As she approached her house, she saw a tall figure shoulder his way out the front door. The figure turned to lock the door behind him; the twisting turn of a spare key told Alex exactly who was bailing at such a late hour.
"Landon?" she asked.
Landon glanced up.
He was carrying his duffle bag. Alex stared at his face in fixed astonishment.
Was he . . . leaving?
Chapter 13
Landon
Landon turned, leaving the key in the door.
He locked eyes with Alex. He set his duffel bag down.
He should have known this would happen. Had he really thought that after so much had passed between them, he could just up and leave without consequences? Still, a part of him had hoped to depart before she got home. Now the note he had left for her on her counter would be rendered completely obsolete.
Oh, well. Time to face the music.
Time to face the angel.
She was already coming up the steps before he could make his feet move to descend them to meet her. She looked slightly unsteady on her feet, and he wondered if she had been drinking. Her eyes, by contrast, were clear.
"Where are you going?" she asked him. Her gaze alighted on his duffel bag, and he knew there would be no lying to her. What's more, he found he didn't want to.
"Honestly, I was planning on sneaking out." He grimaced a little, hoping to lighten the tone of his admission.
Alex stared at him, stricken. “So, that’s it, then?”
Landon scratched the back of his head. If he didn’t find a way to occupy his hands, he was afraid he would reach for her. And he needed to get this thing between them right. “Look, I like you, Alex. A lot. And if you want me to stay here, then I will. But I don’t think you really want me to."
There. It was all out in the open now. That had been easy enough. Maybe.
Landon gazed down at her, his eyes scanning her face for any indication of what her response would be. This thing they had together, this connection, was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He knew it couldn’t only be one-sided. He was half-confident that she would tell him he had it wrong, that she would ask him to stay. He didn’t bother to turn to retrieve the key from the lock. Not yet.
He watched, and he waited.
A million and one emotions flickered across Alex’s face. She must have definitely been drinking earlier—the usual tight control she kept of herself seemed looser, somehow.
He took a hesitant step closer. All he needed was an invitation to come back inside, and they could work it out—or at least work toward some sort of—
“Yeah, maybe that’s for the best." Alex‘s eyes flickered away from him, toward the door—or toward some spot that only she could see, an invisible wall beginning to erect itself between them. “You’re a . . . you’re a good man, Landon. A great man. It’s ridiculous how long it took me to realize that you were. You’re a hero, for God's sake, but—I have so much baggage." She swallowed thickly. "So much that I wish I could just leave behind." She gestured toward his duffel bag. If it was going to serve as a metaphor, Landon wanted to kick it. “But I see now, there’s so much I can’t just put down. And it’s hurting you. And that's the last thing I would ever want."
Landon forced a laugh. When it didn’t sound as convincing as he’d hoped it would, he shook his head as a further demonstration that he was refuting her apology. “I’m a big boy, Alex. Like I’ve said before, I get that you need space. And time—you need time to heal. This was just bad timing. Right?"
But he was too invested in her response just then, too ready to hang on to her answer either way, and he knew it. So he didn’t leave her room to answer. When she opened her mouth, he stepped all the way to her, arms spread, and enveloped her in a hug. He tried to play it off as a friendly parting gesture and nothing more, conscious all the while of his sudden, roaring fear that this might be the last time he’d ever hold her again.
Alex’s arms flew around his neck.
Landon paused, nearly overwhelmed in the moment by the ferocity of her grip. He clutched her close, equally desperate. Surely, she would ask him to come inside with her now.
She pulled away, and he felt her absence like a yawning chasm between them, but it was only to grasp either side of his face and yank him back in for a kiss. He could taste the sweet nectar of red wine on her lips. His heart twisted, and he ached to join her back inside the house and polish off a bottle together.
When he started to kiss her back, she pulled out of the embrace. A hand on his chest prevented him from following her.
“I’m sorry," she whispered. "I shouldn't have done that." Her eyes were on that invisible obstacle looming between them again. For a moment, Landon wondered if he could raise his fists and shatter the wall—finally sweep her into his arms without a barrier between them, and never let her go. “You better get going," she concluded.
“Guess I’d better."
He turned mechanically, barely conscious of what he was doing, and picked up his duffel bag. He wanted to say something more but decided that the safest course in the moment was to brush past her on his way down the steps. “Key's in the lock," he mentioned unnecessarily. “Thanks for letting me stay. I’m sorry if it caused you any inconvenience."
“Landon . . ."
But she didn’t complete the sentence, and he didn’t expect her to. There was nothing more to say. This was as cordial as things got, and he was determined to leave with it all relatively unbroken. Alex had already had enough heartache in her life to last her for her remaining days. It was the right time to walk away.
Wasn’t it?
Stay, a voice in the back of his mind whispered. Stay and fight.
There’s nothing to fight against, he thought. Alex isn’t my enemy. She knows what she wants.
It isn’t Alex you’re fighting against. It’s Alex you’re fighting for.
