Burn for You (7 page)

He turned his gaze to Tonya. “Mrs. Esposito, did you notice anything out of the ordinary this morning? Any adults that you didn’t recognize around the daycare center?”

“No. I…” She cocked her head to one side. “No, I can’t think of anything out of the ordinary.”

“Were there any cars that seemed out of place? Ones you’d never noticed before?”

She let out a nervous laugh. “Oh goodness, that’s not something I would probably notice on a good day. I don’t pay much attention to cars. I couldn’t even tell you the difference between a Ford and a Buick.”

“How about—”

“Wait!” Tonya leaned forward excitedly, and Anita glanced pointedly at the heart monitor. “I just thought of something.”

“Yes?”

“We have surveillance cameras. Pointed toward the parking lot.”

Jason cleared his throat. “You
had
surveillance cameras…”

“Oh, dear. They’re broken?”

“I’m afraid they were destroyed in the blast nearest the front of the building.”

Tears flooded Tonya’s eyes and she pursed her lips together—a valiant effort to keep herself together. “The center…it’s going to take weeks, months…where will the children go?”

Anita stood and sat on the edge of the bed next to her mother, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “I think we’re done here, Officer.”

Jason nodded. “I thank you for your time, Mrs. Esposito. I hope things will be better soon. I’m sure when your center reopens it’ll be better than ever.”

“Yes, thank you,” the older woman murmured, leaning into her daughter’s embrace. “Oh, Officer. One more thing. Do you know if that paramedic is still here?”

“Which paramedic?” he asked.

“The woman. I wanted to thank her. She covered me with her body during one of the blasts, but I think she hurt her arm.” Tonya’s tears started again. “I just hope she’s okay.”

“I’m sure she is,” he answered, hoping he was right.

“If you see her, will you tell her I said thank you?”

“Yes, of course.”

He left the exam room and headed for the rear exit by the ambulance bay doors. He’d found out all he could here. He needed to head back to the scene. The feds might even be there by now. If this was an act of terrorism, they’d certainly be getting involved. Shit, maybe even Homeland Security. But why the hell would a terrorist target a daycare? To grab attention? Nothing struck terror in a nation like innocents in danger.

He pushed open the hospital’s heavy metal door and squinted against the bright sunlight. He slowed his pace, allowing his eyes to adjust, and that’s when he saw her.

Victoria paced back and forth on the pavement, breathing deeply. Deliberately.

“Victoria?”

She didn’t respond, didn’t even look his way. Just paced from the brick wall of the hospital to the ambulance parked nearby and back again. And again.

On the third pass, he noticed the blood on her arm. Why hadn’t anyone tended to that yet?

He took a few steps closer. “Victoria?”

She stopped pacing and looked up at him. Her breath hitched, but she managed to say, “Hey.”

“Everything all right?”

“Yes…No…” Hands on her waist, she bent over as if she might wretch. “It’s just…it was so much like Afghanistan…one of our own again.”

Afghanistan? She’d been in the service? “Hey, why don’t you come over to the truck and we’ll get a bandage for your arm?”

She waved him off. “It’s nothing.”

“It doesn’t look like nothing from here. Why hasn’t anyone cleaned this up for you?”

She didn’t answer, and he clenched his teeth, perturbed with whoever thought it was okay for their fellow medic to walk around with an open wound.

He pulled her toward the ambulance and rummaged around until he found some saline and gauze. Quickly, he rinsed the wound and wrapped it. It looked unprofessional, but it would do. Victoria remained silent the entire time he worked.

“You feeling all right?” he asked.

She straightened. “Yeah, sure.” She looked away, mumbling again. “That explosion…just brings it all back again…and what if I could’ve stopped him? I should’ve stopped him. I didn’t do enough.”

“Should’ve stopped who?” She wasn’t making any sense, and maybe she wasn’t even talking about what happened today.

She drew a deep, shuddering breath, and something about the way she clung to her control absolutely gutted him. If she’d cried? He’d have been able to handle that. He dealt with a lot of crying, sniveling people in his line of work. Case in point—Tonya.

