“I came over to see how you were after yesterday’s fire, and to show you something. This was in yesterday’s paper.” Colleen handed Lucia a clipping she had pulled from her purse.

Lucia read the large ad. “‘Let fire come down from Heaven and consume you, for our God is a consuming fire.’”

“I checked, and nobody knows who paid for this. But I think this is related to the fire at the hospital.” Colleen raised a hand. “And I knew this was a Bible verse even if I couldn’t figure out which one, so I called Pastor Dawson and found out it’s actually two verses. So, whoever bought the ad was sending someone a message, don’t you think?”

FAITH AT THE CROSSROADS: Can faith and love sustain two families against a diabolical enemy?

A TIME TO PROTECT–Lois Richer (LIS#13)

THE DANGER WITHIN–Valerie Hansen (LIS#15)

THROUGH THE FIRE–Sharon Mignerey (LIS#17)

IN THE ENEMY’S SIGHTS–Marta Perry (LIS#19)

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL–Terri Reed (LIS#21)

HEARTS ON THE LINE–Margaret Daley (LIS#23)

SHARON MIGNEREY

lives in Colorado with her husband, a couple of dogs and a cat. From the time she figured out that spelling words could be turned into stories, she knew being a writer was what she wanted. Her first novel garnered several awards, first as an unpublished manuscript when she won RWA’s Golden Heart Award in 1995, and later as a published work in 1997 when she won the National Reader’s Choice Award and The Heart of Romance Reader’s Choice Award. With each new book out, she’s as thrilled as she was with that first one.

When she’s not writing, she loves enjoying the Colorado sunshine, whether along the South Platte River near her home or at the family cabin in the Four Corners region. Even more, she loves spending time with her daughters and granddaughter.

She loves hearing from readers, and you can write to her in care of Steeple Hill Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

Through the Fire
Sharon Mignerey

MILLS & BOON

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Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Sharon Mignerey for her contribution to the FAITH AT THE CROSSROADS series.

As thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.

—Matthew 8:13

To Susan Litman, editor extraordinaire

My thanks to:

Carol Steward for answering dozens of questions about Sam Vance (Finding Amy, LI#263 8/04). I hope I did justice to Lucia’s big brother. For those thousand and one things I didn’t know about firefighting and firefighters, Sue Richardson, Fire Fighter Paramedic (Colorado Springs), and Joe Whitensand, Retired Fire Chief, were generous beyond call. The good stuff is all theirs and the mistakes are all mine. Celeste Mignerey and Paul N. Black, Ph.D. filled in all those little details about safety and precautionary systems in large buildings and hospital settings. As always, you two are an awesome resource, and I couldn’t have done this without you. Robin, Steve, Denée, Karen G., Amy, Daniele, Danica—my amazing first readers and critique partners. You guys are the best.

My fellow authors in this series, Lois Richer, Valerie Hansen, Marta Perry, Terri Reed and Margaret Daley. You each made this wonderful journey one to be remembered. Blessings to each of you.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Rafael “Rafe” Wright—He saved Lucia’s life once by being in the right place at the right time. Was the gorgeous smoke jumper also the “right” man for her?

Lucia Vance—The female firefighter was tired of being coddled and protected by her family. She felt secure with Rafe, but his nearness also stirred feelings for love she’d thought long buried….

Neil O’Brien—Was there more to the battalion chief’s animosity toward Lucia beyond his accusations that her father the mayor got her her job?

El Jéfe/The Chief—His name kept coming up in investigations. Was he somehow connected to Baltasar Escalante, the drug lord whose body was never recovered following his plane crash?

Dear Reader,

I suspect I’m not the first author to write to you that writing a novel is easier than writing a letter to you. Letters should be personal, and since we haven’t met, this one cannot be as personal as I would like. Even so, thank you for choosing this book where you’ll spend a few hours escaping into a world where hope prevails.

That sense of hope…of faith, even…is my favorite thing about romance novels. Whatever challenges characters face within the pages, they move forward in faith, hoping things will work out. That moving forward in faith is the reason why I chose the particular Biblical quote that I did. “As thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.” Matthew 8:13.

