Rush (Phoenix Rising) (2 page)

Quaid saw an opportunity for redemption. The first step toward taking that look out of Jess’s eyes forever. And after Luke and Teague popped the vehicle’s doors and the team dropped into the cool night, Quaid went in search of Kai.

The scent of pure mountain pine mixed with smoke. One deep breath and excitement rushed his system. Adrenaline fueled his muscles and pumped his energy. His thoughts sharpened, his reactions quickened. He was high and ready to take on the flames.

But he couldn’t do that tonight. He couldn’t play that reckless cowboy anymore.

Local firefighters already had their ladder truck positioned alongside the building, their hoses pouring water on fiery tongues licking through a hole in the metal ceiling. Three other engines were positioned near the main door. Firefighters hauled hose from the back of the trucks, the thick canvas slithering along the asphalt like tan snakes. Light from flood lamps cascaded over the surrounding terrain, making the aspens’ flat leaves sparkle gold among the dark towering pines.

Quaid followed Kai to the opposite side of the vehicle and stopped close. “Chief, I’d like to be on the entry team.”

Kai yanked open a compartment. “As if.”

“I know I screwed up. Give me a chance to fix it.”

“If you can’t act like a professional in training—”

“Give it a rest, Kai. We’ve worked together for eight goddamned years. Do you want me to remind you how many times my unorthodox ways have saved your ass?”

Kai shot him a heavy-lidded look around the metal door, but his silence said he was considering. Quaid held his breath, waiting . . . hoping. After several seconds, Kai finally said, “Fine, you’re on the entry team. But Quaid? I want you to think about how ball-shriveling glacial it is in Iceland right now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you make even half a misstep, you’re off this team. You got me?”

Quaid exhaled slowly. “Yes, sir.”

With purpose and a plan, Quaid headed back toward the truck. He found Jess on the far side, unloading gear while studying the fire. He smiled to himself, a little surprised at the new sense of maturity and pride rising inside him.

“Lucky this didn’t spread,” she said, her gaze straying to the tree line. “If it had reached the forest, we could have lost thousands of acres. And look at those aspens. They’re so pretty. God I
love
this time of year.” She set her oxygen tank on the ground at her feet. “Where’d you go?”

“To talk to Kai. I’m on the entry team.”

“Quaid, you don’t have to do that.”

But her little smile and the way her eyes softened reinforced Quaid’s decision. She was proud of him for taking this step in leadership, too. Maybe this growing up and flying right thing wouldn’t be as vanilla as he’d thought. There were definite perks to seeing that look in her eyes. Like the way his heart was somewhere up in the stars right now.

“I want to do it.” He reached for the shoulder strap of her breathing apparatus and hoisted the tank off the ground. “Turn around.”

She turned and slipped her arms through the straps. He settled the tank on her back, then spun her around and snapped her fittings closed, double-testing their security before pulling on his own tank.

He took his time getting the rest of his gear together, knowing Jess would wait. The team drifted toward the warehouse, where flames dimmed and smoke billows grew, signaling a dying fire. As soon as everyone was out of earshot and their backs were turned, Quaid grabbed the collar of Jess’s turnout jacket and gently backed her against the rig.

“What?” she asked, looking up at him, eyes worried.

“What’s wrong?”

Diffused light from the scene made her face glow. With her auburn hair pulled into a ponytail, those big, soft brown eyes looked doelike. He released her jacket and cupped her face with both hands.

“Do you know how much I love you?”

The worry in her eyes eased. “I love you more.”

He brushed his thumbs over the smooth skin of her cheeks and those delicate freckles, and stared at her perfect lips before he kissed her, slowly, tenderly. “I know what you need, Jess,” he whispered. “You can depend on me.”

“I believe you.” Her lips curved against his, and her arms locked around his neck. “I have an idea for your birthday next week.”

“Yeah?”

“You and me, a weekend away, somewhere isolated where we can spend the entire forty-eight hours doing nothing but”—her grin widened, her eyes sparkled—“making a baby.”

A bubble of joy slid up his chest and burst from his throat in laughter. Those words coming from her mouth were sheer heaven to his heart. Yes, he could do this. He could take that next step toward stability—for her, for him, for
them
. He leaned in and kissed her hard. She opened to him, all sweet and hot. Quaid groaned and lost himself, just for one blissful moment.

