“What kind of restlessness?” Briana asked as she rose to get their coffee. She brought back two steaming mugs.
“She didn’t like being alone so much when I worked my twenty-four-hour shifts, but I explained that there wasn’t anything I could do about that. She wanted me to put in for a desk job and regular hours, but I didn’t want that. She told me she wanted a better life, a nicer place, money in her pocket. Unfortunately, I’d never gotten into the habit of saving much.”
“So she was unhappy, discontented?”
“Oh, was she ever. Next thing I know, she quit her job and told me she wanted to stay home, wanted us to get married so she could have another baby. We were already fighting most of the time. I told her no way was I getting married just then, and I made damn sure she didn’t get pregnant. Things went from bad to worse and I was about to pack up and leave her, but I was nuts about Megan. I didn’t know what would happen to her if her mother didn’t grow up.” Slade shoved both hands through his already mussed hair. “I should have tried harder.”
“Don’t,” Briana said. “Don’t start the should-haves, could-haves. We
all
might do things differently if we could foresee the future. Countless times, I’ve said to myself, why did I let Bobby go with Robert that day? I could have begged off and he’d have probably agreed. Or why didn’t I go along and take the bullet that killed my son? You can drive yourself crazy with those thoughts.”
Slade sighed heavily. “Yeah, I guess you’re right Anyhow, I did finally make up my mind to pull out. I went home after my shift one early morning and found that my key wouldn’t fit. Rachel had had the locks changed. I was furious and started banging on the door. She finally answered, wearing her robe, her hair all wild like she’d just climbed out of bed.”
He gave a mirthless laugh. “Because she had. She had my bags packed and waiting at the door and the other guy already moved in. He was someone Rachel said made more money than I did, enough so she’d never have to work again. Good for you, I told her and grabbed my bags. But before I could leave, Megan came running out and threw herself at me. That was the hard part, walking away from that little girl.”
Briana had a feeling there were even harder parts yet to come, but she kept still. She badly wanted to reach out and touch his hand, just to let him know she was listening with an open mind. But his head was bent and he was staring into his mug, the coffee untasted. “So she threw you out, so to speak.”
“Yeah.” Slade forced himself to go on, to finish. Briana had wanted to know, and by God, he was going to tell her every rotten, ugly detail. “Alex, her brother, got transferred across town to a different station, so I didn’t see much of him after the split. That was good because he used to bring Megan down to the station occasionally. It would’ve been hard, seeing her like that.
“One night about six months later, I was on duty when we got a call—a one-alarm fire. That usually means two engine companies, two four-men teams plus a battalion chief. A pretty serious blaze. A neighbor had phoned it in and I recognized the address right away, Rachel’s house. As soon as we pulled up, I saw flames shooting out of the back bedroom. Rachel’s room.”
Lifting his mug, Slade drank, needing the momentary diversion. He didn’t even glance at Briana, so anxious was he now to finish. “Two of us went barreling in, the other two on hoses. I knew the layout best so I went first. The whole place was filled with smoke and it was hotter than hell. I found Rachel on the floor in her bedroom. Later we learned she’d fallen asleep smoking.”
“The new man who lived with her, was he there?”
“No. Apparently he’d moved out about as fast as he’d moved in. Maybe he hadn’t lived up to Rachel’s expectations, either. Anyway, I picked her up, saw she was breathing, and handed her over to my partner because I knew Megan had to be in there somewhere. Rachel started coughing so I got in her face and asked where Megan was. In the closet, she finally said.”
Shaking his head, he struggled for composure. “I didn’t believe her. God, I wish I’d believed her.”
“What do you mean? What happened?”
“I went back down the hallway toward the bedrooms, but I thought that Rachel had been too foggy and disoriented to know where her daughter was. You see, Megan was scared to death of closets. She’d managed to lock herself in one once, and her mother hadn’t heard her yelling right away over the sound of the television. By the time I got to her, she’d been hysterical. But I went into her room anyway because I’d heard a sound, something that sounded like a child’s cry. I opened her closet and her kitten jumped into my arms. I’d heard the cat’s cry, not Megan’s.”
