The Protector

by HelenKay Dimon

  “It’s stuck.” He waited until she stepped to the side to try again. “Not unusual. Things are always misfiring and breaking in an old house.”

  With better leverage, he turned it and pulled. The door shook on its hinges but didn’t open. “What the hell?”

  “Damon.”

  The sudden shakiness of her voice had him glancing at her. “What’s wrong?”

  Instead of answering, she looked down. He saw it then. The thin curl of smoke snaking under the door. For a second it didn’t make sense. Smoke meant . . . “Fire.”

  “Is the door hot?” She leaned in closer as if she were trying to listen for noises in the hallway.

  The sharp scent hit him then. He could smell the distinct edge of fire. Heard a strange whistling sound and a cracking. The realization got him moving. “We need to get out of here.”

  With a hand around her elbow, he headed for the window. After a few steps, her arm slipped out of his grasp and he stopped. She stood frozen by the door with smoke winding around her feet.

  “Cate!” He went back to her and took her hand. Gave her a little tug. “We need to move.”

  Waves of anxiety crashed through him with a flood of adrenaline right behind. With his heart racing and his gut aching with the need to run, he got them going. They only had two choices out—one was blocked by fire and the other sat a floor off the ground.

  He went for the drop to the ground.

  His body buzzed with energy now. His muscles moved as if on autopilot. He picked up the chair on the way to the window. “Watch out.”

  She ducked as he lifted the chair. It smacked into the glass with a deafening crash. The window shattered and shards scattered across the floor with a pinging sound. The noise mixed with the roaring in his ears. He couldn’t tell if it came from the far edges of panic or from the raging fire. He didn’t see flames but he sensed they were close. He could imagine orange eating through wood and peeling the paint off the walls.

  He could worry about all of that once he had her on the ground and safe.

  When he turned to her she’d already slipped off her sweater, leaving her wearing a white tank top. She had the material rolled around her arm as she knocked the jagged glass out of the window and spread the material out in the windowsill for added cover.

  She peeked outside. “That is so high.”

  “One floor.” He could make out the slanted roof of the porch below. “Less than that.”

  She looked at him with eyes filled with terror. “What are you looking at?”

  “We’re going to the overhang roof then down to the ground.”

  She shifted her weight and balled her hands into fists. Fear seemed to have her in its grip but she didn’t fold or give up. She practically bounced on the balls of her feet, as if trying to work up the nerve to go out there.

  Not that she had a choice. Gray smoke billowed toward them now. He saw a flash and watched as flames licked around the doorframe.

  He wanted to give her a minute to adjust but they no longer had that. “Time’s up.”

  He hoisted her up and into the window. She tucked her feet and slipped them through to the outside. Glass crunched under her and around his feet. He tried to ignore all of it. Cuts and bruises beat being burned alive. No question there.

  She slid down the gentle slight slope then stopped. A thundering yell stuck in his throat but that’s not what she needed. Calm and reassurance would get her to safety. He inhaled, thinking to clear his head but heat filled his lungs. The air burned and coughing felt like getting hit with a hammer. He doubled over, trying to get it out but every time he opened his mouth the burning sensation intensified.

  “Damon!” She leaned in, caught the hem of his sleeve and started pulling him closer.

  The move was enough to snap him back to the room and the fire. He swallowed back the pain and nearly dove out the window. They sat on the porch roof with him behind her and began to slide down. Embers flew twisted in the air around them. He could hear voices and yelling but didn’t see anyone. Still, relief soared through him. People were coming.

  Her legs shook as she shimmied down on her ass. “We’re going to be fine.”

  Over and over she said the words until they played in his head like a mantra. Soon, he was believing it. This was an easy drop for him, but he wasn’t thinking about him. His mind was on her . . . and whatever they were going to find when they got on the ground.

  They reached the edge of the roof. He was about to drop over and hope all those practice landing drills Quint made them do years ago still sat somewhere in his memory when he heard a new sound.

