She chuckled and looked up at him. “When was the last time you ate something?”
“I had a cookie about an hour ago. But I think I worked it off since then.”
And some. “There’s bread in the cupboard. You could make a sandwich if you’re hungry.”
“I can’t be bothered to move,” he said, burying his face in her hair. “Too comfortable here. You’ll just have to put up with my stomach, pretend it’s a dinosaur roar or something.”
As if on cue it growled again. It sounded painful. “Don’t you eat when you’re working on the cottage?” she asked him. “Surely you must need a lot of calories to keep going.”
“Sometimes I’m so busy I forget to eat.”
She traced a lazy finger across his chest and looked up at him. “I hope you don’t do that when you’re working, too. I’m guessing you need all your energy to be a firefighter.”
Lucas swallowed. “There’s always food in the rec room. We don’t starve.?
?? He cleared his throat. “Actually, I heard from my chief this morning.”
“You did?” She raised her eyebrows.
“She wants me to come back to work in a week.”
Ember lifted her head up, frowning. “I thought you had more leave than that left.”
“I did. I was supposed to be here for a few more weeks, but something’s come up and they need me back.”
“Can they just cancel your leave like that?” she asked him. “Isn’t that unfair?”
“It’s not normal leave. They’re the ones who asked me to take some time off.” His voice was low.
Ember could feel a fluttering of nerves in her stomach but had no idea why. “Why did they ask you to take leave?”
He was silent for a moment, apart from the gentle sounds of his breath as he inhaled and exhaled.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she quickly added, wondering if she’d stepped over the boundaries of whatever this was between them.
“It’s okay, I’m just trying to find the right words.” He cleared his throat, and she wanted to turn and look at him again, to see the expression on his face. But she was afraid of breaking the moment, afraid he wouldn’t tell her what happened.
“I had a bit of a breakdown,” he finally said, his voice as low as before. “After we got called out to a multi-car pile-up on the interstate.” He paused again, and she could hear the sound of her blood rushing through her ears. “It was a mess. So many injured people. It was hard to know where to start. There were four crews out there, all trying to get people out of cars and get them away in case the gas tanks exploded. My crew was sent to get a family out of an SUV. I only had to glance through the window to see the adults in the front were dead, but there was a baby in the back, no older than twelve months. He was in one of those backward facing seats. It had saved him from dying on impact.” He swallowed hard. Ember slid her hands on top of his, squeezing them tightly. “The baby wasn’t crying. He wasn’t doing anything at all but staring up at me, with big blue eyes. And I saw hope in there. A belief that an adult was coming to make everything better, that all this scary shit that had been happening would go away.”
He took another deep breath. Ember stayed silent, feeling as though her heart was rising up her throat.
“The first step is to make sure there’s no possibility of explosion. The second is to get the casualties out as quickly as possible. Within seconds I spotted the gas leak. The fuel was pouring out of the tank and onto the blacktop beneath. I screamed out to my crew that there was a baby in there, trapped, and we needed to get him out. But there were sparks coming from the engine. My crew tried to drag me back, knowing there were only seconds until the goddamn thing would explode. And that baby was still staring at me, waiting for me to save him, and I was looking back at him, knowing he’s about to die.” Lucas’ voice cracked. She could feel him shaking behind her. Ember wracked her brain to find the right words, but in her heart she knew they didn’t exist.
“Lucas,” she whispered, her eyes stinging with tears. “Oh God.”
“I’ve seen people die before,” he told her. “I’ve dealt with bodies, even kids, but I’ve never stared into the eyes of a baby and known I couldn’t save him.”
She thought back to the Angel Day Fair and how overcome he’d been by Nicholas’ thanks. She’d wondered about that, and the way he’d responded, but now it was becoming clearer in her head. The tears spilled over, running down her cheeks. She turned in his arms until they were facing each other. She reached out for his face, cupping it with her palms, pressing her lips against his to try and show him how much she cared.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “So sorry.”
“It’s history,” he said back, his voice thick. “If I keep doing this job I’m going to see things like that. I just need to deal with them.”
She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. They weren’t hers to shed. She kissed him again, wanting to take the sadness away. Wanting to take them back to the warm, sensual peace they’d had only minutes earlier.
If she’d been a better person maybe she’d share her secrets, too. Maybe she’d tell him about her own loss, the one she hadn’t told anybody but Will about. But she wasn’t a better person, and right now she didn’t want to think about her secrets.
Instead she kissed him again, running her hands down his rippled arms, pressing her body against his until their troubles disappeared. Replaced by an urgent need neither of them could deny. He returned her kisses and rolled her over, sliding his body over hers.