by Katie Dowe
And he had spotted what had caused the fire. Of course he had.
Somebody had lit a candle and let it catch the curtain, fluttering in the wind thanks to the open window.
It was just the dumbest of luck that it hadn’t been worse.
“That went better than the idiot deserved. Of all the stupid…”
Christian trailed off, but Rick had been distracted by the goddess.
The goddess with a silly little dog, realized Christian. She looked vaguely familiar, but bathed in the afternoon sun, with her rich, dark skin, large, nearly liquid eyes and all that hair spilling out of her bun into large curls, she looked like she didn’t belong on earth.
She looked far too beautiful to be real.
And distraught, he realized.
Candle girl. It was the candle girl.
“Is it bad? Oh God, did anybody get hurt? Please, tell me nobody was hurt!”
Christian shook his head and guzzled water before he answered her.
“No. Nobody was hurt. You’re the one who left the candle lit.”
The guilt was obvious in her eyes.
“Please, please don’t tell anybody!”
He raised his eyebrows, a few shades darker than his sun-streaked blonde hair. His blue eyes were reddened by smoke.
He shrugged out of the gear, without taking his eyes of her. Did she think that this was like an elementary school prank gone wrong?
“I’m afraid that’s not how this works. I’ll have to write a report with the cause of the fire.”
She looked so distressed that, despite himself, he felt himself reluctant to get her into trouble.
“You have insurance, don’t you? They’ll cover it.”
She shook her head.
“You don’t understand. That’s not my place. It’s Zoe’s. This is Apple, Zoe’s dog. I lit this candle. It said the fragrance was mace and I couldn’t seem to help myself. Who the hell makes a mace candle? So I lit it, and I waited for a while to see if I could smell it. Then Apple really wanted her walk, and….”
She trailed off.
“And I didn’t even smell any mace,” she ended on a bit of a sulky huff.
Christian wasn’t sure he’d gotten all of that.
“You’re the dog walker. And you lit the candle.”
“And I will be so fired if you write that in your report. Can’t it say something else? Please? An unexplained accident? It was an accident. Oh God, the insurance might not even cover it if I admit it’s my carelessness. Then what? My life won’t be worth living!”
The tall, dark brunette was being a bit too dramatic, but suddenly, Christian realized who she was.
“You’re Heidi. The singer. You sang at Barney’s the other night.”
A glimmer of hope made its way to her eyes.
They really were magnificent eyes.
“Yes. I work with dogs during the day. It’s how I pay my bills. I do some basic behavioral work, some training, and a lot of walking and playing. Please, please, don’t ruin my life. I am so sorry. My future, my dreams are in your hands.”
That was a lot dramatic.
But it was probably true.
“You’re a very good singer,” he said, slowly.
Heidi clasped her hands together, and the moment was ruined because Apple decided to jump on his leg and hump it.
“Wait, isn’t she a bi... a girl dog?”
Heidi glanced down and nodded, as if it made no difference.
“Yeah, but she likes to hump legs. Especially if she likes how they smell. It’s nothing personal.”
Christian came to an uncharacteristic decision. He went on impulse.
“I’ll delay filing the report. I don’t have to do it today. I’ll think about it. But you need to take a fire safety course.”
Heidi nodded, close to tears.
She was ready to agree to anything at all if he’d just agree not to ruin her livelihood.
“I will. I’ll do anything.”
He turned away, hesitated, and turned back to her.
“You’re a very good singer. But you need to be more careful. And please tell that dog to stop humping the equipment.”
Heidi looked around distractedly.
“Shit. Down, Apple. Come on, girl, be good for me. Who’s a good girl? Now how about sit? Good girl, that’s a good girl, here’s a treat. Now stay, Apple. Stay.”
Christian was impressed when Apple actually did stay.
“Thank you. I… Thank you so much.”
“I haven’t promised anything,” he reminded her.
Heidi smiled, and he thought she was Isis come to life.
God, she was stunning.
“I won’t be fired today, at least. That’s something. And you put the fire out. It could’ve been so much worse. If Zoe had had a fire extinguisher by the door… Or the landlord had kept one on the landing… I don’t even know if Zoe is renting. Was renting. God, what a mess.”
Christian relented.
“Look, don’t worry. Shit happens. The damage isn’t too bad, really, and nobody got hurt. Rick got everybody out. There isn’t even a case of mild smoke inhalation. There will be plenty of cases of more than mild annoyance and irritation, but that can be weathered, can’t it?”
Heidi nodded gratefully.
“Thank you. I… God, thank you. I cannot believe…”
Heidi seemed to be at a loss for words.
Christian didn’t think that was a frequent occurrence.
“Chris!” called Rick.
He glanced back at Heidi.
“I’m Christian Sanders, by the way. See you around, Heidi. Don’t set any more fires.”
She shook her head, changed her mind and tried to nod, ended up doing a bobble-head. He had to bite back a grin. But then he saw that her hands were trembling.
Well, she had been careless. A good scare was one way of making sure that people would be careful.
