by Lisa Childs
A couple of weeks ago she had promised her sister that she wouldn’t let the house kill her. But the house shuddered and creaked like it was about to implode.
Was Serena about to break her promises to everyone?
At least she hadn’t made any promises to Cody—although she should have. She should have promised that she wouldn’t be like all those other people who’d let him down.
She would never abandon or reject him, not on purpose. The step cracked beneath her weight, and her foot slipped through the hole. She pulled, but the splintered wood held tight. She was trapped in the burning house.
22
CODY’S HEART SHIFTED in his chest as he came upon the old couple standing in the middle of the street. They held each other tight. Their pale, wrinkled faces were smeared with soot.
He slowed the truck and asked them, “Are you okay?”
Mrs. Gulliver’s usually perfect white-and-purple-and-pink hair was mussed and dirty. But he saw no blood on either senior citizen. He saw nothing but their shock and fear.
Through the open window of the truck, Mrs. Gulliver grabbed his arm. “They’re in there, honey,” she said. “They’re trapped in that house.”
He knew that; Serena wouldn’t have left her elderly boarders standing alone in the road.
“The fire engine’s coming,” he assured them. He hadn’t been able to wait for everyone else, though. The second he’d heard the address of the fire, he had jumped in the truck and taken off. “Help will be here soon.”
Mrs. Gulliver squeezed his arm then slapped the side of the truck. “Go!” she yelled. “Save them!”
He pressed hard on the accelerator and raced down the driveway toward the house. The huge structure was fully engulfed, black smoke and flames rising from it. He threw open the driver’s door and jumped out. As he raced up to the front door, the porch and the balcony above it collapsed. Flaming straw rained down around him. He’d already known but now he had proof: the arsonist had set the blaze.
He kept getting more and more dangerous. But he hadn’t claimed a life yet. Cody wouldn’t let him take one now; he wouldn’t let him take anyone from Cody that he loved.
He hurried around the burning house to the back door that opened onto a brick patio. There were no shooting flames here. He pushed open the door and hurried inside the kitchen. Holes had burned through the tin ceiling, which was turning black; it was probably about to collapse like the porch.
Through the billowing smoke he found the back stairwell. The smoke was so thick—so pungent—he could barely see. But he forged ahead and stumbled onto the second-floor landing. A body lay on the floor, the curly mop of blond hair darkened with soot.
“Stanley!” he yelled. “Stanley!”
But the kid didn’t move. A dog barked—it sounded rough and weak. Cody listened intently, trying to figure where the sound was coming from. Then he heard the scratching at the door behind him. Stanley had nearly gotten to Annie. Cody touched the wood; it wasn’t hot—not like the rest of the structure, which was aglow with heat and fire. He turned the knob and pulled open the door. Annie—her usual boundless energy spent—crawled out, her head and body slouched low to the floor.
She licked Cody’s face. Then she turned her attention to Stanley—drooling all over him. The kid swiped at her and murmured, “Go away…”
Cody gently slapped his face. “Come on, kid. Stay with me!”
Stanley’s lashes fluttered and then his eyes opened. “Cody? You’re home?”
He nodded. “Where’s Serena?”
The kid’s thin shoulders shrugged. “She got Mrs. G and Mr. S…” He started choking.
He’d inhaled too much smoke. Cody swung him over his shoulder and carried his limp body down the back stairs. Annie didn’t come with him, though. He heard her feet scratching across the floor above as she headed down the hall toward the front stairwell.
That had to be where Serena was.
He dumped Stanley on the lawn outside—far enough from the house that if it collapsed, none of it would fall on him.
But what about Serena? Cody would lose her if he hadn’t already. He hurried back inside but bypassed the kitchen stairwell. He could hear Annie barking near the front of the house.
So he hurried through the dining room. Holes burned through the coffered ceiling. The paneling turned black and curled away from the walls—leaving the wooden studs bare like the bones of a skeleton.
“Serena!” he yelled for her. But he had no hope that she could hear him. If she was conscious, she would have been with Stanley. She would have been rescuing him like she had her elderly boarders.
No. Serena was the one who needed saving now. He passed through the parlor and stepped into the foyer—what was left of it. The porch had collapsed on top of the chandelier, now lying in jagged fragments beneath it. Only a few steps were visible next to the banister.
She would be there, Cody knew, not just because he could hear Annie barking louder now. He knew it because he could feel that she was near but slipping away from him. He was running out of time if he didn’t want to lose her forever.
