“Yep.” He came around the bed to Maya’s other side and whipped out the huge stuffed panda from behind his back. “And this is our mascot, Toby. Do you think you could look after him for a while?”
“Sure.” She giggled. “He’s a funny mascot.”
“Well, we’re funny firefighters.” Trent crossed his eyes and pulled a face that set Maya giggling louder.
Kerri laughed behind Izzy and she laughed too. She stared at Trent, her heart dangerously close to a complete and irrevocable meltdown. The man was a walking, talking hero, however she tried to look at him. She was hard-pressed to find a single fault, and if she were anyone else, she’d hold on to him and never let him go.
But she wasn’t anyone else and neither of them deserved another loss in their lives. It was better this way. Wasn’t it?
Turning away from him, Izzy focused on Maya. “Why don’t you open the present I bought you?”
“Okay.” Maya moved the bear Izzy had bought her and tucked him safely beside Toby under her bedsheets. “What’s his name?”
“Robbie.” Izzy smiled as Trent’s gaze burned into her temple. “He likes being with you already. I bet you two become fast friends.”
“We will. Toby too.”
“Absolutely.”
Kerri touched Izzy’s arm. “How are things going with the calendar? Are you done?”
Izzy faced her as Trent took a seat on the edge of Maya’s bed. Their laughter and chatter warmed the room as Izzy spoke to Kerri. “We’re all done and the calendars are with the printers.” She smiled. “It’s going to fly off the shelves, I’m sure of it.”
The worry in the devoted mother’s eyes didn’t lessen as she sneaked a peak at Maya.
Izzy took Kerri’s hand and urged her to the corner of the room. “How is Maya? Is there anything else we can do to help?”
Tears shone in Kerri’s eyes as she stared at her daughter. “She’s doing amazingly well. In fact, the doctors have said things are looking more and more encouraging.”
“That’s great news.” Izzy followed Kerri’s gaze as Trent plopped his hat on Toby’s head, setting Maya off into another glorious fit of giggles. “She’s a brave girl. You must be incredibly proud of her.”
“I am. She’s my inspiration.”
The door opened and a young nurse in a pale green uniform covered with tiny printed zebras entered, pushing a wheelchair. “Hi, Maya. It’s time to go and see the doctor. Shall we ask your visitors if they mind waiting here for you?”
Maya’s smile vanished and her wide eyes snapped between the nurse, Trent and Izzy. “I don’t want to go now. I’ll go later.”
Kerri stepped forward and grasped Maya’s hand where it lay limply on the bed. “It’s okay, darling. Izzy and Trent won’t mind waiting.” She looked at Izzy and Trent in turn. “Will you?”
“Not a problem at all. I’d love to chat with you more.”
“I need to stay here and make sure Toby doesn’t start eating your grapes.”
Trent and Izzy looked at each other as their words tumbled over each other.
Maya giggled and sat back so the nurse could see to the tubes and switches and get Maya transferred to the wheelchair. Izzy stood back as the little girl cooperated so fluidly with her mother and the nurse that it was tragically clear just how regular the routine had become.
Once seated in the chair, Maya beamed and waved as she was wheeled from the room with Kerri following.
The door brushed closed behind them and Trent sat heavily on the bed, staring at Maya’s pillow, the dent from her small head still hauntingly visible.
Izzy blinked back the burning in her eyes and picked up Maya’s unwrapped second gift. It was a photograph Izzy had taken of Cowden Beach, Maya’s favorite place to play. The shot was taken at sunset, and the oranges and pinks were shown off in a driftwood frame she’d found in the toy cum trinket shop in town. As Maya had been a budding photographer before she became ill, Izzy hoped the picture inspired the little girl to fight to get better and see the world was still a beautiful place.
She smoothed her finger over the picture. “She’s going to fight this cancer and win, you know.”
“God, I hope so.”
Izzy came around the bed and sat beside Trent. “She will. Just you watch.”