He had an emotional shield against tears, and it was at the ready whenever he needed it. But this? This woman trying to calm herself through sheer force of will?

It made the human places inside of him—the ones he buried in professional detachment—ache.

“Hey.” He reached for her shoulder. He couldn’t have held his hand back if his life depended on it. “I’m sure you did enough. I’m sure you did all you could.” He had no idea what she’d been referring to, but he damn well knew she wasn’t a woman who gave up.

Giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze, he dipped his head to catch her downcast gaze. “Hey, look at me, Victoria.” She lifted her brown eyes to his face. “You did everything you could.”

She nodded. “I know.”

Oh, screw it. This wasn’t his thing. He didn’t
do
comforting.

But she was killing him, with her raised chin and her softly spoken
I know
.

Damn it all to hell.

He was going to have to hug her.

* * *

She had this. She was in control. Just like she’d practiced with her therapist all those months ago, she focused on calming herself physically by breathing slowly. Then she could focus on calming herself mentally.

She needed a distraction. The human brain couldn’t think about two things at once, and Dr. Haryana had made her practice bringing a serene memory to the forefront of her mind. She’d literally taught Victoria to find her happy place.

Happy place. Happy place. What the fuck was her happy place again?

“Hey.” Jason squeezed her shoulder gently and she pounced on the distraction, concentrating on the warmth of his hand, the solid pressure of his grip. “I’m sure you did enough. I’m sure you did all you could.”

She closed her eyes and kept her focus on his hand and the way he moved his thumb back and forth in a gentle massaging motion.

“Hey, look at me, Victoria.”

She lifted her head, noticing for the first time that his eyes were blue. And not just one shade of blue. The middles were light, like a cloudless summer sky, but the further away from the pupil, the darker they got. Until they were as dark blue as Lake Michigan. His eyes reminded her of running on the beach, her feet sinking into the sand while she devoured the scenery—a horizon of dark blue water, meeting light blue skies.

Well, what do you know? Hello, happy place.

“You did everything you could,” he said.

She inhaled deeply and nodded. “I know.”

He moved closer, closing the distance between them then paused to clear his throat. It was awkward, the way he drew her to him with stiff arms, and she held herself rigid. Mainly because she didn’t want to press any buttons on the radio clipped to his chest. Funny, that she was suddenly capable of noticing details like that.

He shifted slightly, tucking her into his side so the radio wasn’t in the way, and patted her back. She almost laughed—that’s how silly and uncomfortable it felt. But after a moment, she relaxed against him. And the second the tension left her, it left him as well. He held her a little tighter and she brought her arms around him, her hands gripping the fabric of his shirt between his shoulder blades.

“Thank you,” she whispered over his shoulder, suddenly overcome with gratitude for this man who’d helped her regain balance when the world had been spinning away from her. She closed her eyes and a single tear fell from each one. One tear for the men she’d lost in a country far away and another for the firefighter she’d come close to losing today.

She was good at her job. Smart. Competent. Not easily rattled under pressure. But sometimes shit got personal. Sometimes the people hurting were people you knew. People you worked with. People you laughed with.

She’d held it together until the moment she’d finished giving her status update to the doctors and nurses. She’d rattled off Tayshaun’s vitals, given a run-down of visible injuries, and watched them wheel him down the hall and through the doors leading to the OR. Those doors shut and a million emotions she’d held in check flooded her system, forcing her to seek solace alone outside while the others loitered in the waiting room, hoping for updates.

But there was no shame in having emotions. That’s what Dr. Haryana would’ve said. And for once, she felt no shame. There was only acceptance in Jason’s embrace.

In no rush to leave the sanctuary she’d found, she took another deep, cleansing breath, pulling in a swirl of scents. Masculine shampoo. The salty tang of sweat with a hint of clean soap. It was purely male. And making Victoria suddenly aware of him in a very different way.

Confused, she pulled back slightly. There wasn’t much of a height difference between them, and she looked straight into those lake-meets-sky eyes of his.

He brought his hands up to her cheeks and carefully brushed her tears away with the pads of his thumbs. “Better?” he asked, his voice low and husky.

