Sometimes, where there was smoke, there was no fire at all.
Caden and his team, plus Rescue 37 and its team, had wasted their time on a false alarm at the restaurant. They headed back to the station, crawling through traffic without lights and sirens.
Caden couldn’t stand the pace. He needed to be doing something, breaking down doors, releasing trapped heat before it could blow apart a building.
He needed to see Tana.
He’d screwed up. The smoke had been there, billowing, overwhelming. She’d lied about how she’d gotten pregnant. He’d been blindsided by a man claiming to be Sterling’s father—a man who was actually Sterling’s father. Caden had felt betrayed. He’d abandoned the scene, leaving it to burn itself out unattended.
But there’d been no fire. Tana had stood in the bay an hour ago, answering his questions one after another, and he’d realized that he’d completely blown the most important relationship of his life. Her parting words had cut him to the quick: You lied, too. You said you’d never leave.
Yet he’d walked out on her, ten days ago.
He ripped off his headset, then scrubbed his hand through his hair.
“You okay there, Lieutenant?”
“Fine.”
But he saw the worried look Javier and Keith exchanged.
“I’m fine.”
He would never be fine again. He’d done a damn good job at extinguishing every last flicker of trust Tana might have had in him. Trust couldn’t be easy for her to give, not with the past he hadn’t known about until today. All this time, she had believed he would want to be with her only if he never knew about her past mistakes. And damn it—damn him—he’d proved her right. Jerry—her latest mistake—had tried to walk in, and Caden had walked out.
It wouldn’t be easy for him to earn her trust again. She’d given up trying to call him. She’d stopped coming by his house. She’d cut up his goddamned shirt. The relationship was dead.
He didn’t know what to do, but he had to try something, anything. He couldn’t live without Tana as part of his life. Tana and the precious baby she’d named—
Sterling.
They both loved that baby. Caden would start there. Tana wanted him to spend time with Sterling. When she offered to leave, he’d ask her to stay. They’d play with the baby together. Feed him in the high chair together. Have their own dinner together, one night. Go for a run together, one day. It would take time, but little by little, he’d earn the right to say I love you again.
Their engine’s next call was legitimate, if boring. A minor car accident brought them south of town. While they got everyone out of the wrecked vehicles easily enough, a new report of smoke in town came over the radio. That would normally be their call, but since they were on this scene, Engine 23 from the next station north was dispatched to cover it.
Caden applied a little antiseptic to a few scrapes as Rescue 23 was called out on the radio. A minute later, Ladder 37 was sent from their house. He didn’t have to tell Javier to wrap it up, but he got his rookie’s attention as he headed toward the engine.
“Keith. Let’s go. Sounds like it’s going to be a second alarm.” They left the police in charge and started rolling back to town.
It took them a minute to find the channel that all the responding units had switched to. The chatter was brisk. Fully involved structure, flames visible. Chief on the scene. As expected, the second alarm went out: more units requested. They hit their lights and sirens as the dispatcher gave them their destination. “Engine 37. Planchet Apartments, Felton Avenue.”
Tana’s address.
The whole team cursed, then they fell silent as they listened for evacuation reports. Caden’s pulse was loud in his ears. Tana and Sterling. They were there, waiting for him to get off his shift and stop by. They’d ordered their lives around his stiff acceptance of their invitation to visit. They were in a burning building because of him.
Nobody spoke. The team on the Alpha side of the building—the front face—reported that the elevator shaft was the source of the fire. It was far too close to Tana’s apartment, far too close to the stairwell she used.
Protocol labeled the four sides of the building, of any building, alpha, bravo, charlie, delta—a, b, c, d—so that fire teams could communicate their locations with less confusion. Tana’s side would be the Charlie side of the building. Charlie tenants were being guided to the far stairwell on the Delta side of the building. Charlie and Delta were still evacuating as the building burned.
They could see flames as they arrived. Tana and Sterling, my God, not Tana and Sterling…
“Engine 37 on scene.” Caden radioed their status, shocked that he could still speak at all as fear stopped his heart. One second later, he jumped out of the truck feeling so alert, so alive, he was ready to break down every door in the whole damned building, if that was what it took to get to Tana and Sterling.
The fire chief directed them over the radio. Caden’s team was designated to be next on the roof to cut ventilation holes so the heat could escape. Ladders were already in place to scale the three-story building, set by the team that was up there now. Caden and his team grabbed their power saws and iron pikes, then moved to the front of the row of vehicles, where they were supposed to wait on bended knee, conserving their energy until they were called into action.
Firefighters could only last so long in the smoke and fire. It was exhausting work, so they had to tag team with other units, like a relay race. The initial team on the roof was coming up on twenty minutes of incident time. They’d be pulled out, and Caden’s team would be sent up.
He keyed the mic on his radio. “Incident time?”
The dispatcher answered. “Incident time, fourteen minutes.”
They’d go in at twenty. To hell with resting on one knee. Caden had six minutes to find Tana before he got sent to the roof. He left his chainsaw with Javier and strode down the lawn, parallel to the sidewalk where the residents and onlookers were congregated. With an air tank on his back and his helmet on his head, he headed for the Delta side of the building, where Tana would have been evacuated, if she’d been evacuated.
