Where There's Smoke...

by Barbara Mccauley

  Emily’s heart leapt at the sight of him, then she quickly reined her emotions in. He wasn’t here for her, she told herself. Claudia had obviously invited the Brookline fire department as her guests, which made sense, since the station worked closely with the emergency center.

  But why hadn’t Claudia told her? Emily wondered, then narrowed her eyes in annoyance when the answer became clear: because Claudia was working on more than fund-raising here. She was matchmaking.

  When Shane stepped up to Claudia, she beamed at him and kissed his cheek. Emily watched as they spoke, then both glanced in her direction.

  She’d wring her sister’s neck for this, Emily fumed, then quickly turned and made her way through the gathering crowd. She didn’t want to see Shane, didn’t want to look into his eyes or hear his voice. Didn’t want to make a fool out of herself any more than she already had.

  She thought she’d managed to lose herself in the throng of people when he suddenly had hold of her elbow. She stiffened at his touch, cursed her sister, then turned to face him.

  “Shane.” She forced a bright smile. “How nice to see you.”

  “Really.” He led her to the side of the room where there were fewer people. “I suppose that’s why you haven’t returned any of my phone calls in the past two weeks.”

  “I’ve been busy helping Claudia with the fund-raiser.” Though she was certain she’d never been a violent person, Emily had an overwhelming urge to kick Shane in his shins. Instead, she held her smile intact. “And of course, you do remember I’ve gone back to work.”

  As if he could ever forget that conversation. He’d hated the idea of her going back to work for her brother. He still did, but he knew better than to say so. Though her manner was casual and friendly, the smile on her lips clearly did not reach her eyes, and the stiff set of her shoulders told him she was not quite so aloof as she pretended.

  “Emily, I want to talk to you.” When she didn’t respond, he added quietly, “Please.”

  He was certain he saw her falter for a moment, but she quickly recovered and tugged her arm from his hand. “Of course. But this evening is very hectic, and I’ve promised my time to helping Claudia convince her donors to go that extra mile. Why don’t I call you tomorrow?”

  Like he’d believe that one. He knew a line when he heard one. God knew he’d tossed around more than his share. “Five minutes. Just give me a chance to—”

  “I gave you a chance, Shane,” she said evenly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve committed my time elsewhere.”

  Chin raised, she turned quickly and walked away. Dammit. He wouldn’t let it end like this. He wouldn’t. But short of picking her up and carrying her to a more secluded spot, he had no choice. For the moment.

  Folding his arms, he stayed on the sidelines and watched her dance with a guy who looked as if he’d sipped from silver spoons his entire life. Smiling and talking, Emily looked completely at ease with the man. When the music changed to a swing tune, the guy went into action. Laughing, Emily followed her partner’s intricate moves.

  Shane gritted his teeth, swore silently every time the man pulled Emily close. Hell, Shane thought, he could barely manage a waltz without counting.

  He watched her dance with two more guys, both smooth, both obviously in the bucks, and his mood grew darker by the minute. He’d lost her. For the first time in his life he’d found the real thing, and he’d lost it.

  She’d been right when she’d called him an idiot.

  He was heading for the exit when he saw the captain wave at him and the other men who’d been invited to the fund-raiser.

  “Party’s over,” Griff said tightly. “We’ve got a six-story apartment fire in Chinatown. Three stations have been dispatched and we’re closest. We’ll meet the trucks there and gear up.”

  Shane nodded. He hated apartment fires the most. In a large complex, there was a greater risk that someone might not get out in time.

  “Let’s go.” Shane was already tugging his bow tie off.

  He didn’t hesitate, didn’t look back. He did not want his last image of the evening to be of Emily smiling at another man.

  Three dances later, Emily escaped the ballroom and headed for the refuge of the ladies’ room. Her last dance partner, Ronald, a short, balding man who owned a chain of dry cleaners, had stepped on her toes twice, and the man before him—she couldn’t even remember his name—was a corporate lawyer from Cambridge who’d dipped her so suddenly she still had a kink in her neck.

  Slipping inside the privacy of the fully enclosed rest room stall, Emily breathed a sigh of relief and lay her forehead against the cool wood.

  Her impulse was to stay here for the rest of the night, where she wouldn’t have to look at the man who’d broken her heart. But she refused to run like a coward. She’d face the evening, and him, and pretend that all was right with the world, when in fact, it was falling apart around her.

  Her skin still burned where he’d touched her elbow. Knowing that she’d see him again when she came back into the ballroom made her knees feel weak. Damn you, Shane Cummings. She pressed a hand to her chest. Damn you.

  I can do this, Emily thought. Determined not to cry, she sucked in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Maybe she’d walk right up to him, talk to him like they were old friends. Surely she could make casual conversation with him, laugh and smile, or—

  “Emily?”

