Chapter 1
Full moon. Dallas Jennings sighed in place of the loud groan she wanted to let loose. Her mother had always said the crazies came out during a full moon. More and more, she’d been forced to acknowledge her mother knew what she’d been talking about. Being a paramedic allowed Dallas to see her fair share of nut jobs. If they weren’t trying to harm themselves, they were trying to harm someone else.
Tonight was one such night. She and her partner, Gael Martinez, were at the ready for any victims who might be dragged from the conflagration that used to be a six-story apartment building. Personally, she had her doubts anyone could live through this particular blaze. The fire chief on scene already suspected it had been set by an arsonist due to how rapid the flames had spread. Accelerant was most probably used for this one. This was the third incident this month with the same MO. Whoever the happy pyro was, they were keeping the Dallas Fire and Rescue stations hopping.
As part of the building collapsed, she shuddered. Fire was her own special demon. Standing here tonight brought up a whole host of emotions. She’d lost half her family in such a raging inferno when she was a kid. Sixteen was too young to lose a mother, sister, and brother. She’d practically been left an orphan because the man who should have been a loving father lost himself to drinking every day after that horrific night.
Absently, she rubbed the spot where she bore a reminder. The skin had long since healed into an ugly, puckered scar, running the length of her left forearm. Yet the deepest wound, the one nobody could truly see, was internal. That particular injury had been to her heart and hadn’t quite healed.
“Jennings!”
The shout brought her head around to the two firefighters of Station 58 who were dragging their co-worker toward the rig. She jumped into action along with Martinez, rushing to assist with their injured friend.
“How bad?”
“A beam…” panted Jax Mallory. “…struck him…in the head.”
“Jared? Jared, this is Dallas. Can you hear me? I need you to respond if you can understand me.” She checked his pulse and the dilation of his eyes. “Non-reactive,” she informed Gael. To Jax she asked, “Has he been unresponsive the whole time?”
“Pretty much.”
“Okay, we need some working room here, Dane. I can’t move around with your ass in my way. Gael, let’s make him naked.”
They worked to remove Jared’s gear and strip him down.
“BP is 100/50. Pulse is dropping. I’m starting a line.”
She met Gael’s calm, honey-brown eyes. They both knew the injured firefighter would need serious medical attention. They worked swiftly, setting up the leads, monitoring vitals, and prepping for transport. This was their job, what they were good at. They moved in sync as only partners for years can do.
“Ears clear. No initial sign of rupture. Probably broken collarbone,” she reported.
“I’ll call it in.”
“Gael, level three.”
Within seven minutes they were on their way to the ER with Jared in tow and a handful of worried crew members watching their departure. Dallas wished the situation didn’t seem so dire for their friend. But the neurologist on staff at the Parkland Hospital was one of the best in the Southwest. Jared had a fighting chance if they could get him there in time.
* * *
“Want to catch a drink after work, D.J.?” Gael asked, leaning a shoulder against the wall and watching her movements absently.
Dallas glanced up from cleaning her already spotless locker.
“Can’t tonight,” she said, shutting and latching the door. “I thought I’d go check on our patient from the fire the other day and then head home.”
He cut her a sharp look and straightened. “You okay?”
“Why—“
His snort aborted her question. “Cut the shit, D.J. I know when you’re stressed. It’s the only time you clean like you have today. This whole station is sparkling.”
When she pursed her lips and huffed out a breath, Gael was forced to open his own locker to hide his grin. She hated to be poked fun of. Not that he was poking fun. No, he hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true. The station house really was immaculate. Everything smelled lemony fresh—a fragrance that Gael now associated with Dallas.
He packed his duffle bag and peeked around the metal door. The frown hadn’t eased off her face. A sure sign something was wrong. With a sigh, he straddled the bench and pulled her down to join him. They’d sat this way many times over the last three years, discussing everything from sports to current events to being ditched by their lovers time and again for their insane work schedule.
“Talk to me, D.J.,” he ordered, tone encouraging. “What’s going on?
“I’m having a difficult time understanding how someone could be so mentally unstable as to burn down a building. That only Jared was hurt was a miracle.”
“His getting hurt is what’s bothering you so badly? People get injured all the time. If they didn’t, we’d be out of a job.” Jealousy reared its ugly head. The green-eyed monster had been Gael’s constant companion over the last year since coming to realize how much he loved her. “It’s what he does for a living. He knew the risk running into that building.”
