by Jodie Bailey
Jason laughed, the sound genuine and covering a multitude of years. “You think you’ve got me pegged, huh?”
Without thinking, Erin reached across the space between them, pulling an empty wrapper from where it peeked out of his jacket pocket. “Yeah. I think some things never change.” When he’d been on his own in high school, the man had practically lived on peanut butter crackers and peanuts. If Wyatt’s mom hadn’t fed him, he’d have probably wasted away into nothing. Every time Jason had picked her up in the old diesel Toyota pickup he’d driven back then, she’d spent half their ride to wherever they were going emptying the wrappers from the cup holders so she’d have a place to shove her own drink.
The memory brought a reluctant smile. Yeah. Some things never changed.
Erin started to turn and walk down the hallway, but his voice stopped her. “Everybody else is gone for the night?”
“Yes, so you need to help me eat this giant pot of soup.” The words cracked in her dry mouth. The longer she stood in front of him, the more she noticed his eyes picking up the dim light in the hall and reflecting like a beacon back to her. She turned to walk to the dayroom knowing he’d follow. All she needed was a second to find some balance before he figured out how much power the past held over her, power that weakened her joints, power she hadn’t realized still existed until this moment.
When they walked into the office on the way to the dayroom, Jason chuckled behind her. “You guys are still using that ancient computer?”
She hardly noticed the bulky tower anymore, preferring to work on the faster laptop. “Chief Kelliher uses it. He says he’s too old to learn a new operating system. It was hard enough to get him to transition to a flat-panel monitor.” She smiled at the chief’s stubborn streak as she passed into the dayroom, where there was a kitchenette, a couple of chairs and a TV. On the counter, a radio played a local country station, the song slow and plaintive.
Her amusement dimmed. The whole scene was too familiar, another mash-up of past and present to play with her heart and head. He’d hung out at the station every night she’d had duty when they were married. It was the one way they could find to spend quality chunks of time together. Because she was on duty, they’d only watched TV, but too many nights, she’d fallen asleep on the couch, her head on Jason’s chest and his arm curved around her waist.
This was too familiar and easy and upside-down and stressful all at the same time. It was like the day she’d sustained a concussion during a training exercise and the world had grown fuzzy and distant, as though reality had morphed into a dream.
Right here, in her own safe space, she couldn’t figure out where to stand, what to do with her hands, what to say...
Apparently, it was a memory they both shared, because he hesitated in the doorway. “I can take something out to the car if you’ve got a thermos.”
No. If he left, she’d devolve into a panicked, quaking mess. “Stay. Please.” When his eyes widened, Erin didn’t let it stop her. “The thing is...” She exhaled and sat on the edge of the recliner, wrapping her arms around her stomach. Now that she wasn’t alone, the words wouldn’t stay inside. She had to talk to somebody or the pain of what she’d witnessed would swallow her.
Somehow, Erin knew she could still trust Jason. Her gaze found his across the room. “The last time I was in this building alone, I let a woman die. I couldn’t save her. I...I have all this training and...” The tangle of emotion at the base of her throat tightened and choked off what was left.
Crying wasn’t in her playbook. Although pouring out her thoughts was necessary, showing this kind of emotion in front of Jason wasn’t in the plan. Erin was mortified by the pressure crowding her eyes. “I wasn’t enough.” Twin tears traced her cheeks, blazing a trail she willed the rest not to follow.
There was complete silence in the room, no motion, no reaction. Erin stared at the gray tile floor at a point midway between where she sat and where Jason stood. It was a gulf between them, one that would always be there, one she shouldn’t have tried to cross.
Their past made the present too complicated. Shutting her eyes, Erin swallowed and measured her breathing into a rhythm, although humiliation burned her neck and face. Jason had bigger issues to deal with. He was here to protect her out of a sense of duty, of obligation, whatever. But he was definitely not here because he cared about her.
The air shifted, and when she opened her eyes, Jason was crouched in front of her, his blue eyes searching hers. “Hey.” He wrapped warm fingers around hers. “You’ve had a rough couple of days. Nobody would blame you if you cracked, least of all me.”
When he drew back and set his expression to neutral, disappointment Erin didn’t want to acknowledge coursed through her. But there was a new knowing. She’d been able to block him out of her heart because he wasn’t right in front of her in the fullness of all he was, in the flesh-and-blood man who’d once been her whole world, her future. Everything.
He was right to pull away. This was a dangerous game, and it was time for both teams to leave the field. She started to say something, but he winced and stood. Without a word, he walked to the kitchen with a slight limp, away from her.
Away from any chance they’d ever be more than what they were right now.
* * *
He was an idiot. What was he thinking, reaching out to comfort her? He didn’t have the right, and besides... He’d say something stupid and make everything worse.
A twinge in his knee had been the excuse Jason had needed to back off and move around, get some blood flowing to his brain instead of straight to his foolish heart.
