I nod, still staring at my toes. “It scares me, too.”
He crosses the space between us and leans his hips against the counter beside me, draping his arm across my shoulders and tugging me into his side. I slip my arm around his waist, leaning my head against him for a long minute. He squeezes my shoulder. “He might be my boss, but I’ll kick his ass if he hurts you. I’ll take the write-up.”
I bark out a laugh, shaking my head as I look up at him from where we’re standing side by side. “Thanks.”
“Come on, let’s go back out,” he mutters, winking. “That’s enough mushy love shit for one night.”
When we wander back outside, Xander is kneeling in the grass in the middle of the yard with Dalton, working to put together the automatic football throwing machine he’d gotten from his grandparents. It moves side to side and up and down before launching the football into the sky. Dalton runs halfway across the yard, spinning as the ball is launched, and he almost has his hands on it, but misses, rolling into the grass with a laugh.
“This thing is so cool!” Dalton exclaims, throwing the football back to Xander, who gets it ready again. This time, when the ball is launched, Dalton is ready for it, making a spectacular running catch.
He runs up to Xander, who ruffles his hair and holds out his fist. Dalton bumps it, grinning up at him. “Way to go, Champ. That was a great catch!”
“Thanks! Can we do it again?”
Xander glances over at me and winks. “We’ll stay out as late as your mom will let us, Champ.”
Ugh. My heart. I look down at my left hand, the wedding ring I’ve been avoiding taking off, because in a way, it protects me from admitting what I’ve known for a while. At least, that’s what the grief counselor told me at this week’s session. And it makes so much sense…
I twist the ring on my finger and then sigh. It’s time to be brave and take it off. To put it away and turn the page on that wonderful chapter of my life…to start a new one.
With Xander.
I’m too old for this shit.
We’re a town over from Sky Ridge helping the local fire department contain a blaze that jumped from a barn fire to the surrounding wildland. We were quick on the scene and there isn’t much damage, but goddamn, this was not the way I wanted to end my night.
No, I wanted to end my night buried balls deep in my beautiful woman, wrapped up in her bed like we have been for the last several weeks.
I’m a wreck. Utterly and hopelessly enamored with Teddy and her kids. For the first time in my life, I hated leaving to head into a fire. Even knowing it’s a simple job and I’ll be back home to her within a few hours, considering we can keep this from spreading. Which my crew is doing pretty fucking well.
I’m on a quad, the small headlights showing my way through the forested area as I scout. The boys are working fast and hard to head this thing off so we can all go the fuck home.
Picking my way carefully over dead logs, rocks, and up a steep embankment, I’m able to find a good spot to watch theblaze. I breathe a sigh of relief seeing that my team has it covered. Only one small section still blooms red in the dark.
So, down I head, back toward the action.
I find a narrow strip of mostly flat land with little to no obstructions running along a long line of fencing and hit the throttle, the headlight beams bouncing in the night and illuminating the smoke that’s drifting everywhere.
I can hear my crew on the other side of the tree line as I get closer, and then I’m airborne as the back end of the quad flips up on the right front wheel. I have a heartbeat to register what’s happening before I’m tossed into the fencing that I’ve been zipping along.
And as the bite of the razor wire registers as it catches my fall, I know this isn’t going to be pretty.
“911, what’s the location of your emergency?”
After a long day, I’m ready to be heading home. I’m half an hour away from being done and I cannot wait to get home to Xander and the kids.
“Uhh, yeah, I’ve got a guy out here that’s caught in some razor wire. We’ve almost got him cut out, but he’s in pretty rough shape.”
“What’s the location?” I ask again, keeping my voice neutral as I type.
“We’re down here at a structural fire on Clemmons.”
I continue typing. I was the one that had responded to the original call for the barn fire, sending out the local fire department to handle it. “Is the victim conscious?”
“Yeah, poor bastard,” the guy says and I press my lips together. I send the codes and immediately get a response from EMS that they are enroute.
“I have EMS on the way. How badly is he bleeding?”