“No. It’s not that,” she assured him, toying with the fingers of his hand in her struggle to find the words. “The whole scene Tuesday night was too eerily familiar to what I experienced as a teenager. Standing there on the corner, watching the place go up—it could have been the apartment fire that took my mom, Patrick, and Liv.”
Ah, he’d finally gotten to the crux of the matter. “The anniversary of their deaths is coming up soon, isn’t it?”
“It’s today.”
“Fuck, D.J.! Why didn’t you say something?”
She squeezed his hand once before pulling away to rub her arm. A shrugged shoulder was her only response. Frustration welled up inside him. If there was ever a more stubborn, self-sufficient woman on the planet, he’d be surprised to find her. D.J. cornered the market on being a loner. A prime reason she was single again, he would wager. That solitary vibe she put off was a beacon to men. A challenge of sorts. But once they’d realize she truly didn’t care if they hung around one way or the other, they’d break up with her, cementing her belief that she was unlovable. That was the sole reason for the vicious dating cycle she found herself in.
With each break-up, she’d spill her guts to Gael, and he’d commiserate with her. He’d tell her it wasn’t her fault and the men she picked were weak little pissants who weren’t worth her time. He’d only half-lie. The men were little pissants to his way of thinking. But to a degree, it was her fault. If anyone got too close, she put an invisible barrier between them, a wall to hold off emotional entanglements.
And wasn’t that the problem? He loved a woman who didn’t want to be loved. She’d shoved him in the friend zone within a month of their first meeting. He wondered what she’d do if he swept her into his arms and kissed her with all the pent-up desire of the last three years. Would she kiss him back? Slap his face? How difficult would that make their working relationship from here on out?
He made a decision based on their long friendship. “I’m not letting you be alone tonight.” Gael hauled her up and gave her a quick hug. Anything longer would be awkward, and potentially give him a case of blue balls. Since the moment four months ago when he’d seen her hightailing it from the shower to her room, all he’d been able to think about was how the water rivulets had run down the valley between those nearly naked, glorious d-cups of hers.
Recalling the moment had him picking up his black bag and holding it in front of his groin. Ridiculous for a thirty-three-year-old man to have spontaneous hard-ons like a fucking male going through puberty.
Shaking off the image, he grabbed her hand and tugged. “Come on. We’ll go see if there’s been any change with Jared, and afterwards grab a burger and beer.”
“I don’t want to go out, Gael. It’s better if I’m by myself tonight.”
“Why, so you can wallow in your grief and loneliness? No, D.J. Not this year. It’s time to lay those old ghosts to rest.”
“Maybe I don’t want company. Why can’t you understand I want to be alone?”
Anger took hold. He never could tolerate people and their ridiculous self-pity. Self-imposed isolation always set him off. He’d spent years with a mother who’d use depression tactics to manipulate him. So yeah, it was his trigger, but he’d be damned if he’d stand back and watch Dallas spiral down into feeling sorry for herself. He knew the story, and there was nothing she could have done to save her family that night so long ago.
“Because it won’t just be for a night. You’ve been moody as fuck for the last two weeks. Tonight you’ll go home and beat yourself up. You’ll dredge up the whole incident and wonder what you could have done differently. There will be a few days in there where you won’t eat. Knowing this, I’ll sit home worrying about you, wishing I could alleviate your pain. Help you in some small way.
“Then the next time I see you, you’ll have dark patches under your eyes from lack of sleep. Another week or two will go by with you snapping my head off. How am I doing so far?”
“If I’m so goddamned difficult to be around, put in for a transfer,” she snapped, turning her back and zipping up her bag.
Because he wanted to shake her, he took great care in setting down his bag, all the while counting to ten. “Normally you aren’t,” he assured her, modulating his voice to hide his ire. “But this one month each year is hell for you. I can’t see you continue to do this to yourself, D.J.”
Gently, he spun her to face him and smoothed back her auburn hair. One look into her stormy, gray eyes and he was lost. He lowered his head to hers, pausing long enough for her to push him away if it wasn’t what she wanted, and took her mouth in a steamy kiss that, to his way of thinking, had been long overdue.