* * *

Brooke sat on the curb, staring up at the flames. Dustin kept trying to put the oxygen mask over her face, while dabbing at a nasty cut on her arm that she’d managed to get from the rain gutter on her way down the ladder. She kept slapping the mask away, not taking her eyes off the house.

Where was he? Sam, Eddie and Aidan had all gone in after Zach and Blake. Why weren’t they-

Finally the door burst open and Sam and Aidan appeared, with Zach between them, Eddie just behind.

No Blake.

Shoving the blanket off her shoulders, Brooke went running toward them.

“Brooke,” Zach was saying to Isobel. “Where the hell’s Brooke?”

“Here,” she managed.

At the sound of her voice he whipped around. He still wore only his Levi’s. Dirt and ash were smeared over his chest and torso, blackening the bandages from the last fire he’d been in. He was bleeding from several cuts, as well, and couldn’t stop coughing. His eyes were wild, though they calmed at the sight of her as he hauled her into his arms.

“Blake?” she whispered.

Eyes revealing his misery, he shook his head. “We found the blowtorch, and his hard hat. Nothing else.”

Heart heavy, she hugged him tight, but she didn’t get to hold on to him for long. The scene was chaotic as all hell. Tommy appeared, and the chief, not to mention every rig out of their firehouse, plus too many police units to count.

Zach was pulled aside. “For questioning,” Aidan told her.

“He didn’t do anything wrong-”

“They know that,” he quickly assured her. “But with Blake gone-”

“Gone?”

“They didn’t find a body, but-” His voice broke, and he cleared his throat. “But they expect to. There’s going to be an internal investigation. Zach wants me to take you to the hospital for stitches-”

“I’ve got her, you stay with Zach.” Dustin flanked her on one side, and Cristina was on the other, looking devastated over the news about her partner.

They took her to the hospital, where she received eight stitches and a tetanus shot. Exhausted and woozy, she let Dustin take her home, where she had a message waiting from her Realtor about the offer on the house.

Was she taking it?

Good question. She’d gotten her asking price. Didn’t that just put a nice neat bow on her life. The end of yet another era…

Dustin called in for an update. The fire was out; Blake was presumed dead. Cristina showed up with Thai takeout and a brown bag. The three of them sat around Brooke’s table, grimy and filthy, stuffing their faces.

“I still can’t believe it was Blake,” Cristina said very quietly. “That he-” She broke off, her voice choked. “He was a pyromaniac. In some ways we all are, or we wouldn’t do this, but he was mentally ill. Tommy said that looking back, you could see he started unraveling when the chief came from Chicago, right about the time that Lynn died.” She closed her eyes. “He needed help.”

Dustin squeezed her hand. They ate in silence, an emotional but companionable sort of silence until Cristina looked at the stack of boxes filled with the stuff Brooke hadn’t been able to make herself get rid of-the photos, the diaries-all things that had helped Brooke find the missing parts of herself. “Looks like you’ve been busy, Brooke.”

She raised a brow. “Did you just call me Brooke?”

“That is your name, right?”

“I thought it was New Hire to you.”

Cristina shrugged. “You stuck.”

Her throat tightened. “Yes, but the job’s nearly over.”

“You could apply for a permanent position.”

She’d never done anything permanent. But this, with the people she now thought of as her friends, felt very permanent. And wasn’t that part of what she’d been searching for? “I’m ready for the booze now.”

Cristina lifted a brow.

“The brown bag you brought. It’s alcohol, right?”

Cristina pulled out a bottle of bubble bath and Dustin laughed.

“What?” Cristina demanded.

“You’re so damn cute.”

“Oh, shut up.” Cristina squirmed, looking uncomfortable. “I’m new at this girl-pal stuff, okay? I thought she might want to just soak, and God, I know, it’s stupid.”

“No.” Brooke hugged her. “It’s perfect.”

They stayed for ice cream, and two more calls for info, of which they got very little except that Zach was still at the fire site.

After Dustin and Cristina left, Brooke drew herself a bubble bath and lay back, soaking.

Thinking…

A knock at her front door stopped that and her heart. It wasn’t Zach, it couldn’t be Zach. He was no doubt still with the chief and Tommy. It was probably the real estate agent, whom she’d not yet called back. Wasn’t ready to call back, not when she felt as if she’d found all her answers right here in this house-answers about her life, and how she wanted to live it. Which was pretty much the opposite of her grandmother and mother.

