Page 25

CHAPTER 24

T RINA

I wake with a startle to someone shaking my shoulder and masculine laughter filling the air. As those close to me know—including my crew here at Station Three—I don’t wake up easy. Instead, I growl at the intruder and the laughter in the air around me increases in volume.

I bolt up in the bed. “Who the fuck is wak—” My eyes land on Jack. “Oh. Jack, what are you doing here in the middle of the night?” I look around and my crew are all in similar states as me, Gio and Tony still lying down but rubbing their eyes, Thompson still asleep with the blankets pulled over his head, and Frankie and Ian sitting upright at the side of their beds, both stretching.

“It’s not the middle of the night. You guys must’ve had a quiet night for emergencies because it’s after eight and we came up here to find all you sleeping beauties still snoring away,” Fitz chimes in.

“Hey, I am a sleeping beauty, but I definitely don’t snore,” Gio argues.

“Okay, Gio. Whatever you say,” I add. As a female firefighter, the department would accommodate me with a room for separate sleeping quarters, but I opt not to. I trust every one of these men with my life and they do likewise in trusting me with theirs. So, I can sleep in the same room as them and feel safe.

Over the next few minutes, my crew gradually climbs out of bed, slips on their boots, and says goodbye to those of us who haven’t left yet. I’m the last one left because, again, I’m not a morning person.

I pick up my phone and glance down, expecting to see nothing except maybe a few social media alerts from groups I follow. Instead, I see several alerts that my security system detected motion around my house overnight. When I open the app and look at the system status, everything seems okay except one of the window contact monitors shows the window is open. I never leave my windows open when I’m gone. Never. All the alerts are from around three thirty this morning, but I slept through the messages since I put my phone on ‘do not disturb’ after midnight.

I’m still gazing at the phone, not able to move. A few minutes later, a voice interrupts my stare-a-thon at my phone screen.

“Trina? Are you okay?” It’s a familiar voice, because it sounds like Ben, but not quite right. I look up to see Jack.

“I… I think I need Ben. C-can you call him for me?” I whisper.

“Sure.” Jack’s voice is reassuring. “I’ll be back in a second, okay?”

I look up at him and nod. The concern in his eyes is obvious. I spend the next few minutes squeezing my hands together, my phone in my lap as I wait for Ben. It registers that Jack comes in at some point and sits on the bed across from me. He says nothing, simply sits with me while we wait for Ben.I don’t let myself look him in the eye, hating that he’d be able to read the fear in my expression.

About ten minutes later, Ben rushes into the room. The panic-stricken look on his face and his rapid breathing are only there for a split second before he quickly schools his features to a more neutral expression—for my benefit, I’m sure. While Ben squats in front of me, his hands on my knees, Jack stands and quietly leaves the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

“I’m here,” Ben assures me. “You okay?”

I shrug in response and reach over to grab my phone, unlocking it, then handing it to him to read the text alerts.

I watch his eyes as they move left to right, reading the messages from my alarm company. Then they still, just focusing on the phone for a few extra seconds before he looks up at me.

He clears his throat. “It might be nothing, but I’m gonna drop you off over at Emily’s and then Rachel and I will head out to check your house. I’ll call?—”

“No. I want to go with you.” I dart my eyes up to his. “Please. I don’t want Emily to wonder why I’m coming over unannounced and… and I want to stay with you.”

Ben pierces me with his eyes for several seconds before responding. “Okay. But I want you to ride with me. We’ll get your car later.”

I nod, and he leans forward and places a tender kiss on my forehead. When he pulls back, he takes all of me in and grins. “You’ve got a bit of bedhead there, don’t ya?”

Even though I know he’s trying to lighten the mood and distract me, I smile in response. “I’ll go brush my teeth and I guess my hair, then I’m ready to go.”

Twenty-five minutes later, Ben and I pull up to my house and I see Rachel standing outside her car, waiting for us. As we walk around the outside perimeter of the house, we check the security cameras. My stomach drops when Rachel notices at least one has black spray paint on the lens. This certainly isn’t looking good.

Everything else seems normal until we get to the windows in the office area, directly below my bedroom, along the back of the house. I stop dead in my tracks when I take in the screen tossed carelessly to the side and the window wide open.

“Shit,” Ben hisses, immediately grabbing my hand and guiding me behind him.

Everything is a blur over the next hour as I vaguely hear Rachel calling for a patrol unit to meet us at the house. Eventually, I’m left in the hands of one of Ben’s trusted uniformed officers, Kurt. Meanwhile, Ben, Rachel, and the other uniformed officer who arrived with Kurt check out the inside of my house. While they’re in there, a team arrives to check for prints around my cameras and the windowsill of the open window.

How did this become my life?

