Flame (The Firefighters of Darling Bay Book 3)

by Rachael Herron

  She gave him one final look, aching with how she would miss what this could have been. What it should have been. “I always do. That’s the thing. But not having a drink is something I have to accomplish myself. Alone. You can’t help. I wish you could. You can’t save me, Hank, and you can’t make me safe.” I love you anyway.

  She couldn’t say the words.

  It wouldn’t be fair to him. And in her leaving, she needed to be fair. If she could, she would choose him. If she could have what she wanted, she would curl up in his arms and let him take care of her, let him make her safe.

  But that didn’t work. She’d seen firsthand what it looked like when a woman loved a man so much she was willing to give everything else in the world up. Samantha's mother had given her whole life to their father, and then, when she’d gotten sick, she had nothing to draw from. No memories of dancing on beaches, no recollections of long Sunday mornings in bed with various lovers. Her mother didn’t know what language they spoke in Brazil, or what coffee tasted like in Italy. Of course, her mother also hadn’t had any idea what it was like to be detoxing in a tiny motel just outside Phoenix with five dollars in nickels stashed an old Altoids tin, with no cell phone, no one within a thousand miles that knew her middle name.

  Hank’s dark, bruised-looking eyes made her want to cry. “Don’t go,” he said one last time. “Stay with me.”

  So he could put her in box and keep her safe. Keep her from burning, from living her life with fire and flame and verve and lust and excitement. No, she was too much her mother’s daughter to let that ever happen. She would never be her mother, coddled and protected by a man who, in the end, could save her from nothing.

  And more than that, she was enough her mother’s daughter to not allow herself to hurt this man again. She’d done it once to him. Once was enough, and if she stayed a little longer, she’d hurt him deeper by not staying, by not choosing the safe road. For the first time, she realized that if she’d stepped off the back of that motorcycle years ago, choosing Hank back then, she wouldn’t be the person she was today.

  And he wouldn’t be the Hank she loved.

  Samantha could only think of one thing to say that would make it better, and they were the words she couldn’t give him. So she dropped her gaze to the floor and left, closing the door softly behind her as she went.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  HANK TOOK ANOTHER body-blow. The women were getting better with throwing punches, and they were all excited to get their turn on him instead of the bag Samantha had hung from a rafter. Kelly, especially, was really getting into it. He was sorry Wally wasn’t here today to take some of the jabs for him, but he’d had something to do with his daughter.

  “That’s it, Kelly! Harder! Don’t let him push you like that by the shoulders! Remember what we worked on with the twist and elbow.” Samantha's voice was professional and just the right tone and pitch. Just as it had been for the last two weeks.

  Two weeks of this awful, broken silence. Samantha was cordial when they worked with the class together. Afterward, she always ushered him to the community center door along with the last couple of students, thanking him kindly for coming, for doing such a great job.

  He was nothing to her, that was what her carefully upright body telegraphed. Her voice told him that he was a valued part of her teaching sessions, nothing more.

  But her eyes said something different to him, and at least twice a class, Hank was tempted to hurl himself at her in his padded suit and let her whale on him until that bleak, haunted look in the back of that green gaze abated.

  He didn’t do it, though. He just did his job in the class. He was the attacker. The women, his victims, were becoming friends while his helmet was off.

  Samantha, though, smiled at him like they were only slightly acquainted. Hank had kissed her, loved her with his fingers and mouth and body and mind until she’d wept in his arms with release, and just this afternoon, when she’d held the community center’s door open for him, she’d looked as if she was considering whether or not to put him on her Christmas card list.

  “Harder!” yelled Samantha. “Come on, Kelly, you can hit him harder than that.”

  “Oof.” Yeah, he was definitely off her list. He held his arms up, his signal for defeat. He’d pushed Kelly into a corner and pinned her down, using everything Samantha had taught him, and she’d gotten away from him and then kicked his butt. There were still two classes to go in this course, and Kelly was going to be the star pupil, he could tell. She loved fighting and winning. And her sisters, while doing well themselves, loved watching her, cheering her loudly.

