Her Only Hero

by Marta Perry

  “Don’t ask me.” She pushed her hair back in a weary gesture. “Every day it seems Potter’s handing me a request for something else, and I don’t have the time or money to fight them.”

  He felt a sharp spurt of annoyance toward Brad Potter. “Well, look, don’t worry about this one. I think I can probably rig the lights so that the shutters hide the mechanism. They can’t ask for more than that. You have a right to be safe, whether it’s historically accurate or not. If the committee doesn’t agree, I’ll bring the fire department down on them.”

  “You shouldn’t have to work on those lights again. You’ve done enough. I can—”

  “I’ll do it. I have all day, remember?”

  His cell phone picked that moment to ring. He yanked it out of his pocket impatiently. “Flanagan.”

  The voice at the other end was North’s. He turned away slightly so that Laura couldn’t read his expression.

  “I’ll be right there.” He snapped it off.

  “What is it? What’s happened?” Laura’s face had paled.

  Obviously he hadn’t done a very good job of hiding what he felt. He may as well tell her—it was probably all over the news already anyway.

  “That was North. There’s been another arson attempt, two blocks over.”

  “Was anyone—”

  “No,” he said quickly. “Apparently the fire fizzled out. They didn’t even discover the damage until an hour ago, and it must have been started during the night.”

  “Another one, that close.” Her brown eyes were huge and dark.

  He clasped her hands in a quick, hard grip. “Look, this might be good news. The guy’s made a mistake, and that might lead us to him.”

  “Right.” She took a breath, obviously trying for control. “You have to go. Thanks for this morning.”

  “I’m glad I was here. And please, don’t worry about those lights. I’ll do them as soon as I can.”

  He bent to give Mandy a quick hug. He straightened, wishing he could do the same to Laura.

  But he shouldn’t. He turned and went quickly to the car before he could give in to the impulse.

  Chapter Eight

  Supper was over, Mandy in her pajamas, and still she hadn’t heard anything from Ryan. Laura leaned against the window, hand pressed on the smooth pane, looking down at the street. Nothing. He hadn’t come, he hadn’t called.

  Well, Ryan didn’t have to report in to her. They didn’t have that sort of relationship.

  Evading the question of what sort of relationship they did have, she turned to Mandy. “How about watching a video before bedtime?” she signed.

  Mandy nodded and ran to the video cabinet to pull out her favorite and slide it into the machine. Laura had to smile at her absorbed expression as the familiar story started. Videos didn’t take the place of an old-fashioned bedtime story, but they did have their uses.

  She realized she was starting toward the window again and turned away, busying herself with picking up the newspaper she’d left on the floor. The morning paper hadn’t had a story about the latest fire, but she’d watched a brief report on the television news.

  It hadn’t given her much information she didn’t already have from Ryan, but the images of the scorched porch had chilled her with their reminders. The owners of that building had been fortunate, though. The fire had gone out quickly, doing little but cosmetic damage.

  The television reporter had speculated, of course, about the possibility of a firebug in their midst. If there was a pyromaniac on the loose, it was odd that he’d failed so badly in this effort. Perhaps someone or something had frightened him away before he could be sure the fire caught.

  Her pacing had taken her to the window that overlooked the alley. And the lights. The note from Bradley Potter lay on the table, seeming to look at her accusingly.

  A wave of restlessness went through her. Ryan had said he’d fix the lights, but he hadn’t come. What if someone from the historical preservation committee happened by tonight and saw that she hadn’t heeded their warning?

  Logic said the committee would hardly expect her to have fixed the problem in a single day, but she was driven by something stronger than logic.

  Ten days until Mandy’s surgery. She couldn’t afford to be held up endlessly by the preservation committee. Even if Ryan was right about the power of the fire-safety regulations against the preservation committee, that could take time. She couldn’t risk delay.

  Mandy was snuggled up on the sofa, already half asleep. She tucked the afghan over her and put the monitor next to her pillow.

  “I have to go out back and do some work, sweetheart. Just tap the monitor if you want me, okay?” They’d rigged up the method of signaling when she’d realized Mandy was old enough to have her mother a few rooms away at times.

  Mandy nodded, staring past her mother to the screen. Laura bent to drop a kiss on her cheek and then hurried down the stairs. She switched on lights as she went. It was already dusk. If she were going to rig up something to hide the light fixtures, she’d have to do it now.

  Leaving the back door ajar, she put the monitor on the window ledge. Strains of music from the video floated through it, nothing else. Mandy was only a flight of stairs away, she reminded herself.

  She looked up at the lights, seeing what Ryan had meant about the shutters. They could be pulled out to hide the fixture without covering the electronic eye that detected movement. She ought to be able to do a temporary fix, leaving a more permanent solution until later.

  The long aluminum ladder still lay in the back hallway where Seth and Ryan had left it. She manhandled the ladder out the door and up, surprised by its weight. The ladder swayed a bit before slithering into place against the house.

  Okay, she could do this. It wouldn’t even require tools to pull the shutters out. She grasped the ladder, shaking it to be sure it was stable as she’d seen her father do hundreds of times.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind a caution sounded, but she ignored it. A few minutes and she’d be done. She started up the metal rungs.

