Page 46 of Shelter for Morgan

Those clothes had quickly become his favorites to see her wear.

She was more relaxed then. Happier. Her expressions softer.

So yes, he knew when she got ready for bed. And he knew what she might be wearing.

He could only dream of wrapping his arms around her or even better, crawling into bed beside her and watching her fall asleep.

"Palmer?"

"Yeah?"

"You went silent on me. Is everything okay?"

"It's been a long shift."

"Oh," he could tell that she'd heard the tone of his voice. "Can you tell me what's going on?"

His instant reaction was to shake his head. "It's just that we came back from a house fire and I'm struggling with it."

"Palmer," he heard an ache in her tone as if she was feeling the emotions he was feeling, "what happened?"

"The house went up in minutes. It was an older house, the materials from a different era. By the time the call reached us, and we got there, all we could do was keep the fire from spreading to houses around it and knock down the fire so we could see if anything could be saved for this family."

He heard her soft exhale and her voice as she murmured something to him.

He couldn't hear the exact words, but it was the warmth of her voice that reached out to him. It touched him through the phone call.

"When we started to poke around into what was left of the structure, I saw the family out of the corner of my eye. The parents were stunned. Shocked. They were standing there staring at the pile of burned-out wood that had been their house just an hour or two before. I've seen those looks. I try not to, but when it's a house fire that we're putting out, I hope that the family leaves or moves far enough away that they don't see the whole collapse if we can't stop it before it fully engulfs the house.

"But it was the look on their kids' faces that ripped through me. They had soot on their faces telling me that they'd barely made it out, but then it was their tears streaking through the soot, making cleaner streaks down to their chins. They were each clutching a toy to their chests and I just... I just felt their loss at that moment. I felt the pain they were going through. It hurt... I hurt so much for these kids."

"Palmer?" He could hear the soft jingle of keys. "I can be there in a few minutes."

"Morgan, no. Don't... With the way this shift has been we'll be out on another call."

"I don't care. I can come there anyway. Even if it's just a moment before you're onto another call, I can be there for you."

He'd closed his eyes then, feeling her concern as a physical touch.

The klaxon alarm sounded, and he sucked in a breath. "I've got to go. Stay there and get some sleep."

Abe ran by him. "Rhett! Let's go!"

He called out an answer. "I'm right behind you." He held the phone tightly to his ear. "Stay there, please. I'll... I'll see you when you finish work tomorrow."

"I'm here if you need to talk. Be safe, Palmer."

He knew that when she got back to the apartment after work, he wanted to do something special for her. He wanted to thank her for being there for him. And he planned on asking her out on a date.

He just had to figure out what to do to make it a special night.

MORGAN

She parked Palmer's truck in his spot and sat behind the wheel for a minute or two before she got out of the cab. She'd been so excited to get to school. She'd planned several ways to talk to Benji so that he knew she was there for him, but he was absent from school.

During that class period, she'd called Maribel to her desk. And while Maribel caught the same bus as Benji, she didn't have any news about him either.

When she'd gone to the office to talk to the staff and see if they had more information, she didn't get much more from them. Benji had been a good student in middle school and had come to Shilling with great notes in his file, but he'd become sullen, and teachers were adding notes to his file that he was withdrawing.

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