“Haven’t seen your date in quite a while, but Granny is with Mom and Dad and Julia.”
“Are you positive?”
“I swear.” Her brother pointed past the wedding lights to the cluster of people near the fence line by the road. “There she is, right there.”
“I think I’ve gone a little blind,” Chloe said, wiping at her face. “I hope you guys are far enough from the house. Don’t want a gas line explosion.”
“The fireman said we were fine as long as we didn’t try to move any closer. This is unbelievable. I wonder if one of the cooks left the stove lit.”
Chloe didn’t have the strength to explain the story at the moment.
“Come back with me, Chloe. You look terrible.”
“I feel terrible. But have you seen—Stan at all? I know he went back into the house to look for Granny.”
Concern crossed Carter’s face. “I’ll tell the fire chief to check the house for anyone who might be inside. I’m going to check on Julia. Are you okay if I leave you for a few minutes?”
“Yes, yes,” Chloe whispered, choking down a fresh onslaught of tears. “It’s happening all over again,” she groaned hoarsely. “A fire killed Jenna. Now Liam—” She broke off when her legs gave out and she collapsed onto the cool, green grass.
Where was Liam? Why hadn’t he come out of the house yet?
Chapter 22
“I’m not going to watch you die when that house bursts into flames, Liam Esposito,” Chloe said to the cold, hard stars overhead, summoning every last ounce of strength and mental willpower left inside of her.
One leg at a time, she crawled to her knees, and then rose to her feet, lurching drunkly toward the front porch. She was the only one who had seen Liam re-enter the house.
Police officers were speaking with her family down by the road. Firemen were going in and out of the rear of the house where the blaze had started. Black smoke billowed through the french doors, forming a haze over the canopy of wedding lights.
The smoke grew stronger and uglier as Chloe staggered closer. She faltered over the wet, slippery grass from the dew that was already rising in the chilly night air.
Keeping her eyes on the porch, Chloe finally stumbled up the steps. She was winded and coughing badly. Her lungs would eventually heal, but if Liam didn’t come out of that house, he was going to die, just like Jenna.
“Good grief,” Chloe spit out. “You’d think I cared about the man.” She had tried to hang on to her animosity, but Liam had gone inside to find her grandmother and hadn’t been seen since. “Why didn’t you try to save Jenna?”
She had never given him a chance to explain what happened that night. She’d brushed him aside. Told herself she hated him when deep down it wasn’t actually true at all.
She had to see Liam again. She had to talk to him. She had to feel his strong arms around her one more time before it was too late.
“Miss, don’t go in there,” an officer shouted behind her.
She ignored him, even as smoke was curling out the front door. Chloe slammed the door open and heat assaulted her.
Picking up the hem of her ankle-length dress, she held the material over her nose and mouth, lunging across the slippery marble to take the stairs two at a time.
The house was hot and dank, but thankfully the twenty-foot-high ceilings were capturing the majority of the smoke far above her, hovering like an angry storm cloud.
Chloe reeled forward, heading straight for her grandmother’s bedroom. When she reached it, she shoved the door open and ran around the bed and into the adjoining bathroom, but Liam was not here.
She raced back to the hallway, screaming past the pain in her throat. “Liam, where are you? Answer me, Agent Esposito!”
The noise of the firemen dragging hoses and yelling instructions at each other drowned out everything else.
One by one, she ran into each of the bedrooms, finding them all empty, except for the very last guest bedroom—hers. She almost fell over Liam, who was lying so very still on the floor near the canopy bed.
“Liam!” she screamed, shaking him by the shoulders. “Wake up! Get up, get up, you idiot!”
He moaned, and Chloe used her knees to push against his back to get him into a sitting position, where he slumped over onto the hardwood floor again. His face was gray and his pulse weak.
Fear stabbed her in the chest so she did what had come naturally during her career with the FBI.
“On your feet, Agent Esposito!” Chloe growled sharply. “That’s an order!”
