Text copyright ©2017 by the Author.
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Tempting Fire
A Dallas Fire and Rescue / Sisters Novel Crossover
A Novella
By Caitlyn O’Leary
Dedication
To those who have struggled you are all worthwhile.
Table of Contents
Dedication
Synopsis
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Epilogue
Biography
Books by Caitlyn O’Leary
Synopsis
Can Love Overcome Fear?
For Chloe Avery one event changed everything. Having been beaten and held hostage, she falls deeper and deeper into depression. As she struggles to find meaning in a life that no longer makes sense, she pushes everyone in her life away.
Dallas firefighter, Zarek Post’s childhood was filled with laughter thanks to Chloe and her sisters. When he finds out that the one girl who’d meant the most has been traumatized and is slowly fading away, he drops everything to rush to her side.
Desperate to pull Chloe out of her black pit of despair, Zarek refuses to let Chloe give up on herself. But as he helps her find the sunshine again, can she overcome the growing fear of losing the man she loves to his dangerous job?
Chapter One
Chloe pushed up from the computer. Her hand and back hurt. It didn’t make any sense. Why was it dark out? She’d just sat down to play a game of solitaire that morning. She stumbled and grabbed the dining room chair for support. Her leg had fallen asleep. She looked at the clock over the stove.
“Oh God.”
Ten hours had passed. If she hadn’t been thirsty she would still be playing the game. She reached the kitchen. flipped on the light switch and winced. When was the last time she’d done dishes? Did it matter? She saw the plastic bag of solo cups and reached for one, and filled it up with water from the fridge. She gulped down the water. Why did her mouth hurt? She reached up and touched her dry lips. Were they cracked?
Chloe added the cup to the pile near the sink, and headed towards the bathroom, touching her sore lip. When she turned on the light and looked in the mirror, she leaned forward and stared.
“Who are you?”
If she’d been one of those girls who wanted to lose weight, she would have hit the jackpot. Her cheekbones were knife sharp and her hollow brown eyes were empty.
“Answer me, dammit! Who are you?”
Dank brown hair moved as she leaned forward toward the mirror and a scar on her forehead was revealed.
Time stopped.
She was back in that cabin, her friends tied and whimpering on the floor near her feet. She felt that first blow from the man’s meaty fist as it hit her cheek. She’d been surprised. Then she realized he wanted her to hurt, wanted her to scream. He kept shouting at her to scream into the cell phone as he hit her over and over, punch after punch. Splitting open the skin of her forehead with his ring. So much pain, so much blood.
Now the brown eyes in front of her weren’t empty, they were scared. They were surrounded by white. She saw that face in the mirror whimper with fear.
Chloe picked up the brush she saw on the bathroom counter and hit the face in the mirror. Over and over and over. A rush of feeling careened through her body with every splinter of glass that shattered. At last she felt something other than numbness and fear. A smile reflected back at her in the remnants of the mirror, she was satisfied that she’d killed that pathetic and weak girl whose very existence disgusted her.
Something stung her foot as she stepped out of the bathroom, she ignored it as she walked back to the computer to start playing solitaire.
***
“Are you here yet?”
“I’m just pulling into Polly’s,” Zarek said as he maneuvered his truck into a spot in the crowded restaurant parking lot.
“I’ll be right there.” His phone went dead. Of course, Zoe would meet him there. She was impossible to shake loose. She’d been calling him every hour since he’d left Dallas. She was the reason he was back in Tennessee in the first place.
He went into the diner, and wasn’t surprised to see the flaming red haired hostess at the stand. Polly was an institution here in Jasper Creek.
“Zarek? Is that you?” she cried out. How could she possibly notice him in this crowd, let alone remember him after five years away?
“Hey Polly,” he greeted with a forced smile.
“I’ll get you a table in a jiffy. Unless you want to sit at the counter,” she grinned.
“Zoe’ll be joining me.”
Heads turned to look at him. Nothing had changed, the Avery’s still caused a stir.
“How’s Evie? How’s Chloe? Are they doing all right?” Polly walked away from the stand and sidled up next to him. Her concern was genuine, but Zarek was still aware of the greedy attention of the gossip seekers.
“They’re fine. Everybody’s fine,” he lied.
“I’ll get you a booth near the back,” she said frowning at the nosy patrons. She guided him to his table. “Can I get you anything besides coffee and water while you wait for Zoe?” she asked.
“Some orange juice and biscuits.”
“Coming up.”
Polly whisked away, and Zarek had a few minutes to think about what he’d gotten himself into. He hadn’t been back to Jasper Creek, Tennessee since his parents had retired to Florida, two years ago. Sure, he’d called and Skyped. Deep in his heart he knew he should have come back sooner, but life had gotten in the way. He stared down at the laminated menu and blew out a breath. His fist clenched.
“Dammit,” he whispered.
He heard a commotion behind him.
