Flash and Fire

by Marie Ferrarella

  Pierce rifled through what he thought was an enormous amount of clutter before he found a key ring. He shoved the keys into his pocket as he glanced at the small, heaving chest. “Put him in the shower until I get back.”

  She looked at Pierce dumbly. “The shower?’

  “Not inside,” he instructed. “Just run hot water with the door closed. The steam should help him breathe.” Pierce kissed the top of her head. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  As the door closed, Christopher’s breathing grew louder and more labored. Amanda hurried off with him to the bathroom, praying that Pierce knew what he was talking about.

  Chapter Thirty Six

  It took him close to an hour.

  With each minute, Pierce could feel himself growing edgier. He drove to four different locations. Each time the scene was repeated: The drugstore was closed. His frustration grew. He had gone to every shopping center he was familiar with in the area. Now he was just cruising and hoping he would get lucky.

  Slowly, with one eye on the road, Pierce searched a line of stores in a small strip.

  He spied a small, privately owned pharmacy on the corner of a busy street. The store was wedged in between a greengrocer that was closed and an all-night hamburger stand. The owner of the pharmacy was just locking up.

  Bringing his car to a skidding halt, Pierce double-parked and jumped out. The man was already walking down the street.

  “Hey, wait up,” Pierce called as he hurried after the man.

  The man turned around. He was a short man in his middle or late sixties with a shallow, concave chest and a mustache that resembled a small toothbrush. He looked at Pierce and shook his head. “Sorrv, I’m closed.”

  By then, Pierce had caught up to him. He placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. There was no way he was going to let him walk away.

  “I’ve got a sick baby. I need a cold mist vaporizer. I’ll pay you twice what it sells for.”

  The man stood a moment, debating with himself, then sighed.

  “C’mon in.” He led the way back. “The wife always says I’m too soft. Should’ve retired years ago,” he mumbled, more to himself than to Pierce, as he unlocked the door. “But then, what would I do? Sit and listen to her talk all day as well as all night?”

  He turned and made a face at Pierce, like a man sucking on a lemon. “I’d rather die here behind the counter, helping people get well.”

  The pharmacist ambled down one of the small, crammed aisles and picked up a box. He brought it back to Pierce. “Here, this is what you need.”

  Pierce handed him two fifties, took the box, and started to leave the store. But the pharmacist shook his head. “The price is the one on the box. I’ve been honest all my life; I’m too old to do anything different now.”

  He made change out of his own pocket, giving it to Pierce, then followed him out to close up again.

  “Hope your baby feels better. If not, there’s a hospital about two miles down the road,” the pharmacist called after Pierce.

  But Pierce was already in the car. “Thanks!” he shouted through the window as he drove away.

  The image of Christopher’s wide, frightened eyes played itself over and over again in his mind. He knew that taking Christopher into the shower was the right thing to do. He’d seen it work firsthand. But he wanted to get back to Amanda as quickly as possible, to assure her that everything was going to be all right.

  And to be there if it wasn’t.

  She’d looked so frightened when she’d turned to him, it had wrenched something inside of him.

  Damn, just look at me, he thought as he squeaked through a yellow light. This strange protective bent he was experiencing toward her, toward the boy, was getting the better of him.

  At the outset, he’d said no ties, no entanglements. That had always been his credo. But damned if he wasn’t doing it to himself. It wasn’t her fault, at least not directly. She certainly wasn’t asking anything of him; if anything, she was pushing him away. And there he was, perversely returning for more as if he were some kind of yo-yo attached to a string.

  No, it was her fault. If it wasn’t for her, he’d be free.

  It wasn’t even the sex, although that was pretty damn satisfying. It was something else, some nebulous “something” that kept pulling him back. But he’d go on resisting it as long as he could, Pierce vowed vehemently as he pulled up into her driveway. And maybe, if he continued resisting, eventually, he could walk away.

  After tonight.

  He’d barely pulled the keys out of the ignition before he was hurrying out of the car, the box with the vaporizer in his hands. He let himself in with her key.

