That is the first thought that cuts through the smoke, the heat, and the sirens growing louder as they close the distance from Main Street.
Her face is pressed into the front of my turnout coat, one hand twisted into the heavy fabric as if she is afraid I might disappear before I get her clear. I feel every cough that moves through her, every tremor, every uneven breath.
I tighten my hold and keep moving.
The porch is behind us. The yard opens ahead, lit by the glow pouring from the windows of her house. The fire has spread faster than I expected, feeding somewhere inside the walls, and the sight of it makes something violent tear through my chest.
I should be looking at the structure, reading the smoke, tracking where the fire is moving.
Instead, all I can think about is the woman in my arms.
Kaia Evans is too young for me, too bright for me, and too damn easy to want.
I knew that the first day I saw her.
She had been standing beside a car packed so full I could see boxes pressed against every window, with a tiny trailer hitched behind it and a streak of blue paint across one cheek. Her hair was pulled into some kind of loose knot that had already given up, chocolate-brown strands falling around her face while she argued with a box that refused to come out of the trunk.
Curvy little thing, soft everywhere a man like me had no business looking.
Hazel eyes. Full mouth. Full hips beneath a pale dress.
Then she laughed at something Joyce said from the porch.
That laugh hit me harder than it should have. Warm and unrestrained, the kind of sound that filled space without asking permission.
My heart gave one hard, unfamiliar twitch.
I hated it immediately.
Men like me do not build their lives around women like Kaia. We watch from a distance, make sure their porch steps are safe, notice when their windows are left open before bad weather rolls in, and pay attention when their kitchen light flickers three nights in a row while telling ourselves the concern is professional.
Wanting is where the trouble starts because wanting is how people get inside, and once they are there, they can be taken from you.
I learned that before I was old enough to put words to it.
Foster homes taught me the first version. Families could call you son for six months, then pack your clothes into a garbage bag when the placement changed. Adults could promise permanence while filling out paperwork that said otherwise.Belonging was temporary, affection conditional, and every room came with the understanding that one day you would be told to leave it.
The military gave me something cleaner. There were orders, structure, and men who did what they said they would do.
For a while, I thought I had beaten the part of me that expected everything good to disappear.
Then came the rescue that ended all of that. Fire, a collapsing structure, men under my command trusting me to get them out.
I survived, and some of them did not.
The scars across my shoulder and back healed better than the rest.
After that, I stopped pretending I was built for anything beyond the next emergency. I came back to Whispering Pines because saving people made sense. Fire behaved according to rules. Heat moved. Smoke told you things. Buildings failed in patterns.
People were harder because they left, they died, and they trusted you to bring them home when sometimes you failed.
Kaia shifts in my arms and coughs against my chest.
My grip tightens before I can stop it.
I will not fail with her.
The thought comes from somewhere deep enough to scare me.
