. Garrett looked over his shoulder at her.

“Oh, yeah?”

“His glass.”

He turned then with a light chuckle. “Really? I’m glad.... That’s good, Lil.” He gestured for her to have a seat as he leaned his butt against the edge of the desk and slid his hands into his front pockets. Concern was clear on her face, and it pulled his heart. He’d been dreading this, yet also longing for it. As much as he wanted Lily to know the truth, he also knew revealing it was the perfect way to keep his heart in check. If she hated him, she wouldn’t want more from him and his heart would be safe. It sounded good in his head.

“Lil, did a member of the fire department ever get in touch with you or your family to explain what happened the night your sister died?”

Her hands gripped the sides of the chair. Garrett knew his question had blindsided her, but he had to start somewhere. Besides, he suspected from their previous conversations that she didn’t have the information she deserved.

“Um, no. We never heard from anyone except a police officer telling us Katja hadn’t made it out.”

“Jesus.”

She’d had no closure. None. Anytime there was a fire-related death in Danbury, their fire chief spoke to the victim’s family and answered whatever questions he could. Not all departments did, but he felt it was the least he could do to help the family heal. All this time, Lily and her family had been left with a blank page, where a few words of explanation and condolences might have helped.

“How much do you remember?”

Lily spread her hands. “Why are we talking about this?”

Garrett shifted his position against the desk. “Can I just ask you to trust me for a minute? I just... I’d like to know how much you remember because I think I might be able to help with some of the questions that weren’t answered for you.”

She rose from the chair. “Did you talk to my friend Macy?”

He shook his head, his heart rate ticking up. He hoped he wasn’t scaring her off already, because even though this was going to hurt, maybe he could give her comfort, too.

“She seemed to think that maybe I should talk to you,” Lily explained. “That maybe you’d have some perspective.”

He liked Macy already. “Maybe she’s right.” After what he and Lily had shared, it was important to help if he could. He wanted that more than anything.

She gripped the back of the chair and looked down, her hair falling like a curtain around her face.

“I went to Katja’s to spend the night. We did that often—met at one another’s apartments and stayed up watching scary movies and whatnot. It happened to be my turn at her place. We stayed up until about three o’clock, and I finally fell asleep. I kept hearing noises, but I thought I was dreaming, you know, that in-between where you’re not really awake and not really sleeping? Finally, there was a loud knock on the door and I knew something was wrong. Smoke was coming under the door, and when I opened it, a huge wave of it came inside.”

Garrett’s heart raced against his breastbone. He knew how this story ended, but the beginning and middle were a mystery. Now that he was on the verge of getting the whole picture, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“By the time we went out into the hallway, the flames were already huge. We could see them hovering around the ceiling at the far end of the hall. People were spilling out of the stairwells. Katja and I ran out, tried to follow everyone, but the smoke was so thick. It was in my throat and my eyes. Next thing I knew, Katja was running away from me, saying she had to get something from the apartment. What that was, I’ll never know. I tried screaming for her, but the smoke...

“God, I think I passed out. Either I managed to get to the fire escape or someone pulled me over there because I vaguely remember fresh air hitting my face. I woke up on the grass and looked over and watched the building just disappear behind a wall of fire.”

In his mind’s eye, Garrett recalled exactly how that building had looked. He remembered the injured being taken to staging areas on a lawn across the street. Ambulances had been lined up, taking the most critically injured first while those who could wait longer did. Lily had been there, on that grass, waiting for her turn while she watched the building burn with her sister inside.

Lily turned slightly toward him, her voice soft and thick.

“I saw all the firemen just standing around. Some had hoses and were spraying water, but the rest of them had come away from the building. Even though they knew people were still trapped inside, they just stopped trying to get them out. I can’t imagine... I can’t grasp
why.
Why? What would your department have done?”

She might as well have driven a knife in his chest. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t feed the coward. He caught her eyes and pushed past the anguish he saw there.