  All the lights were on, but he didn’t hear anyone. “Mandy?”

  There was no answer.

  He stood there, looking around, the door still open at his back. For a moment, he thought she had panicked and gone to the hospital. Maybe Christopher had taken a turn for the worse.

  Anxiety tugged on the knot in his stomach.

  Pierce stepped outside again and realized that her car was still parked in the driveway. He hadn’t even seen it when he’d pulled up.

  That meant she had to be home. He raised his voice and called out her name again.

  “Mandy, are you here?”

  Still carrying the box, he crossed to the back of the house. That was when he heard the sound of running water. She was still in the bathroom with Christopher.

  “Mandy, are you in here?” Not waiting for an answer, Pierce pushed open the bathroom door. A cloud of steam billowed out, encompassing him.

  “Close the door,” she protested wearily. “You’re letting all the steam out.”

  It felt as if she’d been in there forever, but the steam was working. Christopher’s breathing was almost regular.

  Pierce shut the door behind him. The humid atmosphere enshrouded him immediately. It felt as if he were stepping into a sauna.

  “I got the vaporizer.” He set the box on the lip of the sink, then crouched down to look at Christopher. Sitting on the edge of the tub, Amanda had Christopher on her lap, her arms wrapped around the boy. Pierce passed his hand over his dampened head. “How’s he doing?”

  “Better.” The relief in her voice was almost tangible. “Your suggestion about the shower seems to have helped. I owe you one.”

  “We’ll discuss payment later.” Pierce looked at her for the first time. “You look like a drowned rat.” Grinning, he lifted a strand of her hair. It was limp and badly frizzled. “I like your new hairdo.”

  She pushed his hand away. She was tired and achy, and for a while, had been terrified of losing Christopher. “You try sitting in a steaming bathroom for an hour and see what you look like.”

  “Sounds good to me.” He rose to his feet. “But first, I think we’d better put your subdued holy terror to bed.” He picked up the box again. “Why don’t I set up the vaporizer for him first and then you bring him in and change him? He looks like he’s wringing wet.”

  Amanda nodded. “That makes two of us.” She looked at the vaporizer. “Where did you get that? I never thought you’d find someplace open.”

  He felt uncomfortable about telling her the truth. He didn’t want to give her any ideas about their relationship. He knew what women were like. Amanda would push for a commitment from him, and right now, he wasn’t certain he could resist.

  He tried to tell himself that all he was doing was helping out a friend. That there were no emotional attachments to this good deed.

  Like hell.

  “It wasn’t easy.” He opened the door. “I had to threaten a doddering pharmacy owner with bodily harm if he didn’t open up. But I think he recognized me, at the end, thanks to my extra exposure.” He grinned over his shoulder as he went to Christopher’s room. “Otherwise, the station might have two lawsuits on its hands instead of one.”

  She didn’t know whether he was telling her the truth or not and was too tired to care. All she kne
w was that Christopher was better and she owed it to Pierce.

  “C’mon, tiger,” she murmured as she rose with the boy in her arms. “I think you’re going to be all right now. Thanks to that moody guardian angel we seem to have temporarily acquired.”

  Christopher hardly heard anything his mother was saying. He looked down the hall. Pierce was just disappearing into his room.

  Exhausted eyes turned up to her. ‘”Eese?” Christopher asked.

  He could talk again, she thought as relief washed over her. She kissed his head, holding him to her breast. “That’s the one.”

  She entered Christopher’s room just in time to see Pierce snaking his way out from underneath her son’s crib. “What are you doing?”

  He sat up, brushing dust off his chest. “Plugging in the vaporizer.” Pierce scowled as he stood up. “Haven’t you got any more sense than to put the crib flush up against the only socket in the room?”

  At any other time, she might have taken offense at his tone. But gratitude balanced out a great deal. “Apparently not.”

