Chapter Six – Life as We Knew It #2
Surprise flitted over her face. “You do?”
She pushed off the desk and took a step toward me. “Do you know why?”
“I’ve heard a little something on the topic.”
She tilted her head. “I can fix it.” She stopped and cleared her throat. “We can fix it. Together.”
She ran her hand along her arm from her elbow to her wrist. It was an old habit. A tick. Her thumb lingered on the old scars.
Wounds from a night that had marked me almost as much as it had scarred her.
Life had piled up on her at seventeen. Vicious rumors. Cruel names. Things that had nothing to do with me, and yet I’d added a brick to the pile already weighing her down. The guilt still haunted me.
“If Daddy thought you and I might actually make it official, I know he’d reconsider his position on the matter,” Delilah said. She stared for a few beats before her eyes dipped to my mouth and back.
My neck broke out in goosebumps. Not the good kind. The ones that felt like someone had walked over my grave. A biting remark was on the tip of my tongue before I caught it.
I wouldn’t hurt Delilah on purpose—never again if I could help it—but I also felt an overwhelming need to shut this door once and for all.
Not just for Del but for the entire town.
I was exhausted from having to prove there was nothing between her and me, and I was pissed everyone was trying to back me into a corner and force my hand.
So fine. Fucking fine.
They’d force it, but it wouldn’t be in the direction Delilah and her parents had wanted.
“The thing is, Del, it would be impossible for you and me to ever be anything,” I said it gently, but it didn’t stop the annoyance from flickering across her face.
“Only because you’re too stubborn to see what’s right in front of you.”
What flashed in my mind wasn’t Del. It was another woman with hair like chocolate silk and pale-green eyes.
A woman who understood the dead muscle in my chest and my inability to commit.
A woman who understood the revulsion I felt at relationships wasn’t just temporary but necessary.
I may not ever have told Maisey about the smoke that filled my lungs when I thought of marriage, but she accepted I couldn’t do forever after.
Delilah would always wish for more than I could give. As if proving my point, her hands landed on my chest, sliding up seductively.
I caught them, trapping her wrists and ignoring the flare in her eyes at the action.
Self-preservation and anger had me spewing words I had no right to spill, especially without at least having a conversation about them first. “No. It’s impossible, Del, because I’m already engaged to someone else.”
Her entire being went still, shock rolling over her face. She yanked her hands away from me and took a step back. “Liar. You haven’t dated anyone seriously in years.”
I was going to hell. I was going to hell, and my best friend was going to be the one to send me there. And I’d deserve it. But the truth was, Maisey would cover my ass while she did it. She’d step up to the plate because that was the core of who she was—she took care of others.
It made me hate myself a bit more, knowing Maisey had already spent a lifetime picking up after other people and I was giving her one more mess to handle. But it didn’t stop me from continuing the lie.
“We’ve been keeping it quiet on purpose,” I insisted. “We weren’t ready to tell anyone yet.”
Delilah’s lips tightened. “Who? Because you seriously haven’t been seen with anyone in months besides…” Her mouth popped open as realization settled in. “Maisey? You’re talking about Maisey?”
I didn’t have time to respond as the alarm sounded, roaring through the station and echoing out into the street.
Grateful, for the first time in my life, for a fire, I whirled and raced down the hall, sliding down to the lockers where our turnout gear waited.
My crew was already there, feet sliding into their boots.
I was not even two seconds behind them, but seconds mattered when it came to fire.
Vader bounded onto the stairs with an excited woof, and I shouted at him to stay with the stupid cat before I launched myself into the engine with Kasey chauffeuring.
Sliding into my seat and throwing my phone into the compartment in the dash as we roared onto the street, I asked, “What have we got?”
The crew exchanged a look, and my stomach sank. It was the probie who answered, not understanding what it would mean to me.
“Structure fire. Residential. 501 Meadow Lane.” Sensing the tension in the air after he’d blurted out the address, Leon asked, “What? Do we know who lives there?”
Memories hit me like a reel gone viral—hard and fast and on repeat.
Jumping over the fence into Maisey’s yard.
Playing tag and hide-and-seek amongst the chicken coops.
Mrs. Campbell fixing us sandwiches and cookies at the rickety table with a piece of cardboard under one leg to even it out.
Maisey curled up in a ball on a twin-sized bed, sobbing after her mother died, while I slid in behind her, simply holding her because I didn’t know what else to do.
Maisey in that damn yellow dress, picking her way over the roots in the cracked path as she made her way to the steps of a porch that sagged and needed replacing.
The heart I often thought was dead flexed in its cage of scars, slashing out at me.
She wasn’t at the house. She would have left hours ago.
She’d talked about picking up a shift at the hospital or going to the ranch to practice with Titan.
She was not in a burning house!
The cars on Main Street parted for us, and as we flew by the Emporium, I saw the smoke rising from the neighborhood beyond it. Black and insidious, it curled into the unusually heavy summer air. Kasey spun the wheel, and we turned the corner at speeds that had the rookie cursing behind me.
The engine hadn’t even stopped before I’d jumped out to assess the situation at the Campbell house.
The fire was at the rear. Likely the kitchen.
My crew sprang from the engine, and I issued commands.
“Leon, stretch the pipe. Tejas, do the initial investigation and make sure it’s contained to the kitchen while I conduct the primary search.
