Flame (Firefighters of Montana Book 5) (15 page)

But her cupcakes weren’t going to work their magic on her and Dex, it seemed.

Nothing she could do would erase the growing doubts in her mind about being with Dex. She had lots to lose if she fell apart again. She was all she had. Sure, she had her dear friends, but at the end of the day, they all had their lives and their careers. Who would pick her up, run the shop if she couldn’t cope? She didn’t have the option of losing it. She had to be strong. She had to rebuild those barricades around her heart to safeguard it, not open it up to a drifter like Dex McCoy.

No matter which way she looked at it—she and Dex—there was no way through it. So she had to do it now. Before things got more serious, before she’d said the “L” word out loud. Of course she loved him, but it would have to remain forever a little secret she held in her heart, her safeguarded heart.

And she couldn’t wait one more day to tell him so, after work on a Monday, she drove the half hour to Kalispell and the fire station to tell him it was over.

Cady found a stoic expression as she took the steps up to the front doors and into the reception area. The last time she’d been here was for Russ Edwards’s memorial service. The thought made her shake, and when she looked across the room to see his parachute hanging there, something like the beginnings of a panic attack shimmered in her chest. When she pushed open the front door, the first person she saw was Jacqui behind the reception desk. Her fingers were flashing over a keyboard and she was staring intently at her computer screen.

Jacqui looked up. “Hey, Cady. What are you doing here?”

Cady hadn’t expected to see Jacqui. Cady’s bottom lip betrayed her, quivering. She couldn’t talk to anyone else about this just now, couldn’t let on that anything was breaking her heart.

“I’m looking for Dex,” she managed.

Jacqui stood slowly, rounded the desk. “You don’t look good. You’re pale. You okay? Has something happened?”

Cady shook her head, letting her hair fall across her face, unable to speak.

“Oh, no, Cady.” Jacqui hugged her and Cady couldn’t reciprocate it, knowing if she gave in to what she was feeling, acknowledged her confusion and sadness, she would start crying and maybe never stop.

“He’s upstairs in the loft,” Jacqui whispered. “I’m right here if you need me.”

“Thanks, Jac.”

“And whatever’s happened, you know I’ve got your back. Call me anytime.”

Cady nodded, took a deep breath, and walked to the stairs to break her own heart.

She found Dex sitting behind one of the sewing machines positioned in a row over by the far window. He didn’t hear or see her at first, and she watched while he fed a piece of dark fabric through the machine. The high-pitched whirr echoed in the room.

Then the noise stopped and he looked up and smiled. He always seemed to sense her, even though she hadn’t made a sound or said a word. God, she would miss that. She would miss being that important to someone.

“Cady?” he called out. “What are you doing here?”

He stood and Cady walked across the room, her footsteps echoing. When she was by his side, he reached for her but then checked himself, remembering he was in his workplace.

“I came because we need to talk.”

The expression on his face told her he knew. We need to talk. Weren’t they the four worst words in the English language, after all?

“What’s going on?” he asked quietly, his hands on his hips now.

“I can’t do dinner tonight,” she blurted nervously. And by dinner, she meant what came after. God, she wanted what came after so much, but one more night with Dex would break her, finally and irrevocably.

“You want to make it another day?”

Cady stared at her shoes. It was silent all around them. From somewhere else in the station, Cady could hear the moderated tones of a newsreader.

She shook her head slowly.

“You’re not here for a raincheck, are you?”

“No.” She took a deep breath, needing all her strength to tell him. “We have to end it. We can’t see each other anymore. I mean, we’ll see each other at The Drop Zone, of course, and, you know, maybe at the post office. But—”

Dex was silent.

“The thing is, I’m settled here. I have a business. I’m part of Glacier Creek. Memories of my mom and gran are in every step I take up and down Main Street. Whenever I used to look up at those mountains, I would think about hiking with them both and all the amazing things they showed me. But you know what? Now, when I look up at the mountains and that big Montana sky, I don’t think of sunshine and wildflowers and clouds and rain and snow. I think about you jumping out of a plane. And not making it.” Cady looked around the room and everything in it was a reminder of what Dex did for a living. “You’re too much of a risk. I’m not cut out to be with a guy like you, Dex. I’ve lost too much and I’m just not strong enough to lose someone else.”

Dex breathed hard, rubbed a hand over his hair.

“C’mon, Cady. Don’t do this. I’m safe. I’m here, aren’t I? Unless I prick myself while I’m sewing.”

Cady held up a hand. “Stop it. This isn’t a joke.”

He came closer, rested a hand on her arm.

God, she would never feel his touch again. The thought was agony.

“Cady. Let’s talk about this tonight. Not here.”

“No, this is it. I can’t feel this scared one more minute. That’s why I had to come tell you know. I’m sorry, Dex.”

His grip on her arm became a caress. She half wanted to rip his fingers away, half wanted to hold them forever.

“You know what I see when I jump out of a plane?” His words were quiet, soothing, plaintive. “In those first few seconds after I jump, it’s quiet. It’s like there’s just me and the wind and the clouds. In that moment, before I have to think about the drop zone and where the clearing is, I try to find Glacier Creek. If we’re on the other side of the mountains, I look east. If we’re on this side, I search my way around Flathead Lake and I pick out Main Street and I try to see Cady’s Cakes. Because knowing you’re down here, waiting for me when I get back? That’s always been my dream, Cady.”

No, no, no
. “Don’t make this harder for me than it already is. I can’t cope with the nightmares anymore.”

The muscles in Dex’s jaw moved as he clenched it. “Nightmares?”

Her voice caught on a sob. “Every night I dream about your dying.”

“For fuck’s sake, Cady.” Dex moved in, wrapped his arms around her tight and, oh, so loving.