His gaze roamed over her face, lingered at her lips before he met her eyes. “We need to stop this, Iz.”
She stiffened. “Stop what?”
“Messing about. I want you and you want me. I look at that little girl, I look at Sam... Robbie. If we don’t start fighting everything that frightens the hell out of us, all the illness and death is for nothing. We’re living right now. Look at Bianca. You were right yesterday when you said she isn’t hiding away or avoiding everything that might go wrong through the rest of what I hope is her really long life.”
Izzy inhaled and dropped her head onto his shoulder. She admired Bianca so much. Her brother’s fiancée had somehow found the strength to take each day as it came, accepted the love of the Cove to pull her through. Izzy closed her eyes. All she’d done was shun people and hide.
She lifted her head and met Trent’s sincere gaze. Her heart swelled with the love and attraction she desperately wanted to contain, but the fight was so hard. She loved him. What was she really running away from when everyone on the planet faced the risk of loss every day too?
Lacing his fingers with hers, she looked down at their joined hands. “Bianca and Robbie were beautiful to watch together. I know Scott still feels responsible because the explosion happened at his garage. Bianca being his sister must make it pretty tough on him.” She sighed. “Who would’ve thought that sassy, confident Bianca and loving, happy-go-lucky Robbie, one of the most unlikely unions to ever grace the Cove’s shores, would work so perfectly?” An unexpected sob lodged in Izzy’s throat. “And now Bianca’s trying so hard to move on and not stay in the same place doing nothing.”
“She’s got a strong family around her.”
Izzy met his eyes, her own burning with tears. “But I haven’t, Trent, and it’s hard for me to be brave on my own.”
He softly kissed her cheek. “You’re not alone.”
She leaned into his unwavering strength, moved her arms around his body and held on tight. “It’s not just my endless fear of losing you in a fire holding me back from us trying again, you know.”
“Then what? You need to explain this to me. I’m going crazy not being with you.”
She straightened. “You are?”
“Of course I am. How could you think otherwise?”
“You seemed so happy in the car...you flirted with me.”
He shrugged, a soft smile curving his lips. “Why wouldn’t I? Look at you.”
She playfully shoved him, suddenly feeling vulnerable under the undeniable admiration in his eyes. “See? It’s that. I don’t want you to change and you will. It’s inevitable.” She stood and crossed her arms in a bid to calm her traitorous, hopeful heart. She faced him. “How are you supposed to fit into my nice, quiet, orderly life when you live on such a potent mix of danger and excitement?”
He huffed a laugh. “A potent mix of danger and excitement? Come on, Iz. It’s a job. Do you really think it’s those two things that make me face fire every day?”
“Firefighting isn’t just a job to you. You started fighting fire for Aimee, but you’ve continued for years since you lost her. You’ve saved hundreds of lives, Trent. Your job is a need in you now. A passion. I don’t want to be the one who takes that away. If you changed anything about you for me, you wouldn’t be the man I lo...admire so much.”
He stood and came toward her, his green eyes darkening with the unmistakable desire she had no way of deflecting. Every single time he looked at her that way, it weakened her.
She to
ok a step back. “Stay there and just think about what I said for a moment.”
He came closer and slowly unwrapped her arms and dropped a kiss to her jaw, lower to the sensitive curve of her neck. His breath whispered across her skin. “I want you to change me, Iz. You’ll make me better and I’ll do the same for you.”
“But how will my worry for you ever change? It’s only going to get worse.”
“You’ll get used to it.” He smiled. “Especially when I come home from every shift safe and sound.”
“But the closer we get, the deeper we fall in love... Please, Trent, try to understand. How am I supposed to move past the fact that you could die every time you’re called out?”
“I don’t know, but you have to find a way. This thing between us is too good to throw away on ifs and maybes. Don’t you think?” He straightened and brushed his lips across hers. “How about you talk to some of the other girlfriends and wives of the crew? You know Will’s wife, Helen, right? Go see her. Talk to her and ask how she manages every day.” He smiled, softly. “If you weren’t worried for me, you’d be different than all the other loved ones who worry about the crew and then I’d be thinking something wasn’t right. This fear isn’t irrational, Iz. It’s understandable.” He kissed her forehead. “Even more so in your case.”
