Chapter Two
Lucas
It figured that the most attractive woman Lucas had seen in years would turn out to just want a guy for his ghost stories.
When he strode back into the station, he was almost relieved to hear the siren go off. He didn’t care if it was some damn cat stuck in a tree, it was better than being asked to relive memories he’d rather forget.
“Who was that?” Jake called over the siren as he pulled on his turnout gear.
Tory and Jax looked over curiously, and Lucas pretended not to notice.
“Somebody wanting something I wasn’t about to give.”
Jax cocked his head. “You sure about that, man? She was pretty hot.”
Lucas shook his head and swung his gear on. Since Jax had married his wife Skye, he’d been keen to play Cupid with the single guys at the station. He’d even invited Lucas over to dinner a couple times when a single friend of Skye’s was there. But, like so many of his other relationships, it had fizzled out.
As the firefighters moved quickly to gather the rest of their gear and race toward the fire truck, Lucas shifted into emergency mode and tried to turn his thoughts away from Cattleman’s Crossing and that damn anniversary.
Twenty years later, and he was still trying to forget it.
How had she gotten his name? His place of work?
She must be some kind of journalist. She had that sort of stubbornness. She was hot in the best ways—a curvy body, wavy reddish brown hair that Lucas could almost imagine sliding his fingers through—but the way she held herself told the world she didn’t take no for an answer.
She didn’t seem to believe in ghosts, but Lucas knew she’d be back. He was already regretting it at the same time his heart thudded with the thought of seeing her again.
“Moore!” Jake shouted. “You coming with? Or are you too busy kicking yourself for not getting her number?”
“Whatever,” Lucas said, fumbling for his helmet. If he’d been somebody like Jake, he would have asked her out. It was hard to tell which his buddy had more of, biceps or bravado. He slept with women who liked thick necks and good times, and he’d probably never believed in monsters under the bed.
“We’re going!” Tory shouted.
He jumped up on the truck just as it roared out of the station. The sirens blaring in his ears, he held on tight as it lurched through the wall of heat and the dense smells of the city. Trash and taco trucks blended over the stench of hot pavement as Lucas felt himself sweat underneath his layers of protective clothing. Texas hadn’t seemed to have gotten the memo that it was fall. He never minded the mild winters, but they’d been baking in the heat for going on six months now, and were all overcooked.
The smoke appeared as the truck rounded a corner. It was a five-story building downtown, and he hoped the owners had good insurance. A crowd had gathered on the street below, watching the dirty white column of smoke mix into the sky, the stench too rotten for any barbecue.
“Everybody clear!” Jake shouted as the truck squealed to a stop. First priority was getting everyone to safety, in and outside of the building. They had to move the gawkers.
Jake waved at the crowd, pushing them back across the street and down.
“Anyone inside?” Lucas shouted, grabbing his breathing apparatus.
“We’re not sure,” his chief said. “Possible couple on the second floor.”
“I’m on it,” Lucas said, tugging his mask on as he rushed to the building, a couple firefighters behind.
As he opened the front door, smoke poured out. It was like a fog that no sun would clear. Still, Lucas raced in. It was what he did.
If Lucas thought back to the Cattleman’s Crossing Inn Fire—and he really tried not to—it was damn weird he’d become a firefighter. He’d not been the only one to survive that night, but he was the only one with a burn mark. The only one that thing in the fire had touched and not consumed.
You’d think a nine-year-old kid who’d gotten burned so early wouldn’t have ever dreamed of becoming a firefighter, would’ve been a boy who’d have nightmares about being surrounded by blazes. Lucas did have those nightmares. But along with the fear had come a fascination.
The fire that night had been like nothing Lucas had ever seen. Before or since.
~
That night at Cattleman’s Crossing his parents had left him with a babysitter to go out to dinner. They’d been in town house-hunting and had gone for steaks. The babysitter had been blond and bored, like a lot of teenage girls her age. He didn’t even remember her face. She’d been biting her nails and he’d been watching a DVD when they first smelled it.
“Did you put something in the microwave?” the babysitter asked, turning in her chair.
He shook his head, his floppy brown hair falling into his eyes. Despite being an older building, the inn had modern appliances, a mini-fridge and a small microwave on top. His mom and dad had promised him that if he was good, he could make popcorn later when they came home.