His eyes finally split open, and he opened his mouth in an effort to speak. “Chloe—what happened?”
“I have no idea other than you passed out.”
“Granny Zaida,” he whispered hoarsely. “Can’t find her.”
“She’s out of the house. She’s safe. We all are, except for you. So help me, if you die, I’m going to personally kill you. I won’t attend your funeral, either.”
His lips cracked a smile. “Oh, Chloe. My girl.”
“Come on, you have to help me. I’m about to pass out from lack of oxygen myself.”
From somewhere inside her, Chloe gathered strength she didn’t know she had to help this big, hulking man to his feet. Wrapping her arms around his waist, they lurched through the door, leaning on each other until they reached the banister.
One step at a time, they maneuvered the stairs, Chloe hanging on to Liam by her fingernails. He was so tall and unwieldy, Chloe feared they’d tumble down the stairs and break their necks.
An instant later, the front door was ripped off its hinges, and three firemen raced forward holding a hose. They stopped when they saw Chloe and Liam clinging to each other on the stairs, ready to collapse.
Before Chloe could open her mouth, two firemen were up the stairs, grabbing Liam from her while the second firefighter slung her over his shoulder. Seconds later, they were pounding down the front porch and running forward to the ambulances—and her family.
When the fireman laid Chloe on the soft, damp grass, he said, “We’re taking you to the hospital.”
Chloe shook her head, desperation making her heart slam against her ribs. “I have to see Liam. Is he okay, is he alive?”
The firefighter nodded reassuringly. “You’re both going to be fine, but it was insane to go back into the house to rescue him,” he scolded her.
“I know, but wouldn’t you go back inside to find your missing partner?”
The fireman gave her a crooked smile, pressing his lips together with a nod, gazing at her with admiration.
The whirling lights from so many emergency vehicles were hurting Chloe’s eyes more than the smoke was now.
She reached out a hand when a figure came out of the darkness. Liam sank onto the lawn next to her, throwing out his arms and legs in an exhausted spread-eagle position.
“Are you a ghost?” she asked, crawling over to stare down at him. Before she could check his pulse, Chloe groaned with a blinding headache, and she sank down next to him, her eyes so heavy they closed from the pain and fatigue.
Liam’s arms went around her as he helped her lie down next to him on the pillowy lawn. “I am not a ghost, my beautiful, brave, amazing Chloe,” he said, pulling her close and pressing her face against his chest.
She caught the front of his shirt with her fist. “You disappeared inside and didn’t come back out. Don’t ever do that to me again!”
“I couldn’t find your grandmother. I had to keep going, but then I was overcome and passed out. You saved my life, Chloe Romano. I’ll love you forever.”
“Don’t joke around, Agent.”
He stroked the back of her head, his hand smoothing down her long hair. “I’m dead serious. You think the paramedics have any water? I need a drink, and so do you, Agent Romano.”
A moment later, Chloe was surrounded by her family, faces worried, everyone talking at once, her parents holding her tight while they laughed and cried with relief.
A
water bottle appeared out of nowhere, and Chloe was forced to take a sip.
“Drink slowly,” a voice commanded. “Small sips.” The voice belonged to a paramedic who was taking her vitals. “Going to give you a ride to the hospital, too.”
“I was at the hospital last night. I don’t want to go back.”
The medic said, “You don’t have a fever, which is good, but smoke inhalation is nothing to mess with. You should have a doctor look at you.”
“I have a raging headache and a very sore throat.”
“I’m not surprised,” the paramedic said. “I can’t force you to go because you’re not unconscious, but I’m going to continue to pester you before this night is over.”
Chloe gave her a weak smile.
“Come on, Chloe,” Liam said. “I’ll go with you and hold your hand.”
“I couldn’t possibly get to my feet, let alone walk. I’ll just lie here all night.”
“I’ll carry you then.”
“No, you won’t,” she told him fiercely.
“Ah, there’s the Chloe I know and love.”
“Don’t—” she choked out, hot, burning tears slipping down her face. “Don’t say something you don’t mean.”
