AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Dinner’s ready.” Mom announces, and we all grab a seat at the dining room table.
It’s pretty quiet as we all eat our food until Kate places her napkin on her plate. “Declan. I hear I have you to thank for getting me out of the rubble.”
He just waves her off, but Mom will not let him off with just a wave. “What? How?” she asks.
“Yeah, tell us how it happened,” Grace says as she, too, finishes with her plate.
Declan looks at Kate and she nods her approval for him to tell the story that both Kate and I heard this morning from Reid when he was having her discharged.
“I was at the police station getting ready to do some paperwork when I heard an explosion. When I ran outside, I saw fire and smoke from across the street at Kate’s shop. I knew Kate’s SUV was there because I had just seen it when I pulled into the station, so I ran over there and heard her yell for help. Then a tremendous crash happened inside and I knew she didn’t have much time, so I dragged her out of there. By the time I got her out, Engine 25 and Rescue 25 were just pulling in.”
I watch Kate as Declan tells the story and I scoop up a tear that has fallen down her cheek with my thumb and she gives me a small smile.
“My word. You’re a true hero, Declan.” My mother proclaims.
“Thank you.” Kate says to him.
Declan just brushes off the praise and looks at Kate. “I’m just glad you’re doing okay.”
“I’m glad you are, too. I heard you were in the hospital, too.”
“Yeah. Just for a few hours. I’m all good now.” Declan sits back in his chair after eating his third plate of spaghetti. As far as I’m concerned, he can have all the spaghetti and meatballs he wants.
He saved my girl.
“Kate, can I have a word with you out on the patio?” Max asks her while we’re all cleaning up in the kitchen.
“Sure.” she says and follows him out the French doors. I don’t like the way he’s been staring at Kate ever since he walked in with Mom, and now he wants to have a word with her. I don’t like it.
“Excuse me.” I say as I turn off the water in the sink and start to follow them outside.
“Hudson.” Mom catches my attention by her tone, so I turn around. “You leave them be.”
“What? Why? What’s he saying to her? So help me mother, if he upsets her…”
“He’ll do no such thing. Come over here and help me finish the dishes.” She’s got the water back on and I notice that Grace and Declan have moved to the living room.
“You know what they’re talking about. What’s he saying?” I’m about to interrogate her if she doesn’t clue me in.
“Here.” She hands me a plate and, as the dutiful son that I am, I wash it.
“Spill it, Mother.”
She sighs. “I was going to let him tell you, but I suppose I can do it, too.” She pauses and then looks at me. “Max is the firefighter that saved Grace when she was a little girl.”
“What? How? I thought he worked at a station across town.”
She turns off the water in the sink. “He was working an overtime shift at another station when that call came into dispatch. When they arrived, they didn’t think anyone could have survived. Back then, they didn’t have the technology, or the fire hydrant infrastructure like the county has nowadays. Getting water on that fire took a long time. By the time they got inside, they were sure no one had survived. But then Max decided to make sure and opened the closet in the little girl’s room. In Kate’s room. That’s where he found her.”
“Oh, my god,” Grace says from across the room. Both she and Declan are eavesdropping.
Mom looks at them and then back at me. “After he gave the little girl to another firefighter, Max went back inside the house hoping to find someone else alive, and he did. Her mother, but she was pinned under a bunch of debris. As Max tried to pull her out, the floor gave way and both of them crashed into the first floor, killing her mother and injuring Max’s back.”
“That’s the fire he was at when he got hurt and then was medically retired?” I ask, completely dumbfounded.
Mom nods. “Max has followed Kate’s life from afar. Kind of like a guardian angel. I mean, he hasn’t gifted her anything or rearranged life for her, but he checked up on her and her grandmother a few times a year. To make sure they were okay. But always from afar. Then, when he heard the scanner the other night, he panicked, and the memories came flooding back in. He hasn’t been able to sleep since.”
“Wow.” Grace whispers.