Briana was puzzled. “I’ve read that young children often hide in closets when there’s a fire, thinking they can escape that way. But since Megan was afraid of closets, why would she hide in one for any reason? And why would Rachel tell you to look for her in a closet unless she
knew
Megan was in there?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I should have searched
all
the closets. But I didn’t. I put the cat inside my coat and started searching, but she was nowhere. The smoke was so thick I could barely see. And hot! My God, it was like an inferno. My air bottle was running out and I knew I’d soon be in trouble. I was moving along the hallway, keeping low to avoid the worst of the smoke, when Rachel’s bedroom ceiling collapsed, the walls caved in, fire shooting up all around. That was the room hit the worst because that’s where the fire had started. The rest of the crew were pouring on the water, a couple on the roof ventilating, cutting holes to let out the smoke and heat. Still, I kept on looking for Megan, crawling along the floor, calling her name, until the kitchen burst into new flames.”
Slade shifted, rubbing a hand over his tired eyes. “It’s called a flashover. Heat builds in a room where there’s lots of smoke, it gets hotter and hotter, then suddenly erupts into new fire. The impact threw me into a corner. A couple of the guys came in and dragged me out. My air was used up. Another minute and the whole side of the building fell in.”
Briana did reach out then, moving closer, putting her hand on his arm, squeezing it to let him know she was there.
Slade drew in a deep breath. “They tried to put me into an ambulance because of smoke inhalation, but I wouldn’t go. I had to find Megan.” He shook his head. “But I knew. I knew it was too late.” He’d made himself stay until they’d carried out the small, charred body of what had once been a vibrant little girl. She’d looked no bigger than a blackened rag doll. Helplessly, he’d watched them bag her, knowing his life would never be the same.
He turned to Briana, his eyes bleak and empty. “Do you know where they finally found her poor little body? On the floor of Rachel’s closet Her mother had trusted me to get her child out told me she was in the closet, but like a stubborn, arrogant fool, I didn’t believe her because I was so sure Megan wouldn’t go into a closet.”
“But you
did
go look in the closet.
Megan’s
closet, which was the logical one to search. Rachel never indicated she meant
her
closet, did she?”
“No. She just said, ‘She’s in the closet.’ But I was the firefighter, the professional. I should have looked in
every
closet You can’t assume anything, especially when a victim is near hysteria.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes, suddenly aware he had a pounding headache. “When I finally saw Rachel outside in an ambulance after the medics had worked on her, she asked where Megan was. I had to tell her I hadn’t been able to find her. She screamed and screamed and screamed, then she collapsed. I’ll never forget that sound. I hear it in my sleep.”
Of course he would. He’d probably witnessed many burned and hysterical survivors, but none as personal as this one. “How badly was Rachel hurt?”
“Not much. They investigated and found she’d dozed off, the cigarette had fallen onto the bed and started the fire, but somehow, she’d rolled off the bed. The floor’s the safest place to be in a room that’s on fire. The best guess was that Megan had awakened in her room and wandered into Rachel’s, got scared when she saw the fire and crawled into her mother’s closet. Rachel had only minor burns, some smoke inhalation.”
“Didn’t you tell her how you’d searched everywhere for her daughter?” Briana saw a muscle in his jaw twitch as he fought for control.
“Yeah, but she kept screaming over and over that she’d told me Megan was in the closet, why didn’t I find her? She got so agitated that the EMS guys asked me to leave.” Even in the hallway, I could hear her.
You let my baby die.”
“Oh, but you didn’t, Slade.” Briana scooted so she was directly in front of him, forcing him to look at her. “You did everything you could. The walls collapsed. You couldn’t go in there. You did your best. It wasn’t your fault.”
But he was shaking his head. “I followed the sound, the cry, and it was the cat not Megan. I should have immediately gone to Rachel’s closet and checked. But I was so sure Megan wouldn’t be there.”
“Have you considered getting some counseling about this?”
“The battalion captain debriefed me, took me off active duty, and ordered me into counseling. I went on and off for two months, but I don’t feel any differently about what happened.” He met her eyes, his face weary. “It was my fault, Briana, plain and simple. I have to live with that the rest of my life. Now do you see why I don’t want to be a firefighter ever again?”
