Through The Fire

Malik’s smile grew into a wide grin that flustered her even more. He took her hand. “He wouldn’t tell me a single thing about the lovely firefighter, except for your name.” He clucked his tongue. “I knew you’d be pretty.”

They had talked about her, Lucia thought, the butterflies beating against her chest, her attention still on Rafe’s smiling face. His hair was longer than she had remembered, the color a warm, dark brown.

“And I’m pretty sure you have something else to do,” he said, taking Lucia’s hand out of Malik’s and drawing her into the apartment. “Like now.”

Malik laughed. “I do?” At Rafe’s glower, he repeated, “I do. Something very, very important back here that I’m sure I’ll remember real soon.” He slapped Rafe on the back. “She’s fine, so you be extra nice.”

Completely bemused, Lucia watched Malik amble toward a hallway. Rafe’s hand around her own was warm and solid, which made sense since the man had proven to be both yesterday.

Rafe led her through a living room that was dominated by a huge black leather couch, a matching loveseat and an equally masculine recliner. An enormous black television was surrounded by various high-tech components, smooth jazz emanating from the speakers. The kitchen was small, the stainless-steel appliances gleamed, and the counters were neatly lined with various gadgets, from a cappuccino machine that looked too complicated to use to an electric ice-cream maker. Something savory-smelling bubbled in a glass-lid-covered pot on the stove.

Letting go of her hand, Rafe said, “I’m glad to see you. Would you like something to drink?” Without waiting for an answer, he opened the refrigerator. “A soda or a lemonade, or the ever-popular iced tea?”

I’m glad to see you. Those simple words warmed her beyond anything reasonable—maybe because it was an echo of how she felt. She realized he was looking at her expectantly, and her attention shifted to the open refrigerator door.

“Iced tea.” At the breathless tone in her voice, she silently marshaled her thoughts into some coherent order. “That sounds good.”

Rafael Wright wasn’t the first man she had ever found alluring. But he was the most potent.

FOUR

“I’ve got to warn you,” Rafe said, taking the jug of tea out of the refrigerator. “It’s sweet tea—a taste I acquired when I was living in North Carolina a few years ago.”

“That’s fine,” Lucia said. “Were you fighting wildfires there?”

Filling the glasses with ice, he nodded. “They were having a drought, and I spent most of the season there.”

“Fires have a season?”

He grinned, that killer dimple flashing. “They do. Brush fires as early as February or March, sometimes, in Florida and southern California. Or late. There was a big fire in the Everglades in November the same year I worked in North Carolina.” He filled the glasses from a pitcher in the refrigerator. “I see you brought my jacket back.”

She glanced down at the coat still clutched in her arms. “Yes.”

He handed her the glass. “I was hoping it would turn up.”

She extended her arm so he could take the jacket. “It looks like you’ve had it a long time.”

“I have.” He set it over the back of a chair and motioned her toward the living room. “It was a gift from my sisters one Christmas.”

“The schoolteacher and the homemaker,” she said, heading for one end of the monstrous black leather couch, where she sat down. Setting the iced tea on the chrome-and-glass coffee table, she slipped off her lightweight coat.

“You remembered,” he said.

She didn’t respond to that, especially since everything from yesterday was vividly etched in her mind. “Your friend that you were visiting when the fire started, how is she—”

“He,” Rafe corrected, cocking his head toward the hallway. “Malik. He was released this morning.” Rafe sat down on the other end of the couch, extending one arm across the back and balancing the iced tea glass on his thigh. “A ladder fell on him during a training exercise, and since he had a concussion to go with the gash over his eye, they wanted to keep him overnight for observation.”

His gaze on her was so thorough that she looked away, noticing details about the room beyond the high-tech, masculine toys. The mostly barren glass and chrome shelves didn’t have a speck of dust—unlike her own oak furniture. There was a picture of Rafe with a couple of pretty women, the kind of photo she would have thought was a posed family picture, except they didn’t look anything like him.

“My sisters,” he said.

She looked back at him.

“I was adopted when I was nine,” he added, as if understanding her unasked question of why there wasn’t a family resemblance, and smoothly moved on to a new subject. “I went by the children’s ward this afternoon to find out how Ramón and Teresa—and their sister—were doing.”

