Page 50 of Fighting Fire

“I know.”

“Why are you dwelling on this?”

“I don’t know. I’m just sure that if I had lost her, I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself, especially after I saw the baby. He was so little.”

“You’ve got to let this go.”

“I know.”

“Second-guessing yourself and replaying these incidents with a different outcome only makes it worse.”

“You’re right. I know that you’re right. Except when I dream, I dream that I’m dropping my father…and you.”

“I understand you don’t want to fail me, but what’s up with your dad?”

“He wants me to make captain,” she whispered.

Sean was silent for a moment. He shifted and moved closer to her. “At the eighty-second?”

His hand went to her hair, and he slowly caressed her as she answered. “Yes, you know it’s his old station and tradition.”

“You’re afraid of failing at that?”

She snuggled closer to him, sighing. “I guess deep down inside, I must be.”

“Are you feeling that maybe this dream you have doesn’t stem from what you want, but what he wants?”

“What do you mean?”

For a moment Sean didn’t answer, then he said, “How long has he been pushing you?”

Lana felt the bedrock of their relationship crack with a very fine fissure. “You mean helping me?”

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

“That’s what it is. I’ve had this dream of becoming captain ever since I can remember.”

“Why didn’t you ever mention it before?”

Lana felt something shift inside her and she shied away from it. It was too big for her to contemplate, too big for her to deal with.

“The subject never came up,” she said steadfastly with pure conviction in her voice.

“That sounds like bull to me. Maybe you’re not as sure as you think you are.”

“I’m sure,” she insisted. But inside, she was panicking. Why? Shewassure it was what she wanted.

Sean’s skeptical eyes seemed to look right through her. She didn’t have anything to hide, did she?

“If that’s the case, we’ll have to think about this.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice gruff and uneven.

Sliding his arms around her back, he hugged hard. “Lana, I can’t stay at the eighty-second if you’re appointed captain there.”

Lana closed her eyes and hugged him back. “Why do we have to talk about this now?”

Sean shifted his hold. Spanning her jaw with his hand, he tipped her face up and brushed a soft, reassuring kiss against her mouth. “You think our relationship won’t be long-term?”