For any of us embarking on a new endeavor or going through a difficult time, it may be hard to predict a successful outcome. If you’re at all like me, you’d love the certainty of a happy ending. For me, that’s where faith steps in, where I do my best to move forward as though the thing is already done. It’s the same for Lucia Vance and Rafael Wright in Through the Fire. They can’t be certain the challenges they face will be successfully overcome—all they can do is move forward in faith.

Again, thanks for choosing this book.

Blessings to you and yours, always,

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

PROLOGUE

“It’s really quite simple, Neil. I own you.” She held the condemning papers up for him to see as though he somehow wouldn’t have recognized his own signature on copies of the promissory notes. “You borrowed money, and I bought the loan from that rather unscrupulous man you’ve been doing business with in Cripple Creek.” Turning the papers around, she glanced through them, then folded them back into neat thirds. “Such a lot of money.”

Despite the cold breeze that swept off Pikes Peak on this cold March day, Neil O’Brien felt a bead of sweat slide down his back as he contemplated taking the papers away before choking her to death. Wondering where the originals were, he stared at the woman standing under the pavilion with him, her words echoing through his head.

When he had agreed to meet her at this remote corner of Bear Creek Park, a well-known lovers’ lane for teenagers, he’d had a visceral sense of anticipation. Foolish thought that she might be interested in a man like him—they didn’t run in the same circles. The extra thirty pounds he carried and his thinning hair made him look ten years older than he was. He wished he didn’t mind quite so much.

He looked away from her to the snow beginning to fall. The flakes left little white splatters on the sidewalk. Farther away, the parking lot was empty except for their two cars.

Quite literally, she held the power to ruin him in that sheaf of papers.

“You have nothing,” he said, deciding on a bluff and making a point to look at the documents in her hand. “O’Brien is a common name.”

“Then why did you agree to meet me?” She waved toward the remote expanse of the park to the west, the sleeve of her wool coat riding up her arm enough to expose a diamond bracelet that probably cost more than he earned in half a year. “Here?” She smiled. “Away from work and home and your pretty, pregnant wife?”

Neil stared at her. The antacid he had swallowed just before getting out of the car turned sour in his mouth. Another foolish hope. That he could keep his gambling—and his mountain of debt—from Mary.

“I wonder…does she know about this, Neil?” She tapped a finger against her lips. “A phone call to her—”

“Get to the point. What do you want?”

She opened her purple leather handbag, the designer name discreetly embossed onto the surface, and put the folded papers inside. “Cooperation, Neil, that’s all.”

“What kind of cooperation?” Whatever it took to keep his wife from finding out that he had accumulated gambling debts greater than the mortgage on their brand-new home was worth considering in the short run. In the long run, there was only one way to be rid of a blackmailer—a remedy he would take just as soon as he had the originals of the promissory notes in his possession.

“You want all this to go away?” She pressed the flat of her hand against the purse. “All of it?”

“The debt would go away?”

She tapped her finger against her lip again. “Neil, my dear, Neil. You do understand, don’t you?”

What he understood was that he was being played, and he didn’t like it. And without a big win, he didn’t see a way out, either. She held the winning hand.

“What do you want?” he repeated, shivering as the wind shifted and fine, cold snowflakes blew across his face.

“There’s a certain firefighter in your department who will have a tragic accident that will end her life.”

Another cold bead of sweat trickled down Neil’s back. What she was suggesting was impossible. Murder, like he was contemplating just now, was easy. Murder by fire and made to look like an accident…nearly impossible.

“The poor thing went against the wishes of her family to take on such a dangerous job, alienated herself from her father, worried her mother to death and all those protective older brothers…Why, they were opposed down to the last man.”

The woman was talking about Lucia Vance, Neil realized. Personally, Neil thought she represented nepotism at its finest. Her daddy was the mayor, and her brother Sam was a detective on the Colorado Springs police force. It had been Neil’s goal for the last year to get her kicked out of the department. But deliberately setting her up to be injured—killed—he couldn’t do it.