This didn’t smell like popcorn.
The babysitter narrowed her eyes at him. She’d stepped out onto the balcony for a smoke earlier, and she thought he’d done something.
He shook his head again. “I didn’t.”
Exhaling, the babysitter stood up, walked over to the microwave, and opened it. Nothing, of course. She slammed the microwave door and drummed her fingernails on its top. She darted a quick glance to the balcony, probably thinking the cigarette she’d had out there was still burning. But all was dark.
“I’m going to check outside in the hall,” she finally said. She pointed her finger at him. “You stay here.”
She slipped out, the door closing softly behind her.
Lucas stood up, even though he suddenly felt woozy. The smell was still there. It wasn’t burnt popcorn, and it wasn’t the nicotine smell the babysitter had tried to cover up with perfume earlier. It reminded Lucas of this charred field they’d driven past the previous summer, which his parents said had been lit on fire on purpose, to help the crops. That never made sense to Lucas, but he recalled the scent then; the air was tinged with it. Except there was another smell too, underneath the burnt one. This one reminded Lucas of another drive with his parents, one when they’d caught the stench of roadkill with the windows rolled down.
The dead scent lay under the burning like an old dog under a porch. Like a dead dog.
Two minutes later, the babysitter still hadn’t come back.
The stench was beginning to turn Lucas’s stomach. He didn’t think he wanted popcorn when his parents got home anymore. He wondered where the babysitter went. He wondered if he should go looking for her.
The door to the hall creaked open a sliver.
Hadn’t the babysitter shut it?
Lucas took two steps forward and froze. Fear danced along his spine. He didn’t know why, and that made it worse. His arms and legs trembled in his pajamas. He was more scared than he’d been in his life.
Then it got worse.
~
Two decades later, Lucas was still trying to figure out what had happened that night. Maybe that’s why he’d started working for Dallas Fire and Rescue. To make sense of those nightmares. To feel the fear and rush forward, knowing that he could conquer it, like he did rushing into the burning building today. He almost wanted that more than he wanted anything else. Sure, he had a good relationship with his parents there in Dallas, and he had friends like Jake and the guys—but never anyone close, and not any girlfriends that lasted more than a couple of months. Part of him felt like he lived on borrowed time. He should have died that night. Why hadn’t he? If he’d be only one step forward, and Mr. Lyons one step back…
There in the city, he pounded up the steps hard, puffing into his breathing apparatus. A graceful staircase curled upward, and the smoke billowed down artlessly. Lucas plunged ahead into the fear and the fire.
Survivor’s guilt, a therapist had called it in college, when the nightmares had crept back and his sleep disappeared as the ten-year anniversary of the fire came round.
Lucas shook his head as he climbed toward the landing. He might’ve been guilty, but he could do something about it. Save others.
Sure enough, on the second floor an older couple was in the hallway, gripping each other and almost bent over double, coughing.
“Here!” Lucas ripped off his mask and gave it to the woman, who looked worse off. “We need to get you to safety.” He draped a blanket around their shoulders and moved them towards the staircase, all the while staying as low as possible to avoid the smoke. In their fear, they probably had been paralyzed, hadn’t known where to go. He got that.
At least it was only a fire this time.
As the three of them stumbled down the steps, Lucas’s arm around the woman in case she passed out, he repeated the mantra he used when the old fear reared its head.
You’re safe. It’s not here.
You’re safe. It’s not here.
He’d seen articles during the past decade about the old inn in local magazines and papers. People claimed to sense, hear, or even see the spirit that skirted the edges of his consciousness when he was in those moments between awake and asleep.
You’re safe. It’s not here.
He didn’t like to read those articles, but sometimes he did. Sometimes he wondered if those people had really seen the thing he’d seen, had come close enough to not only smell it but touch it. Because if they did, he doubted they’d be so quick to share.
The three of them safely exited and the paramedics rushed forward, putting a mask on the man and ushering them to an ambulance. Lucas knew they’d probably be okay, but inhaling that much smoke could do a number on your lungs. They needed oxygen.
As the firefighters contained the blaze, Lucas’s mind drifted back to Laney Stonewater.
If she didn’t believe in ghosts, what did she believe had happened at the inn?