“Hey Zoe!”
“Hiya Zoe!”
“Looking good Girlfriend.”
“He’s back there,” he heard Polly say.
He looked up and saw the vivacious brunette striding towards him. She barely came up to his chest, but she filled the room with her presence. Even now with her face lined with worry, people were drawn to her. Back in the day when it had been both Chloe and Zoe, every head in the entire diner would have turned and talking would have ceased as they stared at the duo in awe. Those girls were special, but to Zarek’s mind Chloe sparkled like a lake at dawn.
Even though the women were identical twins, Zarek had always been able to tell them apart. Zarek had met Chloe first when she had been defending an abandoned puppy from two older boys intent on tormenting it. She’d been holding the wriggling little yellow dog and was waving a stick, almost as big as she was, at the two teens. She couldn’t have been more than seven years old. He’d jumped into the fray and gotten a bloody nose for his troubles. After the boys had run off he’d turned to Chloe who told him she hadn’t needed his help. She’d been pissed that he’d interfered.
Maybe it was because
of the way they’d been introduced that it was easy for him to always tell them apart. The Avery family thought it was a big deal, but for him, it was as simple as breathing.
“You came.” Zoe plopped down in the bench seat across from him. “You took long enough.”
Zarek raised his eyebrow.
“Fine, you got here fast,” she admitted. Zoe smiled as Polly dropped off coffee, OJ and biscuits.
“What do you want for breakfast?” Polly asked.
“I’ll have the lumberjack, eggs over easy,” Zarek said.
“The biscuits are enough,” Zoe smiled up at Polly.
“I’ll get you an omelet,” Polly told her as she picked up the menus. “No green peppers, right?”
Zoe sighed, then nodded. “Thanks Polly.”
“It’s going to be all right,” Polly said as she patted Zoe’s hand. Then she walked away from the booth.
“I can’t believe I hadn’t heard about all of this until you called me the day before yesterday,” Zarek said staring at Zoe.
“I know, the Avery’s are infamous again. Isn’t it great?” She had that fake Avery smile, her tone bright with sarcasm, but her hand trembled slightly as she put grape jelly on her biscuit.
“Cut the shit. I googled everything and then called my parents. What I didn’t find out on-line, they filled me in from the rumor mill that they’re still plugged into. For fuck’s sake, why didn’t anyone tell me what in the hell had been going on?”
“Hello? You were studying. You were finishing all your certifications so that you could be a firetruck driver.”
“Driver Engineer,” he corrected.
“Yeah, that. We didn’t want to do anything to break your concentration.”
Zarek slapped his hand down on the Formica tabletop. “Evie was almost killed in Turkey, then Chloe was held hostage and beaten in a cabin at Cherokee Lake. What the fuck, Zoe. Don’t you think I should have been clued sooner than Tuesday?”
She covered his fist with both of her hands, attempting to soothe him.
“The stuff with Evie happened so fast, and then those guys came out of nowhere. We had no idea.”
“That went down six weeks ago, and you just told me now. Chloe blew off my last two Skype calls. When I reached out to you, you ignored me. Now her I get, but why you?”
She turned away from him, but not before he saw a sheen of tears. “This was a family thing.”
“I’m family. You always said I was part of the family,” he protested.
“During the good times. Not during the Avery bullshit. That’s private. You’re a golden boy, we never wanted you to see the dirt,” her voice broke as she turned away. “Not the real slime.”
He looked at her and realized she was serious. Life shifted on its axis once again. “Really, that’s how you saw me? Someone who couldn’t handle ugly?”
Her head whipped around and she gripped his hand even tighter. “No, that’s not it at all. There was never any doubt that you could handle ugly. Never, Zarek. We just didn’t want you to see it. We didn’t want anyone to see it.”
“Well you did a piss poor job of hiding it. I saw it.”
“Well sure, the whole county knew we were white trash.” Her tone bled twenty-four years of bitter.
Zarek reached across the booth and tucked his knuckles under her chin. “Never that. You girls were, and are, amazing. Look at the way people immediately call out to you, they care. They’ve always cared.”
She ducked her head down, and plucked at the biscuit. “They wouldn’t care, not really. Not if they’d known what Mom was like. Uncle Huey,” her lip trembled.
“I knew. My parents knew. Your teachers knew. They did everything possible to make sure you girls caught breaks. Think about the job that allowed your sister Trenda to work from home after she gave birth. That was my dad and Brad Phillips who arranged that.”
Her head jerked up. “Brad? But his wife hated my mom.”
“Damn right she did. But it was because of how she treated you girls. Brad wanted to help, but you stubborn Avery girls wouldn’t have allowed anybody to do anything outright. Dad and Brad had to be sneaky.” Zarek shook his head. “You’re a bunch of hard-headed broads.”
Zoe barked out a laugh, just as he’d hoped. He relaxed.