But that instinct to soothe and comfort her, take care of her, was unexpected.
So, mostly to prove to himself that he could, he walked away without looking back at her.
There was chatter on the way back. There always was, when things went well.
As far as fires went, that had gone about as well as it could possibly have.
“So, who was the goddess?” asked Rick, finally.
Christian shrugged. He wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t know exactly who Rick was talking about.
“The dog walker. And singer. You’ve heard her. She sings at Barney’s pretty often. She’s very good.”
Rick snapped his fingers.
“Oh yeah, now I see why she looked so familiar. She’s pretty good. Good thing she was out with the dog.”
Christian nodded.
“Yeah. Dog belongs to Zoe, resident of the apartment where the fire originated. And where it was thankfully contained.”
“Then it’s an excellent thing she took the dog for a walk. Though to be honest, dogs seemed to have more sense than people when it comes to fires. They get down low and stay put instead of trying to put it out with things like alcohol. Or electrical fires with water. Really, sometimes, it seems like natural selection.”
Christian let Rick go on. He knew how the conversation would sound to anybody who didn’t fight fires for a living. But callous humor could be one of the only ways to get through it. When nothing truly bad happened, it was a release, and a welcome one.
But he couldn’t get that woman out of his mind.
No wonder, he told himself. She had pretty much asked him to put his career on the line for her.
Though he did wonder at the kind of person who would get mace candles.
Who made them? Who marketed them? Who bought them? For that matter, who would ever assume that somebody would buy them, and come up with the idea of making them? Nobody woke up one day and decided that mace would be a good scent for a damn aromatherapy candle.
He couldn’t fault Heidi for wanting to know what it was like.
He was pretty curious, himself.
But there had been no scent of mace in the apartment. He figured it would be a stronger version of nutmeg.
It had just been smoke, and he had said the honest truth when he told her that she’d been lucky. She had endangered every person in that building, through carelessness.
But people were often careless. She was obviously sorry, and he would bet all of his savings that she would never be so careless again.
Of course, compared to some, it wasn’t a lot to bet.
And he might very well be betting his career on that instinct, that split second when he had sized her up and decided she was worth the risk.
When they got back to the fire station, Christian realized, with a start, that he had already made his decision. He wasn’t going to rat her out.
He was going to take the huge risk of not being honest in his report.
It made no real difference to anybody, he told himself, but that was only true as long as he wasn’t caught.
Christian didn’t quite buy his own justification – that it was because she had great promise as a singer, and he wanted her to be able to make a living and chase her dream.
That was true enough.
But it wasn’t all, and he knew that.
*****
Heidi wanted to drown her sorrows in a good, stiff whiskey. Or three.
Or, hell, five.
She’d never had five drinks before, which was odd for somebody who spent so much time in bars and pubs.
“Heidi! I was worried, where have you been?”
She didn’t feel like dealing with Mrs. Spinelli, much as she loved her. She had to be ready to sing in exactly an hour, of which twenty minutes would be getting there, and another twenty would be prep. That gave her twenty minutes to…
She didn’t know what she could possibly do to make herself feel better in any way at all.
Sighing, she turned to Mrs. Spinelli and smiled.
“You don’t look very good, honey.”
Heidi tried to make the smile a bit better, and brighter.
“No, I’m fine. It was just a bad day. There was a fire at Zoe’s apartment. Apple and I were out. We called it in. The smoke alarm didn’t go off, apparently. Anyway, Zoe’s settled with her aunt for now. So is Apple. But I had to stay with her for a while, and then go to get the rest of the dogs, and… Well, it wasn’t a good day, really.”
“Oh, you poor thing! Come on in and put your feet up. Have a glass of wine, and have dinner, and you’ll feel better soon.”
Heidi kept the smile in place as she shook her head.
But the regret was real. Putting her feet up and relaxing for the whole evening – that sounded so enticing! But Heidi had a purpose, and that purpose was music. She wouldn’t give up just because she’d had a hard day.
She knew that she could take a break if she wanted to, but she had promised herself that she would never let laziness stop her. This would be laziness, because she could easily do a one-hour set, maybe even a two-hour set, even if she was dead on her feet.
As she nearly was that evening.
“I wish, Mrs. Spinelli. But I’ve got a set tonight. You could come, you know. Get a handsome young man to buy you a glass of wine. Or three.”
She laughed, as Heidi had intended, but there were those worry lines between her eyebrows, meticulously drawn as usual, anyway.
“I’ll be fine. I’ll come home before midnight. I promise.”
Her neighbor, the woman who treated her with as much affection as she would a beloved niece, sighed.
“There’s no way I can stop you, is there.”
“No, but I will be fine. I promise,” repeated Heidi.
It took some more reassuring, taking up a few more precious minutes of relaxation, before she was reassured enough to let Heidi go into her apartment.
Once inside, Heidi gave herself a moment to just lean against the door, bury her face in her hands and just breathe.
She needed to breathe. She felt as if she hadn’t been able to do that very simple thing in so long.
It had been the longest day ever.
