When the Smoke Clears (Interracial Firefighter Romance) (32 page)

“He’s not spending the night.” My phone buzzed in the back of my jeans.

“But—”

“Kassie, I care about you. I’m falling in love with you. I would do anything for you, but what I won’t do is let this piece of shit spend the night in your house, after I’ve just been asked to leave.”

“You don’t get to make that call—”

“No. You’re a writer. You know how this goes. The villain doesn’t get to stay in the castle, when the hero is kicked out.” I shut the door behind me, before she said anything else.

And she didn’t.

It took about a half an hour to get a cab to the house. The whole time, Ellis lay in the grass. I would’ve kicked him in the side, if Kassie hadn’t been staring out of her window, looking at both of us.

I had no idea what would happen to her and me. We’d been doing fine, and then her ex came to spoil the fun.

Once the cab arrived, I paid him some extra bills and instructed him to get the bum to a hotel. Sarasota was a small city with a tiny cab group. I’d done this many times before with some of my buddies, when they’d drank too much. Luckily, the cabbie knew the drill.

We got her ex into the back of the cab and I watched them drive away. Kassie chose that moment to leave the window, and once again my phone buzzed.

I now had ten missed calls from Rockstar.

I put the phone to my ear. “What’s going on?”

“Lou, we need to talk.”

“Is it the twins?”

“No, man. I figured you were with them.”

“No, they’re with my mom.”

“Naw. As far as I know your family is fine.”

“Then what’s up?”

“It’s Cicely.”

My chest hollowed. My hands shook as a cold breeze blew by me. I shut out all emotion as if I was on a job myself. Hot flames swarmed all around me. I’d already let myself come close to losing Kassie, if I hadn’t pushed her away already. I’d already allowed the lie about my daughters’ mom go too far. I’d already lost control of the whole month. What else could happen? And would it take me down?

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“There was a big job on Tamiami Trail tonight. Some John went crazy, locked a couple of prostitutes into the room, and burned it up.”

“And?” I hurried to my car.

“She’s gone, Lou? It was her hotel room that the guy locked them in.”

“Where are you?”

“We’re finishing up.”

“I’m coming.”

“You probably shouldn’t.”

“I’m coming.”

Chapter 23

Kassie

A
fter
the guys left, I couldn’t sleep. Things had gone crazy, when they’d been so perfect in the most beautiful way. Lorenzo had made love to me. Tender kisses mingled with wild thrusts. Fire blazed in his eyes. Flames waved through my flesh.

After all of the craziness from tonight, smoke still lingered in my lungs and I hoped to be smothered by him again.

But could I see him again? Had he crossed the line? Surely Ellis deserved a punch in the face, but how far does Lorenzo’s temper go? It came out of nowhere. He was a completely different person.

Giving up on getting any sleep, I left the warmth of my bed and dragged myself to my office. No matter what problem I had in life, I could always solve it through writing. That was what hurt me so bad in these last months of dealing with writer’s block. Now, that I had it back, I could just focus on that and figure out the rest later.

I switched on the light and spotted a letter taped to my computer screen.

Who left this?

I walked over and read it.

Dear Kassie,

Your agent delivered a termination letter of my services and included a few threats of filing a police report based on our last session. I’ve assured her that it was all a misunderstanding, since I have healed you.

May you keep writing. I’m still paid for the rest of the month. If you require my services during that time period, please feel free to call.

Mama Ganga

“Misunderstanding?” I shook my head. “I don’t know about that.”

Her number was written at the bottom of the page. Something made me want to use it. My fingers itched to pick up the phone and call her, but I couldn’t figure out why. What the hell could I get from a conversation with her? And wasn’t it too late to call? It had to be close to midnight by now.

I shouldn’t.

But still, I grabbed the phone, dialed the numbers, and held my breath as ringing filled my ears.

That odd voice came through the line. “Hello?”

“Mama Ganga?”

“Kassie?”

“Yes.”

“When I said you could call me, I meant at normal hours. If this is an emergency, then you should probably call 9-1-1.”

“I’m not sure why I called.”

“Then maybe you should hang up, go to sleep, figure it out, and then call me.”

“I finished the witch and demon story.”

“Good.”

“I’m writing a new novel. It’s about a. . .writer and a fire fighter.”

“Interesting.”

“She has writer’s block and a son.”

“Good. Use your life to put words on the page. Are you dating a fire fighter now?”

“Yes.” The image of Lorenzo slamming Ellis into the wall flashed in my head. “At least, I think I’m going to date him.”

“Don’t let fear dictate your life choices. Doing that will hurt your writing. No one wants to read a book from an author that has a boring life. What could that person have to say that they haven’t already seen? In order to entertain, inspire, and thrill, you must live. You must jump off cliffs and explore caves. You must love. Good men and bad. Dark ones, and even the bright. You must cry so badly that you fall to the ground and fear you can’t stand back up. And then, after you’ve done all of those things, you must write it down.”

I swallowed.

“Kassie?” Mama Ganga asked.

“Yes.”

“Tell your agent not to press charges.”

“You drugged me.”

“You’re writing. Just be lucky that we didn’t go to stage three. That’s jumping out of a plane.”

“I wouldn’t have jumped out of a plane.”

“You’re the real thing, Kassie. You’re a writer and you want it badly, you would’ve jumped out of anything to get it back.”

I sighed. “Maybe.”

“Goodbye, Kassie. Whatever is bothering you now won’t be fixed by our conversation. Whatever you’re conflicted about, make it a book. Who’s the heroine?”

“Me.”

“Who’s the hero?”

“Lorenzo.”

