Читать книгу What Happens In Vegas... - Lauren Dane - Страница 20

As days from hell went, this one topped the charts.

I’d thought my possessive explosion over Carinna and subsequently taking her in the ass in front of the bulk of my coworkers had been bad enough. But that had been only the beginning. Shortly after arriving home from the tournament play that night, I’d gotten an emergency backup call.

I watched in abject horror as the members of the Ladder 19 crew still inside the blazing chemical plant raced out as it exploded for what had to be the eighth time since we’d made the bad call of going inside. A sick sense of foreboding had been with me since the first explosion, when I, along with several other members of the crew, had been lucky enough to get out. That foreboding threatened to overtake me as I counted heads through the billow of wind-caught black smoke turning the early-evening sky dark as night.

I came up one short and my stomach went queasy.

Ryan.

No, I couldn’t make that assumption. Dressed in the heavy, yellow protective fire gear the way they were, it was nearly impossible to distinguish one person from the next.

I yanked off my helmet and face mask. Others followed suit. Ryan’s face came into view and, though I hadn’t realized I’d held it, my breath came whizzing out.

It sucked back in on a painful note when I realized who was missing. “Where the fuck’s Axe?”

A few guys shook their heads, their faces revealing a mix of loathing and unshed tears, but no one offered words.

Finally, Ryan approached, sorrow filling his eyes. He laid a hand on my arm, speaking quietly. “He didn’t make it out, Jack. The roof gave away when he was on the middle of it.”

Bile rose up in the back of my throat. I gulped it down and drew in a hard breath.

Didn’t. Make. It. Out.

They were the words every firefighter feared and the ones no one would voice. Until the time came when you had no other choice. Even now, only Ryan had been able to get them out.

I shook my head, not wanting to accept that possibility, refusing to believe it. The undeniable grief in my brother’s eyes told me it was a stark reality.

My throat burned in a way smoke inhalation could never replicate.

Jesus, Axe. Tony Lorent to his family.

His family.

He had a wife. Kids. He was fucking thirty-two years old.

My tears came fast and hard. I swiped at them with the back of my hand, wiping soot into my eyes that had them stinging like a bitch.

“Goddammit!”

I loved these guys, they were my family, but that didn’t change the facts. I had to get the hell out of this job. My father had been a fireman, as had his father and so on. My father had been killed in the line of duty when I was four and Ryan one. I wouldn’t let that happen to my kids. And I would have kids. With Carinna.

Maybe I hadn’t been successful in surfacing her emotions last night, but what happened at the firehouse today, how she’d been able to find pleasure in a moment that should have been humiliating for her, proved how thoroughly we were involved. It proved, despite everything she did and said, she loved me.

One more day in the poker tournament and I could put this life behind me. Unlike every other facet of the day, my luck in the tournament had been better, brought me back up to fifth place. All it would take was a few good hands to come out the winner, or at least close to it. I would get those hands and get the fuck off of a fire truck.

Right now I had to get to Carinna. Had to lose myself in her kiss, feel the welcoming warmth of her sweet body. And she would welcome me inside, of that I held no doubt.

Because she was mine. Even if she wasn’t ready to admit it.