“Ready for your boys, Chief Ryder.” The shout to Kai came from a distance and signaled the beginning of a new chapter in Quaid’s career.

Time for their team to get to work. And the sooner they got started, the sooner they could finish and the sooner Quaid could get his bride home and into bed, where they could practice more baby making. If practice made perfect, their kid was going to be utterly flawless.

Quaid stepped up to the entrance of the warehouse with Teague and Luke at his side and waited for the last hose team to pull out. Few flames still snapped inside. Smoke grew thick and pumped out fast, signaling a mostly extinguished blaze. Quaid spotted Gary Hernandez from Truckee Fire dragging hose. His turnouts were soaked and the mask of his breathing apparatus had been tugged aside and hung askew.

“Gary,” Quaid called to get his attention. The firefighter looked his way and Quaid lifted his chin in greeting. “What’ve we got in there?”

Gary grinned and walked over to the group. “Aw, a pallet of something plastic caught.” He pushed the brim of his helmet up with his thumb, leaving a soot ring on his forehead. “Probably a load of dildos from China.”

Keira stepped forward, making a show of peering into the wall of smoke. “Dildos, huh? You think anything’s salvageable?”

“You little . . .” Luke gave the strap of her oxygen tank a playful jerk, sending a ripple of laughter through the group.

“But that’s not why we pulled out.” Gary’s expression turned serious again as he addressed Quaid. “There’s real methel-ethel bad shit in there, dude.”

The all-inclusive slang firefighters used to refer to any potentially serious chemicals made Quaid’s stomach tighten with a mix of excitement and dread. “Methel-ethel” bad shit was not a simple toxin produced by burning plastics, not a regularly encountered mildly explosive petroleum product. Methel-ethel bad shit was the kind of chemical that ate through skin or blew a body clean apart.

Gary turned, crouched and pointed beneath the smoke roiling across the ceiling. “See that glow?”

Quaid squinted toward a faint yellow-orange radiance.

“Yeah.”

“Metal canisters of something. They’re secured to a concrete wall by metal straps and bolts as big as silver dollars, off all by themselves like they’re contagious or something. And whatever’s inside them is as hot as molten lava, ’cause look at them, brother, they’re fucking
glowing.
”

“What do the hazard symbols show?”

“Couldn’t get close enough to see before those plastics went up. Fire’s almost out. It’s safe to go in, but—” Gary pulled off his gloves and slapped them against the arm of Quaid’s yellow hazmat suit. “Watch your ass in there, my friend. My gut tells me those fancy threads ain’t gonna save you.”

Hernandez returned to his company and started cleanup.

“Still want entry team?” Kai’s quiet voice sounded right next to Quaid, startling him. “You’ve got someone else to think about now.”

Quaid took a breath to ease the sting of fear in his gut. He needed to demonstrate his commitment—for Jessica and Kai and the others. Hell, for himself. He had to prove, with actions, that when he took responsibility for something, he wouldn’t shirk it at the first sign of trouble. He was in this—firefighting and his marriage—for the long haul, ’til death did they part.

Quaid met Kai’s eyes. “I
am
thinking about her.
She
is why I still want entry team.”

Kai held his gaze for a long moment, then stepped back. “Luke, Teague,” he called, “Quaid’s your lead. Go.”

When Kai huddled with the others, Teague grinned at Quaid. “All right, hotshot. Let’s mop up your earlier mess.”

The three secured their Plexiglas face shields. When Quaid turned to shoot Jess a wink, Kai tossed him a thermal-imaging camera. He caught it against his chest. Instead of throwing it back at Kai, as he had in the past, Quaid grit his teeth and powered on the unit.

He’d always bitched about TICs as rudimentary devices, but the truth was Quaid wanted to seek out the source of a fire on his own, with eyes and ears and
instinct
. He had built killer instincts over the years, and he got a thrill out of using them. He didn’t want a piece of machinery stealing all his fun.

Only Quaid wasn’t in this just for the fun anymore. There was a lot more at stake now.