“Nice name. Who’s the villain?”

“My ex-husband Ellis. . .and sometimes me. I. . .I get in my own way.”

“Good.” Two male voices whispered from her end. She giggled a little and then they quieted. “I have to go. It’s midnight, and I must do what people do at that time.”

“Sacrifice a chicken?” I asked, but she’d already hung up the phone.

Her old behind is definitely getting laid.

I set my phone down and turned all of my attention to my computer. Mama Ganga had made an excellent point. In order to write, I had to live. And in order to live, I had to be more fearless. I wasn’t ready to say that I could easily excuse Lorenzo for his deception and violence tonight, but I would give him another chance, after we’ve had some peace to think things through. Maybe with time, I’d gain clarity and he would, too.

Until then, I would write about us and try to figure it out on the pages.

How does our romance begin?

And so I wrote all night. . .

He was a fire starter. I didn’t care that he wore a firefighter uniform. All I knew was that our gazes met, and he set a blaze through my body. Hazel eyes burned every inch of my flesh. Flames rippled. Heat rose. I stumbled and had to catch my breath.

He was a fire starter.

I walked toward him and my son, Rich. They both had been engrossed in conversation. And then, the sexy man looked up at me and he no longer concentrated on my son.

Chapter 24

Lorenzo

H
ouses
passed in dark shadows. The night shined clear with a full moon. But far off in the direction that I drove, smoke drifted into the sky in gray columns. Rockstar had lied. The fire was still going.

How bad had it been? He started calling at the beach. That was hours ago. How much of the hotel went up in flames?

I got closer. Bright lights flashed from fire trucks. Every station had come out. The police blocked any entrance into Tamiami Trail, producing a gridlock of cars. Semi-trucks and other travelers sat in a long line that went miles back. Other cops directed them the best way they could toward detour signs pointing this way and that.

Fuck.

I pulled into the parking lot of a closed pizza joint and decided to run down to where Oasis hotel was. There would be no driving there.

Smoke and ash hovered in the air like a mystical beast. If this had been a fantasy world, this would’ve been the aerial call of a great wizard. Something powerful and utterly dominating. But this was a fire. Something even worse. Flames took and destroyed. It spread fast and crept along with no end in sight.

Outside of the car, the noise was unbearable—sirens roared, things crashed and boomed, cars honked, people yelled and screamed.

I grabbed my fire station shirt from the trunk and slung it on. Fires didn’t get out of hand like this too many times in Sarasota, but the few times they did, we jumped out of our beds, whether on or off duty. We rushed out to help and save who we could. We hurried to support our brothers and make sure that the city would be safe the next morning. So our kids could have another day in a beautiful world--to have one more day in their childhoods, before adulthood set in, and we couldn’t pretend for them anymore.

I scanned the area, pushing through all the on-lookers that crowded the sidewalks. Although Oasis hotel was a block down, the fire had spread to here.

Shit. How many hotels did that one fire take down?

I yanked out my badge and showed the cops holding people back. The one closest to me, played basketball with me whenever the firefighters went up against the cops. He nodded and waved me through.

Behind the line of tape, it was hard to breath, but not impossible. I coughed a lot and waved burnt particles out of my face. The air was warm and hot in patches. So much had been destroyed. Trees, bushes, signs, and buildings. Trucks crowded this area. Hoses littered the blocks and pavements. Men still sprayed black, crisp foundations that had once been completed structures. Now they barely stood, hollow and broken.

Murky water spilled out into the streets. People cried. Some sat in the back of ambulance vans—street hookers with barely any clothes on their burned bodies. Some of the females looked as young as my daughters, but in their eyes I knew they’d seen a lot more than the tragedy of this night.

I had to look away. The little girls were the hardest to stomach as I continued down this path, flanked by now abandoned and burnt hotels. Five blocks of a busy highway were now a deserted land. It could’ve been the perfect stage for a post-apocalyptic scene.

From the drive to the walk, I never let myself focus too much on Cicely. I’d somehow shut it off and concentrated on each second, each minute. If I thought too much into the future, I knew I would turn around and run to my mom’s house, jump into my old bunk bed where the girls now slept, and just hold them. I knew I couldn’t face it. Knew it would be bad. Hard. Difficult to survive.

So, I focused on each task for each second before me. But by the time I got to Oasis, I could not remain calm. I could not shut it off. I could not walk forward without stopping for one second to take in all of the charred bodies around me.

Jesus.

The Oasis hotel had been burned to the ground by some crazy John. And where this fire began, it did not end. It took too many. Many had perished tonight. Probably hundreds. Black husks. Burnt corpses. Misshapen and scorched to the core. The scent of death was so harsh it singed my nostrils. I covered my nose with my arm and screamed in my head. Everyone, from firemen to EMTs, police officers to citizen volunteers, lifted the ruined bodies and carted them to different marked zones. A couple of morgue vans were parked close. Half of the vehicles were from other counties.

I closed my eyes and knew that Cicely lay among these burnt bodies.

Had he seen her body or just assumed? It didn’t matter. Almost everybody on these blocks died. And if it was her hotel room, then she went with them. Now, what? Now what do I tell my girls?

The tears burned as they left my eyes. I couldn’t get the smell of death out of my nose and I couldn’t stop crying.

What had I done? Why didn’t I take her with me? Why didn’t I save her? Now what will happen to the girls? Now what do I tell them?

I had to get it together. My men would need help. The city too. I wasn’t the only one who’d lost tonight, so many others had also. There was no time to fall to the ground and scream out to God, “Why, you bastard! Why?! What have I done to you?!”