by Donna Alward
Dedication
To my furbabies, Dreamer and Boo.
Chapter One
The sound of barking warred with the dull roar of flames. Chris Jackson tapped the shoulder of the firefighter in front of him and they moved forward slowly. Two staff members were already out of the animal shelter, but Ally remained inside. With the way the smoke was increasing in the old building, Chris knew they’d better find her quick. His heart pounded and fear came knocking. Ally. And yet he took careful, deliberate steps, knowing that rushing would be his biggest mistake.
“Nothing here,” his partner said. The barking got louder. They entered the main kennel area. So far, the fire had stayed on the other side of the structure, near the storage and kitchen area. Worst thing here was the acrid smoke filling the air. But then he saw her. Shit. Even though she had a towel over her face, Chris heard her cough as she opened a cage and moved to a table, shoving the animal inside a crate.
“It’s the fire department,” he identified, not like it could be anyone else. “Come on, we’ve got to go,” he shouted above the noise.
She spun around and faced them. “Just a few more.” She coughed and gasped. “Take this crate and I’ll let out the dogs—”
“Are you crazy? You’ve got to come out now or I’ll have to carry you out.”
“I can’t leave the animals!” she shouted back. “They’re going to die in here! You can either help me or not, but I’m not leaving until they’re out!”
For God’s sake. Chris swore and looked at his partner.
“We’ve gotta go,” Mark verified.
Chris paused for a moment, just a heartbeat, and then turned to Mark. “Open the damn kennels. We can’t carry them out. We’ll have to set them free and hope they follow us.”
Mark hesitated. “All of them? Are you nuts?”
But Chris shook his head. “Ally’s not going to leave without a fight. It’ll take just as much time prying her out of here. Let ’em loose. I’m not coming back in.”
Mark started flicking cages open and coaxing dogs out of their kennels. Chris turned to Ally and gave an order that he would force her to obey if necessary. “We’re opening the cages, but that’s all. No one is coming back in here, understand?”
“But I—”
“Ally!” he shouted at her, and in the haze of smoke realized that she’d just now recognized who he was. For a split second the last three years evaporated, and he felt a real sense of fear and urgency. This was no time to mess around. No matter what had gone wrong between them before, he couldn’t let anything happen to her.
“There’s no time. That’s the deal, or I carry you out and they get left behind. I will do it,” he promised.
She rushed along a final row of smaller crates and flicked the doors open, then hefted the crate—how many cats had she stuffed in there?
“Okay!” she shouted, and Chris sighed with relief that she was going to go without more of a fight.
“Stay low!” he commanded, as they made their way out of the kennel and back to the reception area.
It was hotter out here. The fire was getting close to the main part of the building. As they moved along, Ally called for the dogs between coughing fits, shouting their names and encouraging them on. Once outside, she pulled down the towel, put the crate on the ground and dropped to her knees. Chris pulled her up, supporting her weight. “Let’s get you away from here and looked at.”
“I’ve got to go back. Chester’s so timid, he’ll never come out. And there are kittens I couldn’t fit in the crate…” She started to push him away but he caught her neatly around the waist.
“You are going to see the paramedics, and you are not going to go near that building again, you understand?” He still had his mask on but his voice was clear.
“But…but…” She turned back, anguish marking her face. “They’ll die in there, Chris!”
He wished he could say yes, but he couldn’t. Not the way the fire was spreading. “I’m sorry, Ally. It’s too dangerous, and I won’t risk your life or any of ours either.”
He looked at the shelter. Another minute or two and it would be fully involved. She pulled on his grip but he didn’t let her go. “I swear to God, you’re staying out here if I have to tie you to the ambulance.”
He lifted the crate, grabbed her arm with his gloved hand and saw her wince at the force of his grip. Okay, so she got his point. But there was no way he was letting her risk her life and the lives of the other firemen. As much as he loved animals, he…
Hmm. In his head he’d nearly said he loved her more, hadn’t he? Except he couldn’t. Didn’t.
He led her away from the building and towards the ambulance that was waiting.
Barking increased as dogs ran everywhere. There had to be at least five cats crammed into the dog crate she’d carried out—a good seventy-five pounds. And she’d lifted it as if it were nothing. He couldn’t help but feeling a grudging admiration for her tenacity. He’d underestimated her grit.
She was still coughing when they reached Gabe Brenner. Chris took off his mask and helmet and nodded at the paramedic. “Smoke inhalation,” he said, putting down the crate.
“Chris…” Her voice was raspy from the smoke.
He turned to face her again. The woman who had handed him back her engagement ring and told him she’d changed her mind. The woman who’d broken his heart three years ago. It bugged the hell out of him that he still had a weak spot for her.
“Thank you,” she said, her watery eyes filled with gratitude.
“I’ve got to get back to work.” He turned away, needing to keep perspective and not doing a great job of it. “Someone round up these dogs!” he yelled, crossing the grass.
He was going to catch hell later. Mark hadn’t looked too impressed, but Chris hadn’t wanted to leave the animals trapped inside either. He wished he could have gone back in to get the last of the shelter animals. They’d done the right thing by setting them free.