  With Christopher in her arms, Amanda managed to open up a drawer in his bureau and take out a pair of pajamas. Quickly stripping him and toweling Christopher off, Amanda slipped the pajamas on her son.

  “There.” She smiled at the boy. “Nice and dry, which is more than I can say for your mom.”

  Pierce had placed the vaporizer on a chair and left it next to the crib. Amanda carefully laid Christopher down in his bed. She could still hear the rattle in his chest and the wheezing sound when he breathed. Renewed uncertainty filled her eyes, and she looked at Pierce.

  He switched on the vaporizer. It began to hum as tiny clouds of mist emerged.

  “That should take care of it,” he told her. Because she looked so vulnerable, Pierce slipped his hand over hers and squeezed.

  They stood in silence for a moment, watching the boy. Christopher was completely exhausted by his ordeal; his eyes slowly drifted shut. His breathing was slightly labored, but steady. As a precaution, Amanda put the intercom next to his crib just before she closed the door. The mate was in her bedroom.

  She dragged her hand through her damp hair as she turned to look at Pierce. Gratitude overwhelmed her, washing over Amanda like a huge wave.

  “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here.”

  Though a part of him was pleased, her gratefulness made him uncomfortable. It wasn’t something he was accustomed to.

  He shrugged. “You would have done what you always do—pulled through.” He looked down into her eyes and found, to his annoyance, that he had to struggle to keep his own feelings reined in. “I strongly suspect, Mandy, that if you hadn’t had anyone to turn to, you would have managed very well on your own.”

  It was a heady compliment, coming from him, but she knew herself better than he did. If he hadn’t been there, she would have been terrified. In all likelihood she would have driven Christopher to the hospital, needlessly frightening him and possibly making his condition worse.

  Amanda smiled up at Pierce. God, but it felt good, having him here to turn to. “Think you know me pretty well, do you?”

  “Yeah, I do.” His mouth curved sensuously. Or was that just her imagination? “Well enough to get you into a change of clothes.” In one fluid motion, he swept her into his arms.

  For an instant, Amanda was startled; then she settled back and absorbed the comfort of having his arms around her. “Pierce, I’m really tired,” she protested. He’d want to make love and she felt like falling on her face. She didn’t want to be a disappointment after what he’d done for her.

  He was already walking toward her room. “Don’t worry, changing clothes doesn’t take that much energy.”

  All she could manage was to slip her arms around his neck. “But being with you does.”

  “Not necessarily.” Entering, he crossed to her bed and gently set her down. He pulled open the wardrobe doors and looked around, rummaging through several things. “All right, where do you keep them?”

  She looked at him blankly. “Them?”

  “Nightgowns.” Pierce pulled the wardrobe doors shut. “Or whatever it is you sleep in when I’m not around.”

  She covered her mouth to stifle a yawn that threatened to overwhelm her. With her other hand, she pointed to the bureau. “Third drawer.”

  Pierce opened the drawer and then frowned as he went through the selection. Nothing but cotton and flannel nightgowns and a jersey or two. Nothing sheer, nothing slinky.

  Slowly, a smile took over. “Well, at least I know you’re not a closet femme fatale.” He chose a football jersey for her. “Good team.” Turning, he tossed it to her. “Catch.”

  Amanda missed it completely. The jersey fell to the floor beside her. With a sigh, Pierce strode over and picked it up.

  He stood over her, jersey in hand. “I know a damsel in distress when I see one. Lift your arms for me, Mandy, and I’ll try my damnedest to act like a candidate for wings.”

  She raised her arms as he instructed. To Amanda’s surprise, Pierce removed her clothing, then slipped the jersey on over her. He didn’t caress her, he didn’t stroke her. Instead, he did it all as gently as if he were dressing a child.

  Amanda wondered if he knew what this meant to her and how much she loved him at this moment. Probably not, she figured, because if he did, he’d probably be running out the nearest exit.

  His hands ached to touch her, but she needed rest more than he needed gratification. If there was a heaven, which he doubted, he knew he had at least made it up the first rung of the ladder tonight.

