Brennan promised to wait for Ava to return, although the five minutes her trip took did nothing to soothe the trepidation that had migrated from his gut to his chest. He never should’ve come back, never should’ve let himself have the comfort of being back in Fairview, with his family, where he’d once belonged so thoroughly.
And now Ava, who’d held him close and told him with all that honesty that he was a good person, with a good story, knew beyond a shadow of a doubt how wrong she’d been.
“Okay.” She arrived back at his side, her cheeks flushed from the winter air and her breath billowing around her face in puffy white wisps. “I had to promise to text her later, but we’re all set.”
Brennan nodded, slipping his suit jacket off his shoulders in order to circle it around Ava’s.
“Aren’t you cold?” she asked, indicating his black dress shirt as she slid her arms through the wool.
If only the cold was the worst of what he felt. “No. I’m fine.”
The lie hung between them as they walked the three blocks between the country club’s neatly landscaped grounds and the elegant hotel where they’d spent the night before. Brennan auto-piloted his way past the lobby, the elevator, the threshold of their room, until finally, he and Ava stood face-to-face in the cozy sitting room of their suite.
“I think we both know you’re not fine,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself with a shiver. His suit jacket swallowed her trim shoulders, the only thing standing between her thin silk dress and the frozen chill of their walk, and Brennan crossed to the small gas fireplace to flip the switch.
The irony of the move wasn’t lost on him.
“I will be,” he corrected, watching the purple blue glow of the pilot light at the base of the gas-powered flames. “As soon as I get back to Pine Mountain.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?” Ava’s eyes glinted in the firelight, the stubborn lift of her chin betraying her obvious opinion that leaving things as-is was not Brennan’s best plan.
“What I want is to change things that happened two and a half years ago.” If only he’d waited mere minutes, if he’d assessed things even a little bit differently . . . if . . . if . . . if... “But I can’t.”
“No,” Ava said, shocking him with her straight-up agreement. “You can’t.”
Whether it was the way he’d already uncorked the truth in front of Alex and Cole, or the thick rush of emotions still churning hard in his gut, or hell, the pure honesty on Ava’s face as she’d delivered the truth in a way that didn’t sugar-coat—or worse yet, pin him down—Brennan couldn’t be certain. But he took a step toward her, breathing in the sweet scent of her skin, and damn it to hell’s basement, he trusted her.
Ava saw him. She got him. Even when he’d told her about his injury, his addiction, all the other bits of his past, she’d never catered to his vulnerability or his pain. He might not be the man she thought he was, but right now, in this moment, he needed to tell her the truth.
All of it.
“Firefighters always work in pairs. It’s like the buddy system, so someone’s always got your back.” Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. “When we arrived at that apartment fire, no other first responders were there yet, so everyone from Eight broke off into teams. A couple of guys from squad went up to vent the roof, to give the fire a place to go so we could try to manage it. But there were so many people trapped inside, most of us went in for search and rescue.”
“Like you,” Ava affirmed. Her face remained neutral, drinking in his words in that trademark Ava way, and her lack of drama or overdone sympathy guided more of the story right out.
“Like me.” God, the building had been so dark, so suffocatingly hot, that finding anyone had been a freaking miracle after the first few trips inside. “My partner and I worked our way up, carrying out a few kids and people who’d breathed in too much smoke, ushering out the rest. But the fire spread so fast. Even with all our equipment, visibility was for shit.”
All of a sudden, Brennan was right back in that apartment building, the weight of his turnout gear hanging heavy and familiar on his frame, the tight seal of his mask pressing hard to his face. Even with the aided breathing from his Scott pack, the air had still been palpably thick with ash and heat and other things he refused to contemplate, even now.
His throat clenched, threatening lockdown, but he pushed past it, welcoming the discomfort. “We were on the street, passing someone over to triage, when a woman came up to us, frantic. She couldn’t find her son.”
