One Hot Summer (41 page)

“Not alone, you're not.”

“Damn right, I'm not. Send the whole crew in. Every man. We've got to get her and Granny June out of there before a flash point hits.”

“Roger that. I'll get the crew together. You wait for my call after we get water on those flames.”

Sure he would. He'd get right on that. Micah fixed his radio, shrugged into his breathing apparatus, and strode to the front door of the chapel, the only spot on the building not engulfed in flames. That building's wood had been baking under the Texas sun for a half century. There would be a flash point as soon as the interior temperature crested and the chapel's whole interior would incinerate as though a nuclear bomb had exploded, no actual flame necessary.

He paused by Granny June's bench, which had been reduced to smoldering shards of wood and carbon. Surrounding the bench, tire marks dug into the earth below the singed lawn as though the bench had been hit by a car. Or a golf cart. Micah had been so upset with Remedy when he'd left the resort that he hadn't stopped to say hello to Granny June while she took her usual cocktail hour on the bench with her glasses of bourbon and a candle. Flame and accelerant.
My God …

He had to get them out of there. The alternative was too overwhelming to consider. He was angry with Remedy and Granny for going into such a deadly situation and angry at God for screwing him over like this. After all the sacrifices he'd made, the devotion with which he'd undertaken the burden of protecting what he loved from fire, this was what he got in return. Two of the people he loved the most in this world trapped in mortal danger by a fire.

Dusty and three other men fell into step behind him.

“We've got your back,” Dusty said. “Let's go get 'em.”

Ty Briscoe was his next obstacle. He met Micah near the chapel steps, a frantic, desperate look in his eye. “I'm going with you.”

Micah shoved him out of his path. “You're not trained and you don't have the right gear. I do. My men do. Do not get in our way and make our jobs any harder. Do not make this about you.”

“I can't just stand here and wait.”

Micah leveled his fiercest glare at him. “You'd better. That's the only way you can help right now.”

James Decker appeared behind Ty, restraining him the best he could.

Micah shut out the sight and pounded his chest, forcing the air from his lungs, draining the fight from his blood. This rescue had to be accomplished with nothing but cold, calculated skill or it wasn't going to work. He shut it all down. His fear, his love. Everything except his job. The only emotion coursing through his veins was resolve. He was not coming out of that chapel alone.

“You bring me my mother and you can have anything you want!” Ty bellowed to him. “My money, the resort, power like you've never known. I'll give you anything; just bring her out alive, goddamn it.”

 

Chapter Twenty-Two

Micah dropped to his knees at the chapel entrance and proceeded forward, crawling, into the building. There was still a good six inches of visibility beneath the smoke, which filled him with hope that smoke inhalation hadn't killed both women yet.

On their hands and knees, the firefighters fanned out in the vestibule, each taking a side to methodically search, not only for Remedy and June but for any other unknown victims. Micah took the center, crawling through the open doors to the sanctuary and down the center aisle, his head on a swivel. Visibility was declining rapidly, and he strained to scan down each row of pews.

Every few feet he called Remedy's name, but he was nearing the front of the sanctuary and had yet to find any sign of them. The altar and stage behind it were completely engulfed in smoke. He couldn't even tell where the flames were and which walls were on fire, the smoke was so dense. He was running out of time. A flash point was coming and it would kill them all when it did.

Then, through the darkness, a woman's hand reached out on the wood flooring.

Micah rushed forward. “I've got two women, alive but injured, in the center aisle of the sanctuary,” Micah said into his radio. “Need backup in here.”

He crushed any emotions he felt back into a safe, locked box in his heart and reclaimed his cold, calculated skill. “I'm going to get you both out of here, but we need to hurry.”

Dusty scrambled through the encroaching darkness and reached Micah's side in no time. More firefighters swarmed around them. “We're getting you both out of here. Right now.”