Liam’s eyes locked with hers, and Chloe’s stomach shot past her heart. She couldn’t speak for a moment. He was much too close, his face only inches from hers, the warmth of his body radiating toward her in waves of comfort and longing.
“I always tell the truth, Chloe Romano,” he whispered softly, brushing a lock of hair from her face while he gazed fiercely into her eyes. “Especially when it comes to you.”
A thousand emotions ran through her, and Chloe could only bury her face in his chest, unable to say another word.
They were both alive, and Chloe’s nerve endings were on fire along with her throat. Why did this man do this to her when she wanted so badly to hate him?
The two of them hadn’t been this physically close since that long-ago night on the lawn under the stars. Now here they were again, lying on a lawn, Chloe held tightly in his arms while desire overpowered her. This man was so alluring and so confusing all at the same time.
On one hand, Chloe wanted to push him away and then she wanted to hold him with every inch of her being, but she didn’t have the strength to do either. She also didn’t have the strength to get up and walk away. Or to roll over and tell him to get lost, which made her lift her lips in a tiny smile.
Liam’s white teeth sparkled in the darkness as he held her face in his large palms. The look in his eyes rocked her world and her soul, while the world of the Romano mansion could have been a million miles away.
The silhouettes of Chloe’s family huddled together in small groups with somber faces and shocked eyes. Uncle Max had his arms around a stunned Aunt Aurelia, and Mercedes was crying into the jacket of Mark’s tux. Granny Zaida was sitting in a folding chair Carter had carried over from the garden area, but her fancy wedding dress was smudged with dirt and soot.
The air continued to buzz with the sound of the fire engines and the blast of hoses while the firemen worked to prevent the blaze from spreading.
Surrounded by blankets, Chloe was finally getting warm, the trembling in her body beginning to subside. She lifted her chin at Liam. “What’s that supposed to mean, anyway—the Chloe you know and love?” She poked a finger into his chest. Darn him, his muscles were hard as rock.
She was having a hard time breathing , and her heart pounded against her ribs. Whether it was the smoke that had seeped into her pores from being locked in the kitchen closet or Liam’s closeness, she didn’t know, and it was too hard to figure out.
“I’m trying to square up your unexpected heroics when you ran into a burning house to find my grandmother,” she added. “But you ran away when Jenna was trapped inside an exploded house.”
“I know that’s what you think, Chloe. But you’re mistaken . . .” Liam’s voice lowered. “A lot of things went horribly wrong that night. We weren’t anticipating the drug cartel planting a bomb to take out our team.”
“The nightmares of that night never go away,” Chloe said with a ragged breath.
“While you were pulling Agent Holmes out the front door, I ran around to the back of the house and lifted Jenna out through a rear window that had exploded.”
Chloe shook her head. “That’s not how I remember it.”
“You didn’t read the final report that included our team interviews during debriefing. I knew the reports were too painful, so I don’t blame you, but you have to know that I would never have left one of our own behind. Least of all, Jenna.”
Chloe folded her knees to her chest, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs while she tried to gain control of her emotions. Liam gathered her close while he gently stroked her back.
“You need to cry, Chloe. You were amazing that night, carrying Agent Holmes out on your shoulders. I was so proud of you. We all thought Jenna would make it. Her death rattled our entire team—and still does.”
“I wanted to run back inside and get her,” Chloe said in a muffled voice. “But the heat—the smoke—the flames, it was too much. I choked. I lost my nerve. Then the house collapsed. All this time, I’ve been guilty, too. But you were the one I blamed. It was easier to hate you.”
“Oh, Chloe.” Liam put a finger under her chin so that their eyes met. “You have no guilt at all. I already had Jenna out, but the burns she suffered were too great for her to overcome.”
“I never saw you at the hospital after the accident. You didn’t visit Jenna, or pay your respects at her funeral.”
Liam let out a breath and didn’t speak for a moment. “That’s because I couldn’t go. I was in the hospital recovering from my own injuries.”
