Chapter 31
My phone rang just after midnight, echoing off the end table next to my bed.
I was half asleep, Goldie’s warm body snuggled in at my side, her breath slow and even across my chest. For a split second, I thought it was a dream. Then my phone buzzed again, sharp and insistent, and the pit in my stomach opened before I even looked at the screen.
One vehicle MVC into structure.
Flames showing.
I was out of bed before my brain caught up, like my body knew what it was before I did.
Goldie stirred, leaning up on one elbow with a cute little scowl between her eyebrows. “Tanner?”
“I’ve got to go,” I said, already pulling on jeans as the feeling in my chest swirled into a tornado. “Something’s wrong.”
She sat up, the sheet pooling at her waist as my discarded shirt from yesterday hung off her petite body. “Is it—”
“I don’t know,” I said, and hated how thin my voice sounded. “I don’t get called in when I’m off duty unless it’s bad. And Rhea’s on shift tonight.”
That was all it took. Goldie was on her feet, hands shaking as she grabbed my jacket and shoved it at me.
“Call me,” she said. “The very first second you know anything.”
I kissed her forehead, breathing her in longer than necessary, soaking in her sunshine for a moment. “I will.”
Leaving her alone in my apartment felt so normal and unfamiliar at the same time as I ran down the steps and jumped into my cruiser and kicked up gravel on my way toward the scene. The drive through the dark night felt endless as I raced to the address.
I didn’t tell Goldie where the fire was because she would have spiraled and insisted on coming with me. But I couldn’t do that because I couldn’t focus if she was there. It was bad enough that Rhea was.
Sirens from her fire station and one town over echoed through the night, my lights flashed off empty dark storefronts and sleeping houses. It wouldn’t take long before the entire town woke up to the dire call.
My mind kept playing the same thing repeatedly as I drove to the ice rink where the accident had happened.
It wasn’t an accident at all; I could feel it in my bones. The ice rink was out in the middle of a concrete island, surrounded by a massive parking lot and empty grass fields. There was no chance a vehicle hit the building by mistake, and I didn’t even have to be on the scene to know that.
Before I made the last turn toward the community rink, I could see the glow of fire and red lights.
Firelight painted the night sky orange, thick smoke boiling upward toward the stars like a warning flare.
There was a truck buried straight through the back side of the building, flames licking up its side, smoke spreading into the structure.
I got out of my cruiser, throwing my badge and gun on as I took it all in. Glass littered the parking lot, and people in various stages of shock stood on the edge of the pavement, faces glowing orange as they watched. The rink wasn’t empty when the accident happened.
Chaos.
My heart hammered in my chest as fire crews swarmed the scene, hoses snaking across the pavement, engines roaring. I scanned faces desperately.
Where was she?
Where was Rhea?
“Brooks!” Thomas yelled as he ran by, dragging a hose behind him. “Help me run this line!”
I didn’t hesitate, grabbing the heavy hose and pulling with him toward the hydrant on the edge of the parking lot.
“Where’s Dalton?” I yelled over the noise of the diesel engines and the snapping of the fire behind us.
“Interior,” he shouted over the noise as he wrenched open the hydrant, nodding to the inferno behind me. “First team that went in. There was a rec league playing when the truck hit the building. She went to check for a driver.”
My chest tightened as I turned back toward the scene.
I walked away from him, unable to help any more than I had as I scanned the giant opening around the truck. The heat was brutal, even from the perimeter. I could feel it baking my skin, the taste of smoke clogging the back of my throat.
Then—
An explosion hit.
A concussive blast rocked the ground and sent a shockwave through my chest as I fell backward on my ass. The flames surged, windows blowing out in a burst of sound and light.
And then horns.
Every engine on the scene started blaring.
The air horns screamed through the night, long and urgent, louder than the chaos around us.
“Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.” An ominous voice echoed through every radio on the scene. “Evacuate! Gas Leak!”
My blood ran cold as I sat up and stared at the opening as firefighters ran from the fire.
“Pull them out!” someone screamed. “All units out, now!”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I stared at the burning building, my mind screaming her name over and over as if that alone could pull her free.
It felt like every second passed in slow motion as the fire ripped up the side of the building.
The firefighters all evacuated, running from the fire as they turned their attention on trying to extinguish it from the outside.
But as I scanned all the faces of those outside the building, one face was missing.
Rhea.
And then a shadow passed through the flames.
Movement.
A shape stumbled out of the smoke around the burning truck.
“Rhea!” I bellowed as she burst through the flames like something forged in hellfire, with her soot-blackened gear scorched by the fire.
She was bent over, and it took me a second to realize she was dragging someone with her, arms locked under his, refusing to let go and give up, even as she was burdened by the load.
“Medic!” She screamed from under her air mask. “He needs help!”
It was Martinez, unconscious and limp in her arms.
Medics and other fire department crew took him from her, swarming around her as they pulled him onto a stretcher and to the waiting ambulances.
Rhea fell to one knee, gasping and shaking as she ripped her mask and helmet off, her eyes were wild as she scanned the scene like she was counting heads, checking on her team.
Then she saw me.
Vulnerability crashed over her face so fast it stole my breath.
I crossed the distance in seconds, catching her as she tried to get back on her feet. “You’re okay,” I said, gripping her shoulders and urging her further from the fire. “You’re okay.”
She nodded, coughing the acid smoke out of her lungs, tears streaking clean lines down her cheeks. “He was knocked out,” she rasped. “I couldn’t get out the other side; the blast knocked a wall down. But I wasn’t leaving him there. The only way out was through the fire.”
I held her as the exterior team tackled the fire from the roof and outside, knocking the flames down with special foam, extinguishing the tanks that were in the truck bed.
Martinez groaned from the stretcher inside the ambulance, and we turned our attention to him as he came to, overwhelmed and shaken. His first words were her name.
“Rhea,” He croaked through a dry throat, “She saved me. She saved my life.”
The words echoed out through the crowd of firefighters and spectators.
Hero.
Life saver.
But she wouldn’t feed into it, she wouldn’t celebrate the win. Silently, she pulled her helmet back on and turned back toward the fire. “I have to get back to it.”
I hated the idea of letting her go back to the thing that had almost killed her moments ago, but that was the point, wasn’t it? Every single day she ran into burning buildings and dangerous scenes without even thinking twice, and I understood that.
I did the same thing.
It was what I loved. And so did she. So, I stood back and let her go, giving her a quick nod when she grinned at me before grabbing a line and helping one of her crew put more foam on the fire.
And I stood in awe, watching the glow of the fire glisten off her soot-covered face, reflecting in the deep depths of her green eyes every time they found me in the crowd, completely mesmerized by her.
Then I got the fuck to work to find out what the hell happened.
As I worked the scene as a police officer, collecting witness accounts and surveying the scene while the firefighters got the fire under control, that icy feeling of suspicion didn’t leave my gut.
Trucks carrying full tanks of propane didn’t just crash into the back of community ice rinks in the middle of the night without a driver.
And the front seat of the truck was empty when Rhea got to it.
I knew, deep down, that there was going to be far more to the tale in the morning than just how Rhea saved Martinez’s life. Another notch against the safety of Cedar Bluff’s businesses and livelihoods.