Hot Nights with the Fireman (17 page)

She texted him.
Everything all right? Waiting to move. We can reschedule if necessary. Love, Val.
She debated over the
L
word for a minute and decided on keeping it. Signing a letter or e-mail with love was totally different than looking Jason in the eye and saying
I love you
. She stared at the screen another second then hit Send.

Another hour went by and still nothing. No word from Jason. She'd kept busy surfing the Internet but all the while there'd been a nagging in her gut telling her something wasn't right. He should've called by now or texted. The station would call her if something happened to him, right? Who was she kidding? No one at the station even knew they were dating. She didn't have his parents' information to call them to learn if something had happened to Jason.

Oh God, what if he
were
hurt or dead. No one would ever know to call her, and she'd be left in the dark for a long time. Nausea rose in her stomach, and she curled into herself on her desk chair. She needed to get it together. Now. Jason was a capable firefighter. There was no reason to think he was hurt. Except…except firefighting was a dangerous job.

She could look up his parents on the Internet. She knew their last name and they lived in Aberdeen. No problem. She pulled up the proper web page and froze in her chair, hand on the mouse. What if all was well, and she was simply panicking? If she called his parents, they'd be made to worry for no reason. It'd be a fine introduction to his parents.
Hi, I'm Valerie Wainwright, the woman who's shagging your son. I think he may be seriously injured but I have no proof other than he hasn't contacted me in a few hours.
Um, yeah, no. She'd be labeled paranoid at best or crazy.

She could call the station. So what if Jason hadn't told anyone there they were dating? She knew it was only to protect her. She didn't care anymore, especially since the PR project was winding down. Let their relationship go public.

She called the station. The phone rang a few times, and went to voice mail. Now her heart was really pounding. They were all at an emergency call. Maybe it was simply a really busy day with back-to-back calls, and he'd had no time to call. She was sure that was it.

Except…She could go over. There was no reason not to. She could even bake cookies or a meal and bring it over. It was a nice girlfriend gesture to do, right?

Decision made, she ran downstairs. Her parents had long left for the theater by now. She slipped on her shoes and got in her car. She'd pick up some food on the way. She wasn't really the baking, Martha Stewart type anyway.

Thirty minutes later, armed with a platter of burritos and nachos, she pulled into the station parking lot. The hook and ladder truck was being backed into the large bay as she parked. Relief swamped her. Any second Jason would climb out of the truck and she could give him and the crew lunch after a long morning.

She slipped into the station house and waited by the glass door with a view into the truck garage. One by one, the crew climbed off, only no Jason. With her heart in her throat, she pushed her way into the garage and headed off Dan.

His face was blackened with soot and grease and who knew what else. Lines bracketed the corners of his mouth, but he smiled faintly when he saw her. “Valerie. What are you doing here?”

She didn't have energy for polite words. “Where's Jason? What happened?” Something
had
happened; she was convinced of it. Her grip on the hot metal aluminum platter of Mexican food slid and she struggled to right it.

A frown crossed Dan's face. “Jason? Why are you asking about Jason?”

“Tell me.”

He took a step closer. “There was a bad fire. The roof caved.”

She lowered the food platter to the ground, with a thud. All her attention was on Dan. “He's alive. Tell me he's alive.”

Dan's face was puzzled, as if he couldn't figure out why she cared so much about one of his crew.

“Tell me,” she said. “Where is he?”

“He's at Arlington Hospital in the Burn Center.”

Oh God.
Ohmygod.
Without wasting another second talking to Dan, she turned and sprinted through the building then out to her car. She could hear Dan's voice yelling something after her, but she didn't stop to listen. She was in her car and spinning out onto the main street before she took a full breath. Her seatbelt wasn't clicked until the first red light.

Long-forgotten images of her curled under her covers in a dark room filling with smoke entered her mind, and she had to force her attention back on the road. Had the memories truly been forgotten, or had she blocked them? The thing she remembered most was the heat and the odd sounds that had woken her up. The suppressed memories woke her on occasion in the middle of the night in a pool of terrorized sweat, but she never awoke with the details of the dream; and only retained a fear so deep it had weight and depth.