  She’d been climbing ladders since she was a kid. This was nothing. Halfway up, she glanced down at the concrete alley. Well, it wouldn’t be a pleasant fall, but she didn’t intend to fall.

  Finally high enough, she reached out. The shutter was just beyond her fingertips. She should have set up the ladder closer to the window, but she could manage. Grasping the ladder with her left hand, she reached out with her right, straining toward the shutter.

  The ladder shuddered. It swayed. A spasm of fear clutched her stomach. She braced her hand against the brick wall, fingers scrabbling to find something to hang on to.

  Nothing. She couldn’t hold it, it was going to fall—

  “Laura!” The fear in Ryan’s shout echoed hers.

  She didn’t dare move to look down, but she knew he was there, grabbing the ladder, steadying it, slamming it into place with the strength of his body.

  “Get down. Now.” His voice grated in a way she’d never heard before.

  She was too grateful to take offense. Clutching the cold aluminum with both hands, she slithered her way down the ladder. Her legs shook, and she seemed to have left her stomach up there someplace, but she was all right.

  She slid the last few rungs and felt Ryan’s hands grab her firmly, almost angrily.

  “Are you crazy?”

  He was shaking. Ryan forced himself to push down the emotions that raged through him. He wanted to shake Laura silly for scaring him that way. Or kiss her senseless.

  Fortunately he had just enough control to know that neither of those were good options. Still, he couldn’t quite hold his voice steady.

  “Are you trying to hurt yourself? That aluminum ladder is dangerous. I wouldn’t go up it without someone steadying it, and there you were—”

  He stopped. He was wrong. He didn’t have enough control to keep his hands off her. He backed up a step.

  Laura had sense enough to look embarra
ssed. “I thought I could go up and do a temporary fix on the lights. Just in case someone from the historical preservation committee came by tonight.”

  That brought his anger bubbling again. “I told you I’d take care of it.”

  Her stubborn chin firmed. “It’s not your problem. It’s mine.”

  He was actually grinding his teeth in frustration. “Will you please listen to yourself? You’re being irrational. The committee certainly wouldn’t expect you to have the things fixed in twelve hours, no matter how fanatical they are.”

  “I thought—”

  “You didn’t think.” He had enough control by now to touch her again, so he gave her a gentle push toward the door. “Go inside, will you? If it’s that important to you, I’ll take care of hiding the lights.”

  “Not without someone holding the ladder.” She shot the words back at him. “That’s what you said.”

  Somehow he didn’t appreciate having his own words used against him. “Right. Fine.” He repositioned the ladder, making sure it was right next to the window. “You hold. I’ll fix.”

  Now was not the time to point out that she probably wasn’t strong enough to hold the ladder if it started to fall. It didn’t matter, because he could do this in his sleep.

  He scrambled up. The shutters shrieked as he pulled them out to hide the light fixtures. If not for the protective mesh screening the window, they could have done this a lot more safely from the inside.

  “Good enough.”

  He climbed back down again and grasped the ladder, the aluminum cold against his fingers. Laura hurried to help him lower it against the wall. A splatter of rain hit the pavement as they did so.

  “Let’s get inside.” He wasn’t going to wait for her to invite him in. He still had a few words to say to Laura, but they may as well be said someplace a little drier.

  At least she didn’t try to get rid of him. She hurried inside, ducking her head against the raindrops, and let him drag the ladder in and lock the back door. She was through the front room and halfway up the steps by the time he’d done that.

  He followed more slowly. Was Laura trying to evade the scolding she no doubt knew he planned? Or just anxious to check on her daughter?

  When he reached the second-floor living room, she was scooping up the sleeping child from the sofa.

  “I’ll put her to bed and be back in a minute,” she murmured, avoiding his eyes.

  He nodded. The television screen danced with a popular children’s video. He found the remote and clicked it off. He didn’t want singing animals as a counterpoint to the conversation they were about to have.

  Not conversation. Lecture. His imagination replayed the scene he’d found when he’d walked into that concrete alley behind the house. He couldn’t shut the image off the way he had the video.

  Laura, clinging to the top of the swaying ladder. Laura, ready to smash to the pavement below.

  He’d seen plenty of his fellow firefighters in danger. It had never affected him the way this had.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He hadn’t heard her come out of Mandy’s room, but she stood a few feet away. Her dark eyes were so huge and apprehensive that some of the anger drained out of him.

  “If you think an apology is going to save you from a lecture, you’re wrong.”

  She shook her head. “I guess I shouldn’t have tried it without someone to hold the ladder.” The thread of defensiveness that underlay the words told him she wasn’t ready to admit how foolish it had been. “Thanks for showing up when you did.”

  If he’d come sooner, she wouldn’t have had to try it. That thought did nothing to ease the turmoil inside him. He crossed the space between them in a couple of steps and grasped her shoulders.

  “You scared me, Laura. I know I don’t have the right to tell you what to do, but I don’t want to see you get injured for the sake of a stupid light.”