She reared back in shock. “What are you talking about?”
“While you were keeping vigil at Jenna’s bedside, I was being treated for burns.”
“Where were you burned? Show me.”
Liam gave a self-deprecating laugh. “There’s a reason I never wear short-sleeved shirts. And suit jackets are a favorite part of my ensemble even in the heat of summer. I don’t want to scare people. Although I could probably be convinced to go skinny-dipping at midnight by myself,” he added with a quirk of his mouth.
“You are impossible. And I’m serious. Where were you hurt? Show me.”
The idea of Liam being hurt that same, tragic night was overwhelming. He had never breathed a word. Just kept it quiet so nobody fussed over him.
“In order to show you, I have to take off my shirt, and I’m not sure you really want to see the scars.”
“But I do. So take off your shirt. That’s an order, Agent.”
Slowly, Liam loosened his tie and tossed it onto the grass. Then he unbuttoned his white shirt and opened the front of it. There was enough moonlight to see that along the right side of his stomach lay a swath of wrinkled skin caused from second-degree burns.
Next, he rolled up the sleeve of his left arm. More burn scars stretched along his forearm to his elbow.
Tears swam in Chloe’s eyes all over again, and she bit at her trembling lips.
“Oh, Chloe,” Liam said, brushing a finger along her cheek. “Don’t cry for me. It’s just part of my job. I was proud to be part of that mission, despite its tragic outcomes.”
Bending down, Chloe traced a finger along the scars of his abdomen and arm. Then she took Liam’s hand and pressed it against her face, gazing at him, love spilling out of her heart just like the tears in her eyes.
“It’s okay, Chloe,” he said again. Liam placed a kiss in her palm and then grasped her fingers with his, tightly lacing their hands together.
Chloe’s skin sizzled with the fireworks of his touch. Her heart raced, and her throat filled with an emotion so strong she was overwhelmed.
Liam smiled at her, his eyes grazing her face hungrily. He reached out to brush his other hand across her cheek and then skimmed his thumb along her lips.
“That feels much better, Agent Romano.” Liam’s words were teasing, but his eyes were dead serious. “You have no idea how much I have longed to touch you again.”
“Don’t tease me, Esposito,” she said with a shake of her tangled hair. “Besides, I’m dirty, and I lost my shoes and my cell phone.”
“Well, I don’t want to kiss your dirty cheeks or make a phone call, so we’re all good.”
Time paused, hanging suspended in the night air, while Chloe gazed at Liam, overwhelmed by the truth of his heroics, his burn scars, and the feelings of his heart. She rose to her knees and crawled into Liam’s arms, holding him tight for several long breathless moments.
“Hey, you need to lie down now and rest, you adorable woman,” he finally said, laying her back against the blankets. “You’ve had a busy night.”
When he cradled Chloe’s face with both of his big, gentle hands, a rush of warmth spread through her. Agent Liam Esposito was too handsome by half. Those shoulders, that jawline. His lips coming closer, making her lightheaded, dizzy.
Chloe’s stomach jumped to the moon when Liam gently pressed his lips against hers in a soft, warm, and delicious kiss.
“You are crazy, Agent Esposito,” she murmured. “Kissing me for the first time while my entire family is watching.”
“Why hide? Why wait?” he said, and then planted another one straight on her lips while he smiled broadly.
Chloe thought her brain would explode, along with her heart and her soul. “You are impossible.”
“It’s been a long two years waiting for this very moment,” he said quietly. “I’ve loved you all this time, Chloe. I hated that we had to put aside our feelings.”
She traced a finger along the length of his jaw and then touched his lips. “When we couldn’t be together, I decided that hating you was easier.”
“I wanted to punch Brett Sorenson all weekend. I almost put a fist through your uncle’s wall when I watched you flirting and dancing with him. Making plans to go to Savannah for a weekend. I also heard Mercedes talking about your little pre-wedding date.”
The Undercover Bridesmaid Page 18