Liam felt the darkness closing in around him and pushed it back. He met Fergus’s eyes in the rearview mirror as he put in the call to the station and saw his own fear reflected there. And in Marco’s eyes as his best friend lifted his cell phone to his ear. Liam shut down everything that was going on around him and forced his voice to remain calm and even. “Okay, sweetheart, you hear that? You hear the siren? Daddy’s on his way. Where are you?”
“In my bedroom. Daddy, I’m scared,” she whispered.
“I know you are, but everything’s gonna be all right. Where’s Mommy?”
“Right here, on the floor. She fell. She won’t get up.”
Liam’s jaw clenched so tight he felt it pop. “She will. I’ll take care of her as soon as I get there. Mia, I need you to tell Daddy if you see any fire or is there just smoke?”
“Fire,” she said, her voice small and terrified. “It’s in the living room. There’s smoke too.”
“It’s okay. We’re almost there. I need you to shut the door to your bedroom, sweetheart. Stay on the line with me and do that for Daddy, okay?”
“’Kay.” He heard her moving around, and then the sound of the door shutting.
“Good girl. You should hear the sirens anytime now. Can you hear them?”
“Hurry, Daddy.”
“No one’s picking up at Greystone,” Marco said, his voice tight.
“Fergus is driving as fast as he can. Your uncle Marco is with me too.”
“Hang in there, cara. We’re almost there,” Marco said, holding Liam’s gaze as he tried the manor again.
“Is Mommy on her back or her tummy?”
“Her—” There was a crash, and Mia screamed. “Daddy, Daddy, hurry, hurry!”
“Mia, it’s okay, baby. Come here. Mommy’s got you. Give me the phone. Liam,” Sophie’s voice came over the line. She sounded groggy.
There was so much he wanted to say to her, but now wasn’t the time. “Soph, how bad are you hurt?”
“The smoke detector went off, and I ran to get Mia. It was dark. I tripped and hit my head on the dresser.”
“You’re bleeding, Mommy. There’s blood on you,” Mia whimpered.
“It’s just a little cut. It’s fine. Don’t cry, baby.”
His fingers tightened around the phone.
“Almost there, son. We’re almost there,” Fergus murmured.
“Soph, you were out for a bit, so take your time standing up. But I need to know if you can walk. Hold on to the bed and try to get up.”
He heard movement then. “Good. I’m good. I hear the sirens,” Sophie said.
“You’re gonna see me in about four minutes. Soph, is Dana in the apartment next door?”
“I think so. I’m not sure.”
“Baby, I’ve gotta go. I’m coming to get you.” He wanted to tell her he loved her, that he loved them both, but the words got stuck in his throat. If he said them, it felt like he was saying goodbye.
Sophie sat on the bed and pulled Mia onto her lap. She cupped her daughter’s face, looking into her tear-filled, Gallagher-blue eyes. “I’m so proud of you.” Mia had found her voice, and in all likelihood had saved their lives. “Daddy’s coming. You don’t have to be afraid.” She tried to ignore the sounds outside the door—the hiss and pop of the fire spreading through the apartment. She thought of Mia alone, curled up in the closet of the bedroom they once shared in LA, and held back a sob, holding her tighter. “Mommy’s not going to let anything happen to you. Not this time, baby. I promise.”
“What if Daddy doesn’t come before the fire—”
Sophie glanced at the base of the door, her heart pounding faster at the sight of the faint glow beneath it. The temptation to pick up Mia and make a run for the window in her bedroom all but overwhelmed Sophie. She forced herself to stay where she was. She trusted Liam. There was no one she trusted more. “Nothing will stop your daddy from getting us out. You know that.”
There was the sound of wood splintering at the front of the apartment. She heard men’s voices, heavy footfalls in the hall, and then the door opened and Liam was there. She held back a sob at the sight of him filling the doorway with an ax in his hand, smoke and the yellow glow of the fire behind him.