“Better,” she said, bringing her hands to rest on his forearms.

“Good.” He smiled, and Victoria gripped his wrists, not sure if she was holding his hands to her face or readying to pull them away.

Time felt suspended somehow, as if someone had hit pause on the movie of her life in order to point out something very important to her.

She couldn’t look away from those eyes, and unreal as it seemed, they were coming closer. Or she was moving toward them. She couldn’t tell which. Maybe both.

“Yo! Russo, let’s go.” At Flaherty’s loud bark, she broke away from Jason, stepping out of his reach.

Flaherty glared at her with his usual friendliness. Which was to say, no friendliness at all. “We need to get back to the firehouse. Nothing we can do here.”

“Right. I’ll be right there.” Victoria looked back at Jason. “Thank you. I…”

“It was nothing.” He smiled teasingly, taking the tension out of the moment. “You take care, Ms. Toria.”

She grinned. “I will, thanks.”

He gave a two-finger salute and started walking backward toward his squad car. “Oh, and I’m supposed to tell you that Tonya says thank you.”

She nodded and watched him turn and walk away for a few steps before hustling up to her seat in the ambulance. She slammed the door shut and fastened her belt.

When Flaherty still hadn’t started the engine, she looked up at him.

“You’re not going to crack again, are you?” he asked.

“No.” She turned away from his cold, assessing stare and looked out the windshield. “I’m fine now.”

“Good.” He turned the key and the engine cranked to life. “Wouldn’t want to find out you’re the type to cut tail and run the first time shit gets real.”

Her gaze snapped back to Flaherty. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“No, I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” She wanted him to say it, dammit. Let him just get it all out in the fucking open. She wanted him to finally confirm that he’d heard the rumors that had circulated through the army about her. Rumors that she was a deserter. Rumors that were far worse than that.

Of course, if he did that, what would she do? Waste her breath trying to explain something he’d never believe? No, once people assigned guilt, they rarely changed their minds. Because to do so would be to admit to being wrong. And Mike Flaherty would be the last person to ever admit he was wrong.

So screw him. He wouldn’t be getting any explanations from her. Not today. And not ever.

“You know what? Don’t tell me.” Victoria stared straight ahead. “Just drive.”

Chapter 6

“This must be a difficult time for you.” Victoria’s mother leaned against the counter, a puzzled expression on her face as she watched Victoria roll a can of malt extract over her grains to crush them.

Loretta Russo had no interest in the process of brewing beer. If she had, Victoria might’ve told her crushing grains was the best way to release flavors from the grain. But her mother was more concerned with the seating chart she was penciling and erasing names from, so Victoria didn’t waste her breath.

“Difficult? I suppose, but Tayshaun is doing remarkably well.”

“Tayshaun—” Her mother sounded confused. “Oh, yes! Your friend who was injured. Tayshaun Moore. How is he?”

“Good. Doctors expect a full recovery.” Victoria paused in her grain crushing to study her mother. “That wasn’t what you were talking about? When you said this must be a difficult time for me?”

“Well, no…” Her mother fidgeted with the seating chart, turning it this way and that, as if a new angle would help her decide if Grandma and Great Aunt Sophie could be trusted at the same table.

“Then why must this be a difficult time for me?”

“Oh, it’s silly really. Now that I think about it. You do have much bigger things to be concerned with at the moment.”

Victoria raised her eyebrows at her mother and brushed some of the crushed grains off the can. “But?” she prompted, knowing her mother had something on her mind.

“
But…
I thought it might be difficult for you to stand by while all this wedding planning is going on.” She gestured to the seating chart she’d been fretting over.

Her mother had been obsessed with all things wedding for months now. A little too involved for the mother of the groom as far as Victoria was concerned, but Camille didn’t seem to mind. And while the subject was becoming a bit tiresome, it was hardly difficult for Victoria.

She turned her attention back to preparing her grains for seeping. Grabbing a large cheesecloth bag, she set about scooping the grains into it. “I don’t know why you’d think that. Camille’s practically family already. I’m thrilled she and Tony are making it official.”

“I know, but doesn’t it make you sad?”