Micah lifted Remedy's semiconscious body into his arms. Dusty did the same with Granny June. The men didn't think, they didn't take their time—they headed for the doors at a sprint. They'd barely cleared the base of the hill when the flash point struck. Windows exploded. A piece of the roof splintered, then caved in. Angry orange flames licked at the sky as the building started to collapse.

Micah and Dusty and the rest of their team kept running toward the waiting EMTs, past the additional fire trucks that had arrived on scene and had their fire hoses trained on the building. In the distance, Micah could see that another couple fire crews were maintaining the firebreak line between the chapel and the wilderness beyond the resort.

Micah and Dusty gently laid the injured women on two stretchers, then stepped back so the EMTs could get to work. From under Granny June's shirt slid a bound volume. It fell to the ground and opened, its pages flapping in the wind. Ty and his children and wife crowded closer.

“My mother's wedding album,” Ty said, his voice cracking. “That's why she went in there. To save her album.”

“We need space to work. I need everyone to back up,” an EMT said.

Micah turned his attention to Remedy. Chet hovered over her, affixing an oxygen mask to her face while another EMT started an IV drip.

“Tell me she has a pulse,” Micah said.

“She has a pulse and it's strong. As soon as I put the oxygen mask on her, she opened her eyes,” Chet said.

Praise God.

Micah leaned in nearer. Remedy's eyes shifted to look at him.

He tamped down the relief and fear and lingering anger, all the emotions that would undo him if he let them. He'd fall apart later, when no one was counting on him. Meanwhile, he had a family to update.

Standing behind the taped-off barricades along with the rest of the curious hotel guests, he found Remedy's parents. The only way he could think to describe the looks on their face was
stricken
. It was ironic how these two larger-than-life celebrities had sunk so low in his mind, the more he'd learned about them. But they were Remedy's flesh and blood, and they deserved to know what was going on with their daughter.

“She's awake again and lucid,” he told them. “Not sure about smoke inhalation damage yet, but she's alive.”

Remedy's mother bowed her head and wept uncontrollably.

“Let's go,” he heard an EMT behind him say. “She's ready for transport.”

He turned in time to watch the ambulance doors close with Granny June inside. Ty Briscoe was putting up a fight again, though Decker was doing his best to restrain him. Stripped of his cockiness, Ty was just a worried son, like any of the hundreds Micah had seen throughout his career.

“Let me ride with her. I'm her son,” Ty said.

“I can't let you do that, but she's in good hands, I can guarantee you,” Micah said. “My men are taking her to the Tri-City Memorial Hospital. Close by. You can meet her there.”

“I'll drive you and the rest of the family,” Decker said. “Let's get moving so we can follow them directly.”

Decker, Carina, her sister, Haylie, and Ty's wife lit off across the lawn, but Ty lingered. “Is she going to be all right?” he asked in that same scared voice Micah had heard from so many loved ones over his years working as a first responder.

“Hard to say, given her age, but if anyone can pull out of this, it's June. You're lucky that the fire roads held so the fire didn't spread to the resort or the woods. This could've been a whole lot worse.”

“And the hydrants you insisted we get—” Ty said.

The mention of hydrants brought Micah right back to how pissed off he'd been during the grand battle between the two of them over their installation. “You mean the ones you fought me on every step of the way? Doesn't seem like such a waste of money anymore, does it?”

Ty's face was stripped of any ego, any pride. “No. It doesn't.”

Micah knew his adrenaline was responsible for the way his anger was whipping up as potently as a firestorm, but he couldn't find it in himself to hold back any longer. “And it's not only me you've been jerking around. You've been fighting the whole fire department for years trying to tie our hands and limit our power. Don't you see? This time we saved your mother, but when someone's trapped in a fire it's always someone's mother. It's always someone's loved one.”

Ty screwed his face up in anguish. “You win.”

Micah just about cracked wide open like a volcano with that asinine pronouncement. “It wasn't about that. It's
never
about that for me or my crew. You're the only one who thinks all this is a game.”

