Chapter 32
Ford
Fire. The Harmony Grove. Spa room. Young woman trapped in the bathroom.
The words make sense separately, but not together. I refuse to accept that this is happening.
Ivy’s face is all I see as we speed to The Harmony Grove, grateful that I’m not the one driving. I need to get my shit together. Treat this situation as if it were anyone else in that spa room.
But it isn’t, goddamn it. It’s Ivy, my Ivy, and the thought of something happening to her makes me want to tear the world apart.
At the main lodge of The Harmony Grove, which Nash promptly evacuated, we head to the spa room in full gear and the hose in tow. But as soon as I open the door and smoke, flames, and sparks are all I see, my heart stalls.
She’s okay. She has to be.
Right away, I know it’s an electrical fire. I instruct Ian and the rest of the crew to put it out while I head inside with an oxygen mask. If we can’t get Ivy out through the door, we’ll have to take down a wall. I’d take down the entire fucking building with my bare hands to keep her safe.
A few towels have caught fire, and so has the massage chair, which we put out as we advance. It’s not a big room by any means, but the bathroom seems miles away. It feels like she’s slipping away with each step I take, and I urge myself to rein in my emotions.
Now’s not the time to forget everything this job has taught me, damn it. Not when her life is at risk.
The smoke inside the bathroom isn’t as thick, but the room is still filled to the fucking brim. And right there, lying on the ground with her phone loosely gripped in her hand and a towel pressed to her mouth and nose, is Ivy.
It doesn’t matter how much training I’ve had over the past fifteen years—it all goes out the window the second I see her limp body.
I immediately put an oxygen mask on her, connected to a portable oxygen supply, and shake her lightly. When I get no answer, I shout at her for a reaction that never comes. She’s not conscious.
I tilt her head back and check the pulse on her neck.
It’s there. Faint, but she’s breathing.
“I’ve got you, baby.” I pick her up, knowing she can’t hear me, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll always have her, even if she isn’t aware. “I’m getting you out of here.”
The fire is controlled by the time I get Ivy out of the room, luckily through the door.
Her body is limp in my arms, her hair falling across her soot-smeared face. My heartbeat thunders louder than any other noise around me, and my eyes start burning, not from smoke but at the sight of her.
I could’ve lost her, damn it. I still could.
Paramedics are waiting in the lobby. She doesn’t have any visible burns, but she’s inhaled too much smoke and needs immediate attention.
It takes everything in me to hand her over to them. The most logical part of me knows she’s in good hands, but I’m not always logical when it comes to the woman I’ve fallen in love with.
“We’ve got her,” one of the paramedics reassures me as they replace the mask I put on her.
The sight of her body being rolled into the ambulance makes me sick to my stomach, and I ache to go after her. But I have a job to do, even if, for the very first time in my life, I resent it.
Twenty minutes later, the spa room is cleared. Nash is making a call in the hall when I signal him to come over.
“The room is almost completely burnt out,” I tell him, cutting right to the chase. The sooner I get out of here, the sooner I’ll see Ivy. It’s killing me to picture her alone in a hospital room, not knowing how she’s doing.
Nash shakes his head as if he couldn’t care any less about the spa room. “How’s Ivy?”
“Unconscious, but breathing.” I’m the one who can’t fucking breathe. “She’s at the hospital.”
He nods once, his face the most serious I’ve ever seen it. And because he’s my younger brother and I can practically read his mind, I put a hand on his shoulder.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I reassure him. “It was an electrical fire. It was nobody’s fault.”
“The lodge was due an electrical inspection,” he says grimly. “The company kept putting it off, and I didn’t do anything about it because I was busy with other shit. Nothing had ever happened before, so I thought…. Goddamn it.”
“Not your fault,” I repeat. “It was an accident, Nash.”
“I don’t give a fuck. It sent Ivy to the hospital.”
“She’ll live,” I say, trying to convince him as much as I’m trying to convince myself. “Focus on making sure everyone else is fine. We do our job, and you do yours. Compartmentalize.”
Despite the ash clinging to my gear and my sweaty skin, I pull him into a hug. At the end of the day, he’s still my brother. It’s our job to protect each other.
“Ivy will be fine, and so will The Harmony Grove,” I reassure him. “Everything will be fine.”
When we pull apart, he searches my gaze. “How are you?”
“I’m itching to get out of here,” I tell him with every inch of honesty and desperation that I have. I might not show my concern to anyone else, but I will to my brother. “I couldn’t fucking stand seeing her like that.”
