The Protector

by Dee Henderson

  “Can I come back sometime?”

  She leaned back in her chair and left his question hanging a beat too long for his comfort. When she answered, her smile reached her eyes. “Come over and I’ll put you to work. Next time I’ll bring the food.”

  Of all the reasons he liked Cassie, that undertone of laughter in her voice was near the top of the list. He pulled on his jacket and dug out his keys, then picked up the pastry and took a bite. There was raspberry inside. “Deal.”

  She was a vision walking in the door of the Smokehouse Eatery. Cole nearly choked on his soda. Where had Rachel gotten a cashmere sweater to match her eyes? Her black jacket hung open, her hands pushed into the pockets. She was wearing jeans and a sweater the color of emeralds.

  Rachel was the classic beauty in the O’Malley family with an innate sense of how to dress well to make an impression. She was making one. Tall, slender, she walked like a model with her graceful stride. Cole was aware of men shifting their gaze as she crossed their line of sight. Rachel skirted around people coming his direction where he sat on a stool at the counter. He straightened, hoping…

  “Cole, have you seen Gage?”

  The vision spoke and he scowled. “Gage wouldn’t risk coming here. He might cross paths with your brother.”

  She winced. “They have got to call a truce.”

  “Not up to you.”

  She shot him an annoyed look and turned to scan the room, her shoulder length brown hair swinging across her jacket collar. “Where is Jack? I thought he was coming to this gathering.”

  “He left an hour ago. I could make an educated guess where he went.”

  Rachel smiled. “So could I.”

  She picked up a matchbook from the basket beside the cash register out of habit and slid it into her pocket. He knew it had nothing to do with the fact she smoked—because she didn’t—and everything to do with the fact she often worked disaster situations where the electricity was out. She gave new meaning to the adage: Be prepared.

  “Sit. Stay a minute. You just walked in.” She looked like she was getting ready to head out again.

  “I’m looking for Gage.”

  “He won’t be any more lost in five minutes than he is now.”

  She hesitated, then slid onto the stool next to him. She had a politeness that wouldn’t let her refuse the request. She slipped off her jacket. He told himself not to stare. She was beautiful and it was a pleasure to look at her. Her sweater had three-quarter length sleeves, and it set off the fact she still had a tan acquired from her recent work in Texas and Florida. A silver bracelet holding an emerald stone bracketed her left wrist.

  Cole turned on his stool and caught the attention of the lady on the other side of the counter. “Sandra, do you have any more of that hot apple cider? Rachel could use some.”

  “I’m not that cold,” Rachel muttered, pushing the hands she had been rubbing into the pockets of her snug jeans.

  “Honey, your nose is red, not to mention your ears.”

  Now her face was red. He watched that blush and was surprised when she didn’t say anything as a comeback. He’d always been able to count on her for one. As a silent apology he slid over the basket of deep-fried mushrooms he’d been working on. “Eat. And tell me about Jennifer.”

  Her straight posture wilted on the stool. She picked up one of the mushrooms and bit into it, her gaze turning inward as she became absorbed in her own thoughts. “Cole, it’s going to be a miserable Christmas.”

  He rested his forearms against the counter and crowded her space and she didn’t even notice. “Why?”

  Four

  I wondered how far you would walk before you came back here. You should have paged.” Caught off guard, Rachel looked up. Gage was sitting on the front stoop of his town house, his gray sedan parked behind her car at the curb rather than in his drive. It was after nine o’clock and Rachel had given up any hope of locating him, having checked all his normal haunts.

  “I tried. Your pager batteries must be dead.”

  He pulled the pager from his belt clip to check. “Sorry. I didn’t realize.”

  Rachel sat beside him on the steps, relief releasing the tension that had built up as she walked back from the restaurant.

  Gage picked up her right hand and retrieved the watch she was holding. He fixed the loose link, put the watch back around her wrist, and refastened the clasp. “I was driving. Not drinking and driving. Just driving.”

  She nodded, appreciating the news.

  “I’m sorry you were worried.”

  She shrugged her shoulder. “I like to worry.”

  He chuckled and, rather than get up, rested his elbows back on the step behind him and stretched out his legs. “You look good, Rachel.”

  His mood had lightened since the last time she had seen him. She searched his face and met his gaze, found the first glimmer of acceptance there.

  “Thanks. You don’t,” she pointed out kindly. Thirty-eight, six two; dressing well and staying fit had always been priorities. It was a sign of the grief that what he valued most he’d let go of first.

  He stroked his chin. “You don’t like the pirate version of me?”

  “It’s still scruffy.”

  “Holidays are for beards.”

  “Is that what you call it?” It suited his chiseled features.

  He smiled at her. “Why do I hear an echo of Tabitha in this conversation?”

  “She would have started with the hair.”

  “True.”

  He let her tease him about it, and that alone told her something had fundamentally changed recently. Hope kindled. Tabitha had softened the man’s personality, but the last two years had brought back the edge of cynicism that made his smile rare. Seeing the smile come back was a very good sign.

  “I went back to work,” he commented.

  “I heard.”

  “No—really back to work. I accepted the Weekend Focus news slot.”