Brooke didn’t want her memories stuck in boxes in some attic. She wanted to share them with real people. She wanted to create new ones every day.

The knock came again. Wrapping herself in a towel, she went to the door. “Who’s there?”

“Me.”

Oh, God. She whipped open the door.

Zach stood there in his jeans and someone’s firefighter jacket, opened so that she could see he was still as grimy as she’d been only a few moments ago. It didn’t matter. One minute she was holding on to the door and the next moment she was holding on to him.

“Brooke,” he murmured, his hand fisting in the towel at her back.

She pulled away to look into his face. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah.”

“Your house?”

“Not so much.”

“Oh, Zach.”

“Aidan’s putting me up at his place, but I needed to see you.”

“I needed to see you, too. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I am now.”

“I feel sick about Blake.”

“Yeah.” Zach blew out a breath. “They found a stack of wire-mesh trash cans in his garage. The chief is saying he was always a pyromaniac, that this job was just a cover to be near fires, that his illness got too much for him so he started setting fires to put them out. Then I started stirring it all up, which made it worse, and he went crazy.” He shook his head. “He was one of us, Brooke. How the hell did this happen to one of us?” He turned in a slow circle. “And there’s something else bugging the hell out of me. How did Blake manage to order the properties demolished? He didn’t have that kind of pull. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

She just shook her head and hugged him again, closing her eyes to breathe him in. “You’re safe. That’s all that matters right now. The rest of the questions will get their answers later.”

His eyes cut to the stack of boxes. “You’ve been busy. Did you take the offer on the house?”

“Not yet.”

“Where will you go?”

“I-I’m not quite sure.”

“You probably have lots of choices,” he said quietly, still looking at the boxes.

“I don’t know. I like this coast, a lot.”

He turned back to her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed past a lump of emotion the size of a basketball. “There’s lots of coastal cities hiring EMTs right now.”

“Including Santa Rey.”

“I know.” Brooke ran her hand over his sooty chest. “I have a tub filled with hot, bubbling water. Interested?”

“As long as you’re in it.”

“That could be arranged.”

They ended up draining the tub so he could shower the grime off him first, then filling it back up. Then they climbed in together, her back to his chest, his legs alongside of hers, his arms surrounding her, cast carefully out of the water. For a long moment he just pressed his jaw to hers. “Rationally, I knew you weren’t going to die today,” he murmured. “But I’ve found I’m not always rational when it comes to you.”

“Ditto.” She was grateful that he couldn’t see her face, or the tears that suddenly filled her eyes. Rational had gone out the window weeks ago, somewhere around that night on a rock overlooking the ocean.

“Brooke?”

She shook her head and forced herself to laugh. “What does rational have to do with us anyway? We just clicked, that’s all.”

He ran a finger up her wet arm, leaving a trail of bubbles and goose bumps. “We could keep clicking. If you weren’t leaving.”

Craning her neck, she looked into his face.

There was no humor in his gaze, not a single drop. “I realized something that first day with you,” he said quietly.

“What, that I was going to be a pain in your ass to dump?”

“That my lifestyle, the one I’ve reveled in for so long, had finally caught up with me and bit me on the ass. Because for the first time since losing my parents, something was going to matter. You were going to matter, Brooke.”

She stared at him. “Is that why you wanted to keep this light?”

“That, and because it was what I thought you wanted.”

“You told me I shouldn’t fall in love with you. Remember?”

“Yeah, that’s because I’m insanely stubborn. I’ve always thought I was so damn brave. I mean I put myself on the line every single day on the job.” He laughed, and it was not in amusement. “But not my heart. Never my heart. And that doesn’t make me brave at all. It makes me a coward.”

His gaze held hers. “Until I met you. I met you and something happened. The walls crumbled. I put my damn heart on the line for the first time in years, with absolutely no backup, no safety net. And it worked. It felt right,” he said sounding staggered. “Hell, it felt amazing.” Zach shook his head. “I want to be with you, Brooke.”

“For tonight.”

“For tonight,” he agreed. “And tomorrow night, too.”

She looked into his eyes, feeling a little kernel of hope and love, so much love she couldn’t draw a breath.

“And the night after that. I want all your nights. I love you, Brooke. But there’s something even more shocking.”