But no matter how insistent the whisper, he kept to his course. He walked back into town, one resolute step leading the other. He heard a twig snap, off to his left, as something followed him beyond the copse of trees he was passing. He kept walking but turned his head to look with incurious eyes.
A pair of startling silver eyes shone back at him, reflected in the streetlight.
It was the dog, the same stray he had rescued from the fire, what felt like a lifetime ago. It wasn’t limping anymore, but its tail hung between its back legs as it skulked along. The dog paused when he paused, and he saw the tail give a feeble wag when the bedraggled creature noticed his gaze.
“It’s okay, boy." Landon dropped to one knee and set his duffel bag aside. He tried to coax the dog out of the cover of the trees, but it wouldn’t come to him.
He inched slowly nearer. The weighted moment hung between them, and just when he thought his odds of approaching were good, the dog turned and bolted away, swallowed by darkness.
He knelt in the dirt for a long moment after that by himself. Then, with a heavy sigh, he heaved himself back to his feet. Maybe he had only been fooling himself all these years.
Maybe he was a cat person after all.
Chapter 14
Alex
"Well, I did it, Henry. I sent him away," Alex informed the wrinkled photograph in her hand. "Or drove him away. Or he walked away. I guess it depends on how you look at things, but . . . shit, this is my house again, isn't it? I get to decide the narrative."
The narrative should have been a familiar one: a grieving wife, sitting with her legs splayed out on the kitchen floor, a bottle of wine in one hand and a cardboard box of photos torn open in front of her.
But it wasn't familiar. Not to this house. For Alex, this marked the first—the very first—time she had ever sat herself down and reopened the past.
The wine was exceedingly necessary.
"Guess it was kind of all three," she whispered. She took another swig straight off the bottle and studied the photograph. Henry had always insisted on having a disposable ca
mera around, even as technology barreled on ahead of physical photos. She couldn't count the number of camera misfires that were in this sleeve of photos alone—or the number of times she’d looked on in red-eyed exasperation as he took her candid portrait—but she had been so grateful for them when he died, she had nearly caught herself weeping . . . before she had hastily shoved the box into the back of her closet and forced herself to forget about it.
A tear leaked down one cheek. She let it slip along her chin and fall into her lap as she stared at the photo of Henry she held. "I'm so afraid of getting over you," she whispered to the face of her husband, to the smile that would never again grace the rooms of her empty house. "I never thought I would. I thought you were it, Henry, but now . . . what if you're not?"
Her throat hitched on a sob, and she glanced up at the clock on the far wall.
It was late. She didn't know how long she had been sitting here, alone and lost in the past. She stirred and pulled herself to her feet.
She took the photograph—and the wine—with her into the living room and sank down on the couch. She curled up on the cushion Landon used to favor and closed her eyes, losing herself in darkness. A while later, she felt Raphael jump up, arrange himself in the curve of her waist, and purr contentedly to himself. She didn't reach for him, and he didn't complain when the usual strokes weren't forthcoming.
They fell asleep like that, together, their chests rising and falling as one.
When Alex next woke, it was to the sound of her phone blowing up—not actually combusting but vibrating its way across the floor where she had left it beside the box of photos. It had nearly gained the kitchen by now.
She scrubbed her eyes and took a moment to blink herself more fully conscious. Her head was heavy from the wine, although she wasn't drunk any longer, just steadily steamrolling her way toward a killer hangover. How long had she been out for? Long enough to sleep off the effects of the alcohol, at least—but she had started drinking pretty early in the day A glance out the window showed her nothing but a black patch of night.
She was tempted to leave her phone and go right back to sleep. The thought that it might be Landon trying to reach her propelled her off the couch.
Raphael hissed and sprang out of reach as she wheeled around and dropped to her knees on the floor. Alex cursed, cradling her jarred head, and rose unsteadily, managing to retrieve her phone just as it ceased ringing. She thumbed it open and looked down in astonishment.
Twenty missed calls? Twenty? And almost twice as many texts flooded her home screen from various contacts. Panic rose like bile in her throat as she scrolled through them all, one after another. The sick feeling didn't subside even as her read messages began to outpace her unread.
"Oh, my God," she muttered to Raphael—to the lonely, darkened house. She crossed to the television and flipped it on to the local news. She turned the volume up, then bolted out of the room to get changed.
Fire had swept into town.
* * *
When Alex arrived on the scene, it looked like every ambulance and available body was already there. She lost herself in the chaos, eyes scanning over the rushing river of heads. She knew from her texts, and from the TV, that Cedar Springs was in the process of evacuating the entire block, although no one within her sphere of information seemed to know yet how fire had gotten this far into town—and taken such an immediate hold.
The apartment building in front of her was on fire. It was a horrifying vision to witness firsthand after seeing the live news coverage, and Alex found herself frozen in place for a moment as she took in the hellish sight. The building still stood, but every window was blacked out and busted open; tongues of flame licked their way out of the empty sockets. Glass littered the ground around the building, like a moat of sharp teeth waiting to bite anyone who might dare to come—or go—from the doomed structure. Firetrucks and firefighters seemed to be everywhere, including crews directing streams of water onto the buildings to either side to keep the fire from spreading.