  A hard-hitting news story for the weekend paper, a chance to go in-depth on stories around the city. He’d won his Pulitzer there four years ago, and the prestige and pressure of that job were some things she remembered. “I’m pleased for you.”

  “I’m terrified.”

  He said it so bluntly and with a smile dancing around his mouth that she had to smile. “Welcome back to the living.”

  “Jeffrey wore me down. My junior partner wants to earn a Pulitzer too.”

  “He’s young, ambitious. Sound familiar?”

  “I was never young.”

  She laughed.

  “The piece is ours to research, investigate, and write. I find it somewhat annoying to wear a tie when I go into the office now, but I’ll be working from home most of the time.”

  “Are you ready for that?”

  “I’m going to find out. So what were you looking so grim about as you paced back to your car?”

  “Cole.”

  “Not a what, but a who.” He got to his feet and offered her a hand up. “You like him; you just don’t want to admit it.”

  “He watches out for my brother; I’m grateful for that.” She would be fair and give Cole that. “He’s worried about these fires.”

  “What fires?” Gage’s good mood disappeared. Rachel knew how volatile the subject was for him, but she needed his help.

  “The house that burned last week…apparently it matches other fires they’ve had recently. Would you consider taking a look?”

  His expression told her no, but he reached out and rubbed her chin with his thumb and sighed. “For you, yes, I’ll take a look. As long as you don’t rag on me about the housekeeper.”

  “I’m that predictable?”

  He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and turned her toward his front door. “Only to people who like you. So what did you bring me to eat? I’m starved.”

  “Cherry pie.” She glanced at her watch. “I can’t stay long. Kate’s expecting me at ten.”

  “Stay long enoug
h to share a piece. I hate to eat alone.”

  The medallion from Jack’s key chain had fallen off. Cassie rubbed the smooth metal between her thumb and forefinger as she walked through the store turning off lights. The man carried a Bugs Bunny medallion on his key chain. It had brought a laugh when she found it. The man was a charmer. And tonight anyone who fed her was in her good graces.

  Cassie stopped in the storeroom to retrieve her jacket. She’d have to dig out a pair of needle nose pliers at home and fix the link that had opened. Maybe she would get Jack a matching Road Runner to go with it. They sold them at the corner store, on a spin rack by the cash register right next to the baseball cards and the lock de-icer.

  She hadn’t intended to stay this late. It was going to be after eleven before she got home. She would get gas in the car, stop by the twenty-four-hour pharmacy, and then it would be home and bed. It sounded like a lovely plan.

  Cassie slipped the medallion into her pocket. It was a bit painful to be looking across the table at a young Robert Redford. Rugged good looks, broad shoulders, blue eyes—he was a guy who attracted attention just by walking into the room, who didn’t have scars to mar his looks. It wasn’t fair to hold Jack’s looks against him. Everything she knew about the man she liked. She hoped Jack O’Malley did stop by again.

  The fire department community was a small one, and she had worked with his paramedic brother Stephen on a few occasions before the restaurant fire had put her in a place to meet Jack and get to know him.

  Dumping water over Jack that day had been a practical way to say hello. It had been a hot day, an intense fire, and cooling down was critical for everyone at the scene. It had also been a laughter-filled way to make sure he would remember her.

  She enjoyed his friendship. He was one of the few who hadn’t been stiff when he dropped by the hospital to say hi. He was the one more likely to bring her a tape of the Saturday morning cartoons than a magazine. He had always been good for a joke designed to make her laugh.

  She saw behind the humor a serious man making a deliberate choice. He made a point to offer her what others were not—a reminder that life outside the hospital walls was still going on, was still there waiting to be enjoyed when she got out. She deeply appreciated that.

  Cassie locked the back door of the store. She planned to build shelves in the storage room. She’d see if Jack wanted to help hold boards and swing a hammer some day when he was off work.

  Something was wrong.

  Cassie stopped, scanning the area and the shadows, searching for why the impression had formed. It was a sensation not unlike being in a fire when she couldn’t see but could feel a check from her subconscious not to move, that danger was near.

  Her hand coiled around her keys, slipping them between her fingers, turning them into sharp weapons. It was a safe area and she was accustomed to working at night, but if trouble was around the best defense was a good offense.

  And then it registered.

  Smoke.

  She was smelling smoke.

  Her head came up like a hawk. She looked toward the sky and saw a faint haze shimmering. Stars began to disappear.

  Five

  Sam was snoring.

  Jack turned his head and considered throwing a pillow across to the next bunk to shut him up. That’s what Sam’s wife said worked. The dorm room at the station house slept twelve, the bunks basic and the mattresses thick enough to be better than camping out but not comfortable enough to make it reach the level of even a cheap motel bed.

  Stretched out on top of his sleeping bag, Jack wasn’t sure why he couldn’t sleep. It was 11 P.M. and shutting off to go to sleep had never been a problem before. He shifted his head over to the right side of the pillow. He was on the fourth bunk and if he moved his head to the left, the triangle of light coming in the window from the streetlight would be in his eyes.