“I did, too,” she said.

“They told me I had just missed you.” His gaze roved over her face.

She smiled. “I was wishing you were with me…or that I spoke Spanish. I couldn’t understand them.”

“They were happy you came to see them,” he said. “Their sister has some rare kind of bone cancer, and she’s going to be in the hospital for a while, so you’ll have other chances to see them.”

“I’m sorry for that. Not that I’ll have a chance to see them, but because their sister is sick. That’s hard—the long wait and not knowing…”

“You’re talking about your father?”

“Yes.” She met his gaze, reassured when she saw only curiosity and compassion in his expression. Speculation about the extent of her father’s injuries and whether he would be able to return to work had dominated the news. Lucia hated the spotlight that her family had been thrust into.

He moved his arm from the back of the couch to take her hand. “Your family has had a rough several months, if the reports on the news are to be believed.”

His touch was warm, offering support that she didn’t quite know what to make of. When she pulled her hand away to once again pick up the glass of iced tea, she had the fleeting thought that a hug from this man would be just as warm, just as supportive. Those were the kinds of thoughts she couldn’t afford, even though she had told Colleen that…maybe…she was ready to move on. The all-too-familiar knot in her stomach reminded her that she was no longer as confident as she once had been or as certain of her own judgment of others. She reminded herself that she had come to return his jacket—that was all. The sooner she drank her tea and left, the better.

Taking a sip of the tea and focusing on the last thing he had mentioned, she said, “You know the news—you have to make it exciting somehow. And the truth is, we’re just waiting for him to wake up, just as we’ve been doing since those first days.”

“Waiting and praying,” he said.

“Yes,” she breathed, her silent admonishment to hurry lost beneath the feeling that Rafe somehow understood. “Exactly that.”

“Then you’re doing all you can.”

“It doesn’t feel like enough,” she said, setting the glass back on the coffee table.

“Prayers are heard.”

She met his kind gaze once more, feeling as though the ground had subtly shifted beneath her. He had confirmed what she had been taught all her life, what she believed to the depths of her soul. Prayers were heard. One more thing that added to her awareness of him.

“Now then.” He winked at her. “I have a mondo huge favor to ask.”

The butterflies returned as she realized he was flirting with her. “I’m not sure I know you well enough for ‘mondo huge’ favors.”

“I figure being trapped together by a fire means you know me very well,” he said. “My niece’s birthday is coming up, and my sister tells me she’s not old enough for Barbie dolls, which were always my fallback gift for my sisters.”

“A safe choice.” Personally, she hadn’t been that interested in playing with dolls when she was a girl, nor had she had the endless fascination of dressing them that she had seen in her friends.

“And since I’m her only uncle and her godfather—”

“You take your responsibilities seriously.”

His grin widened. “You get the picture. So you’ll go shopping with me?”

“When?” That was a far cry from the “I can’t” she had intended to say.

He glanced at his watch. “No time like the present.”

“But your dinner—”

“It will keep.”

“I’m not sure that I know that much about two-year-olds. Plus…” Plus what? she wondered.

Evidently, he had the same thought because he asked, “Plus?” He stood, picking up the glasses from the coffee table, and headed for the kitchen. Lucia trailed after him, watching as he set the glasses in the sink and turned off the stove.

“I don’t have a lot of time,” she said. “There’s a prayer service for my dad at seven thirty.”

“We have plenty of time. If it runs tight, I’ll go with you. Do you want to take your car or mine?” he asked, coming back toward her, snagging her coat off the end of the couch and holding it up so she could put it on.

She remained fixed on his matter-of-fact announcement that he’d go to the prayer service. The idea of sitting in church with him was one thing, but the idea of him being around her mother and brothers—she’d be setting herself up for questions she wasn’t prepared to think about, much less answer.

So tell the man you can’t go with him, she crossly said to herself. Or tell him that you have to hurry. Instead, she slipped her arms through the sleeves of her jacket. Her silent reminder that she had only wanted to return his coat now seemed hollow…and increasingly like a fib to herself.

“Well?”