He grabbed the coffeepot, filled it with water and generally avoided Erin while she sat quietly across the room, probably afraid to say anything. What he needed to do was walk out the door, police the perimeter of the building, then pull surveillance from his truck. Erin could have her space and Jason could have his, because—
“What happened to you overseas?” The words were quiet, the echo of her exact same words from the first night he’d walked back into her life. Tonight, though, the question wasn’t rhetorical or biting. There was an undercurrent of concern that had been missing the first time.
A concern that threatened to undo him. Shoving the carafe back into place, Jason stared at the top of the old four-burner stove. He never talked about Fitz’s death. Ever. Not even with the men who’d experienced the awful day with him. “Why would you ask about my deployments?” He didn’t mean for it to sound harsh, yet there it was, defensive and cold. Were the walls he’d placed around himself cracking enough for her to see through them?
When he turned to face her, she was watching him, and one shoulder eased up in a delicate shrug. “You limp. I wondered why, but it’s probably not my business, so...”
Physical injuries. She’d noticed the limp, not the scars on his spirit. He took a deep breath through his nose and exhaled slowly through his mouth. He could talk about the physical. It was what ran beneath he couldn’t bear to tell her, what had happened to those around him he hadn’t been able to prevent.
Jason shoved a chair under the table as he walked past, then dropped onto the couch on the end farthest from her. He’d almost touched her earlier. Probably best to stay away from anything within arm’s length.
In the small space, though, arm’s length was pretty much all there was. If she leaned forward... “I blew out my knee running on loose sand. Tore my ACL.” He could still feel the pop, the pain that had dropped him to the ground at the time his team had needed him most. She didn’t need to know the sand was covered in blood and furrows where the enemy had dragged Fitz away.
“That’s it? You were running in sand?”
He swallowed hard and stared at the ancient brown refrigerator tucked in the corner. Take-out menus littered the surface, most of them as old and faded as he felt. “Pretty straightforward.”
For a seco
nd, he thought she was going to press, but then she changed tack. “And your shoulder?”
Unexplained anger welled in him. What was this? Why did she have to ask the questions he didn’t want to answer? The ones he buried to keep them from rising and slaughtering him. Jason wanted to shut her out, tell her to stop being so intrusive.
But if he did, it would tell her he was hiding. He had to guard his secret at all costs. He couldn’t let her know he wasn’t the man she imagined he was.
Jason drummed his fingers on the arm of the couch and forced himself to meet her eyes so she wouldn’t perceive any weakness. It took a second to trust his voice would be level and noncommittal. “An insurgent got a once-in-a-lifetime shot.” At him, at his whole team... The shouts, the gunfire, Fitz’s agonizing screams... If the room was quiet enough right now, he’d be able to hear them all over again, but the radio filled the silence.
Still, the memories chased him. He needed to stand, to pace, to get out of this shrinking room and into fresh mountain air not tainted with dust and gun smoke and death.
Before he could move, Erin leaned forward and rested a hand on his fingers, stilling them on the warm leather of the couch. She dipped her head to force him to meet her eyes. She hadn’t gasped in horror, hadn’t expressed shock or surprise or even pity.
There was only understanding.
No one had ever looked at him that way...except her.
The realization drew a hitch in his chest. In his entire life, he’d never let anyone see inside the way he’d once let her. Sure, his buddies were the closest thing he had to family, but even they only had shared experiences to bond them. They didn’t know who he really was, at the deepest core of himself. They had no clue about the lost boy he’d once been and the found man he one day hoped to be.
Looking into Erin’s eyes tore something inside him, ripping into the place where the real Jason resided, the one he’d shoved into hiding when he left for basic, the one who was safe with another person.
The one who had the ability to trust.
Erin’s fingers tightened around his, and he responded reflexively. Her hand was strong, yet small and delicate in his. Until this moment, sitting beside her, speaking even the smallest sliver of the truth, Jason hadn’t realized how on edge and unsafe he’d felt.
Her eyes scanned his, softening into an expression he recognized, one he’d seen so often when they were younger, one he’d responded to every time by drawing her close and pressing his lips to hers in a way every part of him ached to do again.
If he closed the small space between them and made the connection... If he kissed her... Then maybe the life in her would reignite the life that had once lived in him. He tugged on her hand lightly, an invitation to draw closer.
His ears rang in a way he couldn’t explain, couldn’t identify—
Erin stiffened and backed away. She jerked her hand from his and jumped to her feet as she turned toward the door.
The ringing... It wasn’t in his ears. An alarm blared from somewhere deep in the building.
Erin jogged to the doorway of the office.
Jason followed, slow to react, his mind swimming in molasses, still lost in a moment he shouldn’t have allowed to happen.
She stopped at the office. “Did you close the door when you came in? The one to the hallway?”
The tense professionalism in her tone snapped Jason into the present. “No. I didn’t have a reason to.”
“I came in ahead of you, so I didn’t close the door. I never close the door.” Charging into the office with Jason close behind her, Erin grasped the doorknob. She tugged once, twice, then grabbed with both hands and pulled. “It won’t open.”
Jason tried to edge around her, but she held up a hand and backed away from the door, colliding with his chest.
She turned toward him, her face inches from his, her eyes wide. “Take a deep breath. Through your nose. Then please tell me I’m wrong.”