She nodded. “Yes, but I don’t believe Megan’s death was your fault. It was an accident, Slade. Weren’t you the one who told me that bad things happen to good people?”
It was as if he hadn’t heard her. “Do you know what Rachel’s like these days? I went to see her again about a week before I came here. She’s moved in with her mother, who also blames me. Rachel sits staring off into space, rocking in an old chair, rarely speaking. Scarcely living.
She’s
on my conscience, too.”
Briana had listened carefully, but still didn’t think he should shoulder all this blame. Rachel, after all, had been the one who’d been smoking in bed, fallen asleep, and caused the fire that killed her daughter. How can she blame the firefighters, most especially one she’d cared for once and who obviously loved Megan?
She searched her mind for words of comfort. “Slade, when we’re hurting, we want to blame someone, anyone, to lift the burden of guilt from ourselves. It’s only human.”
“You didn’t do that in Bobby’s death.”
“Because there was no one tangible to blame. If the police had caught the person in the car that had driven by and shot my son, I’d be at that courthouse, at his trial, wanting to see him punished. Rachel doesn’t sound very strong to me. She doesn’t accept responsibility for causing the fire in the first place, but rather blames you for not finding her child. That’s not right.”
Slade shrugged. “Right or wrong, the fact is that even if she forgave me, I’d still blame myself. I
loved
that child, Briana, and I couldn’t save her. I made a bad decision, looked in the wrong closet. Rachel trusted me to get Megan out and I failed her.”
“No! You didn’t fail anyone. You did your best. No one can ask more of another human being. If a policeman’s called to a house to settle a domestic squabble and the husband pulls out a gun and shoots his wife, is it that officer’s fault that he didn’t prevent that from happening? Absolutely not. You’re human, not superhuman. You can’t protect everyone or prevent everything bad from happening. You’re
not
to blame.”
He studied her face a long moment, so serious, so intent. How had he come to deserve someone like this championing him? And here he’d tagged her as the needy one. “I appreciate your faith in me. I wish I had a small measure of it.”
Briana set both their mugs aside, then moved closer to him, straddling his lap so they were torso to torso. “You have to find a way to forgive yourself. You can’t carry around this burden.” She framed his face with her hands, looking deeply into his eyes. Maybe if she could ease his pain, she could ease her own. “I believe you’re a good, honorable man.
You
need to believe it, too.”
Gently, Briana touched her mouth to his, her lips soft on his, slowly brushing, coaxing. Her hands slipped to his shoulders as she rained small, healing kisses on his chin, his cheeks, up to his closed eyes, then back to his mouth.He wasn’t indifferent, but he wasn’t responding. Yet. She’d run out of words to convince him; perhaps she could let him know in another way that she cared, that she saw only good in him.
She kept up the onslaught, circling his face again, pausing to plant warm, wet kisses at his ears, then pressing her mouth to the pulse point now throbbing at the base of his throat. She felt his arms slide around her, slowly drawing her nearer, and became bolder. “Kiss me back, Slade. Let me help.”
Wanting to let go of the hurtful memories and move into her healing touch, he made a sound deep in his throat and took her mouth. She was so soft, so warm, so giving. She opened to him, inviting his tongue inside, letting it spar with hers. Her arms encircled his neck as she pressed against him, and Slade felt engulfed in her generosity.
Her body was so very close, her movements as she wiggled making him ache as he grew hard with needs too long suppressed. He swallowed the soft sounds she made as he angled his head, taking her deeper.
This was what he needed, this mindless sensation, the seeking and the finding, the ageless mating dance. He wanted her desperately even though he knew she’d initiated this out of a desire to help him, not out of physical desire. He would take what she offered and make sure she wouldn’t regret sharing her special gifts.
Breaking the kiss momentarily, he rolled to his side, taking her with him onto the thick, padded carpeting. Stretching out, he reached out to align her body more perfectly with his, then went back to devour her mouth. She smelled so sweetly feminine, she tasted so wonderful, like something sinfully rich. And tonight he needed her so badly.
The kiss went on and on as Slade’s hands began to explore, his fingers fumbling with the buttons of her blouse. As anxious as he, Briana shifted to help him. The top button came free just as the phone in the kitchen rang.