Ava’s fingers curled around the bottom of his jacket sleeves, dark lashes sweeping wide. “Oh God.”
“The building was getting dangerous at that point, but she was desperate, trying to go back inside. It took two paramedics just to restrain her. Their apartment was on the fourth floor, so we went up for a sweep. We knew our captain was going to call the fire at any minute, and we were running out of time.”
At the tiny tug of confusion in her brows, Brennan added, “When a fire gets to a certain point—too dangerous to fight from the inside—Captain Westin makes the call for us to fall out and fight things from the outside.”
“But you went back up even though you knew he was going to call the fire.” The words weren’t a question, although Brennan answered Ava regardless.
“We did, but it turned out to be worse than we thought up there. Even getting down the hall was a job and a half.” He’d been so sure, so fucking sure that his rescue squad training would get them past the danger, that they’d find that kid and get the hell out of there, that everything would end up the way it was supposed to and not the way it had, that he’d recklessly kicked past all the burning debris without a second thought.
Brennan struggled for breath, remorse vibrating under his skin as he pressed on. “We swept the apartment as best we could, but there were literally seconds on the clock, and we came up empty. The ceiling was coming down around us, floorboards groaning with every step. Our captain made the call, but we didn’t want to leave without the kid. I . . . thought I could look one more time, just for a second, so my partner and I turned back for one last shot.”
Despite her steel-girded demeanor, Ava’s eyes glittered with unshed tears in the firelight. “Oh, Nick,” she whispered, one hand ghosting up to cover her lips.
He opened his mouth, wrenching the rest of the story from the deepest part of his chest. “It ended up not mattering. Before we could even get to the back room in that apartment for a second sweep, the floor collapsed. I fell about two stories and landed feet first on the second-floor landing. The impact crushed two of my lumbar vertebrae.” The pain had reverberated up his spine, shredding a liquid-lightning path all the way to his teeth, and Christ, even then it was nothing compared to what spilled out of him right now. “The . . . guy who was with me . . . had it worse. . . .”
Ava’s tears breached her lids, tracking silently down her face, but still, she held steady and strong, just listening.
“He fell the whole way, sustaining multiple injuries. One of them to the head.” Brennan’s heart crumpled behind his rib cage, and he sucked down a sloppy breath. “He died at the scene.”
“I’m so, so sorry.” Sadness claimed Ava’s features, followed a moment later by questioning fear. “What about the little boy? Was he in the apartment with you?”
Her stricken expression begged Brennan to say no, and at least in this, he wouldn’t disappoint. “No. He’d gotten out through another exit, and in all the chaos, his mother just couldn’t find him.”
Ava rushed forward then, her hands finding his shoulders so he had no choice but to look her in the eye. “What happened that night isn’t your fault, Brennan. You had no way of knowing that boy was outside.”
“But I had every way of knowing the situation was too dangerous,” he argued, trying to step back. Brennan had made the call to go down that hallway, and Mason had followed without question. It had been a less-than-split second choice.
Only his best friend—
not Brennan—had paid the ultimate price.
Ava shook her head, holding firm. “Of course it was dangerous. You were fighting a fire. It doesn’t mean you’re to blame.”
“I was the one with the more extensive training. I should’ve been smarter about going into a room so heavily involved, and I should’ve had my partner’s back.”
“You’re a good man who was doing his job,” Ava said, and damn it, her ironclad belief in him was written all over her stubborn, beautiful face. “You were trying to save a little boy.”
Brennan broke from her grasp, delivering the piece of the past that he knew would change her mind about everything.
“And instead, I killed my best friend. The firefighter next to me was Mason, Ava. I made the judgment call that ended his life.”
For a second, Brennan’s words made no sense, as if he’d spoken another language with unfamiliar words Ava couldn’t string together.
And then the dots connected, like a series of high-powered magnets, clicking into place with enough gravity to force the breath from her chest in a sharp whoosh.
