Page 93 of Smoke and Roses

“It’s there, honey,” I tell her. “The barn’s standing. We’ll come back and see it after you get out of the hospital.”

She nods, but I can tell she’s disappointed.

I pull off my helmet and gloves and set them beside the ambulance. Then I crouch in front of her and take her hands.

“Alison, can we have a minute?”

“Sure. I’ll check on the crew and be right back.”

I wait until she’s walked away before I look at Lindsey again. Her brown eyes are red and watering, and there’s soot all over her cheeks. She’s got a smudge across her forehead where I must have touched her with my glove, and her sweater looks like she rolled around in a fireplace.

I nearly lost her today.

I’ve worked enough fire this fall to know how fast it can turn, and I’ve heard Rob’s stories about people caught on the wrong side of it. Finding Lindsey on her knees beside that stone house, coughing so hard she could barely talk, scared me worse than anything I’ve dealt with in fourteen years in the Army.

I tighten my grip on her hands.

“I love you,” I say.

She looks at me without speaking.

“I came here to disappear. You gave me coffee. You gave me a key. I’m not going anywhere.” I have to swallow before I can finish, and it has nothing to do with the smoke. “I love you, Lindsey North. I’m going to say it every day. In daylight.”

Her eyes fill with tears.

I reach up and pull her oxygen mask aside long enough to kiss her. She grabs the front of my soot-black shirt and holds on, and for a few seconds, I forget that we’re sitting beside an ambulance with half the department working fifty feet away.

Somebody whistles.

I don’t have to look to know who it is.

“Holy shit. Romeo,” Novak says.

“Every inch,” Rob yells.

I keep kissing her until Alison clears her throat behind us.

“I’m going to need my patient breathing oxygen again, Travis.”

I pull back and settle the mask over Lindsey’s face. She’s blushing, which is pretty impressive considering how much soot she’s wearing.

“How many people are behind me?” she mumbles.

I glance over my shoulder. Nate is ten feet away with the hose over his shoulder. Novak is beside him with his phone up, and Rob is leaning against Engine 1 like he paid for a ticket.

“Three.”

“Plus Weber,” Novak says. “Their captain’s got binoculars.”

“Oh my God.”

“Don’t stop on our account,” Rob says. “Novak’s still got forty percent battery.”

“Got all of it,” Novak says. “Real artistic. You two with the smoke in the background. You’re gonna cry when you see it.”

“Delete it,” I tell him.

“Hell no. That’s going on the station wall.”