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“Grant? What the hell are you doing here?” Mack rushed over, trying to keep him back. “You’re still out on medical leave.”
He couldn’t care less about that. Mack should know that he would show up for a big fire, especially when it was Pepper in danger. “Where is she, Mack? Is she still in the house?”
“We don’t know, we just got here. We think she’s inside. Travis is suiting up to go in.”
Grant looked over to where Travis was quickly pulling on the fire-resistant jacket. Every second that ticked by was one too many if she was in the house. He broke away from Mack’s hold, rushing across the yard and leaping up the front stairs. He could hear voices shouting at him from the street, but he didn’t care. He felt the handle and it was still cool. Leaning back on one foot, he kicked in the door with his heavy boot. It splintered and flew open, the thick clouds of black smoke billowing toward him.
He covered his mouth and nose with his shirt and crouched down where the air was clearer. He moved quickly through the doorway into the living room. The fire hadn’t reached that space yet. It was the bedrooms in the back that were burning. Was Pepper asleep in bed when it started?
That’s when he heard a woman cough. The sound wasn’t coming from the hallway but from the couch. Up ahead, he saw a bare foot dangling from the sofa. Thank God, she’d been out here. He rushed forward, finding her limp body lying there. She’d likely passed out from the smoke. He scooped her up and carried her out, nearly colliding with Travis on his way out.
“Is there anyone else inside?” Travis asked.
“There shouldn’t be. She lives alone, no pets. Just get the fire put out.”
Travis nodded and gestured back at the crew to bring on the hoses. Grant carried Pepper through the front yard, all the way across the street, and onto the grass of the house across the street.
The fire truck from Ashville pulled up then, and three guys jumped out to help. People were running everywhere, but all Grant cared about was Pepper. Her body was still limp, but she was alive. He felt at her throat for a pulse and found it, albeit weak. Her skin was covered in black soot, her clothes smudged and gray.
Isaac rushed up to them with his paramedic’s kit. “Is she breathing?”
“I heard her cough in the house, so she was,” he said.
Reluctantly, he sat back on his heels and let Isaac do his job. Adam, another one of the paramedics, joined him, pushing Grant completely out of the picture.
He stepped back, tightly hugging himself and barely breathing. She would be okay. She had to be okay. There wasn’t another option. He was a firefighter. There was no way in hell he’d allow the woman he loved to die in a damn house fire. Especially since he hadn’t even gotten the chance to tell her that yet.
“Pepper?”
Pepper’s throat felt like she’d gargled with gravel. Her chest was tight. She had a funky taste on her tongue like she’d chewed up a charcoal briquette. There was something odd covering her nose and mouth and she could hear sirens and people shouting around her. What the hell was going on?
“Pepper, can you hear me?”
She forced her eyes open and looked up at the two men hovering over her. Beyond their faces was the night sky. She was outside. Why was she outside? She reached for what was on her face, pulling away what looked like an oxygen mask. “What’s going on?” she managed to ask before launching into a long coughing fit.
When she was done, she fought to sit up, but the uniformed men insisted she stay flat for now. “We’re getting you some water,” one of the men said as the other disappeared. “Put that mask back on, it will help you breathe.”
The gap was quickly filled by someone else. It took her a moment to realize that it was now Grant hovering there, holding her hand. He was smudged with black soot and the expression on his face was absolutely heartbreaking. He looked nearly devastated. He’d had that same look for a moment as she’d walked away from him last week. It had quickly faded to indifference, but tonight, it was followed by relief.
“Pepper? You’re okay!” he shouted.
“What’s going on?” she croaked through the mask.
The two men looked at each other and the other nodded at Grant. “Your house caught on fire, Pepper.”
“Oh my God,” she shouted, fighting to sit up and jerking down the mask. This time they let her. She needed to see. Her house couldn’t really be on fire. Not after she’d worked so hard on it.
There was only a narrow gap she could see between the fire trucks and the men running around the scene, but that was all it took. She could see the rear of the house engulfed in flames and the mix of the black-and-white smoke pouring overhead as the hard stream of water pounded at the brittle wood siding.
It was gone. She knew it in her heart. Even if they put out the fire in the next two minutes, she’d have lost almost everything. What wasn’t burned would be ruined by smoke or water damage. It was a hard pill to swallow, but all their hard work was for nothing. She’d only had a few weeks to enjoy her whole house and now it was gone. In the end, she had no house, no Grant . . . What was she going to do now?
The other paramedic came back and handed Pepper a bottle of water. The other draped a blanket over her shoulders. “We should get you over to the ambulance and get you checked out.”
Reluctantly, Pepper allowed the men to help her up and she followed them over to the ambulance where she sat on the back and allowed them to take all her vitals. She was fine. She was in public wearing mismatched pajamas and no bra, but she’d survive that. She tried to sip her water to soothe the burning in her throat and not think about how bad things had suddenly gotten.
About a half hour later, all seemed to quiet down. The fire was finally out. The neighbors had returned to their homes. The fire truck from the neighboring town packed up and rolled away, exposing the half of the house she couldn’t see before.
She’d braced herself to see the entire building a pile of ash, but amazingly, the front all appeared to be intact. It was wet and sooty, but the whole thing hadn’t burned to the ground like she’d expected.