  He picked up her wet clothing. “I’ll get rid of these. You get into bed.” Then, as if he didn’t trust her to follow instructions, he tugged the sheet over her, the night being too warm for the comforter.

  Pierce shoved the clothes into the hamper in the bathroom, then stopped to look in on Christopher. The boy was sleeping soundly. Satisfied, Pierce eased the bedroom door closed and returned to Amanda.

  She was curled up on the bed, sound asleep.

  He stood looking at her, then shook his head. He should be leaving. But he wasn’t. “Man, oh man. Woman, one way or another, you’re going to ruin my reputation.”

  Getting into bed beside her, Pierce drew Amanda against him and held her while she slept.

  It felt right.

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Amanda woke up slowly, in gradual stages. She was loath to surrender the pervasive feeling of security that she knew would disappear once she was awake.

  But sleep peeled away from her in tissue-like layers and she finally opened her eyes. When she did, she realized that her head wasn’t on a pillow. It was cradled against something warm.

  Something that was breathing.

  Startled, she bolted upright. She had been sleeping on Pierce’s chest. He was sitting with his back propped up against the headboard. And he was asleep. The last thing she remembered was lying in bed, waiting for him to return. He must have slipped in next to her and gathered her in his arms.

  Tenderness filled her and she smiled.

  “Pierce?” She laid her hand on his shoulder and gently shook him.

  “Hmmm?”

  Pierce opened his eyes, waiting for the pain to fade.

  It didn’t. He realized that the pain wasn’t part of a dream. It was very real. It started in his neck and radiated through his shoulders and up his jaw.

  Served him right for being a sentimental ass. Annoyed with himself, Pierce rubbed his hand over his neck as he straightened. He felt as if he’d spent the night in a trench.

  His hair was in his eyes and he appeared exhausted. He looked, she thought, suppressing a smile, adorable. She shifted, rising up to her knees to face him. “Did you sleep like that all night?”

  He scrubbed his hands over his face, as if washing the remnants of sleep away. He felt worse than if he’d gotten no sleep at all. His answer came out before he could think to censor it.

&
nbsp; “No, most of it I just spent looking at you. I wasn’t planning on sleeping here, really.” He shrugged vaguely. I just thought I’d hold you for a while before I left. “I guess I must have dozed off.” And now he was damn sorry that he had.

  She couldn’t resist feathering a hand through his tousled hair, then pushing it from his face. “Yes, you must’ve.” He hated being caught acting sweet. Too bad; she rather liked it.

  Amanda looked at her watch. It was almost six. Christopher! she thought with a sudden start. She hadn’t looked in on him all this time.

  “God,” she muttered, scrambling out of bed. She hit the floor moving. “If they handed out grades for motherhood, I would have flunked a long time ago.”

  “His breathing’s regular.”

  Amanda stopped just short of the door and turned to look at Pierce.

  “How do you—?”

  He pointed toward the intercom she kept by her bed. “I monitored him most of the night.”

  This was a little above and beyond what she would have expected of him, even now that she knew he had a good heart.

  “Why?” Amanda crossed back to the bed and sat down on the edge. “Why would you do that?”

  He didn’t like her questioning his motives. There didn’t have to be a hidden meaning to everything he did. He’d been awake, the monitor was there, and he’d simply listened. No reason to make anything out of it. “Must be my mean streak coming out again.”

  She knew he didn’t like her probing him any more than she liked being probed. But some things had to be explored if they were ever to go forward. “No, I’m serious. Why are you being so nice?”

  He shrugged again and sighed. “Damned if I know. It’s totally out of character for me.” He twirled an imaginary mustache. “I usually find a few widows and orphans to cheat before breakfast.”

  She shook her head. One way or another, he kept hiding from the truth. “I’m beginning to think you’re not as hard as either one of us believes.”

  He had gotten his wind back and felt awake. A wicked grin lifted the corners of his mouth. “I can be if you get rid of that ridiculous jersey.”