He walked into the muck with his Maglite in one hand and the TIC in the other, smiling. No drastic or dreaded changes had overtaken him when he’d turned on the TIC. Adrenaline still thrilled through his body. Excitement to nail those wicked chems still lightened his head. God, he loved that woman. Jess never failed to lead him in the right direction in life. She was his true north. And he’d follow her to the ends of the earth.

Thick smoke immediately smothered his vision. Even though he knew exactly where the threat lay, he had to force himself to think by the book. The haphazard Quaid would head straight for those glowing tanks, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. But the responsible Quaid made the requisite methodical sweeps of the area for suspicious contents.

Teague and Luke flanked him ten feet back on either side. The thermal detector was used to identify hot spots within the smoke, but as Quaid suspected, the TIC was useless to him here. Today, the TIC only caused Quaid to waste valuable time.

When they reached the tanks, Quaid almost believed they were alive. Their glow had intensified from yellow-orange to vibrant vermillion. Looking directly at them threatened to sear his retinas. In the extreme heat their metal encasings appeared liquid, rippling like the disturbed surface of a lake. Quaid swore the damn things were breathing, expanding and contracting in a slow, steady rhythm.

“What the hell?” Luke’s voice was little more than a husky whisper in Quaid’s earpiece.

“This is way beyond us,” Teague said. “Let’s get the numbers off the hazard symbol and get out.”

“I’ll get them.” Quaid gestured for them to stop. “Stay here.”

Excitement escalated to fear. He gave his TIC to Luke and used his hand to shield his face from the glare as he approached the tanks. Their suits were designed to protect them at extreme temperatures, but Quaid could swear his skin was roasting right through the material.

His fear escalated to alarm. A huge part of him wanted to call if off. To back out without the information. But he couldn’t take one more failure tonight. Not in Jess’s eyes. Not in the team’s eyes. Not in his own eyes.

He crouched to the level of the diamond symbol showing a number at each of the four corners, indicating the chemical’s characteristics. Once outside, he could compile those numbers with an index of chemicals and figure out what they were dealing with. Then if they needed to call in big guns, they could do it without looking like total screwups.

Inching forward, he thrust the flashlight as close to the sign as he could, peering through the illuminated smoke and against the glare, but still, the numbers shimmered in and out of sight. In his hand, the Maglite’s black housing changed shape. At first he thought it was the rippling heat waves altering the atmosphere—until the casing slid over his gloved hand and the flashlight shorted out. Then he realized the damn thing had melted right off the metal frame beneath.

A sharp
crackle
brought Quaid’s gaze back to the diamond-shaped sign. To the tank beneath the sign. To a dark, linear crack sliding along the canister from the floor upward.

Terror struck his spine like lightning. He pivoted and launched himself into a sprint. Opened his mouth to yell r
un—

Heat slammed Quaid’s back. Pain, ripping and raw, consumed him. His arms, already outstretched to wrap around each of his teammates on the way to the ground, hit them both across the throat. They hit the cement. Bounced. Broke apart. Hit a pallet of boxes. Ricocheted in all directions.

Then it was over. The blast dead. The fire gone.

Quaid knew nothing but pain. Engulfing, snarling, ferocious pain.

His eyes were open. He didn’t know how. He should be dead. But he could see Teague and Luke lying nearby. Completely still. Their hazmat suits burned and torn. Bodies black and twisted.

Voices bled through the deafening ring in Quaid’s ears. Not the words, but the tone. The terror and anger in shouted orders.

His fear flooded back. His mind circled around that second tank and fear turned to terror. He put all his concentration into moving his mouth.

“N . . . No.” Shit, pathetic. He focused his thoughts to Jess. To saving Jess. Gathered energy and tried again.

“Don’ come in . . . ’nother tank . . .”

Did his headset even work?

He fought to move some part of his body. Got a few fingers to wiggle. Then a few toes. The cement rumbled under his cheek—the clomp of boots nearing.

No
.

He forced himself to lift his head, as heavy as an oxygen tank, as dizzy as a tornado. Just as he recognized Jess’s silhouette headed straight for him, the rest of the team fanning out toward Luke and Teague, a familiar
crackle-fizz
penetrated Quaid’s fuzzy brain.