toward the smoke clinging to the upper part of the room. “Most civilians would have been climbing the walls by now.”
The radio crackled to life once more. “We’re coming in,” came her partner’s voice at the same moment as the door was pushed open, shoving the wet drape out of the way.
The big firefighter who came through the door had removed his mask. He grinned when his gaze lit on Lucia. “Way to go, partner. Sit in here where you can hug the kiddies while Jackson and I do the hard work. You slacker,” he said without a bit of heat in his voice.
“I love you, too, Donovan,” Lucia said from where she sat on the floor with little Teresa in her lap.
“Everybody in here okay?” asked another firefighter who came through the door.
Rafe stood. “She needs to be checked out,” he said, nodding to Lucia. “The explosion knocked her out.”
“That would be down, not out,” she said tartly. “There’s a big difference.”
Donovan’s attention sharpened and he pinned Lucia with a laser-sharp stare. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you—”
“I’m fine.” As if to prove it, Lucia handed him the little girl, then stood in a fluid movement. “Say hello to Teresa.” Smiling reassuringly at the little girl, she patted Donovan’s turnout coat and said, “Teddy Bear.”
“Teddy Bear?” Teresa repeated.
“That’s right.” Lucia grinned at the big firefighter. “Be nicer to her than you are to your own little girls.”
“Don’t you start,” Donovan said to Lucia before smiling at the child. “Everything is going to be just fine, little one.”
Lucia grinned at Rafe while waving toward the big firefighter. “This lug is Luke Donovan.” She nodded toward the other firefighter. “Gideon Jackson.”
“Rafe,” he said, extending his hand first to Jackson, then to Donovan. “Rafael Wright.”
“Wright. I remember you,” Jackson said. “I was in one of your classes last spring when I was getting recertified to fight wildfires.”
“Nice to meet you again.” Rafe drew Teresa’s brother forward. “This is Ramón. These two have a sister here somewhere and I bet parents looking for them, too. They don’t speak any English.”
“No problem,” Jackson said, offering a hand to the little boy and heading for the door. “We’ll go find them. ¿Cómo se llaman su mamá y su papá?”
Rafe smiled as Ramón told Jackson his father’s name as they went into the hallway.
“Where’s Vance?” a gruff voice demanded from the hallway.
“In there,” came Jackson’s answer through the open door.
The stocky fireman Rafe had seen earlier came into the chapel, an angry scowl on his face. “This is the final straw,” he said, waving toward the blackened hallway. “Do you have any idea how much damage was done out there because you left your post? You’re on notice, Lucia Vance, and when I’m done with you, you’ll be finished as a firefighter.”
THREE
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rafe took a step toward the man. “She didn’t abandon her post.”
“No?” The battalion chief gave Rafe a scathing once-over. “Here’s some advice for you. Keep your nose out of things you don’t know a thing about.” He looked over at Lucia. “Get out there on the mop-up crew. Since you sat out the fire, it’s the least you can do.”
Obeying the order the way Rafe would have expected of his own people, she left without a word while he folded his arms over his chest. The difference was, he was reasonable. Lucia’s chief wasn’t. “That explosion threw her against the wall. She could have died out there if—”
“That would be just like her,” O’Brien said. “Find a pretty boy to tell pretty lies for her.”
Feeling his temper rise, Rafe pointed a finger at the man. “She was nothing but professional, which is more than I can say for you.” He headed for the door, then turned around. “Your name is O’Brien, right?”
The battalion chief nodded. “What’s it to you?”
Rafe shrugged. “Personally, I like to have my facts straight when I file a report.” He gave the other man a smile that was all teeth, adding, “Battalion Chief O’Brien.”
Rafe strode out of the chapel, then came to a dead stop in the hallway. Ceiling tiles were curled and melted, and the Sheetrock was charred. Here and there, the metal framing beneath the Sheetrock was visible, the metal studs twisted into grotesque shapes. Not just surface smoke damage, but real structural damage, Rafe thought. That said a lot about how hot the fire had been and how close it had been to getting out of control. He shuddered as he imagined what might have happened to Lucia if he hadn’t been there to pull her out of harm’s way. That thought brought him back to square one with Chief O’Brien. No wonder Lucia didn’t respect the man. In Rafe’s book the man was an idiot.
Lucia Vance, he thought. Vance. Vance, as in Mayor Vance, who had been shot several months ago and who was still in the hospital? Rafe figured he had to be right. How many other Vances were likely to be in this hospital in intensive care? What made no sense was why the daughter of a wealthy and powerful family was a firefighter.
He looked around, hoping for a glimpse of her. He’d have to ask her about that the next time he saw her. And he knew he would be seeing her. For the first time in his life, he had envisioned his children’s faces within a woman he was attracted to.
“Are you really okay?” Lucia’s mother asked a couple of hours later in the hallway outside the intensive-care room where her father was still in a coma.
“Fine.” Lucia didn’t dare hug her mother, much as she wanted to, since she was still in her filthy turnout gear and her mom was dressed in chic black linen pants and a turquoise jacket. “I can’t stay. We’re headed back to the station in a few minutes.” She looked toward the room where her father was. “No change today?”
“I think his color is better,” her mother said. She always had something positive to say about any sliver of improvement in his condition. Lucia studied her father through the window between the hallway and his room. He looked the same to Lucia, but she hoped the change her mother saw was indeed there. When her dad woke up, they had a lot to talk about. First on the list was the apology she owed him for an argument they’d had the day before he was shot.
“What’s with the coat?” Her mother pointed to the jacket in Lucia’s arms.
Lucia glanced down at the well-worn leather bomber jacket she had found in the chapel after she had checked on it the last time. Rafael Wright’s name was neatly printed on a label on the lining. She didn’t dare blurt out that the least she could do was return the man’s jacket since he had saved her life—at least not to her mother, who didn’t need to know how close a call it had been. “It belongs to a guy who rescued a couple of little kids in the chapel,” she said, striving for a nonchalant tone. “He was so kind that…”
