Flash Point (Kilgore Fire Book 2)
Read Flash Point (Kilgore Fire Book 2) Online
Authors: Lani Lynn Vale
Text copyright © 2015 Lani Lynn Vale
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Dedication
To my family- without y’all, I would have no reason to write. Without y’all, I’d never have picked up my first book.
Love y’all.
Acknowledgements
FuriousFotog AKA Golden Czermak: As always, thank you for giving me such a beautiful photo to work with.
Quinn Biddle: You are absolutely stunning. Thank you so much for letting Golden take such awesome photos of you.
Asli- I think you get just as excited as my mom does now to read these. Thank you for loving them like I do.
Danielle- I’ve made a true friend in you, and I thank you for everything you’ve ever done for me.
Other titles by Lani Lynn Vale:
The Freebirds
Boomtown
Highway Don’t Care
Another One Bites the Dust
Last Day of My Life
Texas Tornado
I Don’t Dance
The Heroes of The Dixie Wardens MC
Lights To My Siren
Halligan To My Axe
Kevlar To My Vest
Keys To My Cuffs
Life To My Flight
Charge To My Line
Counter To My Intelligence
Right To My Wrong
Code 11- KPD SWAT
Center Mass
Double Tap
Bang Switch
Execution Style
Charlie Foxtrot
Kill Shot
Coup De Grace
The Uncertain Saints
Whiskey Neat
Jack & Coke
Vodka On The Rocks (7-6-16)
The Kilgore Fire Series
Shock Advised
Flash Point
Oxygen Deprived (8-4-16)
I Like Big Dragons
I Like Big Dragons and I Cannot Lie (8-18-16)
Table of Contents
Crash and burn.
-Coffee Cup
Masen
There are times when you realize you’ve screwed up…and there are times when you realize that you’ve broken something so perfectly that it will never be the same.
I couldn’t say that what I’d done was on purpose, but I knew only a few short hours after it happened—
when my sister was on the brink of death
—that I’d screwed up.
I’d lashed out in grief.
I’d done something that would never be able to be fixed…not without him giving me another chance.
And that chance was long gone.
Booth, my boyfriend…now ex-boyfriend…would never give me another one.
Not after the ugly things I’d said to him.
Not after that.
I closed my eyes as tears of frustration poured down my face.
“What’d you say?” My big sister rasped, her breathing so harsh and ragged that I was scared to look at her.
“I said some ugly things…I should’ve,” I shook my head. “I should’ve been more understanding. I know he tried.”
“What’d you say?” Daniela asked again.
The breath in her lungs rattled her chest as she inhaled and exhaled.
I looked over at her finally, my heart squeezing in my chest as I did.
“I told him I never wanted to see him again, and that,” I choked. “That I didn’t love him anymore.”
My sister’s eyes closed as she exhaled.
“I know you’re scared,” she said in such a soft voice that I could barely hear her. “But you’re going to need him.”
My throat swelled, and I felt like I could barely breathe.
“I know,” I cried, tears rolling down my cheeks in torrents now.
I laid my head down on the bed next to her hand, and she lifted it up to place it on my head, sifting her fingers lightly through my hair.
My sister was my best friend.
And she was dying.
Doctors didn’t think she’d make it past this weekend.
And that’d been what I’d called Booth about.
I’d been so happy to hear his voice, that low, deep rumble that I hadn’t heard in over a month and a half.
But that quickly fell apart when he said he couldn’t come home. That they wouldn’t let him.
He’d sounded distraught.
And maybe he was.
But I was dying inside.
My heart was literally breaking into a million tiny pieces.
My sister’s breathing was shallow now.
It wouldn’t be long.
She’d likely not make it through the night.
At least that was what the nurse said that came to check on her an hour ago.
We were to call her as soon as we thought it’d gotten to the point of no return.
How do you know what the point of no return is?
Is it just something that you instinctually ‘know?’
Is it something that’ll just be my guess?
My sister had Cystic Fibrosis.
She was diagnosed with it when she was five and had a life expectancy of thirty-one years.
Except she wasn’t going to make it.
Nowhere close, actually.
She was twenty-two. The same age as Booth.
Booth and my sister had actually been friends, but the moment we made eye contact, the rest had been history. He’d been mine for two years, much to my mother and father’s chagrin, at first anyway. Now they didn’t much care about the age difference.
Then
, they did.
Well, not anymore.
A wet cough had me looking back up at my sister, studying her face.
Her color was nearly gray, and I knew it wouldn’t be long now.