“Five hundred and twenty-five degrees, Lily. That was the last Fahrenheit measurement we had on your sister’s building before we were called off.” He swore he heard her heart kick up a notch.

Her mouth fell open. “Wh-what?”

“I was there, Lil. Originally, I was part of a teardown team that went in and started to pull away falling debris to try to slow the fire down. But it got too hot.”

The chair clanked against the floor as she pushed away from it. “What...wait...what?” Ah, damn. Her face... “You were
there?
Inside the building?”

“We were called for mutual aid and arrived as the second department on scene. By the time we got there, the fire was already out of control. There wasn’t much we could do except for contain it.”

“But you were inside? Did you...did you look for anyone? I mean, did you go through the building and
look?
”

Garrett could explain how search and rescue worked, or he could let her think he was a piece of shit who hadn’t done a damn thing. What was worse? Telling her he hadn’t personally gone on recon? Or that the team before him had located two deceased victims but had been unable to recover their bodies because it was too dangerous? He’d known from the beginning that he wouldn’t come out of this conversation unscathed.

His pulse thrummed with pain and sympathy for her. “No.”

“Did you know there were people still inside?”

“Yes.”

It was personal now. Even if he could explain all of it, Lily wouldn’t really listen or hear him. Grief was going to block out rational thought and cling to what it wanted to hear.

“You knew people were inside, but instead of getting them out, you just left?”

“I was called off. Lily, it was no longer safe for firemen to be inside—”

“I thought that was your job! To keep going...to keep looking, no matter what.”

No fireman wanted to die on the job, but if it happened, it happened. Going down with honor was always a possibility, but none of them pushed that risk further than they had to if they could help it.

“There wasn’t a firefighter there who wouldn’t have gotten Katja out if he could have.”

Lily’s shoulders trembled with a chill that seemed to come from deep inside. Garrett wanted to pull her into his arms, but he knew better. There was no warmth he could offer right now that she’d accept.

Her eyes were glistening with tears she didn’t let fall. “How long have you known?”

He wiped a palm over his mouth. “Since Wednesday, after I left your place. It kind of all came rushing back to me. I didn’t...I didn’t want this hanging between us, Lily.”

She put a hand to her forehead and turned away, silent. Garrett couldn’t stay by the desk anymore. He moved up behind her, staying just far enough that he wouldn’t touch her.

“You saw my father’s helmet at the bar, Lil. The fire that killed Katja was the same. Too hot, too strong for anyone to get inside. I’m afraid there isn’t anything that would have saved her.”

That wasn’t completely true. If Katja had continued leaving the building with Lily instead of going back to the apartment, she’d probably be alive today. But Garrett wasn’t a big enough asshole to make that point. Deep down, Lily had probably already considered that a million times over.

Survivors of tragedy often suffered from a lot of things: guilt over being the one who made it out alive, rage at the person who didn’t make it, a constant game of what-if. He wouldn’t be surprised if Lily struggled with all of that.

She finally turned to look at him, her mouth in a tight line. She was probably already cutting down any feelings she might have grown for him. Good. That would be good. Because he’d hurt her enough and the thought of letting her love him, and loving her in return, only to lose it all, was a pain he could avoid. And he would.

For her sake.

“Thank you for being honest with me.” She headed to the door, but he caught up with her before she could unlock it. His hands found her shoulders; the warmth of her skin and the way she jumped at his touch pulled him in two different directions.

“Lily.”

She shrugged him off and unlocked the door. “I have to go.”

Lily opened the door and slipped into the hall. He forced himself not to watch her walk away, not to feel guilty about being honest. Both were easier than convincing himself the ache in his chest was a by-product of too little sleep and too much adrenaline.

“Garrett, we gotta go!” Mikey’s voice sounded before he slid to a stop in front of the office door. “Double house fire on Sixth and Main!”

Looked like work was starting early and that was good. That was great. Anything to take his mind off the knowledge that he’d just lost something important.