No, the person Chris was really angry at was himself. For three long years he’d convinced himself that Ally Gallant didn’t matter.
Today the cold fear in his heart had told him she still did.
Her chest still burned and her head ached. Ally stood on the grass outside the shelter, tears running down her face. The fire department was still here, putting out hotspots, but the old building had been so badly damaged that she knew it would have to be leveled.
All her hard work…gone. And the animals…
She reached in her pocket for a tissue. It could have been worse. They’d lost the three kittens and only one dog—Chester. Moose was still missing. He’d run off in the chaos, but the other dogs, all ten of them, had been found. Most were being treated at a local veterinarian’s. A few had already been fostered. For now.
But the four that had been lost still made her heart ache, and though she’d only had them a short time, she grieved for them. Chester had been a sweet Miniature Schnauzer with bad eyesight and a loving heart. The kittens—Marmalade, Jelly and Jam—had been three orange-and-white sisters from the same litter who’d been dumped on the side of the road in Canning. Ally had been going to set up their spay appointments this week so that they’d soon be ready for adoption.
She wouldn’t need to do that now.
When the fire crew finally packed up and left the scene, Ally sat down on the grass and hugged her knees. The shelter had been her labor of love, the one thing in her life that made her feel as if she amounted to something. She was twenty-five years old and what did she have to show for it? She’d done two years of university and hated it. She worked instead at a drugstore in town and lived with her parents.
Since the shelter was a charity, Ally didn’t make any money, but it didn’t matt
er. It had been her idea and she’d been the one to get backing for it. She’d done the research, looked after the legal details and sweet-talked people into sitting on the board and lending their expertise. She’d worked out a deal with a local vet for care for the animals, including spays, neuters and vaccinations.
This place was her home.
And now it was gone. She sat, shocked, stunned and grieved both for the animals she hadn’t saved and for the loss of something that had meant the world to her.
Footsteps sounded behind her. She looked up and saw Chris standing beside her, staring at the building. Her heart squeezed. It had been something, seeing him in the middle of the smoke today. In that moment, all her panic had fled. It had been a moment where all her fears, centered square in her gut, mixed with a surge of relief that he was there, a knowledge that it would be okay.
He’d been right to pull her away when she’d wanted to go back in. She didn’t want to admit that, but it was true.
“How’re you doing?” he asked quietly.
“I’m okay. Could have been worse. Gabe let me go.”
“Putting a towel over your face was pretty smart.”
She shrugged.
“And staying inside was stupid. You could have been seriously hurt, Ally. Killed, even, if you’d been unconscious and we couldn’t find you.”
The raw edge of his voice made her tears well up again. Stupid. That was her. She knew what people thought of her in this town. It wasn’t that they disliked her. They just accepted that she was none too bright. She made up for it by being friendly and outgoing.
Sometimes it was exhausting.
“I had to try to get them out. I couldn’t just leave them all in there to die.”
But Sue and Laverne had. They had pulled the alarm and gone out front to wait for the fire department, just like they were supposed to. For a moment, Ally was angry. If there’d been three of them, they might have been able to get all the animals out in a shorter amount of time.
She looked up. “Did you get in trouble?”
His gaze was inscrutable. “I’m not heartless, Ally. We do try to save people’s pets if it’s possible. Let’s just say that right now Mark’s none too happy with me and I’m taking a fair bit of ribbing down at the station.”
So he was in trouble. Because of her. “I know I should say I’m sorry, but—”
“But you’re not. I know.”
She pushed up off the ground and brushed off the back of her pants. She still smelled like smoke and Chris had showered the stench away, smelling now like soap and clean clothing. His short military-style-cut hair was precisely in place, while her dirty-blonde locks hung limp around her shoulders.
She already felt inferior around him, and this wasn’t helping at all.
“Just so you know, there’ll be an investigation as to the cause of the fire.”
She tilted her head to look up at him. “Why would you feel you had to mention that? Do you think I had something to do with it?”
His brows pulled together. “Of course not.” He paused. “Did you?”
Her humiliation was complete. She turned around and punched him in the arm. “I can’t believe you’d ask that. Go away, Christopher.” Anger and grief and impotence all seemed to wind their way through her veins. “Just go away.”
He shrugged and turned away. “Just don’t touch anything,” he said over his shoulder.
“I’m not stupid,” she called after him, the words laced with derision.
He stopped, turned around and faced her again, his hands on his hips. “I never said you were. I’m assuming you want to know what happened here today because it meant so much to you. That’s all.”
Ally bit down on her lip. Was she overreacting? It had obviously been a stressful day. But look at Chris. He was unflappable. He never flew off the handle or did anything impulsive. And perhaps that had been the problem all along. He’d had everything planned out in stages, and Ally had felt the walls closing in around them. He made decisions and she didn’t know what she wanted. It had all been rather intimidating. And while he’d been sure that being a firefighter was what he wanted to do, she’d been afraid. Afraid for him, afraid of losing him someday. Afraid that if she became his wife she’d always be the one in the supporting role. What would happen to her if anything happened to him?
