RUNAWAY

by Christie Ridgway

  Would that be as satisfying as the important work of a first responder?

  She glanced around, realizing he wasn’t beside her any longer. Instead of walking up the path that led to the front door of the facility, Owen was halted at the bottom of it, his jaw set, his expression grim. Her heart squeezed again and she retraced her steps.

  “Owen?” She touched the back of his hand.

  He shook himself and gripped his cane tighter. “Let’s go in,” he said, starting forward.

  “All right.” Without thinking twice about it, she wove her fingers with those of his sticking out of the cast. “Let’s go in.”

  Of course that gesture wasn’t casual. Maybe it appeared friendly, though, because as they breached the threshold to the fire station, the first person they ran into by the front desk—Will—didn’t even blink to see them so connected.

  “Owen.” He grinned, but didn’t reach out for the customary handshake.

  She wondered about that for a second, until she realized that Owen wasn’t stretching his palm toward his friend, either. No, he was still holding on to his cane and Izzy like lifelines.

  He didn’t even notice, she thought, glancing over. She didn’t think he noticed Will, either, because his attention was focused exclusively on an enlarged photograph set up on an easel at the far corner of the building’s foyer.

  A photograph of Jerry Palmer.

  There was a massive pile of flowers and stuffed animals and hand-lettered notes at the foot of the easel. As they watched, a boy, accompanied by his mother, placed a bear dressed in a firefighter’s uniform beside a mass of autumn-colored chrysanthemums.

  The child turned, and his gaze snagged on Owen. “Mom!” he said in a loud voice, tugging at her sleeve so he could tow her in their direction. “Look, it’s Mr. Marston.”

  The boy’s mother was blond and shapely, in cropped jeans, sneakers and a V-necked T-shirt that revealed a little too much cleavage, if Izzy were asked to offer an opinion. Her glossy mouth turned up in a delighted smile as she and the boy surged forward.

  “Owen!” she said, reaching out both hands.

  Oh, so now he let go of his wife and allowed the blond cutie to squeeze his fingers. “I’m so glad to see that you’re on the mend,” she said, beaming.

  He smiled back, though it did look a tad automatic. “Better every day,” he said, and then he reached out to ruffle the boy’s hair. “And thanks for the get-well card you sent, Ryan. The licorice, too.”

  The kid glanced up at his mom and then back at his apparent hero. “It was Mom’s idea. I wanted to lend you my game system, but she said with your broken arm and all…”

  Owen held up his cast. “Just the wrist, but it does seriously affect my Halo score.”

  “Can I sign it?” Ryan asked, looking at the bright blue plaster with the envy only a kid could have for such a device. “You don’t have any signatures. You’re supposed to have people write their names and stuff.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Owen put on another of those forced-looking smiles. “Why don’t you be the first?”

  The boy’s grin split his face. “Mom, do you have a pen?”

  She shook her head, and then Will stepped in. “Ryan, come with me and we’ll rustle up a marker.”

  The two took off, leaving Izzy and Owen and Ryan’s mom, who for the first time seemed to notice someone other than Izzy’s husband. Her gaze ran over Izzy, from the top of her hair to the heels of her boots.

  Straightening her spine a little, Izzy was pleased that while her jeans were on the battered side, her black boots were new and oh-so-much chicer than the other woman’s soccer-mom footwear. Okay, Izzy wasn’t all that proud of herself for the thought, but the blonde was, well, blond. And busty.

  The busty blonde held out her hand to Izzy. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. I’m Alicia Ayers.”

  Alliterative Alicia wasn’t wearing a wedding band. “Izzy Cavaletti,” she said, shaking hands.

  “I know Owen because, well, he saved our lives.”

  “Did he?” Izzy turned to look at the man in question, who had been hailed by another firefighter and was slightly turned away.

  “Ryan and I were in a rollover car accident a few months back. We landed upside down in a ditch and the first to arrive on scene were Owen and Jerry Palmer.” Her pretty mouth turned down. “They stayed with us and kept us calm until the right kind of equipment was brought to pry us out.”

