Page 19 of Love Songs (Harmony Lake #3)

I kicked open an apartment door across the hall and raced for windows that were blown out from the explosion. If we couldn’t get down the stairs, we could get down a fire escape.

Except the ladder was well out of our reach.

Fortunately, our truck was positioned nearby, on the east side of the building.

I radioed Shepherd with our location so they could get the hydraulic ladder into position.

Flames closed in on us while we waited for what felt like an eternity, but I knew wasn’t more than thirty seconds before the turntable ladder was in place.

When it was, I shouted at Juno to go first. Once she and her limp but precious cargo were out, I followed, but thought I heard something—or someone calling out.

“Did you hear that?”

Juno looked up at me from the ladder. “Hear what?”

I glanced over my shoulder, straining to hear anything over the snap, pop, and roar of the fire. The fire had closed the room behind us, too. There was no way I was getting back in there.

“Don’t you dare, Conor James Holliston,” Juno barked, but I heard the worry in her voice.

We were out of time.

I prayed to the universe that the sound had only been my imagination and climbed onto the ladder with an extra eighty pounds of dead weight over my shoulder.

Paramedics rushed to us at the bottom to take the kids while both of our captains railed at us—me for disobeying orders and Juno for going back when her team had been recalled.

An eardrum-busting boom cut off Burgess and Baraldi’s tirades, and the roof of the apartment building collapsed, shaking the earth under our feet.

Flames exploded from the broken upper floor windows a good twenty feet out and thirty feet high.

Shattered glass rained down on the ground, sending first responders running.

If we’d still been in there . . .

“You,” Captain Burgess pointed at me, his cheeks flush with anger or heat. Probably both. “Go help clean up and then start on-scene decon.”

“Same goes for you,” Captain Baraldi barked at Juno.

“Good to see you, sis,” I said as our captains walked away, and we headed toward our respective engines.

“Good to see you too, big bro,” she said, poking me in the ribs with her elbow, for all the good that did under our turnout gear.

“You know, we really have to plan our visits better,” I said, trying for levity but still wondering if I’d heard a voice when we were up there.

“So, what’s this I hear about you dating the Dallas Blade?” She looked up at me with a sparkle in her eyes.

“Christ,” I groaned and dragged a hand down my face. “How the hell did you hear about that all the way down in Grantham?”

“Please.” She snorted. “I’m only an hour away. Besides, Emma heard it from one of her patients, and she told Mom and Dad, and they told me.”

“Oh my God.” Our oldest sister Emma was the biggest gossip in the family, and being the only doctor in town, she got the scoop from almost everyone in Caldwell Crossing. “Mom and Dad know? Great .”

Any minute now, my phone would be buzzing with their calls, asking when I was going to bring Dallas around for them to meet, and before I knew it, they’d be including him in family get-togethers and all. Then Mom would head the wedding planning crew.

“Like they don’t already know everything going on with us anyway.” She laughed, and I snort-huffed in agreement.

She was right. I didn’t know what it was about parents, but they had some strange sort of sixth sense. When I was younger and my imagination would run rampant, I used to wonder if they’d received some kind of magical drug at the hospital that gave them all-knowing superpowers.

“We are not dating,” I argued for the millionth time today. “He’s a big-time international rock star, and I’m a small-town firefighter. It would never work.”

She studied me for a long moment, and I fought the urge to fidget under her intense stare.

“What?” I asked finally.

“But you want it to work, don’t you?”

“Not answering that.”

Juno was quiet for a minute, but her smile may as well have been shouting through a megaphone.

“So,” she drawled. Soot streaked over the bridge of her nose and brows, making her look a bit like a racoon. “When do I get to meet this famous rock star you’re not dating?”

“Probably never.” I pulled my helmet off and ran a hand through my sweaty hair. “He’s leaving town tomorrow and I doubt I’ll see him again.”

“Hmm.”

I threw my arms up. “What does hmm mean?”