She’d caught an infection, and she’d been in and out of the hospital for the last three weeks.
They’d finally told her that there was nothing else they could do but put her on a respirator, and Daniela had decided to come home instead.
Come home to die.
The bedroom door opened and I turned to see my mother and father come in holding hands.
“Sorry it took us so long,” my mom said. “The car had a flat.”
Our car was falling apart.
Daniela’s medical bills were killing my parents, but they’d never complain.
We’d been running on tires that were so bald that they were illegal, and we all knew it.
But there was nothing we could do.
I was working full time but had taken off for a week.
My mom and dad worked at the hospital.
My dad was an X-ray tech and my mom was a billing specialist.
They worked the same shift, and it was good that they did or they wouldn’t be able to have only one vehicle.
“I love you,” my sister said. “I love you all.”
Two hours later, my sister took one final rattling breath and died.
I stared at the plot of dirt, heartbroken and sick to my stomach.
My parents were on either side of me, their arms wrapped around my chest and shoulders.
“I miss her,” I whispered to them.
My mother gasped as a sob wracked her body.
“I do, too.”
My father’s lips pressed against my hair, and it was all I could do not to cry.
I wish you were here, Booth.
Four months later
I waited at the airport gate for him.
But he never showed.
Everyone else did.
But him.
He never came.
My eyes fell on Aaron. His best friend since he was in fourth grade.
“What’s going on?” I asked Aaron.
His eyes were cold.
“Why do you care?” He snapped.
I stepped back at the harshness in his voice.
It was more than evident that Aaron wasn’t happy with me.
“I…I…” I closed my eyes. “I need him.”
Aaron laughed.
It sounded hideous and wrong. Not the Aaron I was used to.
“You need him?” Aaron asked. “Well that was more than obvious when you broke up with him in the middle of his fucking deployment.”
A tear slipped out of my eye.
“I didn’t mean it,” I said. “I didn’t mean it.”
Aaron’s hand touched me lightly on the cheek.
“Well, he thought you meant it. And that’s why he’s currently trying to kill himself,” Aaron said bluntly.
“What?” I gasped, grabbing onto his hand in desperation.
Aaron looked down at me with cool eyes.
Not the same ones that used to look at me with laughter and happiness when he saw me with his best friend.
“He stayed,” he said. “The unit that replaced us lost their medic to an IED the first day they were there,” he swallowed. “Booth volunteered to stay.”
My mouth gaped open.
“He did what?” I whispered in agony.
Aaron nodded and pulled his hand away from mine.
“You broke him, baby girl,” he said. “Now you get to watch while he tries every trick in the book
not
to leave that place alive.”
I sat down heavily on the first chair that I could, watching Aaron’s back as he hurried away.
My mind was all the way across the world, though.
With Booth.
With the man that I’d broken.
I dropped my head and stared at my shoes.
You broke him, baby girl. Now you get to watch while he tries every trick in the book not to leave that place alive.
2 years later
Twenty years old
I wasn’t dressed well.
I was in sweat pants, a long sleeved t-shirt of Booth’s, and flip flops.
My hair was a ragged mess that needed washed three days ago.
I’d just taken my nursing final and was walking to my car from the school when I looked up and saw him.
Booth.
I hadn’t seen him in two years.
He’d done everything he could to ignore me.
In fact, this was the first time I’d seen him in all that time.
Even though I’d called him. Wrote him letters.
I was pretty sure his mom hated me.
Not that she’d ever treat me unfairly.
But I could see it in her eyes.
She blamed me for her son not coming home.
So it was unbelievable that he was currently standing in front of me, leaning against my Jeep.
My heart started to pound, and my breathing started to come in panicky breaths.
My feet itched to run towards him.
I came to a stop two parking spaces away from him.
He watched me.
I watched him.
Neither of us spoke.
Then he opened his arms, and I started running.
I hit him with the full force of my body, slamming into him so hard that he went back a step into the Jeep’s door.
My arms wrapped around his neck as my legs circled his hips.
One of his hands went to my ass while the other arm banded tightly around my lower back.
Raucous calls rose around us, but I didn’t pay them any mind as I buried my face into the skin of his neck and cried.
This was two years past due.
And I had not gotten over him.
Not even a little bit.
“Come home with me,” I whispered into his neck.
He growled and opened my Jeep door with practiced ease, pushing me over to the passenger side as he got into the driver’s side.
He started the Jeep after I handed him the keys, and we drove to my place in silence.