He rested the ax against the wall and came to them, lifting his visor to kiss them both. His eyes held Sophie’s for a brief moment before he said, “Okay, let’s get you out of here.” He lifted Mia into his arms. Shifting their daughter to his hip, he helped Sophie to her feet, wrapping his other arm around her. “We have to go through to the apartment next door.” There was a low groan from the front of the apartment and it felt as though the whole building heaved. Liam shot a look to his right, and then he lifted Sophie off her feet, running toward the bathroom. He angled them through the doorway then kicked the door shut behind them then did the same to the other door.
There was so much smoke, the flames hissing and licking up the walls, that she shuddered, fighting against panic. Reaching a hand across him to hold Mia’s, she buried her face in Liam’s shoulder. She jolted as he kicked another door shut. When he set her on her feet, she was surprised they were in a bedroom. Colin stood on a ladder outside the window, pulling off the screen. Sophie saw the two men’s eyes meet as Liam passed Mia through the window to his father. Colin hugged Mia tight before handing her to someone below him. As Liam lifted Sophie and turned her back to the window, hands wrapped around her ankles and placed her feet on the rungs of the ladder. Liam held on to her arms to steady her.
“Got her,” his father said.
Liam briefly stroked her cheek and then turned and ran toward the door, throwing it open. He disappeared into the smoke and fire. “No! Liam!” She struggled against his father’s tightening grip as he half dragged her down the ladder.
Hands reached up, and she found herself in Fergus’s arms. As he carried her from the burning building toward the crowd gathered outside Greystone, firefighters raced past them. “They’ve got Dana,” Fergus told her. “She’s going to be okay.”
Sophie’s body sagged against the barrel-chested man with relief. Dana was okay. They were all going to be okay. Fergus set her on her feet beside the back of the ambulance where the paramedics checked Mia over. Kitty and Jasper were at her side.
“Mommy, where’s Daddy?”
“Don’t worry, baby. He’ll be here in a minute.” She saw a flicker of emotion cross Fergus’s face before he turned away and headed for the men readying the hoses.
“Fergus.” She ran to him and tugged on his arm. “What is it? Why isn’t Liam out by now?” she asked when another firefighter jogged toward the ambulance with Dana in his arms.
“It’s Marco, Sophie. Liam—” Fergus broke off when Colin yelled.
“Out, everyone out now! The roof isn’t going to hold for much longer.”
Liam checked the second bedroom. Johnny was lowering Dana out the window. Marco had been right behind Liam. It should have been Marco who had gotten to Dana first, not Johnny. “Johnny, where’s Marco?”
“I thought he was with you.”
“No. Chief, we’ve got a man missing,” Liam informed his father over the radio as he ran back through the bathroom to Sophie’s apartment. He grabbed his ax from the floor of Mia’s bedroom and headed for the front of the apartment. The roof wasn’t going to hold much longer, and if Liam’s suspicions were correct, a portion had already fallen. As he moved past the kitchen, he saw that he’d been right. He carefully worked his way to the far side of what had once been the living room. Part of the roof had collapsed. Somewhere underneath the burning beams and debris, he knew he’d find his best friend. “Marco,” Liam repeatedly called out as he shoved the plywood and tiles out of the way.
“Liam.”
He quickly moved to where he heard Marco’s muffled voice and pushed aside a chair, sheetrock, and two-by-fours to reveal a hole in the floor to the level beneath them. His best friend lay on the dirt floor with a wooden beam across his lower legs. Several of their fellow firefighters raced into the apartment. “Don’t come any farther!” Liam yelled. “It won’t hold your weight.”
“Out, everyone out now! The roof’s not going to hold for much longer,” his father’s urgent command came over the radio.
Marco looked up at him. “Do as he says—get the hell out of here.”
Liam stretched out on the floor and carefully dropped his ax a few feet from Marco. “No man left behind,” Liam reminded his best friend, and lowered himself into the hole, jumping to land on his feet. Overhead, he heard what sounded like a freight train. Liam grabbed the end of the beam and lifted it off Marco’s legs to toss it aside. He’d barely gotten his friend to the far corner of the storage room before the rest of the roof collapsed above them.
When the building stopped shaking and the dirt and smoke and debris settled around them, Liam tried his radio. All he got was static. He started searching for the weakest point, a way to get out. He heard a cat meowing and squinted. A small section of the brick wall had collapsed. Simon was there, showing him the way out.
“I never liked cats, but I’m growing fond of that one,” Marco said.