Kasey, alpha provides the easiest egress.
It’s a straight shot through the front door to the kitchen. You and Leon follow me in.”
I dragged my lid and SCBA on as I headed up the steps. Tejas ran to the left, sweeping the property clockwise, while Leon and Kasey went to work on the plug and pipe.
I had my hand on the front door as a body came tumbling out. I might not have recognized Maisey’s dad if I’d passed him on the street. Not because he was covered in black ash but because he seemed half the man I’d grown up around.
He coughed horribly, and the kitchen fire extinguisher he held banged against the doorframe.
“Is there anyone else here?” I demanded.
He looked at me, dazed and confused. I doubted he recognized me, not with the breathing apparatus altering my voice and my turnout gear covering me from head to toe.
“Mr. Campbell, are you alone in the house?”
“I…I tried to stop it.” He looked down at the fire extinguisher. His hand was raw and red. Burnt. Shit.
Into my radio, I said, “Engine 2 requesting bus at 501 Meadow Lane. Resident needs medical.”
My gut fell, hoping Maisey wasn’t in the ER today, hoping she wouldn’t hear the callout, but even more, hoping she wasn’t inside.
Instead of wasting time moving Lewis off the porch and away from the house, I raced inside, chest tight and breathing shallow. I ached to head straight for the bedrooms, but I forced myself to rely on my training, clearing the rooms one by one from front to back.
When I got to the kitchen, the fire danced a vicious beat.
It had already melted plastic, ripped through wood, and was working its way along the wall Maisey’s room shared with the kitchen.
My heart nearly exploded with fear as the blaze crawled through the wood and Sheetrock, a beast eating its way through its prey.
In my headset, I heard Tejas say the fire had taken the porch on the Charlie side. He was knocking it down with his handheld. Behind me, Kasey and Leon filed into the house, dragging the pipe across the hardwood with Kasey at the tip.
I shoved several burning dinette chairs out of my way, storming toward the hallway and calling Maisey’s name. The words echoed eerily in my mask.
I slammed the door of Maisey’s bedroom open, scanned the interior, and felt the pain and pressure in my chest ease slightly.
No one. The room was empty except for the fire licking through the hole it had formed in the wall.
I turned, clearing the bathroom she’d shared as a kid with her sister before opening Chelsea’s room.
But that room was empty too. Not only empty of people but stripped clean. Nothing on the walls, nothing in the closet. Just a bed with an ancient mattress and a dresser with the drawers open.
Thank God.
Thank fucking God.
Maisey wasn’t here.
I sprinted back to the kitchen, mind clearing so I could focus on the work.
Tejas had doused the porch and busted through the back door, taking the blaze from the rear.
Kasey was attacking from the front. I took over the tip and ordered Leon to return to Mr. Campbell and assess his injuries while we waited for the EMTs to arrive.
It took less time to put the fire out than it had taken us to get there.
Less time than it had taken for me to panic and clear the house.
I gave the command to kill the water and then stood there for a brief second, assessing the disaster.
The kitchen was gutted—nothing salvageable—and a hole now tore through the wall to Maisey’s old room. Even from this angle, I could see her bed had been torched, and the dresser was black with streaks.
Fuck.
But it hadn’t spread to the rest of the house. It hadn’t spread to mine next door.
“Engine 2. Structure fire under control,” I said into the radio.
What the hell had happened?
I handed over the overhaul to Tejas and Kasey and stepped outside.
A bus had arrived, and Bugsy, the lead EMT for the ambulance company, had Mr. Campbell sitting in a peeling old chair on the porch while she wrapped his hand.
I ripped off my lid and SCBA before squatting next to him. “Mr. Campbell, have you called Maisey? Does she know about the fire?”
His eyes were glossy and distant when he looked at me. “Maisey is at school. She’s at school. But Chelsea.” He shook his head. “She left again. Not coming back this time.” He looked at the dark-haired Bugsy working on his hand and said, “I miss my girls. Marjorie, tell the girls I miss them, okay?”
My stomach sank at his mixed-up jumble of words.
It had to be the shock that caused him to flip back in time and act as if his wife were there. As if Maisey was going to stroll home from the school at any minute.
Bugsy and I shared a look. She’d grown up in town too. She knew Marjorie Campbell was dead, knew Maisey was not at school—high school, college, or otherwise.
“Will you stay with him?” I asked. “I’m going to call Maisey.”
Bugsy nodded, and I jogged to the wagon, searching for the phone I’d tossed aside. I didn’t want to call her through the emergency channels. I didn’t want her to panic and assume the worst.
She’d be distraught.
What I wanted to do was go pick her up and drive her here myself, but I couldn’t. I had a job to do. Mop up to continue. An investigation to start.
Most likely, it was a kitchen accident gone wildly wrong. But they’d need the paperwork completed for the insurance. Maisey had already mentioned her dad didn’t have the money to fix the place up. This would hurt more.
I didn’t have to scroll to find her name. It was already at the top of my list. Still, I paused before hitting the call button.
How was I going to break it to her that her dad was okay but that he wasn’t all there?
That he’d made a mess of their home while I’d been making a mess of her life with a lie.
I promised I’d fix it all the best I could.
Somehow, I’d make everything right.