How Jason willingly and voluntarily entered her worst nightmare on a regular basis, she couldn't fathom. And now he'd been hurt.

“Come on.” She tapped and banged the steering wheel, letting the car inch forward. The second it changed, she shot forward, racing to get to the hospital in time. She prayed she'd be on time. He could be dying. He could already be dead. No, she couldn't think like that. He was alive, he had to be.

Ten speeding-ticket-worthy minutes later, she skidded into a parking spot in the large covered garage of the hospital. She'd been here often, for many of her doctors were in the medical center wing of the building. But she'd never been to this particular burn center. She wasn't even sure which direction to go. She ran toward the nearest entrance and practically accosted the first hospital employee she saw.

“Burn Center. Where?”

The woman felt her panic and didn't waste time. “Through this building. Across the courtyard, first door on the left.”

She sprinted, sliding a little on the slick hospital floors, and soon she was bursting into the Burn Center.

The receptionist at the desk greeted her, eyeing her sweaty, half-crazed self as a possible danger. Val could almost see her hand inching toward the emergency panic button ready to call for backup should the crazy lady prove violent.

She took a breath and tried to compose herself. Slapping on her most professional PR persona, she politely said, “I'm looking for Jason Moore. He's a firefighter.” So much for professionalism. Her voice cracked on the word
firefighter
, but the receptionist's frosty look softened, and she slid over a sign-in binder. Valerie hastily scrawled her name and followed the directions down the hall and up the elevator one floor.

She didn't know what to expect. Thinking hadn't exactly been at the forefront of her mind when she'd streaked out of the station to find Jason by any means necessary. She rode up alone in the large elevator, trying to calm down and be ready to face whatever greeted her. The doors slid open and she was met by a few of the firefighters she'd come to know, except for one all-important face.

“Hi, Valerie,” came a chorus of greetings, but it was an acknowledgment. No one looked enthused to see her or even surprised. They were sprawled in chairs across the small waiting room. Some stared at a TV set mounted to the wall, some were sipping from foam cups. Fighting back panic, she approached the group.

“Where's Jason?”

Rebecca, the only female firefighter in the waiting area, stood. With a puzzled look, she said, “He's downstairs, in the emergency room. I'll show you.” When they were a few steps away from everyone, Rebecca turned to her with sympathetic eyes. “He's fine, really.”

“Thanks,” she whispered, wondering why he was in the ER and not with the rest of the off-duty crew. She took the elevator back downstairs and went hunting for Jason. After getting directions from a few nurses and doctors, and giving a few white lies about being a family member, she was finally sent to what she hoped was the correct bed. She placed her hand on the edge of the pale blue curtain. She didn't know what she'd find inside. Slowly she pulled it aside, expecting the worst.

“Valerie?” Jason was sitting up in bed, looking groggy. “What are you doing here?”

She raced to him and launched herself on him in a bear hug, at least as much as the bed with rails allowed. “Jason,” she whispered against his hospital gown. “I was so scared.” The emotion of the day caught up, and sobs erupted out of her.

His hand came up to awkwardly cradle her. “Hey, baby. Don't cry. I'm fine. How did you know to find me here?”

She pushed back from the embrace and perched on the bed. Now she saw he was not as fine as she'd first thought. A fresh-looking cast braced his arm from fingers to elbow. “You broke your arm,” she cried, reaching for it, but stopping before touching it.

“I'm fine.” His good hand stroked her hair back from her cheek. “I'm sorry I didn't show to help you move. Were you waiting with your bags to move?”

She nodded.

“Shit, I'm sorry. It was supposed to be a small house fire. Nothing that would make me late. And then this”—he lifted his arm and winced—“happened, and I didn't want you to come racing here.”

