Page 51 of Courageous Yearnings

“I figured you would,” she chuckled, waving at him. “You should be careful.”

“I’m always careful, Boop!” he hollered wildly, running inside, pausing to yank off a shoe at the doorway and hopping on one foot for a brief moment before yanking off the other one. “Guys? Wait up!”

“You forgot… your pie?” she hollered behind him.

Laughing for a few moments, she watched the flurry of activity within the building as the lights came on the truck, signaling that they were on the move. The massive red fire engine started to lumber forward as a siren began to wail. The keening sound growing in intensity just as it faded and resurged once again, and she saw that precious wave from one of the side windows.

Lance.

Smiling proudly, she waved back empathically and blew him a kiss – only to see several other arms suddenly appear, all of them blowing kisses at her mockingly. As the siren faded, she heard laughter loud enough for her to hear from a distance, right before the roar of the siren combined with the truck drowned it out again as they pulled onto the street.

Being a firefighter was a part of Lance, just like her romantic guitar player, her chef, her sweet homemaker, and the incredible man that wanted to make squishies, so they had a family to raise together. That was the being she never expected to find that day she met him in her office. She never saw any of that hidden personality the day of the photo shoot and couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have met him.

“I love you,” she whispered after the truck.

14

LANCE

“Holy cannoli!” Lance hollered in his helmet, causing the glass to fog up briefly, not that he could see anything anyhow. That was the one thing that he got really good at, making his way blindly in a smoky haze that was illuminated briefly if there was a flame, a flashlight, or any other light source or glimmer.

“What do you have, Cortes?”

He heard Justin’s voice in his earpiece amidst the grumblings of Alec and Colton, who were also working the scene. The sound of mattress springs launching in the distance, uncurling from the raging heat, was incredibly unsettling. He would never forget the first time he heard the sounds from a fire – it was not something that ever faded from your memory no matter how hard you wished sometimes.

“Checking the ceiling and pulling drywall,” he said numbly, his body and mind going to work as he shoved his pike upward, hooking the drywall and yanking down. “I’ve got flames between floors,” he muttered, seeing the burst of fire at the sudden onset of oxygen needed to feed it.

“Beckett, Fischer – report…”

“Kitchen is engulfed and dousing it now…”

“Hallway is clear…”

Lance sent the pike upward several more times, in different places, and frowned. He had fire in between the floors, the entire length of the room. It was traveling within the pockets, feeding and moving quickly.

“I don’t think we are going to save this one. I’ve got fire in…” and paused as he heard an unholy groaning sound, followed by rapid-fire alarmed voices barking at the same time.

“Why do I see movement and flames at the roofline?! Fellas – TALK TO ME!”

“I’ve got a flare up…”

“WHAT WAS THAT?” Alec yelped at the same time that Lance opened his mouth to ask that same question.

“Beckett, that was my eardrum… relax, think, and…”

“ACT! Act now!? Um, who checked upstairs?” Lance balked, panicking as he looked at the inferno above his head that was growing in size. The flames were making a weird quilt straight out of hell, squares filled with all different shapes of flames, each deadly and slowly eating away at the framework above him.

“I did – and there was no evidence of fire…”

“It’s in the joists and walls – let’s get outta here!”

“Wait, how bad is it?”

“Did you hear that?”

The floor above him made a strange groaning sound again, almost like it was a live, fire-breathing monster that had suddenly awoken from its slumber, yawning and preparing to inhale or exhale either one, horrifying in its deadly form.

“DID YOU HEAR THAT ONE?”

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