So he held tightly to the banister as the steps gave way beneath him and he vaulted up, stepping over a gaping hole. The boards had splintered—from the heat and from someone kicking them. Serena must have been stuck. But she’d freed herself and she’d made it as far as the second-floor landing. She lay there, her black hair covering her face. Was she breathing?
A board must have struck her—it stretched across her back to the opening to the second-floor hallway. Annie pawed at it from the other side. Finally the dog’s frantic efforts pushed it forward. Cody caught it before it struck Serena again. He shoved it behind him. Then he grabbed Serena. With Annie following on his heels, he ran down the second-floor hallway toward the back stairs. The ceiling and floor groaned above and beneath him, and as he ran, the house began to crumple in on itself.
The back stairs cracked under their combined weight as the heat destroyed the brittle wood. He slid down to the kitchen floor. Then he crawled toward the back door. Later, he wasn’t certain if he pushed open the door or if Annie did. He only remembered dragging Serena’s limp body to where Stanley lay.
He didn’t know if Serena and the kid were alive or if he’d lost them both. And in the distance, he finally heard the whine of the fire engine’s siren. Help had arrived. But it was too late. The house was gone.
*
HER HEART POUNDING FRANTICALLY, Serena jerked awake with a scream. Or she would have screamed had her throat not been dry and burning. All she could manage was a whimper. Something cool passed over her lips and eased down her hurting throat.
“You’re okay,” a deep voice murmured, sounding nearly as hoarse as hers felt. “You’re safe.”
She opened her eyes and peered up at Cody. His beautiful green eyes glowed brightly in his soot-streaked face. Was she dreaming or dead? The last thing she remembered was rushing back into the burning house for Stanley and Annie.
Panic clutched her heart and she whispered, “Stanley…”
Cool fingers brushed across her cheek, wiping away tears she hadn’t realized she was crying. Or maybe her eyes were just watering. Like her throat, they burned, too.
“He’s fine,” Cody said. “A little smoke inhalation. They’re going to keep you both overnight to make sure your lungs aren’t damaged.”
“Mrs. Gul—”
“Mrs. G and Mr. Stehouwer are so healthy that the doctor didn’t even want to keep them overnight. Tammy wanted to take them back to her place—probably to fix Mrs. G’s hair—but there was an open room at the assisted living ce
nter in town.” His eyes twinkled with humor. “They happily agreed to share it. The fire might have finally made them realize how they feel about each other.”
She hadn’t needed the fire to make her realize how much she loved Cody. She had loved him long before that. And she wanted to tell him.
But first she had to make certain everyone was fine.
“Annie?” She wasn’t sure what Stanley would do if something had happened to that goofy pup.
“She’s fine, too.” Cody’s lips curved into a faint grin. “Hell, she deserves a commendation for making sure everyone got out alive.”
“So everyone’s fine?” she asked, needing the assurance that no lives had been lost. “Everyone got out? Even Mr. Tremont?”
“Yeah,” Cody replied. “Mr. Tremont had already packed up his stuff and was heading out of town.”
She gasped. “You don’t think…” She had checked him out, though. He had no criminal background. But maybe the arsonist didn’t either. Maybe he was someone nobody would suspect.
He had to be, or they would have caught him before now.
“I did,” Cody admitted. “I thought he could be the arsonist until I found out he works for Braden’s ex’s new husband. Or he did. He reported back to the guy that nothing was happening between Braden and Amy, so his assignment was over.”
Now that she knew he was safe she didn’t want to talk about Mr. Tremont anymore. She didn’t care about anything but Cody. “Why are you here?” she asked as she stared up into his face. He’d said he was never coming back to Northern Lakes.
“We’d just gotten back from the fires in California when the siren went off,” he said.
That explained why the other Hotshots had returned, but not him. “But your other job…”
“What other job?” he asked. But his green eyes twinkled. He knew what she was talking about.
“That’s not the job I want,” he said.
“A new position came up?”
He nodded. “I hope so.”
“Where is it?” she asked. Hopefully closer than Washington.
“Wherever you are.” He leaned down and skimmed his mouth across hers, kissing her more tenderly than he’d ever kissed her. “Whatever you want me to be.”
“Cody?” She must be dreaming because she couldn’t understand what he was saying. His face was dark with soot and there was a slight scratch on his head. “Do you have another concussion?”
He chuckled. “No. I’m thinking more clearly than I have in a long time.”
“I don’t understand.” She must have hit her head. “That smoke jumper job is all you’ve wanted. Stanley told me about the posters you used to have up in your room at the last foster house.”
