Deeper Than Need (40 page)

Please, God. I just found her.

A soft groan escaped her as her lids lifted.

The relief he felt was crushing.

Confusion clouded her soft grey eyes.

“Noah.”

Dropping his head down, he rested it between her breasts. “You’re okay.”

“No.” Her arm curled around his shoulders.

Off in the distance he heard sirens, but the noise barely penetrated as he lifted his head. “You … you’re not okay?”

“My head hurts. My body hurts.” Then she looked past him, staring at the flickering inferno as it consumed her house. “Noah … my house is on fire.”

He turned and looked, watching as the place of his nightmares burned. It was like the very fire of hell had wrapped around it. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

Caine found them a few yards away from the house, Adam crouched over the boy, shielding him with his body.

The firefighters were already rushing around and one bellowed at him, “Get the fuck away from the house.”

Caine pointed at Adam and the boy. “Why don’t we get them safe first?” he said, and he just kept moving, eying the house with more than a little trepidation. They were too damn close, and the heat felt like a dragon, trying to eat him alive.

Adam’s eyes caught his and Caine saw the pain in them. “Can you move?” he asked.

Then it didn’t matter as the firefighters moved in.

Caine fell back and watched the rescue, eying the boy.

Caine didn’t know him well. He knew the name, but that was it. It was his practice to know as little about the people in this town as he could, but yeah, he knew that boy.

Caleb.

His name was Caleb.

Caleb stared at the house with a look Caine knew all too well.

One of the firefighters moved in, went to say something to the boy, and Caleb went white as death, tensing up.

Caine moved in then, although everything inside him said to be quiet … or, better yet, disappear.

The boy was safe, for now.

But Caine couldn’t be quiet.

Sliding through the shadows, he forced his way through the rescue workers just as the firefighter reached Caleb’s side.

“Caleb.”

The boy swung his head over and looked at Caine with both relief and confusion.

Their gazes locked, held.

The firefighter looked at Caine. “Sir, he needs medical attention now, so if you’ll—”

Caine turned his head and stared at the man as paramedics came rushing up.

“The paramedics are here. Let them take care of the boy while you deal with that hell behind us.”

Something flickered in the man’s eyes.

Then Caine dismissed him and looked back at Caleb.

In the boy’s eyes Caine saw everything he needed to know.

An oxygen mask was slapped over Caleb’s mouth. He reached out a hand.

Caine looked down, staring at that dirty, smoke-smudged hand as the paramedics went to strap Caleb to the gurney.

They’d wheel him away. Because of what happened, the boy would likely be locked up.

Behind bars.

Physical contact was harder than hell for Caine. But he reached out, slowly, and placed his hand in the boy’s.

“Sir, we need to—”

He bent low over the gurney, staring into Caleb’s pained, scared eyes. “It still happens, doesn’t it?”

A slow, single nod.

Caine straightened.

A slow, ugly crawl of red rolled through him.

*   *   *

“Mama!”

Trinity eased upright on the bed just in time to catch Micah’s small body. He wrapped his arms around her neck and clutched her tight. The small tremors that wracked him almost broke her heart. She turned her face into his hair, let herself breathe in the scent of her little boy … his shampoo, the bubble-gum toothpaste he adored and freshly washed pajamas.

“It’s okay, Micah; I’m fine.”

“Our house blowed up,” he whispered.

“I know.”

“How did our house blow up?”

She rubbed her cheek against his hair, staring at Noah as he moved to stand in the doorway. They’d been treating him just on the other side of the curtain and he must have heard Micah. Noah’s brows arched and she smiled at him even as the crack in her heart widened.

How did she explain something she didn’t understand?

Easing back, she brushed Micah’s hair back from his face and studied his big blue-grey eyes. Anton’s features, she thought. Her coloring, maybe, but Micah’s face was his father’s. “I don’t know, baby.”

“Did somebody make it blow up?”

She opened her mouth, fumbling for the words, only to close it.

Feeling the weight of Noah’s gaze resting on her, she looked up. He knew, she realized abruptly. Somehow, he knew. Why didn’t that surprise her? It went a little deeper than that small-town grapevine. People just talked to him.

She
talked to him.