He shook his head. “That’s not an easy thing to do. If you want her dead, why not simply shoot her?”

Her mouth tightened. “Easier, yes. But then her parents and her brothers wouldn’t understand.”

“What?”

“That for every choice there is a consequence.” She patted her purse again. “Think about it, Neil. All this goes away. Your sweet little pregnant wife doesn’t find out. You’re not ruined.”

“What you’re asking—”

She pressed a shockingly hot finger against his lips, her eyes wide and luminous, making her look like a girlfriend instead of a blackmailer. “I’m not asking.”

When she took her finger away, he shuddered inside his heavy parka.

“A perfect place would be Vance Memorial Hospital, where her mother keeps a vigil over her poor injured father.”

“You can’t be serious.” Mayor Maxwell Vance had been shot in an assassination attempt last November. He was still in critical condition, and Neil knew the investigation had drawn in the FBI. Security in the hospital was tight.

“Oh, but I am.”

Neil shook his head. “It can’t be done. Hospitals have sprinklers and preactionary systems, all designed to prevent even the smallest fire.”

She stared at him as though what he had just told her didn’t make any sense.

“I can see the headline now,” she said. “Assistant Fire Chief Neil O’Brien Ruined.” She smiled again, but her expression was as warm as the icy snow falling around them. “Only you will have died tragically, maybe suicide in your despondence over your gambling. And your wife will be left to raise your child in poverty and shame, all because you wouldn’t do a simple thing.” She paused and shifted the purse on her arm. “A simple thing, Neil, that would make all your troubles go away.”

Wishing he’d had the guts to simply kill her, he watched with his hands in his pockets as she walked away. As she got into her silver luxury coupe, she blew him a kiss. A second later, the car purred to life.

A simple thing. As if there was anything simple about planning a murder that was supposed to look like an accident.

ONE

Last night, Rafael Wright had been too consumed with guilt to pay attention to the hospital room numbers, so he paused at the doorway to make sure he was at the correct one. He knocked lightly on the door before pushing it open. The bed closest to the door was empty, and his good friend Malik Williams lay in the other, raised to a reclining position. The television mounted near the ceiling was tuned to a police drama.

“Hey, you came,” Malik said as Rafe moved toward him.

A bandage at one corner of his forehead covered a gash that had bled like crazy yesterday when he was knocked over by a fifteen-foot ladder when it fell. Last night, Malik had been asleep when Rafe checked on him.

“Of course I came.” His fault that Malik was here—an accident, but one that should not have happened. Malik wouldn’t have been hurt if Rafe had been focused on the training exercise they were doing instead of the news that his younger sister Lisa was separating from her husband.

His dark eyes gleaming, Malik craned his head as Rafe came farther into the room. “If you don’t have a big vanilla malt hidden behind your back, you can leave right now.”

Rafe clicked his tongue. “That concussion must not be too bad since you’re cranky.” He pulled his hand from behind his back and set the tall paper cup containing his friend’s favorite dessert on the table pulled next to the bed.

Malik grinned, pressing the volume control to turn the television down. “Figured I should play on your sympathy—”

“Which won’t last long if you keep this up.” Rafe shrugged out of his leather bomber jacket, which he set on the chair in the corner.

“That’s you, all right. All bark. No bite.”

“I wouldn’t count on that.” Since Rafe was the foreman for a Type 1 hotshot crew of forest-fire fighters, part of the territory was making sure he came across as a major tough guy. Since Malik was both his roommate and his friend, just now he seemed more like a kid brother than simply one of the guys on the crew. Not that many years separated them, but a lifetime of experience did. Malik worked full-time during the summer, then went to school and skied in the winter while continuing to work part-time for the Forest Service. “I thought I’d been properly sympathetic—”

“If you don’t count yelling.”

Inwardly, Rafe winced. He had yelled. At the time he had been furious, a hundred percent of it directed at himself for not seeing the accident coming.