She still couldn’t believe how careless she had been. She could’ve done so much damage.
No, she had done plenty of damage. She could’ve caused people to lose their lives; certainly, she could’ve caused many people to lose their lives’ work.
How could she have done that? She had never done anything remotely like that ever before. She had always been responsible and sensible.
Sure, many people thought she was an idiot with her career choices and her decisions, but with things like this…
She had never been so terribly stupid before.
Heidi considered just chucking everything for a moment. She was just so, incredibly tired.
Giving up seemed so appealing.
She did what she always did when she got low enough to consider giving up. She closed her eyes and pictured it – her name in lights.
She would, one day, play Madison Square Garden. And that day, she would have her name in lights.
That was worth all of this.
She had time to have a shower. What she really wanted to do was put her head down for a while and give over to oblivion, but she had a feeling that would last longer than ten minutes.
So she made do with shoving her head under the shower for a solid five minutes.
That, of course, meant that most of the twenty minutes set aside for getting ready went on her hair, which was wild when it was wet.
But with two minutes to spare, she was ready.
The makeup had done its job. She didn’t look as if she’d had one of the worst days of her life.
As she left, she finally let herself think about what she had been avoiding all day: Christian Sanders.
She’d never been the cliché that liked firemen. But boy, he sure had looked absolutely irresistible, even with smoke-reddened eyes.
Smoke that she had caused.
Even with the guilt roiling inside her, she couldn’t deny that immediate, solid punch of desire that had burst through her like a storm.
She’d never felt anything like it before.
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to. It complicated life.
But then, mused Heidi as she walked into Barney’s, a good singer and song-writer never had a simple life.
She was going to kill her set that night if she could pull everything inside her and pour it out through her music.
Chapter 3
Heidi was about ready to call it a night.
It had been a good night. She had sung it all out.
At least, she had sung almost all of it out. She might have one more song left, but that was it.
She looked up after talking to the band, got her guitar to do an acoustic version of her original song – the crowd always mellowed down by the end of the night enough to be receptive to original music – and sat down.
She looked down at the people, and smiled. Most of them were quite tipsy, and all of them seemed to be enjoying themselves.
The couple who had obviously had a fight before coming in had definitely made up. Looked like they’d be going home together.
The group of girls who’d come in to celebrate a twenty-first birthday would soon be holding the birthday girl’s hair back as she paid part of the price of celebrating turning legal the traditional way.
It was probably worth the price.
The guys eyeing the girls would get booted out immediately if they even tried hassling any of them. Women could feel reasonably safe at Barney’s.
She let her eyes drift over the crowd as she spoke. It was patter. She had it down. She knew how to gauge a crowd, see who’d like to be mentioned or pointed out, and who wanted to blend into the background.
Like the guy at the back, she thought, sitting exactly where almost no light would fall on him. He wouldn’t like any attention.
He was there, a little apart from the crowd, but still enjoying the energy o
f it all. He was a spectator, but he was also an observer.
She smiled, an easy relaxed smile, and he shifted just enough to let a sliver of light play over his face.
Heidi’s easy patter stuttered to a stop.
The sandy blonde hair, the blue eyes, though no longer reddened by smoke – there was no mistaking him.
She quickly picked up right where she left off and kept on talking.
It was him, wasn’t it? It was Christian Sanders. He was there to watch her. She knew that. Maybe he was there to be sure she took that fire safety course.
Well, she would, as soon as she could get a few moments to get that done.
On impulse, she excused herself, walked to the edge of the stage and caught a waiter’s attention. Instead of her usual water – one glass of red wine at the end of the session was all she had, as a rule – she made an unusual request.
“The guy sitting alone at the back. The one in the shadows – blonde hair, blue eyes. Send him a Scotch, will you? On me. Tell him the singer said thanks, and she means it, from the depth of her heart and soul.”
He looked surprised, for a moment, but nodded.
Heidi was a regular. She was good for it.
With a smile for a job well done, Heidi made her way back to her stool and sat down.
She glanced down at what she was wearing, suddenly a bit self-conscious.
The floor-length strappy dress flowed over her and was bright enough to remind you of spring, when everything bloomed and was beautiful.
She’d wanted that, she supposed, and had chosen it without even thinking about it when she dressed.
Her hair wasn’t straightened. It was curly and a bit wild, but deliberately so.
She couldn’t stop herself from hoping that Christian would think that it wasn’t just her music that was worth the trip to Barney’s.
“Sorry about that, folks. I spotted a parched throat and decided to do a good deed. Now, I have an original for you all now. If you don’t like it, please, don’t hesitate to let me know. The time-honored way of destroying a budding singer is good enough. You know, booing and hissing. I’m a hardy, seasoned, veteran, I can take it.”
She had her audience. They took her ribbing with a chuckle.
She swung into the song, and within a few seconds, she knew that she had them.
It was a good song. She’d known that. But it was better than she’d hoped it would be, because she saw people forget to take a drink, forget to take a bite… They only remembered the people they loved, and that’s what she had wanted when she’d written it.