  It would have been uplifting if he hadn’t been getting so pummeled by fists and shoulders and knees and feet. The suit was good, and he’d learned a little bit about how to block, but he’d be bruised tomorrow. The pain almost felt like some kind of relief.

  He’d blown it.

  Hank had lost her.

  As Linda got into place on the mat, he looked through the mesh of the helmet at Samantha. She stood tall at the edge of the fighting area, her shoulders drawn back. Her cheeks were pale, and for a second, he saw something in her face waver. Then she bit her lip quickly and the look was gone. She was all business again.

  “Linda, you have this.”

  Linda did not have this. Hank could tell she was on the verge of tears. He made a time-out sign with his hands and lifted off his helmet, tucking it under his arm. “Hey,” he said, stepping toward her. “You want to take a minute?”

  “No,” she muttered, looking at the plastic blue mat beneath her bare feet.

  “It’s me,” he said. “It’s Hank.”

  “No,” she said again in a low voice. “You’re the bad guy.” She looked up into Hank’s face and instantly burst into tears, running off toward the bathroom.

  He turned to face Samantha. “Crap,” he said. “Sorry.”

  Samantha frowned.

  And then a blast rocked the room.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  GLASS FLEW FROM the window behind Samantha as she fell to her knees. She heard Gina scream, and then heard thumps as things fell from the shelves in the storage room.

  Earthquake? No, an earthquake jolted and rolled—it wasn’t a blast like that had been.

  From outside the now smashed window, she heard a hissing noise, and then a series of pops, similar to but louder than her stove made when it didn’t want to light. She saw a jet of flame from the sidewalk and then another one join it in the middle of the street. She bit back her own cry. There wasn’t time to freak out. She had to get her students to safety.

  “Back door,” she yelled.

  Hank had already ripped off his padded suit, and had the back door propped open in seconds.

  “I’m getting Linda,” he said to her. “Keep everyone behind the building. Go toward whatever’s not smoking. I’m right behind you.”

  “What do you—”

  “Gas line rupture. Has to be.”

  Now she could smell it, the sulfuric odor of natural gas.

  And if she could smell it, that meant it was in the air. If it was in the air, it could blow…

  “Go!” she urged Dot and Kayla. “Move your feet. Everyone out. Hank’s getting Linda.”

  She herded the seven women outside, looking over her shoulder as she went through the door. The front windows were gone, and on the other side of them, where they could usually see cars and parking meters, she could see sheets of flame that leapt and receded. “Hank!”

  “I’m coming,” he called. He came through the side door from the bathroom, his arm around Linda’s waist. She was bleeding from the forehead.

  “What happened?”

  Linda touched her face with her fingertips as Hank led her out the back door. “I fell. What’s burning? What’s on fire?”

  Hank looked over his shoulder. “The whole damn world, I think.”

  The back side of the building opened into a parking lot, and Hank was in no way sure that they were far
enough away from the gas line rupture. The whole block could go at any minute, if it was a transmission line failure. He racked his brain to remember the PSI of the line that ran under First Street. A trans line ran through town, the kind of line that blew up to 900 PSI, the same as the line that had blown under San Bruno a few years before. That blast had taken out thirty-five houses and killed eight people. Other lower PSI distribution lines ran through Darling Bay, but try as he could, Hank couldn’t bring the map into his mind. He needed to be in the back of the rig, where he kept his own set of pre-plans in a plastic box he loaded into the engine at the beginning and end of each shift. Other guys laughed at him—there were generic pre-plans in each engine—but Hank worried about the one day they were going somewhere and they weren’t there, removed by admin for an update or a careless firefighter who didn’t remember to put them back. So he carried his own.

  Fat lot of good that would do him now.