At his discomfiture, Malik grinned. “Speaking of biting and the screams of pain that come after…” He waited a beat while Rafe raised an eyebrow. “I bet you didn’t know they don’t sound alarms in hospitals. They want things to be calm,” he added, raising his hands to punctuate quotation marks around the last word. “About an hour ago, I’m lying here talking to a real pretty nurse, and there was this page for Dr. Firestone. She tore out of here like she was on her way to a fire.” He tore the paper off the straw and plunged it through the plastic top of the cup, then took a long sip of the malt. “About a half hour later she came back—I’m irresistible, you know—and told me that ‘Dr. Firestone’ is the code for a fire. She said they’ve had about a dozen false alarms over the last couple of days.”

“That’s got to be annoying.”

“That’s what she said. She told me that ‘Dr. Quick’ is for combative patients and ‘Dr. Avery’ is for a bomb threat.” Malik grinned. “And I’ve been thinking—”

“Always a bad sign.”

“I need something to get that nurse back in here to see me.”

“A page from Dr. Valentine?”

Malik laughed. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“Sounds to me like you’re going to live,” Rafe said.

“The doc told me I can go home in the morning. They just want to keep an eye on me overnight.” Another of his easy grins came, his teeth flashing white against his African-American complexion. “If you ask me, I think it’s because a certain nurse thinks I’m—”

“A klutz,” Rafe filled in.

“Man, don’t insult me like that.” Malik took another sip of the malt. “That’s real good. Thanks.”

“Least I can do.”

Malik grinned again. “You mean, since you tried to kill me.”

“Anything to get rid of a pest,” Rafe said deadpan.

“This mean you won’t be giving me a ride home? That’d actually be okay because that good-looking nurse—”

“Like she’d give you the time of day.”

“Like,” Malik returned in their good-natured banter.

Rafe studied his friend. Clearly, the obvious question didn’t have to be asked if the guy was going to be okay. Since he was thinking about girls and malts, he’d undoubtedly be his old self in a day or two. Rafe, though, was feeling old. As he had driven to the hospital, he had counted the fires he had fought since he was eighteen years old. One hundred and twelve, and he felt every single one. Those fires had taken him from the Everglades to inside the Arctic Circle in Alaska.

The nomadic life was the one he had wanted…once…which brought him full circle back to his sister. Her husband was walking away from everything Rafe had recently decided his life was missing. A woman to come home to. A child barely two years old. Now that Rafe was nearly finished with his master’s degree in fire science, he had choices. He could settle down and work on finding the right woman.

“You get much more quiet and I’m going to think I’m sitting here alone,” Malik said.

“Then turn up the TV.”

“You’re not thinking stupid things like blaming yourself for what happened to me, are you?”

Rafe met his friend’s gaze. “You know the drill about accountability.”

“Yeah, I do. It’s what makes you the best.”

There was nothing Rafe could say about that, so he remained quiet, folding his arms over his chest as he leaned against the wide ledge in front of the window. At his back, the glass felt cold. “Think it will snow?”

Malik laughed. “Hope so. Since I have a few days off, maybe I’ll head up to Breckenridge or Keystone for a little skiing—”

“Not the best plan for a man with a concussion.” If Rafe had the time, he’d head for Wolf Creek, which boasted the deepest snow in the state. The only drawback was the six-and-a-half-hour drive to get there.

Malik took another sip of his malt. “You’re sounding more like my grandpa every day.”

“Now who’s being insulting?”

Just then, the lights flickered, and the television went off.

“It’s definitely going to snow,” Malik announced, clicking on the remote for the television, which remained off. “You’d think a brand-new hospital would have built-in surge protectors.”

“You’d think,” Rafe agreed, glancing toward the hallway as the lights flickered again. The TV suddenly blared, and Malik turned it down.

The hospital had undergone extensive renovations over the last couple of years, the most recent being the addition of a new pediatric wing. According to a recent article in the Colorado Springs Sentinel, it had attracted the necessary grants and research money to become the premier orthopedic center for children in the western United States. The part of the article Rafe remembered best was a picture of a chapel at the end of the wing, which boasted a great view of Pikes Peak. That was something to check out before he left. He didn’t like hospitals much, but he always made a point to visit the chapels.