Refocusing her thoughts once more and remembering that he’d asked whose car they should take, she admitted to herself that she was way out of her depth.

“If we take my car, are you one of those guys who will want to drive?”

Putting on his own jacket, he said, “Only if you have a BMW Z4.”

Deciding that she probably lived under a rock, at least in the car department, because she had no idea what kind of car that was—she said, “I left it in the garage.”

“Hey, Malik, you can come out now,” Rafe called toward the back of the apartment. “The sloppy joes are done, so help yourself. We’re leaving.”

“Catch you later,” Malik called back.

“It would fit in a normal-size garage, wouldn’t it?” Lucia asked as they went out the door, her initial idea of the vehicle changing from a sports car to some oversize SUV.

Rafe laughed, following her down the stairs. “You’re not into sports cars, hmm?”

She shook her head, walking toward her small SUV.

“A Honda CR-V,” Rafe said, identifying the model of her vehicle and going around to the passenger door. “Sweet. And I can see that you’re a skier,” he added, patting the ski rack on the roof of the vehicle.

“You’re now privy to my weakness,” she said, opening the door and flicking the switch to unlock the passenger door.

“You like to ski?” Rafe’s smile was even wider as he got into the car. When she nodded, he asked, “What’s your favorite run in the state?”

“Timberwolf,” she instantly said, “and then that nice, long, fast ride down Coyote Caper.”

“You ski Keystone,” he said. “Speed and altitude.”

She smiled at him. “In Summit County, altitude is the only thing you’ve got. Where’s your favorite run?”

While she backed out of the parking spot, he said, “I couldn’t name one favorite. Iron Horse Trail over at Winter Park is a good one. I like to get up to the top of Alberta Peak a couple of times a year.”

“I’m not familiar with that one.”

“Wolf Creek Ski Area,” he said. “And the prettiest run through timber in the state is there, too. Simpatico—and let me tell you, the name fits.” As he had done with the couch, he stretched his arm across the back of the seat. “Sounds like we need to make a ski date.”

“I don’t date,” she answered, the words so automatic they were out before she gave them any thought.

Without missing a beat, he said, “Good. If it was a date, you’d expect me to pay for the lift tickets—”

“I have my own Colorado Pass.”

“And rent you skis—”

“I have a new pair of Völkl skis.”

He whistled in appreciation. “It’s a good thing you don’t date, Lucia Vance. You’d be high maintenance.” The teasing quality in his voice took away any possible sting.

“You’d be surprised.”

Actually, Rafe was. She clearly skied a lot since she had a season pass that gave her access to all the ski areas in Summit County. And since she had named a couple of runs that came close to the kind of extreme skiing he preferred, she was clearly a good skier—make that an expert skier—something that increased her appeal a thousandfold. As for being high maintenance, she clearly wasn’t. Not from her modest SUV to her shiny, nearly black hair that she wore in a no-fuss ponytail. Her nails were cut short, and given her choice in careers—plus her interest in skiing—he figured she was a tomboy, not a high-maintenance, frilly woman.

This woman, he thought, would be easy to fall in love with. Even though she didn’t date. Maybe especially because she didn’t date.

She pulled the vehicle to a stop at the traffic light a couple of blocks from the apartment. “You need to provide some direction for this shopping expedition,” she told him.

“I’m thinking we should head for Citadel Mall,” he said. “I think my niece would like one of those made-while-you-watch teddy bears.”

Lucia smiled. “And here you wanted me to think you didn’t know what you wanted to get.”

“It got you to agree to come with me.” He waited a beat until she took her gaze off the traffic and looked at him. “Now tell me why it is that you don’t date.”

She looked away, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. Her focus on the traffic kept her from looking at him, but she didn’t answer right away. Figuring her answer would be more interesting and hopefully closer to the real reason if he didn’t push, he waited, fascinated by the way her fingers tapped the edge of the steering wheel.

“Three older, overprotective brothers,” she finally said.

“And their names, just in case they come looking for me—”

“Which they won’t because we aren’t dating.”

“Humor me,” he encouraged, wishing she’d look at him again.

“Travis, Peter and Sam,” she said. “In that order.”

“Why else?”