  “Damon!” He looked down over the ledge and saw Roger and two other men standing on the ground.

  His body flipped into fight-or-flight mode. He refused to trust what he was seeing. Everything about this seemed wrong but with Cate grabbing on to the back of his shirt and the smoke clogging his brain, all he could think about was getting her down.

  “You have to catch her.”

  “No!” The scream came from Cate.

  But it was too late. Damon slipped his hands under her arms and brought her to the edge of the roof. She flailed and reached back for him, but he didn’t give her a choice. “I’m going to hand you down to them.”

  “We’ve got you, Cate.” Roger called out orders to his friends as they crowded closer to grab her.

  The truth flashed in Damon’s brain. All he needed to do was lower her and they would grab her feet. She would be fine. They could do this . . . then his brain grew fuzzy. The dizziness hit him out of nowhere. Somehow, he managed to help her turn around and pushed one of her legs off the roof.

  She held his arms in a death grip. “You have to come with me.”

  “I’ll be right after you.” But the world was spinning on him now. A wall of heat crashed into him. Taking a quick look behind him, he could see the flames devour the library.

  “Damon, let go!”

  He heard Roger’s voice and obeyed on instinct. Cate gasped as her body slipped farther over the edge. Fear made her eyes huge and glassy but she didn’t scream as her body went into free fall. Then she jerked to a stop as the men on the ground caught her.

  Success. “Yes.” Damon dropped down on his side on the roof. He could rest now. As soon as he closed his eyes he heard the shouting. It broke through the sudden exhaustion.

  Cate screamed his name.

  “Damon, do not make me come up there.”

  Trevor. Damon didn’t know how much time had passed but he would know that voice anywhere. Trevor sounded pissed. The thought made Damon smile until he remembered his friend’s yelled demand and scrambled to sit up again.

  Shit, he’d been dozing off. Sleeping now meant death and Damon was not about to die at Sullivan. The thought of that had him pushing up on his shoulder. In a long and painful slog that seemed to last forever, he crawled to the edge. His muscles weighed a ton and it was hard to move but he kept going. He didn’t have a choice because fire sped up the outside wall of the house.

  He had to get down. He had to fight this fire.

  He kept repeating those two comments in his head. Focused on them as he dropped first one then another leg over the roofline. His feet swung in the air. Then a hand clamped down on his ankle, which didn’t seem possible but he was being dragged. His hands scraped against the roof before his body took flight. The journey didn’t last long. Strong hands caught him and guided him down.

  His back hit the grass as he fought to drag in clean air. When he opened his eyes, Cate kneeled on one side of him and Trevor glared at him from the other.

  “Stupid dick.” Trevor’s voice didn’t rise above the frenzy around them.

  Fire crackled and sirens wailed in the distance. The house seemed to shift and moan as flames shot out of windows.

  “We need to get you medical help,” Cate said as she tried to hold him down when he tried to get up.

  Trevor nodded. “He inhaled too much smoke.”

&nb
sp; Footsteps thundered around them. Vincent joined the group. Then others. People had gathered. They switched from looking at the house to looking at him laid out on the ground.

  “We need to get this fire out.” With Cate safe, that was the only thought on Damon’s mind. No one else was in the house. People should be safe, but if this spread that might not be the case.

  He struggled to stand up, ignoring Cate’s pleas to stay down and Trevor’s mumbled profanity. They were right. His body fought him even as adrenaline tried to surge. That didn’t stop him from issuing orders. “The hoses. We need to hit the house and get this under control.”

  Roger nodded. “You heard him.”

  “Is the front gate open?” Trevor asked. “We have to let the fire trucks in.”

  “I can get it,” Roger said, shouting to be heard over the sudden swell of noise around them.

  Trevor and Roger working together eased some of the pressure in Damon’s chest. He could concentrate on the flames. For that, they needed water and lots of it. He started to follow the group Roger had sent off to the landscaping sheds, thinking that’s where they’d find most of what they need, but his knees gave out. Without Trevor’s firm hand, Damon would have gone down.