Ben hasn’t come out of the house and I’m too worried about him and the others to relax, so I pace anxiously back and forth across my front lawn. Kurt keeps close to me. Is this like the television shows where the partners stay close as they clear the rooms in case one of them gets in trouble? Or is ‘Rach’ leaving Ben alone to fend for himself if he comes across my stalker? I swear if she leaves him alone and my stalker hurts him, I’ll?—

“Ma’am?” I whip my head around to look at Kurt, who has rudely interrupted my revenge planning on Rachel.

“I’m not a ma’am. Jesus, I’m only a few years older than you. What are you, twenty-five? Twenty-six? I’ll have you know that it’s rude to call a woman ‘ma’am’ unless she’s like, I don’t know, your mother’s age. Do I look like I’m your mother’s age?”

Kurt is flushing a bright red as I glare at him. I refuse to break my eye contact with him until laughter I recognize as Ben’s breaks me out of my tirade.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I turn and see he’s okay. But I’m also irritated that my rant apparently amuses him. “What’s so funny, Donley?”

“Nothing. I swear. I was just thinking of a joke, um… a joke Jack told me.” The man can barely hold back a smirk as he lies right to my face.

“Liars never win, Benjamin,” I growl at him. I turn back to Kurt and release a deep sigh. “I’m sorry if I was a bit… harsh.” As I turn away from him, I remember one more thing to tell him, so I glance back over my shoulder at him. “But don’t forget this. Never call a woman under, say, fifty—fifty-five—ma’am. Got it?”

Kurt nods. “Yes, ma’… yes Trina.” Then he practically runs away from me and back to his patrol car.

I sigh and spin to face Ben again. “So?”

Over the next few minutes, Ben assures me it looks like whoever tried to get into the house likely aborted the mission before entering. Something must have spooked him, causing him to leave. After he gets through his update, Ben asks if we can take a few minutes and talk out on the back porch over a cup of coffee. I agree, but I know by his body language that this won’t be a light chat.

* * *

BEN

Trina lifts her mug of coffee and takes a long sip. God, I hope she accepts what I’m about to ask of her without too much of a fight.

Rachel left to get back to the office and start the paperwork, and Kurt and his partner are sitting watch outside the house while the crew dusts for fingerprints, looks for footprints, and anything else that might help us identify Trina’s stalker. Another patrol car is driving the nearby streets to look for anyone suspicious lingering about. Once the forensics team finishes here, we’ll start going door to door to see if any neighbors have any helpful video footage from last night.

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “You likely don’t want to hear this, but I think you should come stay at my house. I’ll move into the guest room if you want, but I’m really worried about you staying here alone and?—”

“Okay.” Her voice is so quiet I almost don’t hear her.

“Okay?” I ask, surprised she agrees.

“Yes.” Trina wraps her hands around her coffee mug and looks out over her back yard before turning her gaze upon me. “Someone tried to break in, and let’s be real. There’s little doubt it was anyone besides the stalker. It’s not safe for me to be here by myself until he’s caught.” I flinch when she acknowledges we haven’t caught him yet, and she narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t. Don’t do that. It’s not your fault. He hasn’t slipped up. But he will.” She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “And when he does, I know you’ll catch him. In the meantime, I don’t think I’ll feel safe anywhere but with you, and we can’t stay here. I can’t risk him trying to get in again when you’re here and something potentially happening to you,”—her voice catches, and she clears her throat—“because I was too stubborn to leave my house.”

I squeeze her hand and nod, because I can’t speak right now. If I do, she’ll hear the emotion in my voice. After a few seconds, we both turn our heads to look out at the yard and we sit like that for another ten minutes before Trina speaks again.

“Can you move your SUV into the garage so we can put some of my stuff in it? I’m thinking we should do that where he can’t see what we’re doing, if he’s w-watching, I mean. Then will you drive me to the fire station to pick up my car?”

“Of course.” I stand and grab both of our empty mugs. “You go get started and I’ll load and run the dishwasher before I pull the car into the garage.”

An hour and a half later, I use the remote to open my garage door and Trina pulls in. I live at the end of a street and there are no other cars around. I’m certain no one followed us, so, for the first time in hours, I can breathe without feeling like a vice is around my chest.

I help Trina get her things into the house and into the master bedroom.

“I can move my toiletries and essential clothes out tonight if you want privacy,” I offer.

Trina swivels on her heel and pins a glare at me. “What? Are we pretending that we haven’t slept in the same bed for weeks now?”

Flustered, I run a hand through my hair. “No, of course not. I’d love to sleep in here with you.” I move closer to her. “I want to.” A few steps closer. “But if you need alone time and some privacy right now, I want to give it to you.” I take the last few steps to her and cup her cheek with my hand.

She stands up on her tiptoes, wraps a hand around the nape of my neck, and pulls me down for a kiss. A kiss that only lasts maybe thirty seconds but sets my insides on fire.

“Does that seem like I want you sleeping in another room?” she asks.

I smile against her mouth. “No. No, it doesn’t.”

She pulls back. “Good. Now show me where I can put my clothes, please, and then teach me how to use the alarm system before you go back to work.”