Nash stays quiet for a moment, only breaking the silence to say, “You love her.”
It’s not a question. I guess my behavior when it comes to Ivy doesn’t leave much room for one.
“To the goddamn bone,” I declare.
And maybe it’s time I tell her too. I could’ve lost her tonight, and she would’ve never known.
“Then go,” Nash says. “Go find her.”
He doesn’t have to tell me twice.
Despite my job forcing me to deal with all sorts of unpleasant situations, nothing could’ve prepared me for the sight of Ivy in a hospital bed, unconscious, hooked to an oxygen machine, with fluids being injected into her veins.
It undoes me completely.
The doctor might have confirmed there was no carbon monoxide or cyanide poisoning, and they might have reassured me that her being unconscious is normal for the first few hours, but it doesn’t fucking matter. None of this feels right to me.
The beeping of the monitors is the only sound in the room. My eyes are locked on her chest, watching it rise and fall, as if she would stop breathing if I looked away. Her hand is in mine, so cold and limp, I’ve never wanted to punch a wall more than I do now.
I take a deep breath and lean over, my chair creaking under my weight. Pressing my forehead to her hand, I silently beg her to wake up. I need to see that smile again, hear that laugh, feel those arms around me.
I need to tell her that I’ve made a mistake. The worst mistake of my life.
I’ve spent the past few months feeding myself lie after lie because I thought I was protecting my heart. I’d convinced myself that relationships weren’t worth it, that I’d be better off alone. That I’d gotten married once, and I would never put myself through that again.
How fucking dumb have I been.
I almost lost her. I could lose Ivy so easily, so quickly, and I would spend the rest of my life grieving what we could have been.
I’m so in love with her, it hurts to exist in a world where the possibility of us not growing old together exists.
Marriage was off the table, but fuck it—if she wants a wedding, I’ll give her the wedding of her dreams.
I would do anything for her. Anything. And it’s so damn frustrating that no matter what I want, it’s not up to me to bring her back to consciousness or to erase the past few hours from existence.
I’m still holding her hand, my head resting on her bed, watching her breathing, when her fingers twitch.
At first, I think I’m seeing what I’m so desperate for. But then they move again, and her next breath isn’t regular. Her chest heaves with a shaky inhale, and I shoot up from my chair to press the button by her bed to alert the nurse.
“Hey.” I’m careful as I brush her hair out of her face. Her eyes twitch behind her closed eyelids. “Wake up for me, beautiful. I miss you so much.”
She mumbles something incoherent right as chaos ensues in the room. A nurse kicks me out, reassuring me that she will be fine, and it isn’t until an hour later that I’m allowed back in.
When my eyes finally meet Ivy’s, so blue and lively and beautiful, I nearly collapse to my knees.
“You’re awake,” I breathe out.
She gives me a weak smile. “And breathing on my own. Where’s my medal?”
I chuckle, nervous and on the edge of tears. She’s awake and cracking jokes already. Goddamn it, this woman.
“That’s a good sign, right?” I ask her, slowly walking toward her bed. Indeed, she’s no longer wearing an oxygen mask. “That they took it off.”
She nods and wiggles her fingers in my direction. I all but rush to grab her hand, itching to be close to her.
“You got me out, didn’t you?” she asks softly, watching my face.
I sigh and lower my body into the chair again. “I did. And I would do it a thousand times over, but once was enough. Please, don’t put me through that again.”
She smirks. “I’ll try.”
“Good.”
“Joe?”
“I called him earlier. He’s coming,” I tell her, recalling our phone call hours ago. Even without seeing his face, I could tell he was holding back tears. That made two of us.
“Ford?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I could have died tonight.”
I stiffen. “You don’t need to remind me.”
“I could have died without seeing your picture on last year’s firefighter calendar.”
I nearly choke on my own saliva. “I can’t deal with you.”
Yet I still reach for my phone in my back pocket because I’m weak when it comes to this woman. But when her giggle turns into a cough, I forget all about it and quickly pass her a glass of water instead.
“I’m okay,” she says, clearing her throat, after she’s downed the whole thing. “The doctor said I can go home tomorrow.”
Once I’ve set the glass back down on the small table by her hospital bed, I hold her face gently in my hands and look at her. “When they discharge you, you’re coming home with me.”
Her cheeks turn pink. “Don’t you have things to do?”
“Yeah, take care of you.”
“Ford….”