She hadn’t even known what she wanted from life yet and he’d been pressing her to set a date.
“I do want to know what happened. The building is old. I suppose it could have been anything.”
“So let them do their job. Go home and shower, get some rest.”
“I need to check on the animals. They’re at the clinic and—”
“Take a shower and put on some clean clothes,” he suggested, making her feel dowdy and insignificant again. “Trust me. The animals aren’t going anywhere in the next few hours.”
It irked her that he was right. She felt and smelled disgusting. She’d go home and take a hot bath and figure out what happened next.
And then she’d visit the clinic. There were things to be done. Most of all she wanted to see the animals. To see the tail wags and hear the purrs. When everything around her was going wrong, their unconditional affection never failed to perk her up.
“Okay.”
“Do you want a lift?”
She knew she should say no. This was the most she and Chris had spoken since their breakup. It was only a ten minute walk, after all. But it had been an extremely long day and she was wrung out. “A drive would be great, actually.”
She reached for her purse out of habit, but it wasn’t there. It had been in the office and she’d forgotten it in the panic to free the animals. “Crap,” she muttered, shoving her hands in her pockets. Tomorrow she’d have to start the annoying task of replacing all her identification and cards.
“What’s wrong?”
She sighed. “My purse. It was inside.”
Chris just smiled. “So your priority was the animals and not your purse. Admirable.”
She followed him across the grass to where his truck waited, parked along the curb. “Maybe, but it’s going to be a pain in the ass replacing all my stuff.” The least of it was the forty dollars she’d had in her wallet.
He opened her door and shut it behind her once she was settled on the seat. She watched as he jogged around the hood of the truck. He’d gotten so big, so muscled. His uniform had concealed his physique with its bulkiness, but in his jeans and T-shirt she could see his figure with disturbing clarity.
Growing up in the same town, she’d always known who he was. He was a few years older than her and she’d watched, fascinated, as he’d outgrown his boyish lankiness and become a man. When they’d started dating, he’d always stayed in shape by playing hockey and softball, but now… Now it was like he’d settled into his body. A man’s body, filled with easy confidence. She generally tried to ignore the gossip around town, but she couldn’t imagine that he spent too many Saturday nights alone. She couldn’t be jealous. She’d been the one to set him free, after a year of dating and a couple of months of wearing his ring.
He hopped up beside her and started the engine. “Look,” he said, pulling away from the curb. “I’ll tell the inspectors to have a look for your bag. There’s always a chance it made it through. It’ll stink to high heaven, but you might be able to salvage your ID.”
She swallowed, once more aware of how gross she looked and smelled. “Thank you, Chris. I really appreciate that.”
He shrugged. “You’ve had a rough day. Are you sure you’re okay?” He stopped at a stop sign and looked over at her.
“I’m fine,” she insisted, but she suddenly felt cold and scared and threads of panic jolted through her body. “I just need…I need…” Good God, she needed to put an entire sentence together, didn’t she? But it was suddenly like everything that had happened bulldozed her, leaving her reeling and unsure. “A shower.” It was the only thing she could think of that made sense.
They turned a corner and she could see her house. Her mother’s car was in the driveway and Ally knew that she couldn’t face her mom and dad, not yet. Her mom would fuss and flutter and her dad would start lecturing about how foolish it was to start the shelter in the first place. It was too much to deal with, and the panic welled up as Chris’s foot touched the brake. “No!” she gasped, gripping the door handle until her fingers went white. “I can’t go home. I can’t face them yet. Dammit.”
Chris put his foot on the accelerator and kept going. Ally let out a breath of relief.
“You need to let them know where you’ll be,” he advised. “They’ll worry.”
He was right. “My cell is in my purse,” she answered, trying to exhale long breaths and regain some sort of composure.
“Use mine. You can come to my place for a while.”
“Your place?” Oh goodness, that probably wasn’t a good idea. None of this was a good idea, and yet the whole day had been a disaster. What was one more?
“Unless you have somewhere else you want to freak out?”
“Freak out?” She straightened her spine. “Excuse me, but I think I’m entitled to a minor freak out after what happened today.”
Infuriatingly calm, Chris grinned. “I never said you weren’t. I’d be surprised if you didn’t, really. So you can come back to my place and freak out in privacy so no one will have to witness it. I don’t mind.”
Something twisted inside her. She didn’t want to fall apart. She especially didn’t want to fall apart in front of Chris. It would be humiliating. He already thought she was a little flighty and scattered, didn’t he? She swallowed thickly. Her throat was sore. You can never settle on anything, he’d accused her, condemnation in his eyes. You can’t expect me to chase you forever.
Suddenly her eyes were burning in addition to her throat.
“Don’t worry,” Chris said quietly. “I’ve seen it plenty of times before. When the danger and fear is over and people relax, then they really get scared. You’re not the first, Ally.”
She supposed his words were meant to comfort, but instead there was a sinking sensation, an emptiness left inside her. No, she wasn’t the first. She’d never come first at anything. It wasn’t news, but somehow it was different thinking it to herself and hearing it from someone else.