She shrugged. “You know the saying ‘where there’s smoke there’s fire’?”

“Did you forget that we’re firefighters? Smoke and fire are literally in our job descriptions.”

“And the flip side of that adage is ‘where there’s a will there’s a way’,” she said sagely.

I shook my head and playfully shoved her. Sisters , man .

“Go do your decon.”

“See you at Mom and Dad’s for dinner on Sunday,” she called over her shoulder as she walked away.

After clean-up, a quick decon shower and change of gear, my team and I drove back to the station in silence.

While I was grateful that we’d been able to get people out of the building, not everyone had made it out.

A firefighter from Danbury had been critically hurt by a falling beam and taken to a Lebanon hospital; two bodies had also been discovered.

It ate at me that I hadn’t gone back in, and I fell down the rabbit hole of second guessing my every move. Could I have handed off the child I had over my shoulder and gone back in? Should I have searched harder for someone else trapped or injured? Could I have saved those two people?

I knew I was running around in circles, but even a single injury was one too many. And when loss of life happened on our watch . . . The weight of it was hard to carry.

Back at the station, the mood was solemn as we went about the full decontamination routine of our gear and the trucks. When we were done, Captain Burgess called us into the dayroom.

“That was a tough call today,” he began. “You guys all did good out there, but I don’t want to see any of you taking risks again like Holliston did.”

I deserved to be called out for my actions, but I still went and opened my mouth to explain. Burgess held his hand up.

“I know your sister was in there,” he said. “But she’s a trained firefighter, too. We could’ve lost both of you in there today.”

“You’re right, Cap,” I said, my voice gruff as guilt and remorse roiled through me for my actions and those we’d lost. “I’m sorry I can’t guarantee it wouldn’t happen again though.”

He nodded at me like he understood, and I knew he did because he would’ve done the same thing for a loved one. We all would.

An image of Dallas smiling up at me played in my mind. If it had been him trapped behind the fire line, I would’ve done anything, risked everything, to save him.

“The department counsellor is on call if any of you need to talk,” Burgess said. He pressed his lips together, and with a brief nod, returned to his office.

“Anyone want something to eat?” Shepherd asked as he wandered into the kitchen.

That was his way of coping after a bad call, even though he never ate what he made.

Just the act of cooking helped him. Me though, I needed to burn off the agitating mix of exhaustion and adrenaline still pumping through my veins, but we still had a couple hours left on shift.

I couldn’t hit the trails or the rivers, but I could hit the treadmill in the weight room and run it off.

Walking the few blocks to my home on Willow Lane when my shift finally ended, I pulled my phone out of my pocket.

Usually, when I had a bad call at work, I would text Sam, Ryan, and Haider.

We’d meet up at Lucy’s or my house, and they would rally around to bring my spirits back up, reminding me that life went on and about how grateful I was to have them in my life.

Calling them was second nature. A thing I did on autopilot.

But not this time.

This time I pressed Dallas’s number.

A brief thought crossed my mind that I should worry he was the first person I wanted to talk to.

He was a pleasantly unexpected but wholly temporary visitor in my life.

Someone I shouldn’t be getting so attached to.

Who would be leaving soon—like the next day—and whose life was completely opposite mine.

But that didn’t matter just then. I couldn’t fight the pull, and if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t want to.

All I knew was that I wanted to hear his voice. No. I needed to hear his voice.

“Hey, Conor,” Dallas greeted in that melodic raspy voice of his, and warm light burst into my chest. “Are you doing okay?”

Weight sloughed from my shoulders, my body felt lighter, and the pressure constricting my lungs released. How did such a simple question make me feel instantly better? It wasn’t so much the question that eased my melancholy, though, but the person who’d asked it.

“Hey,” I said, my throat suddenly tight. “I . . . Uh . . .”

“What’s wrong?” The pitch in Dalla’s voice rose a notch. “What do you need?”

Just hearing your voice . . .

I cleared my throat. “Want to meet up for dinner?”