CHAPTER TEN

T
HE
WIND
WAS
working against them. Garrett wished the storm system brewing overhead would just freaking bust open already. It would make his job a hell of a lot easier if it would just rain. House fires were always unpredictable, and this one was a raging beast, attempting to consume the house next to it thanks to the wind. They’d needed every available man on their department to fight it. Garrett gritted his teeth and ignored the sweat running between his eyes. Exhaustion was no longer an option.

“More hose!” Garrett shouted to the men on the water tanker behind him. They’d already tapped into the hydrants and had a portable water reservoir filled and ready to go.

He was in command of the scene, standing back and keeping everything organized while his men did the dirty work. He cursed Chief Grail for being gone, told himself this was part of his duty as assistant chief, nerves and all. It didn’t matter how many fires he’d worked, or how many still lay ahead of him, nerves were part of the deal. Good thing the adrenaline high overrode nervousness every time and helped him focus.

He’d already had the neighboring house evacuated, with a crew hosing it down in an attempt to keep the fire from taking hold. Right now, they were using every available resource, and as the sun started to set, it was hard to tell what was daylight and what was refracted light from the flames.

“Shit, Garrett, I’m going into the cold house.” Mikey’s voice came over Garrett’s radio. “The homeowner’s dog is still inside. Copy?”

Garrett scanned both houses, satisfied the unaffected “cold” house had been watered down enough to be safe. For now. Flames reached with desperate arms, wavering around the streams of water his men shot at the siding, just looking for a place to catch on.

“Copy, Eighteen,” he replied, using Mikey’s firefighter number. “Take Thirty-One with you.”

He made a mental note of where his men were—some working the flames, some getting equipment, some on rip crew and some on the wet house and, now, two going inside for a dog. “Ten minutes. No more.”

“Copy.”

Garrett checked the time on his handheld radio. They’d been at this for three hours already, and he’d rotated men in and out of the fire twice. The local ambulance had come to keep an eye on the firemen, ready in case anything happened.

He called over the radio for a switch, took the grumbling and swearing from the men he was pulling out of the action with a steeled jaw and sent a rested crew in.

They were all exhausted, to the point where rotations wouldn’t refresh them much anymore. Refreshed or not, it didn’t matter. There wasn’t a man on this crew who wanted to be pulled from the action and forced to sit it out awhile, Garrett included. These men had other jobs, families, reasons to be up late and get too little sleep. When the pager went off in the wee hours of the morning, it affected them all.

Garrett glanced up at the sky again. “Just rain already, you bastard.”

The humidity was stifling, the green swirls in sky still visible in the waning sunlight. A loud pop drew him back.

Window glass exploded in a quick series, from the top floor to the bottom, shooting shrapnel into the air. They’d broken what windows they could safely reach when they’d arrived, but the fire had already been so hot, so fierce, it hadn’t been safe to go for them all. The last window shattered as a huge gust of wind fed the flames, whipping them like a mushroom cloud into the sky. It flashed high and quick, settling down with a roar that consumed the atmosphere.

In the next breath, the windows began to pop on the cold house, the glass shattering beneath the force of the heat and explosion in the house next to it. The smoke cleared just enough for Garrett to see flames shooting out of the wrecked window on the house that until now had been flame-free. One house fire had become two.

“Report, now!” Garrett yelled into the radio. Almost instantly, a series of numbers came through the radio as his men responded. Garrett went through the list in his head—he knew them by heart. All accounted for.

Except for Mikey and Roan.

Garrett turned to the cold house. It was surrounded by black smoke that streams of water did nothing to dissipate. A streak of orange flashed from the back of the house, wrapping around to the side. It wiggled through the smoke and water, taunting them. Like a little kid sticking out his tongue after taking something he wasn’t supposed to have.

Garrett’s heart flipped as he pressed the button on his mic, never taking his eyes off the flame. In a matter of seconds, the flames could completely light the house up. With his men inside.