She thought it was sweet he'd tried to protect her, but, “I hadn't heard from you all morning. I got worried when you were late,” she confessed. “After Friday night…after your note…

“Are you really all right?” She knew she was babbling, but her brain struggled to process her emotions right now, because a large part of her knew that the reason she was so freaked out by Jason's accident was that she cared. Too much.

The fact that he was downstairs
not
in the Burn Center was salve on her emotional wound, but her body had yet to come down off the adrenaline rush from when Dan had mistakenly told her he was in the Burn Center.

She stroked a finger lightly down his cast. “Then you're okay? You're
not
burned?”

His uninjured arm reached across his body to pat her, but he had a dark look on his face. “I'm fine, but José's not.”

Remembering the sweet, slightly older firefighter, her eyes widened. “What happened to José?”

He took a breath. “It was a rough night. We had back-to-back calls.” As she'd suspected. She noticed now how tired he looked. It was partly her fault for keeping him up late Friday. Maybe if he'd had a full night's sleep, he would be healthy now with no broken arm.

“This last call was a doozy. No smoke detector and a whole bunch of kids playing in the attic. By the time we got there, a lot of the house was gone, but we had to get the kids out. It was a kitchen fire and they were trapped upstairs.”

He paused, and she heard the gritty quality of his voice. She leaned for the cup of ice water and held the straw to his mouth.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Don't talk if it hurts,” she said, but it would kill her not to hear the whole thing.

“Nah, I'm okay.” But he held on to the water cup. “Anyway, José and I got on the ladder to get the kids.”

She held her breath, waiting and praying they got the kids.
Please God, let all the kids be alive.

“We got all the kids out.” Her breath whooshed out. “But a roof joist caved in. Got my arm. And José.”

“Is he…alive?”

“He's hurt pretty bad. Is everyone still up in the waiting room?”

She nodded and squeezed his hand. He looked somber. “I didn't want to call you until my arm was set. I didn't want to frighten you.”

“Too late,” she said.

“Val?” His eyes searched her face. “Were you really? Frightened, that is?”

She looked away and nodded.

“I'm sorry, baby. I never wanted you to be scared. Especially over something as minor as a broken arm.”

“It's not minor to me. You could've been killed.”

He frowned at her. “Val, relax. It's just a broken arm.”

“It's more than a broken arm. You were in a fire.”

His palm stroked her forearm. “You are so spooked right now. This is why I didn't want to call you.”

She sat straight. “What do you mean, you didn't want to call me?”

He leaned back against the hospital sheets, the corners of his mouth pinched in pain. “Because a lot of women think it's cool or sexy to date a firefighter until something like this happens. Then shit gets real.”

He was offering her an out, and a tiny part of her was tempted to take it, because the fear she'd had for him had brought up too many bad memories. Yet staring at his handsome, tired face, she couldn't take the offered out. She cared for him too much. “You think I'd walk away, because I'm too weak or shallow?” The worry and fear rolling inside her all morning while she waited for Jason started to fester and bubble.

“No, I think you're incredibly strong, but you've told me we're having a fling. I didn't know if my strong feelings were one-sided. I didn't want to make you come to a hospital when we've been dating less than a month. That's not exactly fling dating material.”

She fiddled with the sheet while perched on the edge of the bed. She couldn't deny that every cell in her body was screaming to get the hell out of there. The days followed by weekly appointments spent at a hospital like this had stolen enough of her life. No, she didn't want to be back here and wouldn't be except for Jason, looking fatigued on the bed with her. “I'd prefer to make my own decisions. I thought after Friday night, I'd made it clear we're more than a fling, which means, I'm going to have to be strong enough to handle stuff like this.” Her words sounded brave. She wasn't sure her soul could live up to the brave words.

The truth was, she'd burst into the Burn Center upstairs running on adrenaline, but now that her brain had caught up to her body, she was terrified. As in, she wanted to curl up under the covers with Jason with the sheet over her head. Or better yet, race out of the hospital to hide under the covers of her own bed.