Chapter 8
CONNOR
My phone woke me from a restless sleep just after two in the morning, vibrating against the nightstand with an insistence that meant trouble. I grabbed it without looking at the screen, my heart already pounding because any call at that hour meant bad news.
“Hello?”
“Connor, you need to get to town. Now.” Anna's voice, shaking and urgent in a way I'd never heard before.
Not even when she'd been hiding from Daniel.
“It's Harper. There's been a fire. Her apartment—everything's gone.
She's okay, she's okay, but everything's gone and she's—Connor, just get there. Please.”
My blood turned to ice. The words wouldn't arrange themselves into anything coherent in my sleep-fogged brain.
Fire. Harper's apartment. Everything gone.
“Where are you?” My voice came out steady even though my whole body was already vibrating.
“Jaxon and I are already in the car on our way. Connor, hurry.”
She hung up.
I was already moving. Out of bed, yanking on jeans with hands that trembled no matter how hard I tried to steady them. I sped down the stairs on unsteady legs, lucky that I didn’t stumble down them. Boots. Where the hell were my boots?
She's okay. Anna said she's okay.
But my heart was pounding so hard I could hear it over everything else. I felt it in my throat, my chest, and my hands as I found my boots by the door and shoved my feet into them without bothering to tie the laces.
I didn't bother with a jacket. Didn't bother with anything except my keys and my phone and getting to my truck as fast as humanly possible.
The ranch was dark and quiet around me as I ran across the gravel drive, my untied boots making my steps uneven. No lights were on in the cabins where the ranch hands slept. No sound except the wind, my boots on gravel and my own ragged breathing that fogged in the cold air.
The engine roared to life when I finally got it started, and I peeled out of my driveway fast enough to spray gravel against the barn. The drive to town had never felt longer. Fifty-five minutes on a good day, but at 2 AM with empty roads and my foot heavy on the gas, I could push it.
I pushed it hard.
Forty-five minutes. Forty. Every minute felt like an eternity, like time had stopped meaning anything except the space between me and Harper. I wouldn't breathe right until I saw her. Until I confirmed with my own eyes that she was alive, that she was whole, that she was safe.
I could see the smoke before I even turned onto Maple Street. It was too much, too big. A column of black against the dark sky, illuminated by streetlights and the orange glow of flames visible from blocks away.
Fuck.
I turned the corner and my heart stopped.
The apartment complex was completely engulfed.
Fire trucks were everywhere, their red lights painting the street in strobes of crimson.
Water and foam arced through the air in powerful streams, but even I could see it was too late for anything inside.
The second floor was completely gone, flames bursting through windows and eating through the roof. The building was gone.
I parked as close as the fire trucks would let me, threw the truck into park with enough force that the gears ground, and ran.
“Sir, you need to stay back—” A firefighter stepped into my path, one arm out to block me.
“Someone I know is here. Harper Walsh. Where is she?” My voice came out harsh, desperate, edged with barely controlled panic.
He pointed toward a cluster of people near an ambulance, his expression softening slightly. “Residents are over there. But sir, you can't—”
I was already moving. Scanning faces, searching through the smoke, the emergency personnel and the shocked residents wrapped in blankets.
I found her immediately.
Sitting on the floor of an ambulance, wrapped in blankets that dwarfed her small frame.
Her face was streaked with soot and tears, pale beneath the grime.
Her red hair was tangled and dirty, hanging around her shoulders in knots.
Anna sat next to her with an arm around her shoulders, talking quietly.
Jaxon stood nearby, talking to someone in fire marshal gear.
But all I could see was Harper. Alive. Breathing. Safe.
The relief hit me so hard my knees buckled, and I had to lock my legs to keep from going down.
“Harper.”
She looked up, and when her green eyes met mine, the relief and devastation and fear in them nearly broke me in half.
I crossed the distance between us and pulled her into my arms without thinking, without hesitating. Lifted her right off the ambulance floor and held her as tight as I dared, feeling her solid and safe against me.
“You're okay.” The words came out rough, my voice shaking despite my attempts to control it. Everything was shaking. “You're okay. Thank God you're okay.”