“Eighteen, Thirty-One, report.” He turned to the men behind him, waved to get their attention and pointed to the flames. He jerked his thumb into the air with an upward motion.
Another hose, more water.

“Eighteen and Thirty-One, report
right now.
” Garrett moved down the sidewalk, trying to see more clearly through the jet-black smoke.

Static was the only response through his radio. He didn’t get rattled too easily when his men didn’t report back instantly. He knew it sometimes took a minute to maneuver the mic with bulky gloves on.

But it didn’t stop him from worrying about them all—especially Mikey, who was not only his best friend, but who had Bodie counting on him. Losing Mikey would be a pain he’d never overcome.

How Lily surely felt about losing her sister.

Garrett punched a fist into the air, frustration pouring out of him. He couldn’t think about that right now. Closing his eyes, he pressed his mic button one more time.

“Mikey, Roan.
Report.
”

He moved as close to the house as he dared, scanning what windows he could see for any movement. He braced himself for the screech of an alarm—the panic button that each fireman wore that would be triggered if he remained stationary too long. A stationary firefighter was a man in trouble or injured. Or worse.

A scratch of static came through his radio. Followed by what sounded like...a bark. Garrett held his breath, his thumb hovering over the talk button on his radio.

“Ten-two. We’re ten-two.” Mikey’s voice came through.
We’re fine.
“Coming out the front door, with one rescue.”

Garrett tilted his head to the side and let out a relieved breath.

“Flames on the top floor.”

“I see ’em. Come on, Mikey, get out of there.”
I don’t have the energy to worry about you right now, and Lily, too.

Garrett backhanded sweat off the bridge of his nose. But he did worry about them, because they were important—Mikey was like family. And Lily... Losing either of them would rip him wide-open. He cared about them both.

A lot.

Cared about Lily a lot.

Garrett faltered, nearly crashing into a hydrant. A chill washed over him. He started barking orders into the radio. He’d gone years without ever feeling this way about a woman. Years... Was it more than just caring...like a precursor to something
more?
He cursed at himself. It was stupid to even consider it, and this wasn’t the time.

He’d done what he could to try to make her understand what had happened the night of the fire. What he was feeling was nothing more than a misplaced sense of responsibility or something. He wrinkled his nose at the thought. That wasn’t right, but it was the closest explanation he could come up with for why he was so invested in her.

And why it cut him to the bone to think that he’d hurt her tonight more than he’d helped. And why he never stopped thinking about her. None of these fluffy feelings were going to lead anywhere, but it seemed he couldn’t stop them.

A loud crack snapped him back to the house Mikey and Roan should have been exiting. A well of smoke came out of the open front door, followed by far-reaching arms of flame. Shouts erupted around him as a team hustled to get water on this new fire.

Garrett shouted to Mikey over his mic, waiting with every muscle in his neck and shoulders tight to see his men come outside.

From the sound of it, something had cracked or fallen inside the house and his mind raced with all the potential pitfalls. Dread filled every crevice in his chest—that familiar, sticky sensation that reminded him how quickly bad things could happen.

After a minute of straight water dousing the interior, Garrett was ready to burst with anticipation. He called Mikey a few times on the mic without getting a response, sending that damn sense of impending doom into overdrive. He was just about to send a team inside to search for the men when a figure moved through the weakened smoke that still hovered around the front door. Mikey crossed the porch, a dog under one arm, his other around a limping Roan.

Relief smacked Garrett to the point where had he been more in touch with his feminine side, he might have gotten tears in his eyes.

“We’re fine, we’re fine,” Mikey reassured him as Garrett rushed to them. “Roan tripped and we had to wait for the flames to settle a bit before we could see out.”

Garrett patted Mikey’s helmet and moved to take Roan’s other side as he hopped to the fire truck.

Tonight, like any night, had been a close call. Too close.