"Alex!" Cherise was already on the scene and hastening toward her. The older nurse's hair was in complete disarray, and her face was streaked with ash, but her eyes glowed with stern life.
"Cherise!" Alex exclaimed. She caught the older woman by the arms before she could barrel into Alex. "What's going on? What happened? Has the fire reached town?" It seemed impossible that it should have descended on the town already, but how . . .?
"Gas main," Cherise replied grimly. "It was unmarked. Nobody knew it was here until it blew. Come on! I'm in desperate need of someone with a cool head to help me." She gestured toward the coughing, miserable locals lining up for treatment.
Alex took in the grim assemblage, and even as her heart broke, she rolled up the sleeves of the shirt she wore beneath her scrubs. Flecks of swarming ash flew through the air and sparked against her bared skin, but she ignored the stings as she followed after Cherise, duty-bound. She could see that many of the greener nurses were already looking distraught and overwhelmed.
What will we do, she thought, when the real fire gets here?
Maybe it's already arrived.
The ambulances came and went in a constant stream of patients. Alex kept her head down, kept herself focused on the task—on the people—at hand. A blackened teenager sat upright on one of the available stretchers. Alex didn't even have to ask him to widen his eyes as she flashed a light from one pupil to the other. All signs pointed to nothing more pressing than shock. She heard herself speaking to him, a string of standard, comforting words, as she tried to gently ascertain the location of his family. He raised his hand to point. Alex followed the line of his arm . . . and froze.
Beyond the clot of civilians the kid was gesturing toward, she saw the Alaskan volunteers assembled by their borrowed truck. Her eyes ran down the long line of the hose, to the three figures manning its nozzle. Her heart clenched.
She saw Landon pointing, shouting to them, although she couldn't hear his words. She could see another clump of people, strung out in a line, pouring out of the burning building.
She didn't have to hear the context of his words to know what he was about to do.
He was off the hose. He was running toward the fire.
And all she could do was watch.
Please, God, let us make it through this night.
Chapter 15
Landon
This shouldn’t have happened. Landon knew it was useless to entertain such thoughts now, with the raging fire devouring everything in front of him, but he couldn’t help it. He and Brent and Andrew were latched onto the firehose and spraying down the burning building.
An old, badly marked gas main. That’s what they had told him. An old gas main, sitting like an undiscovered fossil, ready to rear back into horrifying life as soon as the sparks from a backhoe hitting the pipe ignited it.
At least the subsequent explosion had been relatively contained to this one building, but it was a hell of a mistake on the part of the surveyors.
“Hold up!" he called suddenly. The two other men manning the hose glanced at him, but they followed his orders from long practice, shutting down the nozzle just as a couple of crew members came out of the bottom floor herding a group of staggering, soot-stained civilians. Landon saw the moment one of the women collapsed. His heart lurched ahead of his body.
“Hold the hose!" he shouted to the others. As soon as he was certain they had the weight of it firmly fixed between them, he disengaged and ran for the crumpled figure.
“Civilian down!" one of the squad members he passed was yelling, but Landon was already on it. He dropped to one knee beside the woman’s unconscious body; a wall of heat hit him, stinging his eyes, and he yanked his mask down quickly over his face to avoid inhaling the smoke. He grasped the woman and pulled her up over his shoulders, rose, expertly balancing her weight, and swiveled to sprint for the triage area.
Alex was there. Among the assembled nurses, she shone like a beacon, a blonde avengin
g angel, sword drawn against the consuming fire. By turns, she was divvying out orders, taking her patients' vitals, administering oxygen, and wiping grime from desperately furrowed faces. She looked up only when he approached—as if sensing his incoming presence without eyes.
Even with the mask on, she recognized him. “Landon! Here! Bring her here to me!"
No time to be distracted. He slid the woman off his shoulders, moving gingerly, and deposited her on the first available bed. The paramedics swarmed her, and one motioned unnecessarily for Alex to join them. As he pushed his mask up, he saw Alex snap on a new pair of gloves as she raced over, and before he could draw a breath of the smoky air, her hands were already in place, checking the woman for a pulse and breathing arrhythmia.
With the fire behind him and the woman he loved in front of him, Landon felt stuck between two worlds, unable to make a decision as to where he belonged. He watched Alex for a split second longer than he could afford.
Then he turned to go back to the fire.
"My daughter," a voice croaked. A hand reached for him and grasped the sleeve of his jacket. It was the newly retrieved woman, fighting for consciousness, her hands fluttering to grasp at the first patch of reflective yellow they could find. “My daughter . . . upstairs!"
Landon's stomach clenched. He was already wheeling, already reaching for his mask, but before he could bring the shield down, his eyes locked with Alex's.
He stopped. For a moment, he was tethered to her, unable to run, unable to fly to where he was needed most . . . because her eyes said it all. He had battled with fear all his life, but never had he seen it so plainly written in a human expression. He wondered if he had ever known another's fear, really known it, before he’d stared into Alex's face at this moment.
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