The Firefighter's Woman by Tressie Lockwood

Author:Tressie Lockwood [Lockwood, Tressie]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: Romance, Multicultural & Interracial, Multicultural, Contemporary, Literature & Fiction
Amazon: B003TXS2Z0
Publisher: Amira Press
Published: 2010-06-24T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Odessa screamed and ripped herself from the chef’s hold. “Steven!” She crawled on hands and knees a few feet before she managed to stand, and tumbling out of one shoe, ran toward the burning building. “Steven. Please, no. Steven!”

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she ran. Her ears stopped so that the roar from the fire was muffled and seemed far away. The black smoke was a mushroom in the air over the restaurant, but she didn’t give a damn. She had to check. He had to be all right, or she didn’t know what she would do. Could anyone survive that blast? Could Steven, surely knowing what would come beforehand?

“Stop her!” someone called out, and the patter of running feet came from somewhere behind Odessa. She tried to increase her speed, but what energy she’d had dissipated with the thought that Steven could be lost. At the curb on the side of the street where the charring building was ablaze, Odessa couldn’t raise her foot high enough to clear the step up.

Tumbling forward, she put her hands out to brace herself against the fall, but someone grabbed hold of her from behind, and she was yanked backward. She fought with everything inside to get free.

“Let me go! Steven is in there. Let me go, please! He can’t—” She sobbed. “He can’t be dead.”

“Odessa, sweetheart.” Steven’s voice above her head, hoarse but strong, was a balm to her shattered nerves. She glanced up to find herself in his arms, and he guided them both away from the danger, back to the opposite side of the street. “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay, Odessa.”

A shuddering sigh tore through her, but she began to calm down, and her sobs subsided.

“How did you—” It didn’t matter how he’d gotten out, just so long as he had. If she had wondered how much she cared, the loss she’d felt was the answer, and if he hadn’t been distracted in what was happening around them, it would have been obvious to him, as well.

At first, resting in his arms, with her face buried against his shirt, Odessa took a peek up at him a second time. Steven’s attention was focused just past her to the firefighters arriving on the scene. Police gathered and directed them to clear the area and let those trained do their job so that all of them might be safe. Odessa looked from the men in the heavy fire-retardant gear to Steven. Under her ear, his heart had kicked up a few notches, and from the intensity in his eyes, she guessed he was aching to join them.

Odessa opened her mouth to suggest that he ask them if he could help in any way, but the words stuck in her dry throat. She didn’t want him to help. She wanted to pretend this hadn’t happened, wanted them to go back to the house, and wanted to just hold onto Steven. He must have felt her staring up at him because he glanced down at her and brushed her hair from her forehead.

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