  One thing he hoped he remembered correctly—that the lines near the water were the low-pressure ones. “Keep going,” he yelled. “Toward the marina. Go, go!” With one hand he fumbled with his cell phone, keeping his other arm around Linda who felt so limp he was worried she was going to pass out. He called dispatch, the inside line. “Lexie. What is it?”

  “I don’t have time, Hank,” the dispatcher blurted. He could hear every 911 line ringing in the background.

  “I’m on First near Lincoln.”

  “Get out,” she said. “Can you?”

  “Not the way we came. We’re headed to the water.”

  He heard the clicking of her keyboard. “How many?”

  “Nine of us.”

  “I’ve got three engines and two trucks on the way—get to the second pier on the curve. Barger’s setting up IC. He just got on scene.”

  “Gas breach?”

  “We think so. Be safe.” She hung up without saying goodbye.

  Hank led the way down First to the pier, herding the women as best be could. He couldn’t be both in front of and in back of them—he couldn’t protect them on all sides. He needed there to be five of him, but instead, there was only one.

  There was a thump to the southeast as something—probably a car or a personal propane tank—blew, and Linda screamed. Samantha let go of Kelly and came to take Linda’s other hand.

  Samantha's voice was perfect. “You can do this,” she said. “We have you. Hank and I are going to keep you safe, okay?”

  Tears coursed down Linda’s face, but she nodded. They were almost to the dock where Chief Barger was setting up incident command.

  “Get behind the engine, on the other side. As far away from the—” Hank broke off as they all saw what was happening together.

  Flames. Rising from each crack in the pavement, from every manhole in the street. Not big flames, just small licking red ones. Tentative ones.

  Holy crap. The street itself was on fire.

  The best place would be on the pier itself. “On the dock itself, on the wood, get off the pavement,” he said.

  “What if the dock burns?” Gina’s voice shook.

  “It won’t.” Hank had no idea if it would or not. “But if it does, swim.”

  Samantha met his eyes for a heartbeat, and Hank tried to say with his gaze what he was feeling—that he wanted to take her—just her—and wrap her up, lead her to where she’d be safe, and then…

  Then she broke the gaze and threw herself into herding the group to the dock. “Come on, let’s go, let’s go. Those fast feet you had on the mat? Move ‘em now. Let me see you run.”

  She was taking care of herself and those around her. Of course.

  Barger was already in the middle of doing sixteen things when Hank ran up to him. He was yelling into the radio clipped to his shoulder, and the other radio was held to his ear. He’d already unrolled the PG&E map and was staring at the lines on the grid while he marked notes on the whiteboard on the open door of his SUV.

  “Where do you want me, boss?”

  Barger barely glanced at him. “No PPEs? Just stay out of the way.”

  He didn’t have his personal protective equipment because he wasn’t on duty. His civvies wouldn’t protect him from fire, but he could still be of use. “You evacuating? I can help the cops with the knock and talk.” He was fast and because he wasn’t loaded down with gear, he could move more quickly than the cops or the other firefighters could. “Which blocks?”

  “Out. And don’t move a muscle in the direction of the fire.”

  The flames were still licking up from the street. None of the buildings on First Street had caught yet, but if the gas wasn’t capped soon, they all would, and Hank knew there was no way their small department could prevent major loss. It would take half an hour for mutual aid to roll into town, and by then, half of downtown Darling Bay could be lost.

  Maureen. But no, his grandmother would be safe if she was at home—that was almost a mile away, and she was always home this time of day, just before dinner.

  More and more sirens filled the air—engines, ambulances and trucks headed their way, and over the top of the noise whined the volunteer siren. Lexie and whoever was with her in dispatch would have started the entire department this way, along with the fifty or so volunteers that would come running when they heard the recall. Of course, they would have their PPEs cleverly stowed in their cars. The nearest station where he might find some was six blocks away, and he wasn’t leaving Samantha alone for long enough to run and grab them.