Her tears spilled, drizzling down her cheeks and on to his uniform. “It’s too dangerous to be with you, McCoy.”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Cady. Ever.”

“I know.” Cady wrenched herself from Dex’s arms, turned, and left Dex standing stoic and alone. She drove home to Glacier Creek, sobbing more with every mile.

D
ex was on-call
for the next five days and he slept at base in the bunk room. He didn’t go home, didn’t walk into his apartment, which now felt strangely empty now that Cady was gone from his life. Every spare moment, doing chores around base, sitting in training sessions in which he tried to concentrate on what Captain Sam Gaskill was saying, and every night as he listened to one of his crew mates snore like a freight train, he thought about what Cady had told him.

And the realization he’d made her scared and frightened, that he’d brought on her nightmares, that she’d dreamt about him being killed on the job, gutted him. It felt like his insides were being ripped out and sewn back together with a chainsaw. Whenever he remembered her tears, her sobs into his shirt, he felt a new urge to drive right over to Cady’s Cakes and tell her she was wrong.

He’d spent ten years without Cady and didn’t want to add one more day to that tally of loneliness. So every spare minute he had was consumed with working on a plan to win Cady back.

He needed to show her life had to be lived in the moment. His mother’s death—so young—and Russ’s death had convinced him of that. So had Lila’s accident. And the old couple with the dog that lost their lives in the burnt-out cabin? He wondered if they’d had unfulfilled dreams, too, things they’d put off for the rainy day they never got to have.

He’d been a drifter because he had nothing of his own in Montana. But those days were over. He was serious about staying in one place and it was going to be Glacier Creek because of Mitch and Sarah and Lila—and Cady.

Words weren’t his strength. He’d never hit the books in high school with any great enthusiasm, unlike people like Cady. She’d worked damn hard then—and now—to make her dreams come true.

Every job he’d ever done used his hands and his strength. He didn’t talk the talk. He walked the walk.

Actions spoke louder than words, his mother had always told him.

And that was what he was going to do to win Cady Adams back.

He was going to prove he was a safe bet. That he was someone who would stay. That he was worth risking her heart on.

The only thing he had to figure out was how the fuck he was going to do it.

*

If Cady thought
breaking up with Dex would stop her nightmares, she’d badly mistaken. In the week after the heart-wrenching conversation, she’d dreamt a wildfire had ravaged the mountain tops above Flathead Lake, swept down into Glacier Creek, and she was the only survivor. The next night, she was running down Main Street naked as a jaybird and Dex had driven by in his truck, leapt out, and covered her with a black and white cow hide. In another, she was back at the culinary institute in the middle of a practical exam and she’d opened one of the drawers under the workbench in the test kitchen and there had been no cooking utensils in it.

After every dream, she woke sweating and breathless, disoriented, the images so vivid behind her eyes she was frightened in the dark quiet of her bedroom. After every dream, she reached out a hand to the empty side of her bed, knowing Dex wasn’t there but wishing he was. The sheets were cold. The scent of him had already gone.

She knew this was for the best. After all she’d lost, she couldn’t put her heart at risk again. When her mother and grandmother had died, she’d almost flunked out of the culinary institute, almost lost the dream they’d all worked so hard to help her achieve. She couldn’t let them down by failing.

But why were her dreams worse not better?

She’d dragged herself up the stairs and flopped on the sofa. She tried to summon up the energy to stick a frozen meal in the oven but decided she wasn’t hungry. She just wanted to sleep, needed to close her eyes and drift away and not endure another nightmare.

As she kicked off her chef clogs and rested her feet on the coffee table, her phone rang. She almost didn’t answer it. But it was Jacqui and Cady needed to talk to a friend.

“Hey, Jacqui.” She tried to find an enthusiastic tone.

“Cady.” There was a long pause. “How are things?”

“Oh, you know. Busy. Getting by.”

“How was business today?”

Cady yawned. “Good.”

“I’ve been wondering how you are. You kind of ran off when you were at base the other day. If you need to talk, you know where I am. Do you want me to come around with some wine?”

“No, it’s okay. That’s really kind but I’m beat. I’d be moderately good company for about an hour before I nod off in the middle of a conversation.”

“Cady, it’s okay to feel sad.”

Just the word had Cady’s chest hammering with hurt. “I feel sad and heartbroken and alone. I know what I’ve done is for the best but…”

“If there’s a ‘but’, there’s hope.”

“I love him, Jac. Pretty stupid, huh?”

“No. It’s not stupid. Being in love is wonderful.”

“Not when it makes you feel this way.”

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,” Jacqui said. “I’m going to round up Laurel and Lina and Callie. Let’s do something Saturday night.”

“That sounds great,” Cady said, trying desperately to feel it.

But inside, she felt hard as stone.

O
n Saturday morning,
Mitch lifted Lila up into the front seat of Dex’s truck, which was parked out the front of the house on North Fork, and the little girl waited while her father fastened her seat belt. Behind the wheel, Dex fastened his too and waited a moment to savor the expression on Lila’s face. He was about to take her on her long promised uncle date to Cady’s Cakes and she looked happy as a clam. She wore a green sweater with unicorns on it, denim jeans, and green sneakers with sparkling silver laces. Her hair was pulled back into a single braid that was halfway down her back.

“You okay?” Dex asked her. “Done up tight there?”

She nodded seriously and Dex thought she might be shivering with cold, before realising it was excitement.

Mitch leaned in to the cabin. “You okay there, pancakes?”

“Daddy,” Lila admonished, “I’ll be fine.”

Mitch glanced past Lila at Dex.

“You’ve really got to do something about this old rust bucket. You sure it’s safe?”

“ ’Course it is.” Dex laughed. “Think I’d take Lila anywhere if I thought this old truck was going to fall to pieces on the way there?”