  “You should stay here.” Vincent put a hand in front of Damon’s chest. “We have enough trouble.”

  Cate frowned at him. “What does that mean?”

  “The place has been in an uproar since you got here.” Vincent aimed his response at Damon. “Now this.”

  But Damon didn’t have time for bullshit. So many questions filled his brain—why was Roger there? How did Vincent get to the house so quickly? Or had he already been there to set the fire? All things Damon vowed to worry about later.

  “Get out of my way.” Those were the last words Damon spoke as he stumbled away from Vincent.

  Damon forced his legs to work, concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other as his head started to clear. By the time he met up with the group dragging the hoses, adrenaline fueled him. Energy coursed through him as he carried the hoses back to the worst of the fire.

  The sirens screamed now. The trucks were close but it could be too late for the house if they waited much longer. He was about to yell new orders when Trevor took over. He maneuvered and managed the people. He had Cate standing back but still engaged by holding one of the hoses.

  Voices called out. People ran around. Water shot from the hoses and hit the fire with a hiss. Smoke clogged the air and orange-and-red flames shot up, as if refusing to give in to the water. They fought and shouted back and forth. Damon’s hands locked over the hose and he planted his feet to keep from getting shoved around. They made progress but not much. Enough to stop the spread but not enough to put it out. Not even close.

  People poured into the area. A fire truck slammed to a halt near them and firefighters seemed to multiply. Someone draped a blanket over his shoulders. Slowly, the nonexperts were pulled off the fire and checked. They sat around on the ground and huddled in groups. He heard crying over the thumping and thudding of the now dying fire.

  He turned to look for Cate. Panic swamped him when she wasn’t standing where he’d last seen her. Then he felt her slide her hand through his.

  “This way.” She pulled him over to the ambulance he hadn’t even noticed until right then. Before he could say anything a first responder slammed an oxygen mask on him and started checking his vitals.

  Trevor appeared behind Cate. They both wore expressions filled with fear, though Trevor also managed to look worried and pissed.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t chuck you into that fire.” He shook his head. “Really lucky.”

  “I’m fine.” Damon pushed the mask down and reached for Cate’s hand again, not sure when he lost hold of it. “All that matters is that you are.”

  “Because of you.” She glanced away for a second before looking at him again. “You could have been killed.”

  “He’s too much of a stubborn jackass for that.” Trevor’s voice sounded harsh but he reached in and cuffed Damon’s shoulder. “I’ll check on everyone then you’re going to a hospital.”

  Cate nodded. “Definitely.”

  They were losing it. No way was he spending hours in an emergency room. “Absolutely not.”

  Trevor put the oxygen mask back on Damon’s face. “It wasn’t a question.”

  Trevor took off then. He headed for Roger. They switched from talking to looking at the now charred side of the house.

  Damon had a fleeting thought about his father and where he might be. He shoved the mask off a second time. “Dad is—”

  “Fine. Trevor said he was talking with people near the back of the house—apparently it’s worse there.”

  Damon thought he knew why. “Did this start on the second floor?”

  She frowned. “I guess. Maybe.”

  The room and all that previously locked-up information sat near the center of the fire. It was too much of a coincidence for the fire to start right after they finally got a look inside. But Damon didn’t mention that. There would be time for theories later. Right now, all he wanted to do was hold her hand and look at her.

  That seemed to make her worry more. Her frown deepened. “Are you okay?”

  He was about to answer with some comment about how he hated seeing her in danger. Watching her slip over the edge of the roof even knowing a rescue waited below . . . damn, that was too much.

  She didn’t give him a chance to get any of that out. “The hose? What were you thinking? You weren’t in any condition to play fireman.”

  Any other time, with any other woman, he would have made a joke about how he thought women loved firemen. “I spent my entire adult life running away from this place but at the thought of losing it, I had to save it.”

  The anger seemed to seep right out of her. Her body slumped. “Oh, Damon.”