She pressed her face into my chest, and I felt her shoulders shake with sobs that she'd probably been holding back. Felt her hands grip my shirt like I was the only thing keeping her upright, like if she let go she might fall apart completely.
I held her through it, one hand tangling in her hair that was rough with soot and smelled like smoke, the other wrapped around her back. Trying to hold her together through sheer force of will, trying to absorb some of the pain radiating from her in waves.
When she finally pulled back enough to look at me, her green eyes were red-rimmed and devastated and so tired I could barely stand to see it.
“Everything's gone.” Her voice was raw and hoarse, barely above a whisper.
“I woke up and there was smoke everywhere and I just—I grabbed my phone and ran.
Everything else is gone. My clothes, my photos, my grandmother's jewelry, my—” Her voice broke completely, shattering on the words. “Everything.”
I pulled her close again, tucking her head under my chin, one hand cradling the back of her head. “But you're alive. That's what matters. You're alive and you're safe and everything else…we'll figure it out.”
Over her head, I met Anna's eyes. What happened? I mouthed. Anna's expression was grim as she shook her head.
An older man in fire marshal gear with gray at his temples and a serious expression approached us, his boots crunching on debris. “Ms. Walsh?”
Harper pulled back from me slightly but didn't move away. I kept one arm around her, anchoring her to me, to the ground, to reality. “Yes?”
“I'm Fire Marshal Williams. I need to ask you a few questions if you're up for it. We can wait if you need more time—”
“Now is fine.” Harper's voice was steadier than I expected, stronger than she probably felt. “What do you need to know?”
“Can you walk me through what happened? What time did you wake up?”
Harper's voice stayed steady as she recounted it, and I listened with growing horror that made my stomach churn.
Waking up around two to the smell of smoke.
Opening her bedroom door to find the living room already engulfed in flames, the smoke so thick she couldn't see or breathe.
That she grabbed only her phone before running.
“The front door was blocked by fire, so I went to my bedroom window. I'm on the second floor. There's a roof over the first-floor entrance, so I jumped down to that, then jumped to the ground.”
She jumped. Out a second-story window.
My arm tightened around her automatically and my heart clenched at the image of Harper jumping from a burning building in the middle of the night. In bare feet and pajamas with smoke filling her lungs.
She could have been hurt. Could have died. But she hadn't, I reminded myself forcefully. She was here. I was touching her now, feeling her breathe against me.
“The smoke alarm didn't go off.” Harper's voice wavered slightly. “I remember seeing it when I opened my bedroom door. It was just…hanging there.”
“We noticed that,” Williams said, his expression darkening. “Ms. Walsh, I'm going to be honest with you. This doesn't look like an accident. The burn patterns, the speed of the spread, the disabled smoke detector—we're treating this as arson pending full investigation.”
Arson. The word hung in the air like a bomb waiting to detonate.
Harper went very still in my arms, her entire body going rigid. “Someone did this on purpose?”
“We'll know more after we investigate fully, but yes. That's what the initial evidence suggests.”
“But who would—” She stopped suddenly, and I felt her stiffen even more. Her whole body went tense as a bowstring. “Oh my god.”
“Harper?” I pulled back to see her face, searching her expression. “What is it?”
“I need to tell you something.” She looked up at me, and her green eyes were wide with a fear that had nothing to do with the fire behind us. “There's this man, Armand, who's been—”
“We'll get to all that,” Williams interrupted gently. “But first, Ms. Walsh, do you have somewhere safe to stay tonight? Family nearby?”
Harper opened her mouth, but no sound came out. I watched her mind working, trying to figure out where she could go at three in the morning with nothing but pajamas and a phone. I watched the realization cross her face, watched her eyes go distant and hollow as she understood that she had nowhere.
Nothing.
“She's staying with me,” I said before she could answer. Before she could argue or refuse or try to figure it out alone like she always did. “She's coming home with me.”
“Connor, I can't—” She turned to look at me, her eyes wide with shock.
“Yes, you can.” I kept my voice gentle but firm, leaving no room for argument. “You're staying at my place until we figure this out. That's not up for debate.”
“But I don't have—I can't just impose on you—”
“Harper.” I cupped her face with one hand, making her look at me. Making her see that I meant every word. “You're not imposing. You're coming home with me. End of discussion.”