Chapter Seventeen
Utah fairly choked on the emotions warring inside him. He knew Michelle was right. He would eventually have to leave her. The more time they spent together, the harder it would be to walk away when the time came. And that day would come. Of that, he had no doubt.
He reached out and laid his palm against her cheek. “You’re right. I don’t want to hurt you. I’ll leave in the morning.”
Michelle took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “It’s for the best. Isn’t it?”
Utah wasn’t so sure. He only knew that the longer he stayed, the harder it would be to leave her in the end. “Let’s not think about it right now. We have the rest of the night together, and I don’t want to waste it talking about things we have no control over. I’d rather spend it making love to you.”
And just like that, Michelle pushed him onto his back and proceeded to do exactly that.
* * * *
Utah awoke to the morning sun seeping through the blinds behind his head. He gazed over at Michelle’s sleeping form, loving the way the light sparkled through her hair.
He would miss her something fierce, he silently admitted, watching her eyes dance around behind her closed lids.
“Goodbye, beautiful Michelle,” he whispered, an ache forming in his chest.
He watched for long moments, branding her face into his memory. He never wanted to forget even the smallest of details. Like the tiny scar on her chin or the way her long dark lashes rested on her cheeks as she slept.
Taking an uneven breath, Utah closed his eyes and willed himself back to the shipyard. The only other place besides Michelle’s side where he felt even a modicum of peace.
The familiar sounds of the shipyard met his ears the moment he appeared beneath his favorite cypress tree.
He glanced down at himself, noticing the soot-stained pants of his uniform clinging to his legs.
The acrid smell of smoke filled his lungs, no matter how much he wished it weren’t so.
He lowered to his knees beneath the tree, fighting the urge to be sick as the scent of burned flesh rolled up his nostrils.
He glanced down at his hands, understanding that it wasn’t his burning flesh he smelled, but the flesh of the victims he’d been unable to save.
He surged to his feet, attempting to recall Michelle’s voice, her words as she’d stripped him bare in her bathroom. “You’re making new memories, now.”
And he was, he told himself, breathing through the nausea.
Utah moved forward, determination guiding his steps, until he cleared the shade from the tree and walked into the morning sun.
He tilted his head back, feeling Michelle’s hands on his body, her fingers in his hair. The sound of her voice in his ear had been his undoing. “Utah…”
The memory of his name on her lips rolled through him to encircle his heart.
He concentrated on her voice, replaying it in his mind, learning it and hiding it away to hold inside forever.
A vision of Michelle on her knees before him flashed through his memories in perfect clarity, wringing a moan of need from his lips.
“Utah?”
Utah’s eyes opened, and a different kind of sensation slid through him. One filled with denial and regret.
He couldn’t return to her, no matter how much he wished to do so. He already missed her more than he should. Going back would only serve to make the inevitable even harder when the time came to say goodbye. And it would come.
Pushing her voice from his mind, Utah trailed over to the water’s edge to watch a few welders who were hard at work on the hull of a ship.
They laughed, cursed, and traded insults, completely oblivious to Utah’s presence.
Utah envied them their lives. He’d give anything in that moment to be a shipyard worker with a pickup truck and a mortgage he couldn’t afford.
He’d taken life for granted, he realized, unable to take his gaze from the laughing, freshly shaven faces before him. What he wouldn’t give for a second chance to live. And live he would.
An image of a smiling Michelle invaded his musing. Why couldn’t he have met her before that damnable fire had claimed his life?
It wouldn’t have mattered, he admitted to himself. Nothing could have stopped him from running into that burning building. Not even Michelle.
Utah had always wanted to be a fire fighter, even before he was old enough to understand what it entailed. Hell, his entire collection of toys as a child had been made up of fire trucks and ambulances. No, he couldn’t regret his decision to help others, any more than he regretted running into that building to save the people inside. If he had it to do over again, he’d do exactly the same thing.
Fate had decided when and how he would die. He firmly believed that. Then why was he still here? Hadn’t he given enough?
The air suddenly grew thick around him, and a strange humming sound invaded his ears.
Utah’s gaze swung to the rolling waters of Black Creek, and his vision blurred. A soft cry echoed in the distance, barely audible over the insistent sounds of the shipyard.
He focused on the sound, let it seep inside him until the trees began to spin around him.
Utah closed his eyes and opened his heart, willing himself through the planes of the unknown.
“Help,” the soft voice wheezed, pulling Utah out of his trancelike state.
He stumbled forward on legs that felt too weak to stand, his gaze sweeping the area in rapid succession.
There, amid a copse of trees, lay a young girl facedown in the grass.
She wore no clothes, he realized, taking in the ropes that bound her hands and feet.
“Oh God,” he breathed, rushing forward to help her.
He dropped to his knees beside her, willed strength into his hands, and rolled her over.
A blindfold covered her eyes while bruises adorned the rest of her face. She had dried blood on the corner of her mouth as well as caked inside her nose.
She took a shuddering breath before going completely limp.
Utah’s heart skipped a beat. He leaned in close, resting his ear above her mouth, relieved to feel her breath tickle his face. She lived, but he wasn’t sure for how much longer.
He reared back and assessed her injuries. She had a gaping hole in her side that looked to be a gunshot wound. Her legs were scratched up, and her feet were bleeding.
Probably from being dragged, he mentally growled.
Gathering every ounce of strength he possessed, Utah went to work on freeing her bonds.
Sliding an arm beneath her neck, he ran the other under her knees and lifted her against his chest.
She hung limply in his arms as he attempted to stand.
His lips peeled back over his teeth, and a roar of sheer determination ripped from his throat as he pushed to his feet and ran.
Utah wasn’t sure how much time had passed since he’d begun his trek through the woods before he reached a clay road.
With his strength quickly fading, he stumbled along, refusing to stop until help could be found.
He rounded a curve and noticed a driveway off to his left.
Just a few more feet, he repeated to himself, staggering up the drive and stopping at the steps.
As gently as he could, Utah laid the girl’s battered body in the grass near the bottom step, hovered his finger over the doorbell, and willed it to push.
The sound of the bell ringing throughout the house was music to his exhausted ears.
“Just a minute,” someone called, their footsteps moving ever closer.
The door suddenly opened, and Utah literally sagged in relief as an elderly woman’s face appeared.
“Oh my God,” the woman gasped, her hand going to her mouth. She jerked the door open, calling over her shoulder as she hurried down the steps. “Call 911!” She dropped to her knees next to the injured girl.
An elderly man with gray, thinning hair exited the house with phone in hand. “What is— Oh, Lord almighty. Is she alive?”
Hurrying to her side, the man pulled off his shirt and covered the girl’s nude form.
Utah watched him attempt to dial 911 several times before the call actually went through.
A wave of dizziness swept through Utah, blurring his vision and bringing with it the dreaded nausea. If he didn’t get back to the shipyard and soon, he’d be stuck there, an open vessel for the screams.
It took more than a little effort to find the strength to return to his safe place. Saving a life always drained him that way.
He focused on the cypress tree, along with the calming sound of the water.
The ground beneath his feet began to spin, sending him spiraling out of control. His stomach heaved, and the world around him began to gray until he could see no more.