Page 32 of Shelter for Tanna

A building at the corner of Eighth and Commerce was fully engulfed, and the streets were blocked. Only one thought ran through her head?Braden. Was he there? The car seemed to travel of its own accord to StationFour, and what she saw there threatened to finish her off.

The trucks were gone. All of them. The bays were empty and the roll-up doors were closed. There wasn’t a soul around. A sound like a rushing wind filled her head and she felt dizzy. Braden was there. He was in the middle of all of the chaos, and she was terrified.

Tanna drove back toward the fire and found a place to park on the side of the street. Her feet couldn’t carry her fast enough, and she ran straight for the barricades, hoping to at least catch a glimpse of him.

There had to be forty or fifty firefighters there, and more trucks were roaring in. Tanna stood, glassy-eyed and shaking, as men in turn-out coats and wide-brimmed helmets grabbed equipment and got to work. Hoses were everywhere, and every fire hydrant anywhere near had one attached to it. Scanning the men and women, she thought she saw Braden, but when the man turned, it wasn’t him. Where was he? The longer she stood there, the more she trembled.

Two ladder trucks and a bucket truck had been parked near the building, their ladders extended and the bucket up as high as it would go. Just the thought of climbing that high made her woozy, and she tried not to look at them. At the top of each ladder, a man appeared in the window, and in just a minute or two, they were both climbing down their respective ladders as another firefighter settled himself in the bucket of the third truck and powered it down. She watched the two men backing down their ladders and as she waited, the farthest one turned and shouted something to the other.

Braden. His face was soot-darkened and his turn-out gear was swirled with smoke marks, and yet there he was. But he’d been inside the burning building! Tanna couldn’t help the way she felt. She wasn’t prepared for how upset the thought made her, or how much she wanted to run to him and hug him. Or maybe slap him. That thought crossed her mind too. She watched as he headed to one of the trucks, hoping he’d see her, but he didn’t. He was paying no attention to the crowds outside the barriers, just doing his job and concentrating on it.

The flames turned to a dark, billowing smoke, and then even that started to dissipate. Then she remembered?Charlie would be furious that she wasn’t there! She ran to her car, checking her phone for the time as she went. Ten o’clock. He’d be standing on his head.

Sure enough, the minute her feet stepped through the office doorway, he turned to her and coughed out, “Where the fuck have you been?”

“There’s a huge fire downtown.”

“Yeah. Heard about that on the news. They’re telling people to stay away from it. What, you got caught in traffic down there?”

Go with it, Tanna, a little voice told her. “Yeah. Stuck in traffic. What do you need me to do?”

“Here.” He handed her a ticket and she took in the details. “Call me before you come all the way back. We may have a pickup for the auto auction.”

“Got it. Later.” It took every ounce of her strength to walk calmly to the truck. She wanted to run, tear out of the parking lot with tires screaming, and drive back downtown, but she couldn’t. Going downtown and sitting to watch until she knew he was safe wasn’t an option.

She’d done two runs and eaten a sandwich from the sub place when her phone pinged:Hey, babe. Call when you get a minute.

Like that could wait! Tanna whipped the truck into a parking lot and hit Braden’s contact. “Hi, babe!” his cheerful voice chirped. “You having a good day?”

For a split second, she couldn’t speak. So many things ran through her head. “I’m having a terrible day,” she finally answered, struggling to get the words out.

“What’s wrong?”

Making every attempt to quell the anger in her tone, she said, “There’s a huge fire downtown, and I found out my boyfriend was right in the middle of it.”

The phone was silent for several seconds before Braden spoke. “Uh, yeah. That’s my job.”

“You scared the hell out of me! You were in a burning building!”

“Tanna, calm down.”

“Calm down? You could’ve been killed, and I’m supposed to calm down? I don’t think so, mister!” she yelled into the phone.

“Tanna! Please! Calm down! They can hear you on the other side of the room,” he whisper-growled into the phone.

She was making every effort, but it wasn’t working. Sitting there in the truck, she pinched the bridge of her nose with a finger and thumb and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. When her heart slowed a little, she whispered, “I was so scared.”

A little chuckle rolled out of the phone and she was a bit perturbed by it. “Honey, that’s my job. It’s what I do. Hang on for a second.” There was the sound of a chair scraping the floor, and then footsteps. A bang was followed by Braden’s voice returning. “I walked outside so I can talk. Tanna, how did you know I was in the thick of things down there?”

She stammered a little when she said, “I-I-I-I-I saw you!”

“You drove down there and looked for me?”

Her cheeks were on fire. “Yes.”

“Did you see me?”

“Yes.”

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