“I don’t know.”
“Look at me.”
Exhaling a shaky breath, Izzy dragged her gaze from a spot on the opposite wall to his beautiful, loving and penetrable stare.
“We’re going to give this everything we’ve got, okay? We’re going to make it work.” He leaned in and lifted her hair away from her neck to nip and kiss at the sensitive area below her ear. “Agreed?”
Her knees trembled and her core pulled. To fight him was only possible if she didn’t allow him close enough to touch her. If she didn’t maintain that space...
She coughed and rested her hands on his shoulders as if to push him away and she would have...if some invisible force hadn’t tipped her head to allow him better access to her neck. “Have you noticed we’re in a hospital?” She sighed. “In a room where a little girl is fighting for her life?”
“Yep, that’s why I’m asking you right here, right now. Are we together or not?” He moved his mouth to hers and moved his tongue gently, seductively over hers. “Are we going to start living? Yes or no?”
“Yes,” she murmured into his mouth, reclaimed his tongue with hers. “We’re going to start living.”
“Ahem.”
They jumped apart.
Izzy brought her hand to her swollen lips. Kerri Jackson stared in disbelief, her mouth open. The pediatric nurse’s eyebrows were raised almost to her hairline, but she looked suspiciously as though she fought a smile. As for Maya...the girl looked happy enough to burst. “Are you guys girlfriend-boyfriend? Cool.”
Mortification ran over Izzy in a wave of heat as she opened and closed her mouth. But nothing filtered through her embarrassment to her brain.
Trent left her standing against the wall and dropped to his haunches in front of Maya. “Cool? Really?”
Maya grinned. “Uh-huh.”
“Are you sure? Because if you want me to kick Izzy to the curb and wait for you to grow up, I don’t mind.”
Maya blushed bright red and as the nurse and Kerri both laughed and leaned over the wheelchair to swat Trent, Izzy grinned and joined in the assault from behind. Maya’s shrieks of delight bounced off the wall and straight into Izzy’s rapidly filling pool of happiness.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TRENT STARED AT Izzy across their sea-view table at the Oceanside and fell a little deeper. It had been a week since their visit with Maya at the hospital, and the connection between them had grown stronger every day. She was sexy, funny, clever and ambitious...and the combination turned him on more than he thought possible. Yet now, as she inched toward trusting him and allowing him to see inside her heart and mind, deeper layers slowly revealed themselves, making him want her more than ever to become someone permanent in his life.
Sure, he’d known for years how attracted he was to her, but now the atmosphere between them was tangible...to the other residents of the Cove too, if the suggestive comments they’d received from a handful of their peer group was anything to go by.
“Stop staring at me.” Izzy picked up her wine and brought it to her lips, her happy gaze on his. “I don’t even want to know what you’re thinking, because whatever it is, I’m sure it isn’t suitable for public conversation.”
He smiled and lifted his eyebrows. “Shall we skip the meal and head home, then? Eating’s overrated anyway.”
“A girl needs to eat if she plans on using her energy reserves.”
Her blue eyes shone like Bristol glass under the candlelight. The quip on Trent’s tongue vanished when her stockinged toes ran up and under the hem of his jeans to tease his calf.
She grinned. “Don’t you agree?”
He picked up his wineglass and drank deep, his gaze on hers. “You’re a bad, bad girl, Izzy Cooper.” He lowered his glass. “But I like it.”
She laughed and, regrettably, pulled her foot away. “You need to behave. We can’t spend every evening in bed.”
“Why not?”
“Because...because...” Her cheeks flushed. “Stop looking at me like that. Just because, okay?” She narrowed her eyes. “Eat and stop talking.”