Cody shook his head. “Not anymore. That was a dream. But I realize now that what I really wanted was a family. A home. A place to belong,” he said. “I found that with you.”
She was afraid she’d lost all that, though. That the arsonist had taken it all.
“I love you,” he said. “And I want to be with you.”
The tears flowed now, and they weren’t because of the smoke. Emotion overwhelmed her, because she knew nothing else mattered but this—but him. “I love you…”
He released a ragged breath of relief. “That’s good.”
How had he not known how she felt about him? Because nobody else had ever loved him. She should have told him weeks ago. She should have made certain he knew—in case something had happened to one of them.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He shook his head. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I never should have left you.”
“It’s your job.” And she would never keep him from that. “You had to go. You were needed to relieve those crews in California.” She knew how important the Hotshots’ jobs were.
“But I knew the arsonist was after me,” Cody said. “I worried that he’d go after you if he really wanted to hurt me.”
It made sense then that he would hurt her and Stanley and even the dog. Because no matter how much Cody had denied he cared, it was obvious that he did.
“Will you ever be able to forgive me?” he asked.
“For what?” He had done nothing wrong.
“For what you’ve lost,” he said. He swallowed hard, as if choking on emotion as much as smoke. “The house is a complete loss. It burned to the ground. There’s nothing left.”
She’d already known that, but she released a shaky breath. And his arms slid around her as he pulled her against his chest. His hands trembled as he stroked her hair.
“I’m sorry,” he said—over and over again.
The breath she’d released had actually been one of relief. She didn’t have to worry about the house anymore. With the insurance money, she could pay off Courtney and do whatever else she wanted with her half.
“That last day—as I watched you with Stanley I saw what a great foster home it would have made—what a great foster mom you would be.”
The idea filled her with warmth and hope. “That’s a great idea,” she said.
“We’ll rebuild on your property,” he said. “We’ll find old pictures of the house and replicate it. We will make it happen.”
She shook her head. “Not now. Not yet…”
“Too soon?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s too soon for me to settle down—to work so hard. I want to travel. I want to live a little.” Like Courtney wanted her to live.
He touched her head now as if looking for bumps and bruises. “Are you okay?”
“I will be,” she said. “As long as I can travel with you. If you want to reconsider and take that smoke jumper job, I will move to Washington with you. I’ll go wherever you want to go.”
He hesitated and she understood. He might love her, but he was used to being alone.
“Of course I know you’ll be busy with training and everything,” she assured him, hoping that she hadn’t overwhelmed him, “so I don’t have to go…”
“You don’t have to go,” Cody said, “because I’m not going. I turned down the job. I want to stay with the Huron Hotshots. We’re family. And Northern Lakes is home.”
Her heart swelled over the orphan, who’d never felt as if he’d belonged anywhere, finally finding his home. And love. “I love you.”
“Do you love me enough to wait until the off-season to do that traveling?” he asked. “We can spend months exploring new places together.”
She nodded. “It’s a deal.” They would have their adventure. But they would make Northern Lakes their home. And someday when they were ready to settle down completely, they would rebuild her house and make it the foster home Cody always should have had—the one filled with love.
*
Who is the Northern Lakes arsonist? Sexy Hotshot boss Braden Zimmer joins up with a beautiful arson investigator to bring the culprit to justice in HOT PURSUIT, the final story in Lisa Childs’s HOTSHOT HEROES series.
Keep reading for an excerpt from NO LIMITS by Katherine Garbera.
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No Limits
by Katherine Garbera
1
THE DOOR OPENED. Ace McCoy couldn’t see the figure standing on the porch due to distance and the shadow cast by the setting sun, but his gut told him it was her. And if he was a betting man, he’d wager she was more beautiful than she’d been at sixteen when he’d walked away without a backward glance.
He walked slowly toward the house; her dad had once said that the only way to move forward was past fear. And, though he wasn’t truly afraid of Molly Tanner, she was the one woman who had haunted him all of his life. Seeing her again after thirteen years made his gut clench.
“Jason—I mean ‘Ace’—McCoy,” she said, as if his call sign left a bad taste in her mouth. “Thought you’d never set foot on this ranch again.”
He was right. She’d matured into her features. The mouth that had once seemed too big was now full and sensuous. Her eyes were still as rich as dark chocolate and her brows were thick and serious. Her nose was pert and some would say cute. But he’d been on the receiving end of her temper, so cute wasn’t a word he’d use to describe her.