  “I’m glad you were both okay.”

  “Me, too.” The blonde’s gaze darted to Owen again. “We’ve been friends ever since. I’m divorced, and Ryan has taken a real shine to Owen.”

  “I’ll bet.” And Izzy bet that Ryan wasn’t the only one who had taken a shine to the man who was now extending his cast for the boy to sign. She looked back at the divorcee, whose gaze was resting fondly on the—boy?—man? “Owen is surely easy to, um, like.”

  “So…” The other woman looked back at Izzy, paused, then shrugged, as if she’d lost a debate with herself. “How are you two acquainted?”

  Izzy glanced at Owen again. Someone had pulled up a chair for him so he could get off his feet. He had his cast propped on his knees and was watching while the youngster drew a picture along the plaster. His expression was open, easier than it had been since she’d come to Paxton and found him lying in the hospital bed.

  It reminded her of how he’d struck her in Las Vegas. A big man with a big smile, friendly and confident enough not to hesitate to greet his best friend’s girl’s best friend. He hadn’t hesitated to dance with her, kiss her, make her crush on him just a little, and just enough to get her to go ahead and say “I do” when Elvis stood before them with his guitar strapped across his chest and a Bible in his hand.

  So Izzy didn’t hesitate now. Fully aware she could claim a casual friendship with him, or even “home health worker” status like she had with Mr. Marston, she instead looked the pretty divorced woman right in the eye and said, “I’m his wife.”

  Hey, it was only the truth, wasn’t it?

  The woman’s baby blues flared wide and then Izzy felt the heat of a stare on her backside. Uh-oh. She didn’t think Owen was admiring her bottom, not at the moment anyway. He was more likely aghast at how she’d just complicated his romantic life with Alicia.

  But had Cutie Pie been making him grilled-cheese-and-tomato sandwiches? Had she been pouring his milk over ice? Had she spent a night in his bed and—

  Oh. She didn’t want to go there. She didn’t want to know if the woman’s gratitude had been expressed in ways other than greeting cards and candy.

  “Isabella?” The low note in Owen’s voice did not spook her. It did not.

  She just had a sudden hankering for some of those refreshments she saw stacked on a table across the foyer. “Excuse me,” she said, with a polite smile for the divorcee. Owen she didn’t dare look at. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Just as soon as she got her emotions under control. First it was lust and now it was jealousy. Goodness. She needed to work on her perspective. She scurried away, heading for the bin of bottled water. As she reached for one, her hand collided with that of someone else.

  “Oops,” she said, and looked into the face of another woman. Younger than Alicia. Younger than Izzy. She had red-rimmed eyes, and the tip of her nose was pink. Her belly stuck out like a beach ball.

  And Izzy was assaulted by yet more emotions as she surmised the identification of the very pregnant person with whom she was playing tug of war with a bottle of water. Her eyes pricked in sympathy and her stomach rolled as she thought back to the tragic fire.

  This had to be Ellie Palmer. Jerry’s widow.

  Izzy’s head had no control over the knowledge that speared straight into her heart. This young woman had lost her husband that night, just as Izzy could have lost hers.

  Owen looked after the woman running away from him, for a moment distracted by the upside-down heart shape of her cute, denim-covered bu
tt. And Izzy thought boys hadn’t noticed her in high school. That might only be because she wasn’t looking behind her as she walked off.

  “So, you’re married?”

  Alicia’s voice jerked his attention her way. “Uh…”

  “You never mentioned it.” Two lines appeared between her brows, and the sharpness in her voice had her son glancing up from the dragon/tiger/ eagle—it could have been any or all—he was penning on Owen’s cast.

  “It’s sort of a recent thing.”

  She was still frowning. “You didn’t strike me as a man interested in marriage.”