  Especially one he’d put up. If he’d foreseen the problem, he’d have hidden the fixtures to begin with.

  “I didn’t get hurt.”

  “You could have.” His fingers tightened, feeling the warmth of her skin and the firmness of her muscles under the soft cotton of her shirt. “Don’t you see that?”

  Her jaw set stubbornly, and again he had to resist the impulse to shake her. Instead he turned her around, marched her to Mandy’s bedroom door, and eased it open.

  The nightlight cast a yellow glow over the sleeping child. The even murmur of Mandy’s breathing was the only sound. He eased the door closed again before he spoke.

  “Tell me,” he demanded. “What would happen to Mandy if something happened to you?”

  She whitened as if he’d struck her. “That’s not fair.” The words came out in a soft gasp.

  “I don’t care about being fair as long as I can make you think.” He clenched his fingers to keep from touching her again. “You’re all that little girl has. She can’t lose you, Laura.”

  Anger mixed with the tears that sparkled in her eyes. “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think it doesn’t keep me up at night, wondering, worrying? She doesn’t have anyone else. I have to take care of her.”

  Her pain seemed to wrap around his heart, penetrating as nothing else could. “I know.” His voice went soft. “That’s why you shouldn’t take risks.”

  She took a few steps back into the living room, shaking her head. The wiry strands of her dark hair curled around her face, and she brushed them back impatiently.

  “Don’t you see? That’s why I have to take risks,” she said. “The risk of fixing this place up, the risk of going broke, the risk that the preservation committee is going to tie me up in red tape. I’m all Mandy has, and I have to do the right thing for her.”

  “I know you’re worried about getting the house finished—” he began, not quite sure what was driving her.

  “It’s not just that. Mandy’s whole future is at stake. I have to be able to pay for her surgery.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Ten days. That’s all I have.”

  How would she react if he offered to lend her the money? Shoot him out of the water, probably. Not that he had that much to lend, but at least it would be a start. Maybe enough for the deposit the hospital required.

  “What about a loan?”

  “I’ve tried. The loan officer was polite enough not to laugh.” She rubbed her neck again, and he could guess at the tension that had taken up residence there. “If I have a signed contract with my buyer, then they’d be happy to advance me the money. Of course, if I had that, I wouldn’t need them, would I?”

  “Maybe I could help.”

  She shook her head, as he’d known she would. “I don’t borrow from friends.”

  “I want to help.”

  A faint smile teased her lips as she shot a glance at him. “Admit it. Your bank account probably looks almost as bad as mine does.”

  The trace of a smile reassured him. Laura was bouncing back. That resilience of hers was probably the only thing that kept her going in spite of all the obstacles in her path.

  “I’m sure the bank doesn’t consider me one of their prime accounts, but what I have is yours.” That sounded a little too personal. “For Mandy’s sake. Besides, I know you’re good for it.”

  The smile faded. “I’m not good for anything unless the sale goes through. There’s barely enough to—” She stopped, clamping her lips shut.

  “Laura—”

  Careful, he warned himself. Don’t get too close or she’ll shut you out.

  “I’m sorry. I know you said the building was all your husband left you, but I assumed there was insurance or something.”

  “Nothing. Like a lot of people, Jason figured he had plenty of time to worry about that.” A shiver went through her, strong enough for him to see, and she rubbed her arms. “As it turned out, he didn’t. A rainy night, an out-of-control driver on the Schuylkill Expressway, and there was no time left at all.”

  “I’m sorry.” He’d neve
r asked what happened to her husband. How dumb was that for someone who wanted to be a friend?

  Her shoulders moved in what might have been a shrug, and she wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not.” He took a step closer. He wanted to touch her, to comfort her, but her body language warned him off. “I’m ashamed that I didn’t realize how bad it was. You had to deal with the loss of the man you loved as well as the financial problems and your daughter.”

  Her face seemed to freeze. “That might be true. Except that Jason had killed whatever was left of our love a long time before he died.”

  For a moment Laura stood staring at Ryan, unable to believe the words had come out of her mouth. Then she turned away, her heart thudding in her chest.

  She didn’t talk about that. Didn’t tell anyone about Jason, whether out of loyalty or a sense of her own failure she wasn’t sure. She just didn’t.

  “Sorry.” She managed to get the word out through a tight throat.

  She heard Ryan’s step behind her and felt his hands come down on her shoulders—strong, supporting.

  “Don’t be sorry.” His deep voice had gone even deeper, as if he struggled with emotion, too. “I’m glad you said it.”

  “I don’t talk about my marriage.”

  “Maybe you should.” His grip tightened a little. “It seems to me you’re carrying an awful lot on these shoulders, Laura. Wouldn’t it ease the burden a little to share it with a friend?”

  That calm offer of friendship was the best thing he could have done, she realized. Too much sympathy would have pitched her control out the window.

  “Maybe. I don’t know.” She turned slowly to face him. “You didn’t know Jason. If you had, you might see the situation differently.”

  “I might,” he said. He took her hand and tugged her to the couch. “Come on. Sitting makes it easier to share confidences.”