“Mason?” An image of the sandy-haired guy who had been Brennan’s best friend that summer they’d all spent together on Sapphire Island flickered through her brain. “Mason Watts was a firefighter with you at Station Eight?”
Ava’s gut pitched all the way to her shins. Brennan and Mason had been inseparable, best friends since grade school. Going to the Fairview Fire Academy had been all the two of them had talked about the entire summer they’d worked as a group at the beach café.
Of course Brennan and Mason hadn’t drifted apart like she’d assumed. And they’d both been side by side in that horrific fire? God, how had she missed something so huge?
“Yeah. Eight is a big house, so we both landed there after graduating from the fire academy.” Grief slid over Brennan’s face, shadowed deeply in the scant firelight of the sitting room, and Ava’s heartbeat sped up.
To feel he’d been at fault for anyone’s death would’ve hurt him horribly. To believe he’d been responsible for the events that had killed his best friend, and keeping that guilt chained beneath the surface for the last two and a half years?
Brennan must have been dying inside.
“No.” Ava closed the space he’d just created between them on legs she couldn’t quite trust, but she forced strength into her voice. “You didn’t. You didn’t kill him.”
“I did. I led him down that hallway, Ava. If I hadn’t—”
“Was he a good firefighter?” Ava interrupted, and Brennan seemed so startled by the question that his answer flew right out.
“One of the best.”
“Then even if you hadn’t led him down that hallway, he’d have elbowed his way around you to try and find that kid. You were doing your job, Nick. Both of you. And that means not backing down.”
Brennan shook his head in a broken movement. “The fire was too big. I had more training than Mason. I should’ve known . . . not to be so impulsive.”
“You weren’t impulsive. You were decisive.” Ava cupped his cheeks, bringing her face in a direct line with his, only inches away. Her heart ripped open at the tragic belief stamped over his face, but she refused to stand down or back away.
“You thought there was a child trapped in that fire, and you both did all you could to try and save him. Mason was a good man. And you are a good man.”
“I’m not. I’m—”
“No.” Ava pressed her fingers against his face to keep him with her, guiding his forehead down over her own. “You’re a good man, Brennan. You’re brave and strong and kind.”
Her lips brushed over his, the intimate contact anchoring the truth between them. “What happened in that fire isn’t your fault.”
Brennan’s breath escaped in a soft puff against her lips. “Ava—”
“It’s not your fault,” she insisted. “You didn’t hesitate, because if you had, you’d have lost precious seconds trying to save the little boy you thought was stuck in that apartment. You didn’t hesitate because it was your job to act, even in the face of risk and danger.”
Ava lifted up on her toes, maximizing the contact between them as if she could infuse her conviction into his body through touch.
“You didn’t hesitate because you’re a good man, Nick Brennan. Nothing you can tell me will make me think otherwise. And I’m going to do whatever it takes to make you see it.”
Brennan’s eyes buttoned shut, his frame shuddering against hers. “I miss him so fucking much.”
Although her insides were screaming with heartache, Ava refused to give in to the sadness. Brennan needed to know he was worthy, and she was going to show him.
“I know. But you didn’t kill Mason. None of this is your fault.”
He grabbed onto her in one uninterrupted rush, locking his arms around her waist in a fierce grip. Their mouths touched together in a vital connection, and a desperate sound issued up from Brennan’s throat. She ignored the tears pricking the backs of her eyelids, holding steady even though she felt anything but.
“It’s not your fault.”
Ava cradled Brennan’s face more gently, but kept her intention front and center. Lifting up as high as she could onto her toes, she used her four-inch heels to her advantage as she kissed his forehead, the thrumming pulse points on his temples, the lashes cast down over his cheeks. His breath pitched against her in bursts, as if oxygen was at a premium, yet still, she didn’t let go.