  At the sound of Claudia’s voice from the other side of the stall, Emily took another deep breath but did not respond. She wasn’t ready to speak to her sister yet, was still feeling a little betrayed that she had invited Shane here.

  “Emily, I know you’re in there. Mrs. Larsen told me she saw you go in.”

  “I—I’ll be out in a couple of minutes,” Emily said.

  “Please open the door,” Claudia insisted quietly. “I need to talk to you.”

  With no other escape, Emily sighed, then straightened her shoulders and opened the door. “I don’t want to talk about Shane, Claudia. You have guests you need to see to and we can—”

  One look at her sister’s face brought Emily up short, made her heart stop. There was more than worry in Claudia’s eyes, there was fear.

  “What’s wrong?” Emily struggled to find her voice. “What’s happened?”

  “An apartment house in Chinatown caught fire and everyone’s been called to fight it. Shane left with the other men a half hour ago.”

  He’d left? Emily stared blindly at her sister. All this time she’d been out dancing, and she hadn’t even known? She felt her stomach twist into a sick knot. “Is…is he all right?” she whispered.

  “Come sit down.” Claudia was already pulling her toward a chair in the now empty lounge area of the ladies’ room.

  “No.” Emily jerked away. “Tell me what’s happened.”

  Claudia pressed her lips together. “I just got a call from one of the crew. There’s been an explosion. Shane and two other firefighters were inside.”

  Emily started to sway, then grabbed the arm that Claudia offered. Cold dread iced her veins. “Is he…?”

  “I don’t know any more than that, Em. Come sit down. I’ll make a call and—”

  Emily drew in a breath to steady herself. “I have to go.”

  “You’re in no condition,” Claudia said. “Just let me—”

  “I’m going.” She was already headed for the door. “I have to go.”

  “I figured you’d say that.” Claudia kept in stride with Emily as they ran toward the lobby. “I already asked Mom and Dad to take over for me here and I’ve called a car to drive us over.”

  Chinatown was only a few minutes away, but sitting in the back of the limo, with the driver racing to cut the time even shorter, it felt like a lifetime to Emily. Beside her, Claudia held her hand and reassured her, but Emily didn’t hear her sister’s words. The only sound she heard was of the explosion in the warehouse the night Shane had saved her. Over and over, she heard the blast, saw th
e rain of brick and fire.

  She closed her eyes. Dear God, please let him be all right.

  Why hadn’t she given him the five minutes he’d asked for earlier? Five minutes. Perhaps the last five minutes she would ever spend with him, and she’d been too hurt, too wounded to yield, to listen to what he’d had to say.

  She’d never told him she loved him. Her stupid, foolish pride had never let her. Whether he wanted to hear it or not, she prayed for the chance to tell him. He didn’t have to love her back, she could live with that. But he had to be all right. If he wasn’t, she couldn’t bear it.

  The driver managed to get within one block of the burning apartment before the police stopped the car. Emily threw open the door and ran through the barriers, hearing Claudia calling her, then someone else, a policeman, telling her to stop. But she did not hesitate, did not turn around.

  She heard the shouts of firemen as they worked the hoses and trucks and tended to the injured tenants who sat or lay on blankets out of harm’s way. Sirens wailed and red lights flashed from the ambulances and emergency vehicles coming and going from the fire scene.

  Pushing her way through a crowd of news reporters and cameras, Emily froze at the sight of huge, crackling flames spiraling upward from the two top floors of the structure. Smoke billowed in black clouds from a gaping hole in the fourth floor of the building.

  Oh, God, no.

  The sob caught in her throat. He can’t be in there, she thought frantically. He can’t.

  She heard someone shouting her name, but she couldn’t tear her eyes from the flames and smoke.

  “Emily!”

  Two large hands took hold of her shoulders and shook her. She blinked, then realized it was Shane’s partner.

  “Emily,” Matt shouted over the din of the surrounding chaos. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Shane.” She clutched Matt’s arms. “Is he all right? Is he still inside? Matt, please tell me he got out.”

  Matt grinned at her. “Everyone got out safe, including Shane. He’s a little banged up, but he’s going to be fine.”

  Emily sagged into Matt, relief pouring through her. “Can I see him? Please, Matt, I need to see him.”

  “Come on.” He slipped an arm around her waist and led her to a paramedic ambulance on the opposite side of the street. She saw Shane lying on a gurney in the back of the ambulance, covered with soot and dust, wearing an oxygen mask over his face. He lay still, his eyes closed. Breaking away from Matt, Emily leapt inside the vehicle.

  “Shane.” His name was a strangled cry on her lips. She knelt beside him and covered his hand with her own. His eyes opened, then focused on her.

  Reaching up, he pulled his mask down and frowned. “Emily—” his voice was raspy “—you shouldn’t have come here.”

  “I already got that lecture from Matt, thank you.” Her fingers tightened on his. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll be fine. Just a little smoke inhalation and one hell of a headache where a two-by-four met the back of my head.”