He had something about him that made you want to strip yourself bare … and not in a physical sense, either. Although, she had to admit, she completely wanted to strip herself bare that way, too.

The internal debate lasted only a second.

She was marrying this man. In a short while, Micah wasn’t just going to be
her
son but theirs.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she did one of the hardest things she’d done in a very long while. She placed the trust of her child in somebody else’s hands. She didn’t lie to her child. She didn’t ever give him more than he was ready to handle, but she didn’t lie to him, either.

Looking into Noah’s eyes, she asked softly, “Do you know?”

He moved inside, tugging the curtain shut behind him.

Then he came closer and settled on the edge of the only chair in the room, a hard-backed affair that looked about as comfortable as the bed they’d given Trinity. He scooted it closer, until his knee was just a few inches from hers. His hand, big and gentle, brushed down Micah’s back. “How you doing, Rocketboy?”

“I’m…” The word
scared
seemed to hover in the air, but he never said it. Instead, he just hesitated for a second and then he swallowed and said, “I’m fine, Mr. Noah. How are you?”

Noah quirked a brow. “Well, to be honest, I’m worn-out. I never saw a building explode and your mother and I were right there. That’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“You…” Micah blinked. “You were scared?”

“Very scared.” He hefted Micah up on his knee, ignoring the bandages on his hands. “Guys are allowed to get scared, you know. If anybody ever tells you different, they are either lying or they just don’t know what they are talking about. So. How are you feeling?”

Micah tucked his head against Noah’s shoulder. “Scared.” He sighed and stared at Trinity. “Did somebody blow up the house?”

Noah watched her. Watched her and waited.

She saw the question in his eyes and she gave him a small nod. Micah didn’t do well with uncertainty.

Neither did she, for that matter.

“Yes, Rocketboy.” Noah just watched her face as he said it. “Somebody did.”

Trinity felt her belly drop to her knees. She thought she might be sick.

Noah covered her knee with his hand and she focused on that, the warm, steady strength. Closing her eyes, she breathed in slowly. In. Out. In. Out. It wasn’t doing much, but at least she fought the worst of the nausea back.

“Why?” Micah asked, echoing the question that had been hovering on the tip of her tongue.

“I’m not sure,” Noah said. “But I don’t think he wanted to hurt anybody. He didn’t know we were in it. I think he’s angry. I think something awful happened and he just had to lash out. This was the only way he knew how.”

“Like when I get mad and decide I’m going to knock my LEGO buildings down.” Micah’s voice got smaller and smaller.

“It’s a lot worse than that, buddy.”

“People could have died. You don’t come back from the dead, right, Mr. Noah?”

“No. You don’t come back from that.”

*   *   *

The nurses let Micah curl up in the empty bed where they’d treated Noah. There was no way that child would let Trinity out of his sight, and they seemed to understand.

Unfortunately, the nurses weren’t being quite so understanding with
her
.

“Why can’t I leave?” she asked as the headache pounded behind her eyes with nauseating intensity.

“Concussion.” The nurse, a slim, pretty black woman with a friendly smile and big dark eyes, shined a light directly at Trinity.

Trinity wanted to curl into a ball and cry, it hurt so bad. “What?”

After another few seconds, the nurse lowered the light and gave her a gentle smile. “We need to monitor you for a little while, Ms. Ewing. You smashed your head pretty hard and you’ve got a concussion. We have to make sure you’ll be okay before we let you leave. We’re moving you out of here and into a regular room as soon as we get a bed ready.”

“But what about—”

Noah leaned in and caught her hand. “I’ll take care of Rocketboy,” he murmured, lifting her hand and pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist. He looked over at the nurse. “Any idea when the room will be ready, Taneisha?”

“Shouldn’t be long, Noah.” She gave him a wide smile, her eyes dancing as they moved from Noah to Trinity and back. “I’m going to go check on a few things. Once I know, I’ll be back in.” She paused long enough to make sure the curtain between the two rooms was still open and then she was gone.

“I can’t spend the day in the hospital.” Trinity stared at her son, a small bump in the bed, the harsh lights not even fazing him. Ali had lingered just long enough to make sure Trinity was okay and then left, going back home to reassure her two boys.