She studied Brennan’s face, taking in every nuance and shadow cast by the orange gold glow of the fireplace. Sliding her fingers from his cheeks to his hair, she moved a trail of kisses over his jawline, repeating the process on the other side. Rather than eliciting passion, as all their other kisses had up until tonight, Ava kept her movements soft and reverent, trading desire for intimacy. Each soft brush of her mouth had Brennan’s fists growing tighter and tighter over the wool covering her dress, his exhales pushing out of him in ragged need.
Need Ava was fully prepared to fulfill, in any way she could. “I want to show you what I see when I look at you. Please.” She placed both palms over his wildly beating heart, canting her gaze up to meet his nearly black eyes. “Let me in.”
Brennan slanted his mouth over hers in a kiss so needful and pure, Ava felt it resonate in every part of her. But he didn’t push, didn’t pursue or take control. Instead, he pressed his lips to her mouth, relaxing his chest against the front of her borrowed jacket, letting his hips melt in with the seam of her body. He wordlessly stood in front of her, letting her deepen the kiss by degrees, parting his lips to grant her access to the warmth of his mouth, his tongue.
Ava took her time, reveling in the fresh, crisp taste of him. She kissed him languidly, as though time just didn’t exist for them and this moment, right now, was everything she’d ever wanted or known. Pausing to capture his lower lip between her own, Ava teased and stroked and sucked. She tested the heat of his mouth again and again, until finally, she pulled back on a breathless sigh.
“I love the way you fit against me,” Ava murmured, shifting back from Brennan’s body just far enough to separate the edges of the coat around her shoulders. The cool air of the room felt welcome on her skin as she shrugged out of the garment, leaving her in nothing but her thin-strapped, green silk sheath. She raised her fingers to the hard plane of Brennan’s chest, loosening his tie and freeing his shirt buttons one by one.
“Ava.” Whatever else he’d thought to say got lost on the tide of his low moan as she reached down to slide her hands beneath his now open dress shirt, pressing past the T-shirt under it to find the warm expanse of his skin.
She countered his moan with one of her own. “I love the way you say my name.” Her hands traveled up, the friction of skin on skin sending a deep pulse of want directly between her hips.
Brennan’s head dropped back as he said her name again, and oh God, Ava wanted everything about him.
“I love the way you sound when I t
ouch you.” Greedy to illustrate the point, she pulled his dress shirt off his body, tugging the thin, cotton T-shirt that remained over his head and to the floor. The soft dusting of hair on Brennan’s chest lay at odds with the hard angles of his shoulders, and he shivered as she moved her fingers over first one, then the other.
Fueled by the open pleasure building in his dark, hooded eyes, Ava stopped at his biceps, squeezing tight. “I love the way you like to watch.”
His breath cut out on a round curse as she reached for the hot sliver of space between their bodies, the corded muscles of his inner thigh jumping under her whisper-light touch. Brennan’s gaze never left her hands, both busily working his belt buckle, and Ava couldn’t fight the lust spinning up in her core.
She paused for just a split second, closing the barely there distance to fit herself to his chest. The dizzying heat of his bare skin tightened her nipples to stiff points, a reaction he clearly felt if the rock-hard erection pressing into her belly was any indicator.
“I love how you feel,” Ava murmured, her voice throaty from the unchecked need making her breath unsteady and her panties damp between her thighs. But what she wanted was so much less important than Brennan’s need, and even though it took willpower she hadn’t known she had, she broke from his touch to hold only his glittering stare.
“You’re the only person who ever made me feel perfect, even when I didn’t deserve it. I love you, Brennan. I love you.”
His eyes widened, but she lifted her fingers to his mouth, coasting them over his kiss-swollen lips.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she whispered, and she meant it. The words made her vulnerable, yes. But they were the truth no matter what, even if he didn’t say them back.
“I know.” Brennan kissed the pads of her fingers one by one before placing her hand over the center of his chest. “But I want to. I love you too, Ava. I have from the minute I saw you standing in the Double Shot. In fact, I don’t think I ever stopped.”
All Wrapped Up (A Pine Mountain Novel) Page 25