or had a death wish.
He dialed 911 as he sped toward the neighborhood’s front entrance a few blocks away. “I have an unconscious woman who suffered a possible asthma attack. We’re at the entrance of Chesterfield Estates,” he told the operator. He relayed a few more details, and then slowed the truck as he drove past the orange caution cones. He parked and got out, waving over one of the policemen enforcing the evacuation.
Mason wasn’t up for giving the guy a lecture about making sure no one got past. If anyone, the woman in his passenger seat was the one who needed a harsh speaking-to. What she’d done had been senseless. They’d evacuated the neighborhood because it was dangerously close to the forest fire. They were trying to control the blaze, but one change in the wind and the flames could rage in this direction. The fire could engulf miles in a matter of hours. Walking inside the neighborhood on foot was a foolish thing to do.
As he scooped her body into his arms, she stirred, drawing his eyes down to her oval face. He didn’t recognize her. Must be new to town, he thought, carrying her to a patch of grass near the road. He laid her gently on the ground, letting her legs drop first and then cradling her head until her soft auburn hair splayed out around her. He slid his fingers to the side of her neck and checked her vitals—good. Her complexion was rosy—and beautiful.
He breathed a sigh of relief.
“She okay?” the officer asked, walking up beside him.
Mason’s jaw tightened. “Talk to your guys and make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he said, straining to hear any sign of help coming their way. “And keep a lookout for a teenage girl in this area. There’s a suspected runaway that’s been spotted around here.”
The officer nodded. “Will do.”
Mason couldn’t stand the thought of a child finding themselves helpless in the dense smoke. Hopefully the girl had relocated. Hopefully, he thought, she’d gone home where she belonged. His late wife crossed his memory. Once a runaway, too, someone had helped her find her way. Because of that she’d founded the Teen Center, a cause close to her heart, and had helped a few dozen teens when she was alive.
Mason angled his head, listening as the sound of sirens grew in the distance. The woman on the ground stirred. Her eyelids flickered and then she reached for his hand. The feel of her skin on his was like silk. Reflexively, his fingers tightened around hers. He stared down at their interlocked fingers for a long moment, unable to break away. She was scared, that’s all it was, which intensified his desire to keep her safe.
Don’t let me die.
Her words back on the street had been too close for comfort. Pressing down the memories of his late wife, he nodded at the paramedics as they arrived.
“She breathed in a little too much smoke. Maybe an asthma attack,” he said, as they carefully picked the woman up and laid her on a stretcher. His hand broke free from hers. Mason had the sudden urge to follow her inside the ambulance and ride along just to make sure she got there okay, to relieve her fears and tell her everything was going to be all right. He knew from experience, though, that sometimes things didn’t turn out all right.
“My bag,” she said in a barely audible voice.
Mason stepped closer as she was carried away on the stretcher. “What did you say?” he asked.
Her eyes opened just slightly. “My bag. I need that bag,” she said, her eyes widening. Then she was lifted inside the small confines of the ambulance and the doors shut behind her.
What could possibly be so important that she would put it in a black garbage bag and risk her life to save it? Watching the ambulance scream into the distance, he climbed back into his truck to go find out. As he drove, he pushed back those haunting memories of the day his wife had died. His chest throbbed with the deep wound that the memory always reopened.
Everything is going to be okay, he’d told her. The doctors will fix you right up.
At the time he’d truly believed in what he was saying. He’d put his faith in the young doctors at Carolina Memorial, and his late wife had put her faith in his words.
Mason parked on the cul-de-sac and slipped on a mask this time because the air was thick. Just because he was a firefighter didn’t mean he could gulp in smoke and not be affected. Somehow the woman had thought herself invincible. He grabbed the bag and carried it back to the truck. Inside, he ripped open the knot cinching the plastic, surprised when white lace fabric peeked through.
A wedding dress.
Which meant the woman on her way to the hospital was spoken for. Taken. Off the market. That knowledge stung a little, leaving him with something akin to disappointment, which didn’t make sense. She was a stranger and he had no interest in dating or relationships, or ever getting married again. Shifting his truck back into gear, he headed out of the neighborhood with the bagged dress beside him. The smell of smoke was hard to kick. Foolish or not, he didn’t want the bride-to-be to smell like a forest fire on her special day.
A short drive later, he pulled into a gravel driveway and parked.
“Mason.” The woman he rented his garage apartment from turned from the stove as he walked into the adjoining ranch-style house. “What are you doing here at this hour?” she asked.
He set the garbage bag against the wall. “I thought I’d leave this with you for safe keeping if that’s all right. I rescued someone from the fire earlier and—”
Clara Carlyle’s hands flew to her mouth. “Are they okay?”
“Well, she wasn’t exactly in the fire. She just got too close, and inhaled a lot of smoke. She’ll be fine.” That’s what his head was telling him at least. His heart, on the other hand, was sick with worry. Ambulances and hospitals made him nervous. “Do you think you could check on her for me?” he asked. Clara checked on a lot of hospitalized people from church. It was something she enjoyed doing.
“Of course I will. I’m going to the hospital to visit Mr. Jacobs from the choir this afternoon.”
Mason nodded. “Thank you.”
“How are you doing?” she asked then, her brown eyes studying him intently.
A bunch of descriptions rattled off in his head. He was tired. Hungry. Anxious... Lonely. “I’m fine,” he told her, grabbing an apple from her fruit basket on the counter and kissing her temple. “I have to get back to work. Then I’ll be at the Teen Center tonight.”
“You won’t be home for dinner?” Clara asked with a frown.
“Maybe tomorrow night,” he said. If the fire was contained.
“Be careful out there. I don’t want to be visiting you in the hospital, too,” she said.
Not a chance. “I will.” He closed the door behind him and walked back to his truck.
* * *
Lexie awoke to the familiar sounds of a hospital. She was usually the one controlling the sounds. Now, for a reason she tried to remember, she was the patient lying in a stiff, narrow bed. There was an IV poking into her right arm.
Pieces of her morning started to reassemble in her memory. The rental home she was staying at had been evacuated while she was out of town. She’d gone back to get her—
Lexie sat up, her eyes suddenly wide as she scanned the room for her grandmother’s wedding dress.
“You need to relax, dear.” A short woman with white hair and a ready smile knocked as she entered the room, holding a large, leafy potted plant.
Lexie had never seen the woman before, so she guessed she was on her way to see another patient.
“I’m Clara Carlyle,” the woman said, placing the plant on the nightstand beside her and pulling up a chair. “Mason sent me to check on you.”
Lexie didn’t know him, either. “Who?”
Clara