Jason didn’t hesitate. Obeying the command, he caught a sweet, tangy scent that triggered action. He flared his nostrils and jerked Erin backward into the dayroom, away from the rapidly increasing odor of gas flooding beneath the doorway.
ELEVEN
Jason grabbed Erin’s hand and drew her with him into the dayroom, his mind working to put together an exit strategy. “Is there another way out?”
“Emergency exit off the kitchen.”
Shoving her ahead of him, he let her lead the way to the door. She hit the bar full strength and the impact bounced her backward into Jason’s chest.
The door alarm shrieked, but the door remained tightly sealed. “No way. Come on.” Erin muttered words barely loud enough for Jason to hear, then heaved herself against the door again. “It’s blocked.”
Adrenaline shot lightning bolts across his skin. He eased Erin to the side and threw his full weight against the door. No movement. They were trapped.
He needed time to think, but the wail of the door alarm impeded rational thought. “Towels. Grab all of the dish towels and shove them under the door.” It wouldn’t help for long, but it should buy them a couple of minutes.
Unless someone lit a match. As strong as the stench was in the front office, the air in the hallway outside the door had to be saturated. If they were truly locked inside, there was a chance an explosion was imminent. Either that, or whoever had trapped them intended to leave them to die of suffocation.
Erin complied and returned quickly, her face pale and her expression tight. “Those towels aren’t going to buy us much time. We either have to get the door open or we have to find another way out of here. I can smell gas in here now. It’s getting thicker.” She reached around him and turned off the stove, then the coffeepot.
Jason pulled his cell from his pocket. “We’re going to need outside help.”
“No.” Pulling her own phone from the leg pocket of her uniform, she shut the device down and held it up, indicating Jason should do the same. “Cells, computers, anything electronic is a no-go. They can set off an explosion. Remote chance, but I’m not willing to take it until we have no other choice.”
“Well, you’d better come up with something quick.”
Erin ducked into the office, but was back as quickly as she’d left. She pulled her shirt away from her face. “Landline’s dead. And I have a Wi-Fi signal, but no internet. Somebody’s cut the lines.” The tension in her voice betrayed her fear.
Jason was beginning to feel it too. The towels at the doorway weren’t enough. The back of his throat burned. The shriek of the door alarm had taken a physical, pounding residence in his head and the gas multiplied it. If they didn’t get out soon, his brain was going to mush into uselessness.
This was his fault. Instead of doing his job and keeping her safe, he’d stayed by her side, soaking in her presence, feeling like he’d come home. He’d failed her tonight because he’d been distracted by their very personal past instead of being focused on her very tenuous present. “This guy’s slick. He’s always searching for the next opportunity. We stopped him at your house, but this time I—”
“Don’t start blaming yourself. It’s not doing either of us any good. You couldn’t have known he was going to manipulate the gas lines.” Erin froze, her survey of the room coming to a halt as she turned to Jason, her guilt almost palpable in the small room. “If anything, I should have thought of it. This is my wheelhouse, and I suspected they’d do something like this when we were at the house. This is my fault. Not yours.”
“This is nobody’s fault. Nobody’s except the person who’s doing it. And now’s not the time to be discussing this.”
“You’re right.” She coughed, then cleared her throat. “It’s getting thick in here. We can try the main door again.”
“We don’t know what’s on the other side or if it’s rigged to cause a spark when you open it. Everything so far h
as been made to look like an accident or like it was the victim’s fault. Even Angie’s hit-and-run was made to look like she was involved in a drug deal gone wrong. This guy comes at his target in a way we can’t prove. A gas leak and a spark from a door? It’s exactly his MO.”
Erin was calm, her finger tapping her thigh as she surveyed the room, searching for anything to help them. She coughed again, glanced at the office and muttered under her breath. “Can’t call out. And nothing in here is going to help. The only way out is through the windows, but they’re reinforced.”
The hope of escape propelled Jason across the room to check the windows above the couch. Sealed. Double paned. Probably bulletproof. It would take something heavy to break through and get them out. “Why so much security?”
“We have valuable equipment in here as well as some noteworthy items in the EMS supply room that an addict would love to rip off. We had to make it tough to break in.”
Which meant it was tough to break out.
His ears rang from the gas and the alarm. His body tensed, waiting for an explosion to blow them clear out of this world and into the next. He could hardly focus on the task at hand, and the way Erin’s voice sounded, she was flagging as fast as he was. “Hammer?” Maybe he could bust through the window.
“In the bay. All we have in here is basic kitchen stuff. And the chairs are wood. Not strong enough.”
Jason studied the window and mimicked Erin, pulling his shirt over his mouth and nose. It probably didn’t make a real difference, but the psychological effect gave him a boost. What he needed was something heavy, with a sharp angle on the corner. That kind of impact would breach the glass easier than a heavy blunt object. “Find me something with a corner, something that will make a small point of impact but has enough heft to put some force behind it.”
“Tall order, MacGyver.” Erin’s brown eyes were deeper than ever over the blue Mountain Springs Fire Department T-shirt she’d pulled over the lower half of her face.