  Funny, because he’d never thought about the marriage deal one way or another. His parents had a great one, and he’d probably taken it for granted, because he hadn’t considered how he would achieve such a partnership like that for himself. It wasn’t that he was against it, exactly, but…

  Alicia was right, before he hit Las Vegas and looked in the velvet-brown eyes of one Isabella Cavaletti, he hadn’t thought about himself and marriage at all. But then he’d met her, touched her, smiled into her eyes, and there had been that connection. They’d instantly clicked in a physical way, and then there was their mutual misheard lyrics idiosyncrasy—”Hold me closer, Tony Danza.” Which of course sounded like a damn stupid reason to wed a woman, but there he’d been, at the altar, a big ol’ contented grin on his face.

  “There!” Ryan crowed, straightening from the work he was doing on Owen’s cast.

  Owen looked down at the creature crawling across the plaster. “Looks great. Thank you.”

  The boy grinned. “It’s your warrior. With your arm broken and your legs not one hundred percent, this guy’ll step up and do your battles for you.”

  “Hey, I appreciate it.” Owen smiled, because the kid made him think of Bryce. And looking at the kid’s towhead, it made him think of…himself.

  Good God. It made him think of himself as a father. Damn. There was a completely new, completely baffling idea. A boy like Ryan. A mother, like…

  Like…

  His gaze lifted. A mother not like Alicia. And not that there was anything wrong with her. She was beautiful and a devoted mom. But when he thought about the next generation, his next generation, he could only think of one woman…

  Hell. He was thinking of Izzy, of course.

  And he needed to find her. Be near her. Now.

  With a gentle hand, he ruffled Ryan’s hair. “Thanks so much for what you drew.” His gaze lifted to Alicia. “Thanks so much for…”

  He broke off. Because he couldn’t articulate what she’d demonstrated. It wasn’t fully formed in his mind, not yet. It still was a vague, amorphous…something.

  Alicia was looking at him, her mouth quirked in a bemused smile. “Well, congratulations on your marriage,” she said. She looked over his shoulder and he glanced back, seeing that her gaze had drifted to the enlarged photo of Jerry. “And remember that we shouldn’t waste time with anything but happy.”

  The happy that the dead man couldn’t experience anymore.

  On that, Owen’s upbeat mood surge disappeared. But not the need to find Izzy. She was his means to getting home, he told himself. That’s why he needed her more than ever.

  Pushing up from the chair he was in, he accepted the cane that Ryan immediately handed him. “Thanks, pal,” he said, his right hand closing over the handle. He gave the kid a smile that felt as forced as he was sure it appeared.

  Looking around the small crowd in the foyer, he saw Izzy’s dark head. Focusing his gaze there, he threaded through the people, touching the back of her shoulder once he reached her.

  She turned. There were tears in her eyes.

  “Sweetheart.” He frowned, his hand trailing down her arm. Concern for her added to his own low mood. “What’s the matter?”

  Izzy shifted so that he could see she’d been conversing with another young woman. Oh. Oh, God.

  Ellie Palmer.

  Images slammed into him again. Fractured pictures from that night and from his recurrent nightmare. He smelled smoke and he heard shouts and the gnawing, crunching sound that flames made as they ate at a structure. His vision dimmed and it was only Jerry’s grin he could see, flashing on and off like the strobe on top of the fire engine.

  “Owen. Owen. Are you okay?”

  He blinked, startled to find himself outside the station and limping across the parking lot toward his car. Izzy had her hand in the crook of his elbow, above his cast, and was leading him like a blind man.

  Embarrassment shot through him. He stumbled, and Izzy clutched tighter, keeping him upright.

  “Are you okay?” she asked again.

  He felt like such an idiot, he couldn’t look at her. “I’m fine,” he managed to get out. “Just fine.”

  “You’re not,” she answered, unlocking the passenger door for him. “And I know it. So don’t even try the macho baloney with me.”

  He climbed into the car instead of answering. Once she was in her seat, she shut her door then started the car and pulled out of the parking spot. “I thought I was going to lose it, too, when I first realized it was her,” Izzy said softly.

  He kept staring out the window.

  “Then I decided that my little breakdown wasn’t going to help. So we talked about the baby. It’s a boy. She’s going to name him Alexander Gerald Palmer. Alexander is the name of Jerry’s dad.”

