She only thought it sounded like Rick.
“Here,” she screamed. “I’m in here.” Smoke crowded its way into her throat, slashing at her words, sucking away her breath. “In the back bedroom.” Eyes smarting, she couldn’t make out the doorway anymore. “I can’t get out. Help me!”
Like a behemoth, the fire snarled and groaned, playing tricks on his ears, his eyes. He was sure he heard her, heard her voice, muffled but still strong, calling out. Flames belched out of the rear of the house now.
Despite the temperature, his blood turned cold in his veins.
Think, damn it, think.
And then an idea came to him. Running to the kitchen, he passed through the dining room. Rick stopped only long enough to grab the tablecloth and yank it off the table. He soaked the entire cloth in the sink, then hurried with it to the rear of the house.
Toward the sound of her voice.
There were curtains of fire everywhere. He couldn’t see more than a foot in front of him. “Joanna? Joanna where are you?”
“Here, I’m here,” Joanna called out. She couldn’t get out the door and when she ran toward the window, she found her way blocked there as well. There was no way to get to the window. The rug beneath her feet was burning.
And then suddenly, something came rolling in on the floor, crashing through the flames. As she stared, the figure took shape, rising up to assume the full height of a man.
The room began to spin. She thought she saw Rick Masters, her tablecloth wrapped around his head and shoulders, reaching out to her.
The next moment, she felt herself being wrapped up in the tablecloth. He was pressing it to her face, over her mouth. It was dripping wet. Joanna tried to drag in air and only felt smoke clogging her lungs.
“Let’s go!”
The order echoed in her head, sounding so like Rick. She was going to die in some stranger’s arms, remembering Rick.
The man’s arms were around her as he urged her blindly on through what felt like an entire wall of fire.
Joanna tried to protest that she couldn’t make it, but the words never rose to her lips. The man who looked like Rick was pushing her.
She felt herself stumbling. Falling.
The next moment, she felt his arms encircling her. And then suddenly, she was airborne. He was carrying her, carrying her through the inferno.
The heat was everywhere. She could hear it, feel it. And there was pain everywhere as well. Pain that was radiating not from the outside, but from within.
Something was tearing her in two.
Joanna bit down on her lip, but the scream came anyway. It shook her body, traveling down toward the center, toward the source of the pain. The pain wouldn’t stop.
And then suddenly, the heat was gone.
She was being lowered.
Grass, there was grass beneath her.
Desperate, Joanna clawed her way out of the singed fabric enclosure that was still over her head and face. And then it was off, lying in a heap on the ground next to her.
Gulping in air, Joanna looked around frantically, trying to get her bearings, trying to clear her head of the hallucination that insisted on sticking to her like a second skin.
She blinked several times, but the man sitting on the front lawn beside her, panting, with the smell of smoke clinging to every surface of his body, didn’t resume his shape.
Didn’t transform from who she thought she saw to who he really was.
He stayed the same.
Was she dead? Was that it? Was that why she was still staring up at Rick Masters?
There didn’t seem to be any other possible explanation for it.
Rick dragged air back into his lungs. The house next to Joanna’s was encased in flames. He saw no signs of anyone having escaped. His legs shook as he rose to his feet. He felt her grab his arm, pulling him back.
He looked at her over his shoulder. “Let go, I’ve got to see if I can get anyone out.”
“There’s no one there,” she gasped out. “They’re away on vacation.” Her eyes still burned and she squeezed them shut for a moment, then opened them again. He was still there.
“How about in your house?”
She thought she shook her head. She wasn’t sure if she did or not. “Nobody.”
Rick sank down on the ground again. His heart was slamming madly against his chest. “Are you all right?” he demanded.
He sounded angry. They hadn’t seen one another in eight years and he sounded angry. Why? If anything, she should have been the one who was angry. Angry because he hadn’t come after her the way she’d hoped, prayed that he would.
But he couldn’t be here. Could he? Was she losing her mind?
Shaken, her head spinning, she stared at him, still afraid to believe that she wasn’t somehow hallucinating all this.
“Rick? What are you doing here?”
The desire to hold her in his arms, to kiss her and make the world back off, was almost overpowering. But it was at odds with the renewed feeling of betrayal that seared through him. He might not have moved on with his life in the full sense of the word, but she obviously had. Moved on, married and was now carrying some other man’s child in her body.
The sting he felt was unbelievably sharp and deep. Though he’d never talked about it, he’d thought of having children with her. Lots of children. Children with her face and his sense of logic.
Damn it, Joey, why did you do this to me?
“I asked you a question,” he said his voice harsh with anger, with hurt. “Are you all right?”
Her mouth fell open. She wasn’t dead. She was alive. And he was real. He was here. After all this time, he was here. Looking at her the way she never wanted him to look at her. She’d walked out of his life just to avoid that look in his eyes.
And yet, after all this time, here he was, looking at her as if he hated her.
She started to say something, and had her breath stolen away before she could utter an intelligible sound. What came out of her mouth was a purely guttural cry.
Joanna’s eyes widened as her hand flew to her abdomen. The pain she’d been peripherally conscious of intensified, pushing itself to center stage and demanding attention.
“What? What’s the matter?” On his knees beside her, concern pushed aside his anger.
Rick strained to hear the sound of sirens approaching, but there was nothing. Not only that, but there didn’t appear to be any activity, or even any lights