“I don't want to be your enemy!” Ty shouted. “No more fighting your burn bans or regulations. I have too much to lose.”

Micah's attention shifted to Remedy, who was sitting up, looking stronger by the minute, while Chet held a stethoscope to her lungs. “We all do.”

“Thank you for saving my mother.”

Micah shook the hand Ty extended. “It was my honor.”

Ty turned away.

“Hey!” Micah called after him. “She's going to be okay. She's too strong not to be.”

Ty gave a terse nod, then jogged after the rest of his family.

The lawn and parking lots were jammed with firefighter vehicles from all over Central Texas. The fire looked close to containment. Micah would let the other crews handle that. There was only one thing on his mind. Remedy.

Standing apart from the crowd, he allowed a small storm of feelings to swell up inside him. She'd nearly died. He would never forget the way she looked on the chapel floor, crawling to safety, Granny June on her back. The conviction in her eyes, the strength. His own profound relief at finding them, of not being too late.

He shed his jacket and wiped his sweaty, soot-covered face on his sleeve, getting a grip again. When he reached her, all those feelings came exploding up to the surface again. He braced tight fists on either side of her hips so she wouldn't see how his limbs shook. He locked his watery gaze to hers.

She took down her oxygen mask and stroked her hands through his hair. He jerked his head away.

“Could you give us a minute?” he told Chet.

“Only a minute, though. We're gonna get her to the hospital for a more thorough exam.”

When Chet and the other EMTs had cleared out, Micah forgot everything he'd been prepared to say. It was all too much. The hurt, the fury, the fear that nothing he did would ever be enough to keep everyone he loved safe. “What happened? The fire looks like it may have started at Granny's bench. Was that it? Was it her candle for Tyson that did it?”

“I was driving the golf cart. Granny wanted to chase the homing pigeons and we were having so much fun. I crashed the golf cart into her bench. The candle knocked over. Her drink and the second drink she had sitting there both knocked over. And the rest happened so fast.” She closed her eyes. “So damn fast.”

“You should have waited for a fire crew to arrive.”

“When Granny June ran in the chapel I knew I couldn't wait for someone else to go in after her. And then, with the smoke and the heat in there, I couldn't get Granny to leave and I was tired. I wanted to give up, but I put you in my mind. I had to get back to you, Micah, because I love you. There was no other choice but to see you again.”

“And here we are,” he bit out. “Granny June unconscious and you in the back of an ambulance and a lot of lives risked.” Her shoulders sagged, but he couldn't dwell on that. “You almost left me today.” His tone came out sounding harsher than he'd meant, and maybe she could have mistaken it for anger if not for the roughness charged in each word.

“I had to save Granny June.”

“You should have waited for me and the other firefighters to go get her. That was reckless and irresponsible, and just like you to pull that crazy shit without thinking it through to the consequences.”

Her face screwed up, angry and hurt. “I know.”

“Lay off her or get away from my ambulance,” Chet said. “She's been through enough.”

A small voice in Micah's mind told him Chet was right, but the rest of him was tired of holding back, tired of the constant trouble she caused for him. “The worst part is that it's my fault, really. I never said anything to Granny June about those candles she burned. I was too busy getting her advice about romancing you. Same as the ballroom fire. That's on me, too. I told you the first time we slept together that I wasn't going to let you interfere with my job, but that was exactly what I went and did. I let you get into my head and cloud my reasoning. The ballroom fire, the choices I made to authorize that damned dessert and those flammable trees and those dogs—all that nonsense—put hundreds of lives at risk. And for what?”

“I cosigned every authorization that night, too, man,” Chet said.

The hurt tasted thick and bitter as mud in Micah's throat. “How dare you sashay into town with your trust fund safety net in place and wreck my life and the lives of so many others? Wynd offered you a job in Hollywood and I think you need to take it.”

The devastation on her face nearly brought him to his knees. He girded himself and held steady.

She looked at Micah, then past him, to her parents, who'd crossed over the barricades and were fast approaching the ambulance.