“Me too.” It took about ten minutes for Liam to make a hole big enough for him to pull Marco through. Once he’d gotten them both out of there, Marco complained the entire time Liam positioned him across his shoulders.
“This is just embarrassing. Put me down, and I’ll lean on you and walk.” Marco groaned as Liam carefully looped his arm around his leg. “Or hop.”
“Your left knee is dislocated, and you have a compound fracture in your right. You’re not walking or hopping anywhere for at least a couple months. Better start laying off the pasta, buddy.”
Marco snorted as Liam headed away from the burning building, taking a circuitous route back to the manor to avoid burning debris. His radio crackled, and then he heard his father’s voice, calling out orders, gruff and heavy with emotion. “Chief.” To hell with it. “Dad, we’re out. Marco and I are out of the building, and we’re okay.”
“Thank God. Thank God. I thought…It’s good to hear your voice, son.” Cheers erupted in the background as word went out over the radio.
“I wouldn’t be if you hadn’t risked your life for me,” Marco said, his voice serious and quiet. “I love you, bro.”
“You would have done—”
Fergus’s voice came over the radio, cutting Liam off. “Don’t want to interrupt your bromance, boys, but would you two get your asses back here before…Sophie. Sophie, get back…Grab that kid. Mia…”
Sophie and Mia, both wrapped in blankets, ran toward them, repeatedly calling out, “Liam and Daddy” simultaneously.
“Hey, what about me? I’m the one who’s injured,” Marco said.
An hour later, Liam’s hero status had diminished in one of his girl’s eyes. Sophie sat on the stretcher at the hospital with her arms crossed, eight stitches on her forehead, and a mutinous expression on her face. “I heard you talking to the doctor, Liam. I don’t need a head X-ray. I need—”
“Humor me, okay?” He framed her face with his hands. “You have no idea what it was like not knowing if I’d get to you and Mia in time, Soph.”
She raised an eyebrow then winced when the action tugged on her stitches. “I think I do since I spent twenty excruciating minutes not knowing whether you were dead or alive.”
The curtain separating the emergency room beds slid across the rod. “I’m seriously starting to get a complex. Do you not care that I nearly died? I am also the only one who was really injured,” Marco said.
A curtain on the other side of Marco slid across a rod. “I do. I’m sorry you were hurt trying to rescue me, Marco,” Dana said from where she lay on the stretcher, her arm in a sling, her blond hair brushed back from her pale face. “If there’s anything I can do for you, just let me know.”
Marco grinned and closed the curtain between his sister’s bed and his. “Now that you mention it…”
A nurse entered the room and glanced at her chart. “Sophie and Marco DiRossi, time to take you both for X-rays.”
Two days later, Sophie was sitting at her desk when Mia skipped into the study. “Hi, Auntie Ava.” She gave Sophie’s cousin a big smile then leaned in to peer at Sophie’s face.
“What are you doing, baby?”
“Daddy sent me to check on you. He said if you’re pale, you need to take a break.”
Her cousin held back a laugh. Probably because Liam had checked on Sophie fifteen minutes ago trying to get her to go lie down. “You tell Daddy that Mommy can’t take a break because he made her take yesterday off.”
“Okay,” she said, and skipped out the door.
“You must love that she’s talking again, Soph. She has the sweetest voice.”
“Yes, when she’s not parroting her father.” Sophie clicked through computer screens. The rehearsal party was tonight, and she needed everything to go perfectly. When Maura had heard about the fire, and then had seen the burned-out shell of the carriage house, she’d done her best to convince the bridal party to stay at the hotel in Bridgeport, declaring the manor unsafe. Liam, Colin, Michael, and surprisingly Maura’s husband, had all weighed in, managing to stave off a mass exodus.
Maura had demanded a safety audit by an outside party. The fire chief from Bridgeport, an old friend of Colin’s, had conducted it yesterday. As they already knew, the wiring would eventually need to be replaced, but there was no immediate cause for concern. It was more an efficiency issue rather than a safety one. But faulty wiring had been ruled the cause for the fire at the carriage house, so Maura hadn’t been totally pacified. Sophie had no doubt Michael’s mother would share her safety concerns with the other guests. In Sophie’s mind, it was just one more reason the wedding had to go off without a hitch.