She shrugged. “Nothing. Just big brothers who like to think they know what’s best for me.”

He figured there had to be more to her not dating but let it go, returning to the safe topic of skiing and the merits of various ski slopes throughout the state. In the process, he learned her family had a condo in Breckenridge. By the time they had reached the teddy bear store, she had also revealed that she had a soft spot for stuffed animals. He paid attention to the ones she picked up before handing him a soft brown traditional-looking bear, tucking that information away for use at some future time.

They spent the next half hour going through the ritual of placing a satin heart in the bear’s chest before stuffing it and picking out accessories.

By the time they were finished making the purchase, it was after seven and time to head for the prayer service.

“I don’t expect you to come with me,” Lucia told him. “I can’t impose on you.”

“Why not?” Rafe asked from the passenger seat of her SUV. “I imposed on you to go shopping.”

“That’s different.”

“I don’t see how,” Rafe said, figuring this was a chance to meet at least a couple of her brothers. If they were as overprotective of her as Lucia indicated, the sooner he crossed that hurdle, the better. That he was even thinking so was an indication he was getting in deep already. He had known her slightly more than twenty-four hours but already knew they had shared values and shared interests. If she thought he’d be turned off by going to church with her, he also needed to put that to rest. “Let’s put it this way, I want to come with you.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” As she put the car in gear and eased slowly through the parking lot, he watched her, absorbing everything he could about her in the dim light. Her skin was fair, a sharp contrast to her dark hair and eyes. Tendrils of hair had come loose from her ponytail. One day, he’d wrap one of those around his finger to see if her hair was as soft and as silky as it looked.

“You’re staring,” she said, a flush staining her cheeks.

“There’s a lot to stare at,” he said without any apology. “If I made you uncomfortable—”

“We’re not going to date.”

“I heard you.” Much as he suspected she needed a more solid agreement than that from him, he wouldn’t lie to her. If she was so dead set against dating, he’d find another way to spend time with her.

“So you can stop looking at me like that.”

“I’ll do my best,” he promised, sure that he had heard a tremor of underlying fear in her voice. What happened to you, Lucia Vance? he wondered.

The service had just started when they came through the door to the church. To Rafe’s surprise, the church was nearly full, so they sat down in one of the rear pews. Even though he was extremely aware of Lucia next to him, the lifelong habit of being in church during good times and bad brought that awareness to the forefront. Familiar comfort seeped into him.

His own silent prayer for Mayor Vance’s healing joined Reverend Dawson’s. Along with that prayer were others. For Lucia to find a sense of peace within this challenging time for her and her family. For a chance to know her better. For Rafe’s actions to be guided by what was ultimately good for Lucia, not simply by his own selfish desires.

When the service ended, they remained in the pew as people made their way out of the church, many of them stopping to speak with Lucia. Some he recognized. Battalion Chief Neil O’Brien with a petite woman who was several months pregnant—the woman smiled at Lucia while the chief pointedly ignored her. Several other firefighters, including the two men he had met the previous day. Gideon Jackson stopped to say hello to Rafe and introduce his son, a little boy who was his spitting image and who quietly held tight to his hand. Luke Donovan held a toddler who had fallen asleep on his shoulder. Two other little girls with his blond hair and blue eyes skipped alongside of him and his wife, a pretty redhead who looked to be several months pregnant.

The little girls clearly knew Lucia well because they immediately launched themselves into her arms. She responded affectionately with them, chatting with their mother. A second later, they were joined by a blonde who caught Rafe’s eye and immediately stuck out her hand, saying, “Hi, I’m Colleen Montgomery.”

“This is Rafael Wright,” Lucia said.

Colleen lightly touched the front of his jacket. “Ah, the mysterious owner of the leather jacket.” Her inspection of him was frankly speculative before she said to Lucia, “I’ll see you tomorrow, girlfriend.”

When a trio of men came down the aisle toward them, Rafe figured these had to be Lucia’s brothers. All dark-haired and as tall as himself, they surrounded Lucia as though she needed protection. From him. That thought made him inwardly grin, since he recognized the posture—he had used it a time or two to intimidate guys hitting on his sisters, though they had both been older.

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