Page 14 of Rescuing Alix

The pressure and heat she exuded just from the simple touch of her hand to his chest warmed him throughout his entire body and she smelled like a mix of vanilla bean and cherry blossoms. He didn’t think he wanted to wake from this dream. Oh, but her shop…shit.

He pried open his eyes to the most beautiful sight looking down at him, barely concealing her tears.

“Hey beautiful.”

“Oh, thank God, you’re okay…I was so worried, you hit the ground so hard.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to feel it. Can you help me up?”

Alix grabbed his hand with both of hers, her little frame pulling as hard as she could.

“Where did those creeps go, did you see?”

“I only saw they disappeared in the dark down the alley so I’m not really sure, I was more worried about you. Are you sure you’re okay? You scraped your elbows, there’s a little blood on them.”

“I’ll be alright, we need to find a fire extinguisher, there’s fire in the kitchen.”

Kody headed toward the back door of Alix’s shop to see how bad the fire was inside.

“There’s an extinguisher just to the left of the back door next to the cabinet. Please be careful.”

“Hey, good thing I’m a trained firefighter huh?”

“Well yeah but without any gear?”

Kody shrugged his shoulders, dismissing her observation as he peeked in the back door. Whoever those idiots were, they must not have realized the gas and electric had been shut off after the first fire so they probably couldn’t get anything to light. He asked Alix to call 911 while he put out the small fire in the middle of the kitchen floor.

“Looks like they took some trash out of the bin to burn with some gasoline but I’m guessing what exploded was the aerosol cans. Must be why they ran out of here so fast. Do you use cooking spray?”

“Yes I had three or four cans on the storage shelf and a new one I just opened this week above the stove.”

The sounds of the station alarms meant his buddies would be invading the space momentarily, so he and Alix needed to get out of the way.

“The guys should be here any minute. Let’s stand back out in the alley so they can see us.”

The single truck made its way down the alley, no longer dark with the presence of flashing red. His chief was the first out of the truck, nodding his greeting to Kody and shaking hands with Alix.

“What the hell happened here?”

His chief was not one for being subtle.

“Sir, we almost caught the guys in the act. Looks like they set a fire in the middle of the kitchen and threw in some aerosol cans right before they took off running. Blew up and planted me right on my ass when I got to the door.”

The chief laughed out loud. Okay, so it was a little funny.

“So I got the fire out with the extinguisher, it wasn’t burning much. Looks like they’d taken out a bunch of trash from the dumpster and set it on fire.”

“Well that answers for the awful smell. Thanks Kody, as you know, Mr. Howard will most definitely be in touch again. I didn’t call him yet. I’ll start that headache in a little while.”

The chief went inside and took a quick look around, double checking that nothing else would catch on fire or blow up.

Alix and Kody both thanked the chief and the engine left, leaving room for the county sheriff to pull in next.

“Sheriff Masters, nice to see you sir.” The older man had been a family friend for years. Kody introduced him to Alix and gave a rundown on the situation.

“Sounds like we have a repeat arson on our hands. Did either of you get a good look at them?”

“They were wearing all black, including gloves and ski masks so I didn’t see anything or even where they ran to, it’s pretty dark out here with the power out.” Alix had offered the only information she could.

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