  Owen’s hand tightened on the crook of his cane until his knuckles were white. He couldn’t think of one damn thing to say.

  “She and Jerry painted the nursery with pale-blue and yellow stripes. It’s all ready for the baby.”

  Jerry’s baby. The baby he would never see.

  “And—”

  “Damn it, Izzy!” he burst out. Emotion broke over him again, like a cold, clammy sweat. “Do you think this is what I want to hear?”

  “No,” she answered, her voice quiet. “But I want to help, and your wall of silence isn’t making things better, either. I know you’re hurting, and I’d like to find some way to make it better.”

  Her words, her tone, took the fight out of him. It wasn’t her fault. It was his, wasn’t it? That night of the fire, he should have foreseen, he should have felt that things would go south. As Izzy drove, he ran everything he could remember through his head. It continued to be hazy in some places, but he forced every memory back that he could, from the first moment of the call until he’d felt the world cracking beneath his feet. How had it all gone so wrong?

  He was barely aware that they’d made it home and that he and Izzy were slowly climbing the stairs to the bedroom. Still preoccupied with the past, he dropped down onto the edge of the bed. “I should be the one who’s gone,” he murmured, finally articulating the thought that had been hounding him since he woke up in the hospital.

  Izzy sat on the mattress beside him. He looked into her eyes, their velvet darkness trained on his face, and for the first time spoke the words that had been sitting like acid in his belly for the last four weeks. “I would give anything to go back and have the one who is alive be Jerry.”

  She brushed her fingers through his hair, pushing it off his forehead. “I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

  It was the exact right response, he realized. She didn’t try talking him out of the feeling, she didn’t try telling him that he should be happy he was alive, which he’d either told himself a hundred times or had heard from his family and friends. Izzy accepted his words, even seemed to understand them, and he couldn’t begin to tell her how grateful he was for that.

  Her fingers combed through his hair again and she leaned up to press a gentle kiss on his mouth. It was sweet, as understanding as her words, as soothing as her touch, but it ignited him all the same.

  His good hand came around to the back of her head to keep her mouth centered on his. He deepened the kiss, surging into the wet heat of her mouth. He needed this, too, her understanding and this powerful sexual connection of theirs.

  “Izzy?”
he murmured against her mouth.

  “Yes.” She was already pulling the tails of his shirt out of his jeans. The fabric slid against his belly, making him shudder. Her small fingers went to work on the buttons even as he tried yanking off her sweater with his one good hand.

  Their frantic fumbling might have been funny, and under other circumstances they might have laughed, but seriousness lay over them like a blanket. It slowed their movements, too, so that when they finally were naked from the waist up, it seemed like it took a week for her to respond to the press of his hand on the smooth, hot skin of her back. When the hard tips of her nipples finally met his chest wall, they both gasped.

  They collapsed onto the mattress, their mouths meeting, melding, the heat between them making it imperative that he get them out of their pants. His hand popped open the snap of her jeans and yanked down her zipper. A small triangle of cherry-red fabric distracted his purpose and he slid is hand beneath it—to find her already hot and wet and so soft that his fingers curled into her as he groaned his approval against her mouth.

  She bucked against his hand, her torso twisting against his so that her nipples dragged through the hair on his chest. He slid another finger into her, filling her, and her hips jerked hard. His thumb easily found the center of her pleasure at the top of her flowered sex. He rolled over it, once, twice, while Izzy moaned into his mouth.

  She grabbed his wrist. “Owen, stop. I’m…almost, I…don’t…”

  Yeah, she was almost there. He could feel it in the tension of her muscles and see it in the flush on her face. “But I do, Izzy,” he said, continuing to stroke the sleek heat between her legs. “I do need this.”

  After the disastrous outcome of that fire, he needed to have control of something, and taking charge of her pleasure was calming the roil of emotions that had been churning in his gut all day. Drawing his mouth away from hers, he trailed it across her cheek, her ear, and then down her neck. She bowed into him, her body squeezing his invading fingers, her breath coming fast. He glanced up, their eyes met, and he watched the orgasm crash over her.