Smiling, Trent picked up his knife and fork. He loved teasing her, loved being with her and, most of all, wondered how the hell he’d lived all those months without making love to her. He cut into his steak and speared some potato. “So, did you have coffee with Helen today?”
“I did.” Her voice quieted. “We went to Marian’s.”
Trent looked up, bothered by the caution in her tone. “And?”
She put down her knife and fork and lifted her glass. “And I’m not sure our conversation changed anything. I’m still just as scared for you.” She took a mouthful of wine, her gaze sad. “For us.”
“Will and Helen have been married a long time, Iz. Together even longer. It might be that Helen’s just grown used to the job, that’s all.”
“You’re wrong.” She returned her glass to the table and shifted forward in her seat, her beautiful eyes wide with worry. “She says the longer she’s with him, the more she worries. When they were single, the fact that Will was a firefighter excited Helen. Then they got married and she slowly grew used to starting to look at the clock every five minutes from just before the end of his shift until she heard his key in the front door.” She closed her eyes. “And now that they have a baby...”
Trent fought his unease. Was he kidding himself that the job ever got easier for a firefighter’s loved ones? Was he lying to Izzy for his own selfish desires? He put down his cutlery and took her hands. “Listen to me. You’re right. Helen’s right. My job’s dangerous and I’m wrong to keep telling you not to worry about what might happen, but I know we’ve got a chance at some real happiness here. Aren’t you willing to give us a try despite what might or might not happen?”
“It’s fire, Trent.” She slipped her hands from his and drew them into her lap, her eyes blazing with frustration. “Ignoring its dangers isn’t normal to me in any shape or form. Mum and dad taught Robbie and me to live life as we wanted, to embrace our dreams and passions, not let outside influences hold us back.” She shook her head. “But now, with Robbie gone, fire is my nemesis. The one thing that continues to burn deep inside me. This isn’t the same as me being with you without knowledge of what devastating loss fire can cause.”
Fear of her retreating again engulfed him. He wanted to be with her so damn much. “But you’re here tonight despite speaking with Helen. There must be something you see in us that you want.”
A small smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “It’s
not what I see. It’s who I see. You. You’re a pain in the ass with your sexy smile, gorgeous green eyes and body like iron.”
Trent grinned, relief pumping through him like lifesaving oxygen. “Well, thank God for that.”
Trent’s mind turned to the idea he’d had earlier. An idea that could well send Izzy running for the hills, but something that felt important and clear in his growing feelings for her. He leaned forward. “I have an idea that will get us out of bed for a few days.”
She raised her eyebrows. “And you want that why?”
He smiled. “It was you who said we can’t spend every evening between the sheets, remember?”
She picked up her fork and frowned. “Did I? I must have lost a piece of my brain for a moment.”
Trent took a long, steadying breath and then said what was on his mind before he lost his courage. “How about we go away for the weekend?”
“Where?” She put some pasta in her mouth and chewed, her beautiful eyes wide with interest.
He had no idea why, or how, the rash idea burst into his mind, but now that it was there, Trent knew it was a good one. “I want you to spend the weekend with me at my parents’.”
She coughed, put down her fork and reached for her water. Trent turned to his food and pretended the suggestion was no big deal. The truth was, he’d never brought any woman home to meet his parents. Ever. This was a deal of gargantuan proportions. He forced his gaze to Izzy’s. Judging by the terror in her gaze and the red blotches on her upper chest and throat, she entirely agreed with him about the magnitude of his suggestion.
She leaned forward, her hand splayed on the tablecloth. “They know about us?”
He shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Sure. I told them after we visited Maya. They’re really pleased about it too.”
“But they don’t know me like they knew Robbie. How can they know enough about me to be pleased?”
He gripped her fingers and stared into her eyes, willing her to believe just how wonderful a woman she was. “You make me happy. You make me want to enjoy more than just my work. That’s all they need to know. They have a great place near the beach.” He released her hand and took a mouthful of wine. “You’ll feel at home in no time.”
Saved by the Firefighter Page 18