Page 7 of Changed By Firefighter Daddy

“We’d better get going to the ATV tours place. It should be close.”

As we were getting closer, I started to smell smoke. Suddenly a crew went running by with buckets and before long we heard a fire whistle.

Turning a corner, we came upon the ATV tours headquarters, completely engulfed in flames. The small building was already a goner, but people were yelling that there was still an employee trapped inside.

“Stay here,” Jeremy ordered, but I grabbed his hand hard.

“I’m a firefighter,” he admitted to me. My eyes widened in fear as I knew what he planned to do. “Stay away from the flames and out of the way. Please.”

His eyes pleaded with me, then he kissed me hard, squeezed my hand, and turned away to run into the malay. The local fire chief listened to him briefly then nodded. He handed him some gear and gladly accepted his help.

They regrouped and made another attempt to get into the blazing building. They had almost made it through the front door when part of the building started to collapse.

I gasped and held my breath, praying, while Jeremy and several other men jumped back out of the way. As the front of the building came down, you could hear people screaming and crying.

The heat from the fire was scalding, making me take a step back. I couldn’t imagine what it felt like up close.

I looked around frantically for Jeremy. I’d lost sight of him after he’d jumped back the first time. I happened to catch a glimpse of him running around behind the building and knew they were going to attempt to get in that way.

There was a woman next to me, crying and rocking back and forth.

“Who’s inside?” I asked, trying to sound calm.

“Several of the tour guides who thought they could save equipment from the basement. They should have just come out right away,” she sobbed, and I realized someone she loved must be in there.

“The firefighters will do everything they can to save them,” I comforted her while trying to calm my own panic.

What if Jeremy didn’t come out? I didn’t know very much about him, but I knew life wouldn’t be the same without him.

Suddenly, several explosions went off behind the building. We jumped and screamed.

“The gas for the ATV’s,” the woman next to me sobbed. “How are they going to get out now?”

I watched with the rest of the crowd as several firefighters came stumbling out from around the framework of the structure. Looking frantically at their faces, I realized Jeremy wasn’t with them.

“Jeremy?!?” I started yelling hysterically. I could hear it, but couldn't stop doing it. “Jeremy!”

One of the firemen grabbed me as I started to run around the fire, looking for him.

“You can’t go in there. The rescue crew is about to haul out survivors,” he informed me, holding me in a tight hug.

I looked at him in surprise. There were survivors?

I took a step back and he pointed to a smoke-laden hole in the wall of the building.

“It’s a back entrance to the basement. Luckily it hadn’t been fortified in years and we were able to break in through there and evacuate before the fire moved from the front of the building. Granted, we weren’t expecting the gas cans to go off…” he shrugged, then moved away to help someone else.

Looking back at the hole in the wall, I breathed a sigh of relief as three firefighters emerged, two of them supporting an injured person, and the third: my Jeremy.