“Broads?”
“The terms fits.”
“Hard-headed doesn’t fit for Chloe right now. She doesn’t answer her door anymore. She just answers the phone. Even when Trenda brings Bella over, she won’t answer the door.”
“How old is Bella?”
“For God’s sake, you send birthday and Christmas gifts, and you don’t know that she’s three?” Zoe gave him an incredulous look.
“I’m a guy. Sue me.” Trenda had sent him pictures of her daughter, she was a doll. She was going to look just like Chloe.
He looked at Zoe intently. “How bad was it? Really?”
“She only needed to stay in the hospital for two days.” Zoe put down the biscuit with precise movements.
“Only?” Zarek said aghast.
“It could have been a lot worse. Thank God she only ended up with a concussion. There could have been internal damage from where he kicked her.”
Zarek thought he would throw up.
“How long was she held hostage?”
“Four hours. The beating lasted for thirteen minutes, before she passed out.”
“Evie timed it?” Zarek seriously thought the orange juice he had drank might end up on the table.
“I talked to her fiancé Aiden last week, she’s still dreaming about it.”
“But she timed it?”
“What do you think?” Zoe leaned in across the table. “Every moment will always be etched into my sister’s brain. She couldn’t do a goddamn thing to stop them, not while guns were trained on those other girls. She had to wait for a diversion. As soon as everything was in place, Evie killed that motherfucker for what he did to Chloe. So yeah, those thirteen minutes, when Chloe was tortured, she remembers it like it happened to her.” Tears plopped down onto the plate of biscuits. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Polly carrying food to the table, and then turn and walk away.
“I didn’t know,” Zarek said helplessly.
“Well now you do.” Zoe took a deep breath. “But that’s not the worst of it. What’s the absolute worse, is that it should have been me. I should have been the one to take that beating.”
“What are you talking about?” Zarek thought he’d fallen down a rabbit hole. Zoe was talking crazy.
“They wanted to torture any Avery sister. I should have been in that cabin. If I had been, they would have tortured me. I’m tougher, I could have taken it. Hell, I’d been the one to talk Chloe into going to the party in the first place. It should have been me, not her.”
“Where were you?”
“I was off with a friend.”
Zarek didn’t need to hear anything else. Zoe had left with some guy. It was her MO. He looked at his childhood friend, who was almost a mirror image of Chloe and his gut clenched.
“I’m glad it wasn’t you,” he said softly.
“I’m not. If I hadn’t been such a self-centered bitch, going off with some guy with a cool truck, it would have been me. Chloe’s too good a person to have this happen to her.”
She was starting to cry in earnest. Zarek got up out of the booth and slipped in beside Zoe. He wrapped an arm around her, and pulled her close.
“It shouldn’t have been anyone,” he whispered softly.
“You know she’s a better person than I am.”
“You’re both wonderful. Not one of you is better than the other, you’re both special in your own ways.”
Zoe gave a watery snort and reached for a paper napkin on the table. She blew her nose.
“God, it couldn’t be any more obvious that you think Chloe’s the bomb and I’m not.” She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her go. When he saw Polly make another pass with the plates, he shook his
head. She tipped her chin, and made a motion indicating she would box the food. He nodded.
“Zarek, I don’t know what to do about Chloe, she’s holed up in her house, and she’s getting worse day by day, I just know it. She isn’t leaving the house, she’s having things like groceries delivered. Trenda and I would have called our brother Drake in from California, but his fiancée Karen is on bedrest with her pregnancy. We decided to leave him as a last resort.”
Zarek had never met their older brother who was a Navy SEAL.
“Do you think he would hurt or help the situation?” Zarek asked.
“Normally he’d help, but it would be a shit thing to do to him when he’s so worried about Karen and the baby.”
Zarek could see that. “Zoe, I’ve done some thinking and planning. I want Chloe to come home with me.”
This time Zoe succeeded in pushing out of his arms.
“What?” Heads turned at Zoe’s loud exclamation.
“From everything you said, she’s suffering from PTSD. She needs care. She’s not making it here. It’s time for a change of environment.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Zoe hissed.
“What’s the definition of insanity?” Zarek asked in a calm voice.
“Huh?”
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Obviously, what has been going on hasn’t been working. I’m taking her home with me,” he said decisively.
“You have no idea what you’re walking into,” she protested.
“Actually, I do. I’ve watched my best friend at the station house suffer from PTSD.”
Luke Larkin worked as an EMT back in Dallas with him. He’d served two tours in Afghanistan as a marine medic and when he and his unit had been attacked, Luke had been shot and two of his friends had been killed. Ever since he’d been sent stateside he’d struggled with PTSD. When he’d talked to Luke about the little he knew about Chloe’s situation, his friend had warned him that it was going to be an uphill climb.
Dallas Fire & Rescue: Tempting Fire (Kindle Worlds Novella) Page 1