“You can,” Noah said. “You need to. Don’t worry about Micah. I can take care of him. You just get better.”

“It’s a concussion,” she said. She would have rolled her eyes, but her head felt like it was going to split open and start leaking grey matter everywhere. She
hurt
. She’d hit something during the blast and she had a laceration across her temple, running and stopping just a scant inch from her left ear. That was going to leave a lovely mark. Her face throbbed there, but they couldn’t give her much for the pain because of the concussion. “It’s not like I fractured my skull or anything.”

“You’re lucky.”

Noah’s voice was gruff and she glanced at him, another bitchy complaint lodged on the tip of her tongue, but the look in his eyes had it dying, fading away until it was nothing. Sighing, she reached up and touched his cheek. “I know.” Forcing herself to smile, she said, “We’re
both
lucky.”

“Yeah.” He bent his head low, burying his face against her thighs, his shoulders shuddering.

Her heart wrenched in her chest and she curled her arm over his shoulders. “We’re fine, Noah,” she murmured. “We’re both fine.”

“When I saw you lying there…” He stopped, blowing out a breath. It brushed across her flesh, even through the blankets. “I think my world just died for a minute. I just found you. I can’t lose you, angel. I can’t.”

She slid her hand through his hair. He turned his face, head still in her lap.

“You didn’t.” Stroking her thumb over his lower lip, she said, “I’m right here. I’m going to be fine, just cranky for a few days.”

“Be as cranky as you want.” He caught her wrist and held her hand as he kissed her palm. “Just be
here
.”

“I will be.” Closing her eyes, she tried to relax against the miserable hard-as-rock mattress. “We never got around to telling Micah.”

“No.” Noah stroked his thumb across her skin. “We’ll tell him tomorrow. It’s better that way anyway, I think. We don’t want him associating this new thing with the fire, the explosion, right?”

“I didn’t think of that.” Lifting her lids, she stared at Noah from under her lashes. “You’re going to have a ready-made family, Noah. You ready for that?”

“I’ve been ready for you, waiting for you, it feels like most of my life.” He curved his hand over her thigh, his dark-blue eyes boring into hers.

Those words warmed her heart, almost enough to chase away the chill.

Almost.

Turning her head, she stared at Micah, watched as his small chest rose and fell.

He slept.

Peacefully, deeply.

“What happened at my house tonight, Noah? Who did this?”

The weight of his head slowly rose from her legs and she shifted her gaze back around to find him sitting with his elbows braced on his knees, staring at the floor.

“Noah?”

He lifted his head, tousled golden-brown hair falling into his eyes. “I don’t even know where to start, angel,” he murmured.

“Maybe I can help.”

Trinity shifted her gaze to the man standing in the door.

Adam.

He glanced behind him and slid inside.

The furtive gesture didn’t do a damn thing to put her heart at ease.

Not a damn thing.

*   *   *

He stayed in the shadows as they worked the fire.

He spoke with the cops when they came around and started with their questions.

He kept his answers short and simple.

He never lost track of the firefighter who’d approached Caleb.

“So … did you actually
see
the boys start the fire?”

He looked at the detective. A woman, pretty, young. She’d given him the name Jensen Bell, and for some reason that name had bounced around in his head, not quite connecting. He felt like he was supposed to know that name. It still wasn’t connecting, but he’d figure it out.

He wasn’t worried about her, though.

He wanted to finish up here so he could be done when the firefighters were.

“No, ma’am,” he said, keeping his head tucked low and twisting his hat around in his hands. It was an act that worked pretty well with everybody who didn’t know him. It had even fooled Noah for a while … a good long while. With his eyes on the shiny toes of her very nice boots, he pretended like he wasn’t exactly comfortable staring her in the eyes as she continued to ask him questions.

“So what did you see, Mr. Yoder?”

She’d asked that question. A good five times over.

He kept the impatience out of his voice as he responded in the same tone he’d used every other time. “Not much of anything, ma’am. I was across the street, but I wasn’t paying that much attention. Then I saw that man, Adam Brascum. He was looking for Mr. Benningfield. I thought I’d seen Mr. Benningfield near the house and that seemed to scare him. So he ran up to the house and I followed him.”