  When he started to cough, she frowned at him. “Don’t talk.”

  “Emily, I have to—”

  “Be quiet,” she demanded fiercely, then pulled his mask back over his mouth and nose. “Now, you just listen and don’t say one word.”

  He lifted a brow, but lay still.

  “I thought I lost you,” she said raggedly. “All the way over here I kept asking myself what I would do if I never saw you again. How would I ever forgive myself?”

  When he started to reach for the mask, she brushed his hand away. “Not one word. Not one. Do you understand?”

  He sighed, then nodded.

  How could she find the words? she wondered. How could she possibly convey what she was feeling right now? It seemed useless to even try. Blinking back the tears in her eyes, she lifted his hand to her mouth.

  “I love you,” she whispered. “I never told you, because I knew you didn’t want to hear those words. I understand you don’t feel the same way, and I know you don’t want to hurt me, but it would hurt so much more if you never knew, if I didn’t tell you how I feel.”

  “Em—”

  “Please, just let me get this out.” She swallowed the lump at the back of her throat. “Whether you like it or not, Shane Cummings, I love you. I know how you feel about marriage, and I can live with that. But I don’t know how I’ll live without ever seeing you again. If you’ll just give me a chance, if we can go back to where we were, I can—”

  He pressed his fingers to her mouth, then reached up and pulled the mask down again. “No.”

  No? That single word felt like a knife in her heart. She closed her eyes, prayed that her tears would wait until later.

  She nodded stiffly. “I—I understand.”

  “I don’t think you do.” When she tried to pull her hand away from his, he held on tight. “Emily, open your eyes and look at me.”

  She did as he asked, but through the haze of her tears, she couldn’t make out his features. He tugged her hand to his chest, then pressed something into her palm. A small box, she realized, then swiped at her eyes to clear her vision.

  A velvet box.

  “Open it,” he said quietly.

  Her heart stopped when she lifted the lid, then started to race when she saw what was inside: a large perfect diamond flanked by three smaller diamonds on each side.

  “It was my mother’s.” He reached for her hand and slipped it on her finger. “I had it reset with the smaller diamonds on a new band, but if you don’t like it, we’ll go pick out something together. Or if I’m rushing you, we can just wait a little while, until after you get your memory back. Or if you want to, we— Oh, hell. Will you marry me?”

  “What—” She jerked her gaze from the ring, certain she’d heard him wrong. “What did you say?”

  “I love you, Emily,” he said. “I admit I fought it, but I’ve loved you from that first night.”

  “You love me?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “From the first night?”

  “It scared the hell out of me.” He brought her fingers to his mouth. “But even then, before I knew your name, before I knew anything about you, I loved you. I was going to propose to you at the fund-raiser. I had the ring in my pocket, just waiting until I could get you alone, but then we got the call and I had to leave.”

  “That’s what you wanted five minutes for?” she asked in disbelief. “To propose?”

  “I know it’s not very romantic,” he said with a sigh. “But I wasn’t sure when I’d get close to you again where you wouldn’t be able to run away.”

  It was too much to absorb, she thought, too much to even believe. But she looked into his eyes and saw the truth. Saw the love. And her heart soared.

  “Shane,” she said through the thickness in her throat. “I’ll always be a Barone, whether my memory comes back or not. Can you live with that?”

  “You were right when you called me an idiot.” He pressed a kiss to her hand. “I had to nearly lose you to realize just how big an idiot I am. I don’t give a damn who your family is or how much money they have. What matters is that I love you. I want it all, Emily. Children, a house on solid ground, you beside me every night. Just say you’ll marry me. God, please marry me.”

  “Yes.” She didn’t even try to stop her tears when she leaned down and pressed her lips to his. “Of course I’ll marry you.”

  He kissed her, brought his hand to the back of her head and dragged her closer, deepening the kiss.

  At the sudden sound of cheers and applause, Emily jerked back. It appeared that several firemen who’d been pulled from duty had congregated around the ambulance. Smiling, Claudia stood with the men, looking perfectly glamorous and completely at ease surrounded by a group of rugged, soot-covered firefighters.

  “Okay, boys, show’s over.” Claudia winked at Emily, then shut the doors.

  And then Shane was pulling her close again, kissing her until she couldn’t think, couldn’t brea
the. When he finally eased his lips from hers, he whispered, “I love you, Emily Barone.”

  “And I love you, Shane Cummings.”

  And later, much later, when they lay together in Shane’s bed, Emily knew no matter what the past had been, or what the future would be, she was where she was meant to be. Where she would stay.

  Always.

  Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Barbara McCauley for her contribution to the DYNASTIES: THE BARONES series.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-8618-8

  WHERE THERE’S SMOKE…

  Copyright © 2003 by Harlequin Books S.A.

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  *Hearts of Stone

  †Secrets!