Light up the Night (Firehouse Three #2)(53)

“Oh my God, are you okay?” Jesse dropped the water hose she’d been using on the new flowerbeds in front of her barn-house and shot straight to Everly’s side. Numb, Everly let herself be led over to an upturned bucket and sat down. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“No,” Everly croaked, the fear finally winning. She’d held it down for so long that there was no hope for it now, and she had to let it free. “I’m not okay. I’m anything but okay.”

“Tell me.” Jesse crouched in front of her, holding her hands tight. “I want to help.”

“My phone fell in the lake and is dead, Drake left me last night to go to work, there was an explosion and someone died and I just know it was him.” Everly stared down at their clasped hands through tear-filled eyes. “I don’t know how I can do this with him in danger all the time. I thought I could, but I don’t know now, and I love him and it’s too late but how do I do this?”

“Relax,” Jesse said, even though her own voice was thin as broth. “One thing at a time. So your phone is dead, and you don’t know if Drake is okay because he was working the explosion.”

“Right,” Everly said. Her throat was burning, her heart thudding hard against her ribs.

“Let me call Hunter.” Jesse pulled her cell free from her pocket. “He texted me earlier, so I know he’s okay. He would have said something if Drake was hurt. If he can answer, he will, and he’ll let us know.”

Thank God. She’d been hoping Jesse could contact Drake’s best friend. It was the only way she could possibly hope to find anything out. She waited, hardly daring to breathe as Jesse held the cell phone to her ear.

“Hey, it’s me. Are you okay?” A brief silence as Jesse nodded her head. “Good. Listen, Everly’s here, and her phone is screwed. She’s worried about Drake since he went in to work last night. Is he okay?”

Jesse’s face went bone white, and Everly forgot how to breathe.

“He’s at Baylor? Room number?” She nodded and grabbed Everly’s hand, squeezing tight. “Okay.”

As she killed the call, Everly stood. Her knees were surprisingly steady.

“What’s the room?” There was only one Baylor they could take him to.

Jesse pulled her keys from her pocket. “Come on. I’ll drive you. Hunter will meet us there, he just got off shift.”

Everly whirled and took off toward Jesse’s truck. Jesse had to nearly sprint to keep up with her. “Is it bad?”

“I don’t know,” Jesse said as she climbed into the driver’s seat. “Hunter didn’t know either, he was working at another part of the scene when it happened. Drake went by ambulance with Spencer. Have you met Spencer yet? Tall, dark hair? No? Don’t worry. Spencer took care of him.”

Prayers flitted through Everly’s mind as they sped toward the hospital.

If he was in a room, then he wasn’t dead. There was hope. However faint, there was hope.

No matter how much this hurt, she could never just walk away from him. She was in too deep for that.



The pain in his head stabbed like someone was using his cranium for icepick practice. He didn’t open his eyes, sure if he did that he’d get hit with another stunner pang. But then again, could it really get worse than it was?

Testing the theory, he cracked one lid.

Yup, it could get worse.

“Oh, Drake, are you awake? Oh my God, I’m so glad.”

He swallowed, the burn in his throat from the smoke feeling almost like a velvet cushion next to that godawful throb in his brain.

Okay, forget Belinda. How’s the rest of the body doing?

His mental survey turned up a whole lot of normal with the exception of a hell of an ache in his left calf. Gritting his teeth, he wiggled the foot.

Good. Not broken. Just felt like someone had dropped a hundred pounds on it from a good twelve feet in the air.

Oh. That’s pretty much what had happened.

Belinda had run through the barrier like she was rehearsing for a f*cking Shakespearian play, and just at that moment the crew had lost their grip on the ladder that had been used to clear the third floor of the hotel.

No matter how he felt about Belinda, he couldn’t watch while she got flattened.

“Just lie still, baby, I’m here with you.”

Before he opened his eyes, he prayed this was just a bad dream and he’d wake up next to Everly in bed at the lake house.

As his lids separated, Belinda smiled at him as if she was Florence Nightingale and Mother Teresa all wrapped up in one.

“My hero,” she said, smiling as she leaned over him.



With Jesse and Hunter behind her, Everly closed her eyes and marshaled her courage before knocking on the hospital room door. There wasn’t a response, so she cautiously pushed it open.

What she saw made her wish she’d waited.

Drake was lying in bed, the head propped up so he was upright. IV poles and monitors beeped beside him. But Everly’s relief at seeing him alive was tainted instantly.

The beautiful blonde she’d seen on his phone screen more than once since they’d been together was bending over at his bedside, her shiny golden hair falling over her shoulder, making a curtain that hid their kiss from Everly’s view.