* * *

T
HE
NEIGHBORHOOD
HADN
’
T
changed much in the past year, but the space where Katja’s apartment building used to be had. Everything else was so similar that Lily had a hard time processing the manicured lot in front of her. A bright square in the middle of a block that housed brown apartment complexes, brick townhomes and gray sidewalks. It reminded her of an eccentric square in a mundane quilt, so foreign to what she remembered about this place, and it took her brain a full minute at least to comprehend what she was looking at. And, honestly, why she’d come here at all.

The past twenty-four hours had found her working furiously in an attempt to forget about what Garrett had told her. She’d finished his proposal, determined to complete her obligation to him and be done with him for good.

But every burst of anger soon ran out of steam, leaving her mentally exhausted but not untouched. Every time she thought about his confession, her chest tightened and she felt on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. He’d reminded her of Katja’s death before, and now...he was a tangible link to that night.

He’d probably stood here, on this very sidewalk where so many of the other firemen had been, watching the apartment complex that used to stand where grass now sat as it burned. How far away from her had he been? For all she knew, he could have been right next to her.

Lily turned to the lawn where she’d lain down and fallen apart. Her throat and lungs had ached, her chest on fire from trying to cough out the soot she’d inhaled. And all the while, she’d hoped...prayed that her sister had found a way out.

Lily tugged on her lower lip as she left the sidewalk and moved to the open lot where the apartment building had been. A chain-link fence had been put up around the lot, and large, bright orange X’s marked areas in the middle. She stopped by a small sign that showed a diagram of play equipment. Future Home of West Oaks Playground.

Her vision blurred as she read the sign again and again. She couldn’t focus on anything just then except the knowledge that something wonderful was soon going to stand where a tragedy had occurred. Children would play here, covering the residue of tragedy with laughter and giggles and excited energy. In its own way, the city of Barron had let go and, in the process, was doing something good to heal the wound.

Lily leaned against the fence, noticing for the first time the warmth of the sun on her bare arms and the smell of something sweet in the air.

Katja had loved this little town because it was close to Danbury yet just far enough away that she had her independence. She’d loved the old-fashioned shops, the flower-lined main street, and she would have loved the idea of a park right here. A warm tear rolled down Lily’s cheek. Yeah, she would have loved it.

She stood there awhile, blending thoughts of what Garrett had said with memories of spending time here with her sister. He’d said she had never had closure, and he’d been right. But she’d never expected to have closure. Not completely anyway, given that they’d never know why Katja had gone back inside the apartment or why the fire had started in the first place.

Yet of all those loose ends, she’d chosen to focus on the firemen and what they had and hadn’t done. None of the other questions had seemed nearly as important as why they weren’t trying to get Katja out.

Now she knew. They’d been trying to prevent more melted helmets. What if Garrett had gone inside...died trying to rescue the victims? Then she’d never have known him. That invisible wheel of fate would have turned around and around, and she’d never have known otherwise.

But she did know him. She knew the sound of his voice and the scent of his skin, how his lips tasted and what he was afraid of. Lily recognized the woman she was when she was around him—how good he made her feel. He’d been here with her that night, a silent sentinel in her worst time. One who had come back to empathize with her pain and pull her up.

Because she finally had the answer to that
why
that kept bugging her in her dreams.

The realization left her knees wobbly. Lily sank down against the fence and covered her mouth. She had the answer to the question her subconscious kept rolling around: why the firemen hadn’t done anything. Her subconscious must be satisfied, because she hadn’t dreamed about it last night after Garrett told her the other side of the story. A big part of her wanted to accept the peace that Garrett’s revelation offered. Yet a residue remained, because each time she looked at his face or heard his voice, she’d remember the night Katja died. He was a living, breathing reminder, and Lily had no idea how to make that better.

A cloud drifted, allowing a fresh spill of golden light to spread out over the grass. The street was quiet with soft sounds of the neighborhood swirling in the air.