  Samantha. She wasn’t on the dock with the students anymore. His head swiveled as he tried to catch sight of her ponytail bobbing somewhere in the crowd of people who were lining themselves up on the safe side of the street, the one bounded by water. Skip Lemon raced out of his ice cream shop and leaped a low line of flame, raising gasps from the onlookers. Barger yelled, “Anyone else in there?”

  “Hardware store and the pizzeria are all clear. Monty’s checking the library, and the bar was closed, we think.”

  Samantha. Where the hell was Samantha?

  Tox, also off duty, but damn his eyes, dressed in his PPEs, race-walked Grace Rowe to the same pier where Samantha's class waited.

  Hank grabbed Grace’s elbow. “Have you seen your sister?”

  Grace’s eyes widened in horror. “No. She had her class—I thought she’d be here.” She looked down the block, to where the road curved. They could just see the bagel shop.

  “Would she—” It was a dumb question. Hank didn’t even have to finishing asking it. Of course she would.

  Hank took off at a run.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  IT WAS STUPID, she knew that. She was going to catch hell from Hank later.

  But Gus was on the sidewalk—Gus who had come back from his Costa Rica trip only because he loved his cat so much. He was wringing his hands, looking across the low, flickering flames toward the bagel store, and above it, his apartment. On his balcony next to her own, she could just make out the large orange shape of Anchor.

  It was taking both Johannes and Pastor Jacobs to hold him back and keep him from running across the street.

  But Gus wouldn’t make it if Anchor didn’t. That cat was all Gus had left in the world.

  And no one was holding Samantha back.

  All of First Street was on fire. Not the buildings, not yet, but Samantha assumed that it wasn’t long until they caught. Now it was just ripples of flame shooting up from cracks in the sidewalk and from the grates at the edge of street. And there were gaps in the flame.

  She was fast. Samantha had always been fast.

  A good block before her apartment, a block before anyone with Gus caught sight of her, Samantha raced between two jets of fire. Move, keep moving, don’t slip, don’t fall, don’t stand still.

  It was hotter than she could have imagined. She picked a good gap to run through, at least ten feet from the nearest burst of flame, but even then, the heat was intense. Her cheeks and the exposed skin on her arms hurt. The air was full of
dark black smoke and smelled of chemicals and something blacker, tar or creosote. Behind her, safe in their berths, the boats’ masts clanked as if nothing was wrong. The sun was setting, an orange dusk lowering, just like any other day in Darling Bay. The birds were gone, though. No seagulls floated above—there were no scattered cries.

  Samantha heard shouting, and ran harder. Almost there, almost there…

  The photo album. The one with the pictures of her and Grace as children in the Valley, their parents still smiling, her mother not yet in pain. She could get it, once she got to the building.

  But she didn’t think she could carry both an enormous squirming cat and the heavy photo album—not both and still get back through the flames safely. Almost as quickly as she’d thought of it, she gave up the hope of saving the album.

  Really, it wasn’t important.

  When she got to the building, Anchor wasn’t on the balcony any more. He must have gone inside. Samantha barreled around the building to the back staircase. She had Gus’s key on her ring, and she raced up the back steps so fast she stumbled on the top one.

  Gus’s lock stuck as it always did. Not now, please. She hit the door with her shoulder and the lock finally twisted. Inside, though, the orange beast was visible nowhere.

  “Anchor? Here, kitty-kitty.” As if that cat had ever done a single thing anyone had ever wanted him to.

  Maybe he’d gone from Gus’s balcony to hers? She often left her French doors open, and more than once, she’d found Anchor sleeping smack-dab in the middle of her favorite pillow.

  She tore out of Gus’s apartment and into her own.

  She’d just shut the door behind her when the explosion happened.

  The heat was a roar. An inferno.

  And it was coming from behind the bagel store. From near the staircase Samantha must have just gone up.

  Hank had no fear, no nervousness—he felt nothing other than a complete, total urgency to get there, get to her, get there now. Something was preventing him, though. He yanked his arm as hard as he could, trying to get free.