If wasn’t good enough. He needed to know.
“Tana!” He bellowed her name every ten yards or so, until he reached the end of the sidewalk. She wasn’t here. He headed back toward his engine as he radioed the mobile command post to ask if the third floor evacuation was complete. He listened to the reports so intently, he almost missed her cry.
“Caden!”
She was standing next to the fire chief’s red SUV, she and Sterling both, the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen—so beautiful, Caden started to run. Tana met him halfway with the baby in her arms.
“I knew you’d be worried about Sterling,” she said, raising her voice over the shouted commands of the firefighters and the high-velocity spray of water. “I wanted the chief to let you know he was safe, so that you could focus on what you have to do. You have to put everything else behind you, so you’ll stay safe, too.”
It was a champion’s advice. Caden was in full gear, but he had to touch her. It had been too long since he’d touched them both. He started shedding his heavy gloves as he made himself heard over the noise. “I was worried about both of you. Both of you. Tana, don’t you see? I hated everything you said this afternoon. I hated it.”
She recoiled a step. Ladders and hoses were being directed all around them. She had to make her apology loud. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you I loved you, not after you made it clear that you don’t want—”
“I love you, too.” He threw his glove on the ground. “I hate that you’ve been treated so badly. Your parents. Coaches. Jerry. Husband—I hate that you were taken advantage of by a man older than I am when you were just twenty. I hate that your parents blame you for it. I hate that the woman I love has been treated so badly that she’s been scared for months to tell me about her life. I hate that she’s come to expect people to let her down, so that she wasn’t even surprised when I let her down, too. And God, I did. I’m so sorry, I did. I should never have walked out that night. I was so sure I was right.”
“You were right.”
“But I was wrong. I should have stayed. You shouldn’t have had to come find me today to make me listen.”
Sirens joined the cacophony as more units arrived.
Tana was still keeping an arm’s distance from him. She covered Sterling’s ear with her hand and shouted over the sirens. “Do you mean—do you mean you’ll give me a second chance?”
“You don’t need the second chance, baby. I do.”
“You don’t need it, either.”
“I’m so completely in love with you,” he shouted back. “That will never change, even if you never forgive me.”
“I love you, too. That will never change, even if I have to track you down again to tell you.”
They were yelling at each other, laughing now. He chucked his second glove on the ground and came close enough that he could have wrapped them in his arms, but his gear was too coarse and bulky. Instead, he touched them the only way he could, one hand holding Sterling’s precious head, one hand cupping Tana’s beloved face. He kissed Sterling gently. He kissed Tana hard.
“Incident time, eighteen minutes,” the dispatcher said.
“I have to go.”
“I know.” Tana kissed him again, quick. “Go save my apartment, or I’ll have to move in with you.”
“Move in with me, anyway. Forever. There was a diamond ring with that jogging stroller. I don’t have it on me, but it’s back at my house—”
This was insane. This wasn’t how he’d meant to propose, but he couldn’t go up on that roof without telling her his intentions. If anything happened, and she was left without knowing how he’d felt about her…
He couldn’t wait another minute.
He dropped to his knee. He had to shove his face shield up farther, so he could see her from under the brim of his helmet. He held out his hand, and she gave him hers, palm against warm palm.
“I want to marry you, Montana McKenna. You have my heart. You always have, you always will, and I was a fool to try to live without it for even one day. I never want to be apart from you again. It’s that simple. Will you marry me?”
His radio interrupted. “Incident time, nineteen minutes.”
Caden squeezed Tana’s hand. “I don’t mean to rush you, baby, but you have sixty seconds to decide.”
“Yes. Yes. Of course, yes.” She tugged on his hand, putting some of her world-class muscle into it and pulling him to his feet.
Time was up. They couldn’t kiss or cuddle or marvel at the miracle of finding their forever-partner. Instead, side by side, they headed for his team. The woman with the sexiest legs he’d ever seen matched him stride for stride easily, carrying the baby they both loved.
They reached the staging area. Caden moved close enough to speak into her ear, a brush of cheek against cheek. “When I get off this roof, I won’t come near you and the baby. The smoke is toxic. Particles get on the gear. I won’t touch you until I get showered at the firehouse.”
“Then I’ll be at the firehouse. I’ll touch you anywhere you’ll let me touch you. Unless you’re too exhausted.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll find a way to cowboy up.”
She laughed. “There are innocent ears listening.”
Caden dropped one more kiss next to the perfect little ear of his fussing, squirming baby—his baby, since that first breath.
Javier brought him his power saw. “You ready, Lieutenant?”
“Ready.”
The announcement came over the radio. “Incident time, twenty minutes.”
Caden lifted Tana’s hand to his lips. He kissed her ring finger, where he would place a diamond before the day was through.
Then he pulled on his glove, dropped down his face shield, and started up the ladder toward the sky, although he couldn’t get any closer to heaven than he already was.
* * * * *