  The sleeping bag smelled like smoke and this late at night it was irritating him. He’d have to remember to drop it off at the cleaners to run through their heavy duty washers. Since the bunks were used by three different shifts, most guys stuck to bringing sleeping bags rather than mess with sheets.

  It was different down the hall in the women’s dorm. There were two women paramedics and one woman firefighter on this shift. They took time to add nice touches to their lives like sheets, even though it meant changing bedding every time they came on duty.

  Middle of the night and he was thinking about how women liked sheets and guys went for sleeping bags. He tucked his hands behind his head and wondered what his sister Rachel would say about that. Probably that he needed some sleep.

  Cassie would need to get the Christmas tree up at the store in the next week if it was to make any impact on her Christmas sales. Maybe they could look for the tree this coming Sunday afternoon. He knew she closed her bookstore on Sundays for religious reasons so she would likely be free.

  He could borrow his brother Stephen’s pickup truck and take Cassie to either a nursery or one of the Christmas tree farms. It would be a good excuse to get a couple hours of her time. The more Jack thought about it, the more he liked the idea.

  He was going to have to come up with the right Christmas gifts to put under that tree. She’d probably suggest prettily wrapped empty boxes and there was no fun in that. Besides, he was a great believer in quantity in addition to quality.

  Jack smiled. There had to be somewhere he could find some old, rare comic books.

  Dispatch tones broke the silence.

  Cassie slammed her car into park, killed the engine, and came close to stripping the key as she pulled it out. The streetlights were too far away to give more than an impression of a house set back on its corner lot surrounded by century old trees.

  The house was big, old, sprawling, with a wraparound porch. She already hated the two turrets because she knew they would have limited narrow access ways going up. It was the kind of place her grandmother had owned, which Cassie had loved to explore.

  Smoke billowed in the breeze. Embers were beginning to illuminate the smoke like fireflies set free from the bowels of the earth.

  The spectators consisted of one man in his eighties hurrying down his porch steps across the street and his wife tying the belt of her thick blue robe and scolding him for not putting on shoes.

  “Did you call it in?”

  “Yes.” He was staring across the street in disbelief. “I just got up to get a drink and wham, I smelled smoke. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.”

  It didn’t surprise Cassie; she knew how fast fires could erupt, developing from nothing to this. “Who lives here? Is anyone home?”

  “Carla and Peter Wallis, their daughter Tina.”

  Cassie flinched at the child’s name. “How old is Tina?”

  “Six. They travel frequently, but as far as I know they were staying home for the holidays.”

  Flames weren’t visible in the windows but they were now showing at the crown line of the roof. The house was on the edge of the fire district. The firefighters were on the way; traffic was light. Did she have three to five minutes to wait for them?

  She leaned on her car horn. The smoke might not yet be on the first floor, but if it had already descended throughout the second floor, anyone inside wouldn’t be waking up.

  She felt sweat soak the back of her shirt under her jacket. She didn’t want to go in. She was afraid. It might be rational but she was ashamed of it. “Pets?”

  The neighbor shook his head. At least there wouldn’t be a crazed dog waiting for her inside. If someone was in there, she would never be able to live with herself if she didn’t go in. Just do it. Think about it later.

  She found her flashlight under the driver’s seat and grabbed the roll of duct tape she used to seal boxes of books bought at the estate auction. Cassie was relieved to have the leather jacket but wished she had something better than tennis shoes and ankle-high socks.

  She had done rescues before. With A
sh. With an air tank on her back, a turnout suit that could reflect three hundred degrees of heat, and a face mask to at least keep smoke out of her eyes even if visibility was nonexistent. She had none of those tonight. And it was Ash in the equation she missed the most.

  “When the firefighters get here, tell them I’m doing a bedroom sweep clockwise. Remember that. Clockwise.”

  She ran toward the house. With every step she got closer to her private nightmare.

  Lord, give me courage.

  She didn’t fear the danger; she feared her memories and the fact she might freeze. As long as she kept her focus and kept moving, she could deal with the risks. But if she had to face the flames…the nausea had started and she was only smelling the smoke.

  Another spectator. She saw the man as she turned up the drive toward the front door. “Stay back, please. I’m with the fire department.”

  She didn’t need well-meaning civilians entering the house to try and help. The man stood just inside the property line watching the fire. In the dark, he was simply an impression—a tall man, wearing a light brown jacket and jeans. He slipped his hands into his pockets and idly turned to glance toward her. She couldn’t see who it was, but the way he moved…

  Ash.

  She stumbled.

  How many times had she seen that still, relaxed consideration of a situation before he acted? “Ash?” she whispered the word in disbelief. He lived near here. He was back. “Ash.” Her voice increased in confidence and was filled with relief.

  The man stepped back and disappeared into the shadows.

  What was going on?

  A hot ember brushed her cheek.

  Cassie’s attention jerked back to the house. It couldn’t have been Ash. Not to watch a fire. Not to ignore her.

  Smoke spewed out where the roof met the siding like a chimney pointed downward. Since she had arrived the fire had already grown in intensity.

  She needed Ash to be here, not some spectator who thought he’d stand and watch.