  “It surprised me, too.” He nodded to the medic as he gestured toward someone sitting on the ground and moved on.

  “Not every memory you have of your family and this house is bad.” She tightened her hold on his hand. “Don’t let your father, this fire or the FBI or anyone else steal those from you.”

  A good argument, but he wasn’t ready to delve in too deep. Not yet. “I didn’t intend on being here this late.”

  She smoothed her hand over the side of his face. “What are you talking about?”

  “I planned for us to leave the house earlier tonight.”

  She snorted. “We should have.”

  “I was thinking the opposite.” He watched the firefighters work together on the hoses. “Thanks to being here, we might have saved the place.”

  “Well, now it’s time to work on you.”

  “That sounds good.” Unfortunately his body was willing but not able. He still felt shaky. But in an hour or two, hell yes.

  “Nice try, stud.” She sat next to him and cuddled into his side. “You’ve already played the role of hero tonight. Now it’s time for me to help you.”

  He slipped an arm around her shoulders and tried to ignore how much energy that simple move drained from him. “I like the sound of that.”

  “You know what word is really sexy?” She pulled his oxygen mask back up to cover his nose and mouth. “Hospital.”

  “No.” The mask blocked most of the sound of his voice.

  “The sooner you get the okay from the doctors, the sooner we can shower and crawl into bed together.”

  He groaned but didn’t protest.

  “I told Trevor that would work.” She stood up and held a hand out to him. “Time to go.”

  Chapter 22

  They got stuck in the emergency room for five hours. The small local hospital was not equipped to handle the influx of people from the Sullivan fire. Doctors were called in. People ran around in a frenzy of activity. Cate thought the word chaos fit.

  By the fifth hour, she’d grown weary of listening to Damon’s grumbling. The man complained nonstop. Like, just k
eep talking and insisting he was fine. Of course, he managed to ruin that speech several times by falling into a hacking cough that knocked him breathless. She refrained from saying told you so but just barely.

  But it was kind of hard to be ticked off as she sat on the side of his bed, holding his hand and watching him drift in and out of a fitful sleep. That move on the roof, staying up there too long to make sure she got down without incident, almost cost him everything. She flipped between wanting to hug him and wanting to hit him for being so reckless.

  Alarms sounded and the constant beeping echoed in her brain. A curtain partially hid them from the bustle of the room, giving them a bit of privacy. Not enough for her to crawl up on that bed with him, though she thought about it.

  The curtain rattled on the bar. Metal screeched against metal as it slipped around and Damon’s father stepped into the open space with Trevor right behind him.

  Steven’s gaze wandered over Damon’s still form. He glanced at the beeping machines and focused on the cuff automatically taking his blood pressure. Cate guessed he was trying to gain his composure and she gave him a few seconds to do it. The man had an ego, after all.

  He nodded in Damon’s direction. “How is he?”

  “Ornery and belligerent.”

  She saw Trevor smile at her answer. He didn’t say anything but the tension seemed to run out of him at her comment.

  Steven shook his head. “I’m serious.”

  “Yeah, so was I.” She thought about standing up and giving Steven some privacy with his son. Thought then discarded. Exhaustion tugged at her muscles, keeping her right where she was. “But the doctor said his lungs look better than expected. She wants to keep him here for observation, so we’re waiting for a bed.”

  “He agreed to stay overnight?” Trevor asked, sounding as stunned as she felt.

  “I didn’t exactly give him a choice.” She glanced at Steven again. He hadn’t moved and his gaze stayed locked on Damon’s face. “I promise you, sir. He’s okay.”

  Steven shook his head. “I don’t . . . what?”

  “The doctor said he’s going to be fine.” She thought about reaching out for the older man’s hand and immediately decided against it. Nothing about him said touchy-feely. He looked like he was stumbling around, not quite his usual in-control self. The decent thing to do would be to comfort him, try to find the right words to make it bearable for him to see one more family member in this position. With more sleep, she hoped they’d come to her.