She went over the list for the rehearsal dinner with Ava, relieved when every item was checked and accounted for. But four hours later, Sophie discovered that something could always go wrong despite the best-laid plans.
She now stood unobtrusively in the corner of the dining room wearing a black dress. Jasper was on one side of her wearing a black tux and white gloves while Dana stood on the other side in a black pantsuit with wide legs, her hand in a cast. She was no longer a redhead or a blonde; she was a brunette. Since Sophie had had her own secrets, and she had no doubt her cousin did, too, they didn’t push Dana about hers. But because she’d become a good friend, they both made sure she knew they were there for her whenever she wanted to talk.
Picking up on the guests practically humming through their meal of pork roast stuffed with dried fruit and corn bread and served with garlic-whipped potatoes, gravy, and roasted fall vegetables, Sophie whispered, “Ava’s entrée is a hit.”
“I believe you’re right, Miss Sophie,” Jasper said with a twitch of his lips.
“Wait until they taste her crème caramel,” Dana added.
As though sensing her eyes on the table, Liam looked up. He was Michael’s best man. Mia, whom Michael had asked to stand in for their flower girl who’d canceled last minute, sat beside her father. Looking at them both, so beautiful and happy, Sophie’s heart expanded with love. Liam held up ten fingers, and Mia did the same.
“See that? They gave the dinner a ten, and I can barely get Mia to eat anything other than pizza and pasta.”
Liam grinned and shook his head, mouthing, You. Mia rolled her eyes.
Michael pushed back his chair and stood up, tapping his wine glass lightly with his fork. The bridal party went quiet and looked at him expectantly. “I have an announcement to make. As most of you know, Greystone had some excitement this week. Thanks to the heroics of my cousin and best man, everyone got out alive. So let’s raise a glass to Liam.”
“Here, here,” everyone at the table cheered, as did Sophie, Jasper, and Dana. Maura and Bethany were notably silent.
“He’s my daddy,” Mia announced proudly.
“We’re well aware of that, dear,” Maura said snidely, and Bethany tittered.
“Miss Sophie, perhaps Miss Dana and I should serve the coffee,” Jasper murmured with a hint of nerves in his voice.
Michael’s father leaned into his wife and said something that caused her to purse her lips and lift her shoulders.
Bethany smiled expectantly at her husband-to-be. “Do go on, darling.”
Michael looked from his mother to his fiancée, rolling the stem of his wine glass between his fingers. He cleared his throat. “I brought up my cousin’s heroics not only because he’s the best man I know, but also because he makes me want to be a better man.”
“Oh, darling, please. You are the best man at this table, bar none. Wealthy and an accomplished lawyer, soon to be the next governor of—”
“Bethany,” Michael said, his voice tinged with exasperation. “I don’t want to be governor, and I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore. I’ve handed in my notice, and I’ve signed up for the police academy.”
His mother jumped from her chair. “Over my dead body! Do you know how hard I’ve worked to get you to where you are today? Do you?”
“Maura, sit down. You’re making a spectacle of yourself,” his father said then raised his glass. “Good for you, son. I’m proud of you.” Maura took her husband’s glass from him and poured the red wine onto his head.
“Yes, I do indeed love this place,” the senior Mrs. Adams said.
“Oh, Mother Adams, would you just shut up for once.”
“Shut the front door,” the senior Mrs. Adams said to her daughter-in-law.
Sophie slapped a hand over her mouth to keep the half-hysterical giggle from escaping. The rehearsal party was imploding before her eyes.
“Bethany, do you have anything to say?” Michael nervously asked his fiancée, who’d been staring at him the entire time. She looked to be trembling with fury.
“How dare you, Michael. How dare you decide something like this without consulting me first. If you intend to throw your life away to become an…an underpaid, blue-collar worker, you better start looking for another wife because it won’t be me!” She dramatically tugged on her engagement ring then narrowed her eyes at Michael. “Well, aren’t you going to say something?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Guess it’s better that we found out now instead of after we married and had children.”
“Children? Who said anything about having children?” She pushed back her chair and threw her engagement ring at him.