Chapter 5
Reed
I’m going crazy. She’s only been here one day and my whole body is attuned to every breath she takes. Every move she makes vibrates through all the way to my soul. She haunts me.
She smiles and my breath stutters, my heart racing in my chest. She laughs at something my mom says and it’s like I want to wallow in it. Want to soak it up and roll around in it.
She’s addictive.
And I have to leave. My teeth clench and I growl under my breath, pissed that I’m acting like a damn clinging vine.
“She’s just a woman. Buck the fuck up. You’ve lived without a woman your whole damn life.”
And maybe that’s part of the problem. I’ve never felt like this before. Everything about her intrigues me, sends me into flights of fancy.
I’m an idiot. A pussy-whipped idiot.
“Did you say something?” My mother grins at me knowingly. Yeah. She knows what’s up.
She’s been bugging me for years to find a woman and settle down. She seems to think that I’m punishing myself for losing Roger.
Hell…maybe I am. In some ways.
I don’t want to forget.
“Are you leaving, Reed?” She sighs and shakes her head at me.
Grabbing my bag, I nod my head at her and then I can’t resist looking at Mercy.
There’s no mercy when I get lost in her deep blue eyes. I can barely think. I can’t breathe.
But then a hand waves in front of my eyes and I shake my head. My mother smirks at me. “You better get going. The guys are going to think there’s something wrong. You’re never this late when you’re on shift.”
“Right. Right.”
Nodding at both women, I step out the door and close it, finally taking a deep breath for the first time since I first saw Mercy Lee.
Jogging down the steps I hit my SUV and head for the firehouse, not really surprised when I find my guys waiting for me. Perry eyes me and grins.
“You’re late. I wonder what kept you.”
Another guy grins too. “Maybe the Lou finally managed to get himself some. It’s been years, man. When he finally blows, it takes awhile!”
“Stop fucking around. There’s a helluva lot of stuff that needs checked to make sure that it’s ready to go. And what happened to keeping all the areas clean. I saw the weight room. Looks like chipmunks have been eating seeds in there.”
All of them stand there staring at me, wide-eyed and grinning. “Go!” I roar.
Laughter follows them as they all take off to clean and get this place organized.
We only have four guys including me on shift at any one time. And if I cover overnights like tonight then I might go a good twenty-four hours at a time without sleep.
Luckily, it’s Sunday night and it’s quiet. There’s rain in the forecast day after tomorrow so everybody’s enjoying the warmth of a unique spring day. Walking to the door, I step outside and stare up at the stares in the black sky. Twinkling. Bright.
My eyes find one really bright star and I stare at it. What am I doing? No woman wants to be stuck with a guy who can’t deal with his own problems.
“What’s up, Lou?” James says, his voice soft. The night demands it. Solitude. Stillness.
“I don’t know.”
“You know.”
I glance over at him and growl, “You do know that I’m in charge, right?”
He laughs, a rough bark that breaks the eerie stillness. “You like to think so.”
Rolling my eyes, I flip him off. But I don’t say anything else.
“You like her.” The night’s so still, so eerie. Like it’s waiting for something.
Maybe it’s this. An admission.
“I do.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t know. She’s got a job to do. I can’t interfere with that.”
“Nothing says you have to. But that doesn’t stop you from finding out if there’s something here more than just a pretty woman and a desperately horny guy.”
Choking on a laugh, I flip him off again.
He leans against the door and sighs. “I assume this is about Roger.”
Shrugging, I turn back to the darkness. “I don’t know.”
“Your whole life you’ve been protecting others. And when they did things and you couldn’t….well, you see what happened. You shut down. Close off all those doors to your smooshy insides and tell everybody to fuck off. Then you go off alone. Is that all you want?”
Turning to glare at him, I slip my hands into my pockets. “Smooshy? Is that even a word?”
“It is. And you’ve got them down there somewhere. You just haven’t done anything with them in so long that they’re atrophied.”
My brows lift. “Big word, buddy. Finally taking a look at that word a day calendar I gave you two years ago?”
“Fuck off,” he growls. “It fits. All kidding aside…what are you going to do?”
Shaking my head, I lean against the wall and put my head back, staring at all those stars above me. “I don’t know. You think somewhere out there there’s an alien staring at the same stars and wondering what he’s gonna do about his woman?”
James snorts. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were drunk. Not just trying to avoid giving me a straight answer.”
“I need some sleep. Maybe we can pick this up later.”
“Yeah. I’ll hold my breath.”
I clap him on the back and head inside, growling, running my hands through my hair. I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do. But I sure as hell hope I can get some damn sleep.
The last week has been long and tiring. I need a break.
I should have known.
Jerking up, I groan when I hear the alarms going off. “Shit!” Jumping up, I race to my locker and slip on my turnout gear. There’s no time to even think. The alarms are blaring and my ears ring.
James races beside me to the fire truck. “I hope to hell this is a house fire.”
“I wish.” I heard the address and it’s another old structure. This one an old barn not a warehouse.
“Fuck,” he snaps.
We pile into one truck and the other two guys in the other one. If we need help I’ll call the guys who are off and we’ll do what we can until they get there.
With a roar the engines head into the night and I try to get my head on straight, hoping like hell that I’m not about to see what I think I will.
But when we pull up, there’s nobody around and the old barn is fully engulfed, red and orange flames licking at the star-lit sky, hiding them from view with waves of rolling smoke and fire.
“Fuck, I wish I was stargazing again, dammit!”
James nods and we step out into the madness of fire and fury and night rolled into one dangerous event.
Time to save what we can.
One side of the barn caves in on itself and a cloud of smoke and fire wafts towards us, sending us running out of the line of fire.
Literally.
“Get that stuff set up! Let’s get this buttoned down now!”
Scurrying around, we automatically move into position, each one of us knowing what our job is.
Save what we can and protect our families and friends from the beast that growls in front of us.
And hopefully live to come home another day.