Once again, his thoughts returned to his sister and her little girl. He wished they lived closer, wished he could ease their heartache. He needed to do something more for them than simply including them in his daily prayers.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asked.

“Fine.” Malik leaned his head against the pillow. “Might as well take a little snooze, especially since you’re so talkative.”

“Then I’ll head out.” Rafe grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and headed toward the door.

“Hey.”

He turned around.

Malik grinned. “If you see that pretty nurse—the petite one with black hair all done up in a bun on the top of her head—send her in to see me.” He clapped a hand over his heart. “I think I’m in pain.”

Rafe shook his head and waved at his friend. “There’s a difference between being in pain and being a pain, you know.”

“Get out of here. Send back a real friend.”

He waved again and headed down the hall, where it widened into a big rotunda and a set of wide stairs that led to the main lobby of the hospital. From the balcony, he looked down to the first floor, where the gift shop and information desk flanked the exterior door. Directly opposite from where he stood was the entrance to the new pediatric wing. Rafe headed in that direction, drawn by the cheerful pale-yellow walls that had flying birds painted on them as if leading the way into the area. He stopped in front of a big marble plaque and read the dedication of the wing, which had a list of major donors. The familiar names of Colorado Springs society were there, topped by the Montgomery and Vance families.

Everything about the addition seemed to be of the highest quality, Rafe thought as he wandered farther into the wing. The smoke doors that would close during an emergency were painted to look like arched gates entering a brilliantly colored park.

Wondering where the chapel was, Rafe followed a set of animal tracks painted on the floor, which took him past the X-ray lab. A quick peek through the door showed an X-ray machine painted to look like an elephant. He didn’t see many people, and even here, where he expected the noise level would be higher because of the children, there was instead the overall hush that seemed to permeate hospitals.

Ahead he saw the sign for the chapel, and when he peeked through the window in the door he saw that it too was designed with children in mind. Instead of formal pews, there were a couple of comfortable-looking sofas and several beanbag chairs covered in plush fabric. A couple of children were sitting together on one of the giant beanbags.

Rafe watched them a moment, knowing too well how they felt if they were waiting for news of a sick family member. Not wanting to intrude, he made his way to the end of the hallway, where a large window looked down on a park. In the distance, he could see the spire of the Good Shepherd Church.

Hands in the pockets of his jacket, Rafe made his way back down the hallway, which continued to be mostly deserted, a thought that made him smile since the parking lot had been packed when he arrived. About halfway back to the chapel door, he suddenly smelled smoke.

Between the chapel and the nurse’s station he saw a door discreetly labeled Janitor’s Closet. From beneath the door, smoke curled across the spotless tiled floor. He ran those last few feet to the door.

He pressed a hand against the door, which felt warm. Too warm.

His thoughts raced as he hurried on to the nurse’s station. Was this the reason the lights had flickered a few minutes ago? How could the door be that warm? And in a brand-new facility, why hadn’t the sprinklers come on? Why hadn’t some computer-generated warning notified someone?

Only one nurse was at the station. She raised her head when she saw him coming, gave him an automatic smile, then bent her head down once again.

“Miss,” Rafe said, “there’s smoke coming from under a door down the hall.”

She gave him another smile, the sort that indicated he was about to be dismissed even before she spoke. “I’ll check on that in just a minute. Thanks for letting me know.”

“I’m not just letting you know,” Rafe said, coming around the tall counter and reaching for the phone. “I’m calling for help.”

“Sir, you can’t be back here.”

Rafe thrust the receiver into her hand. “You have a fire. Call 9–1-1.”

“Sir, if you’ll just calm down—”

“I’m calm.” He stepped back into the hallway and reached into the pocket of his jacket for his cell phone. “Take a look for yourself.”

“Your child couldn’t be safer here, even though we’ve had quite a few false alarms over the last few days,” she said, finally standing. “We have all the latest monitors.” She waved toward a computer monitor. “I’d know if there was a problem.” She came around the counter toward the hallway. “But I will look…” Her gaze lit on the smoke. “Oh, no!”

By then, Rafe had dialed 9–1-1, and the instant the dispatcher answered, he said, “There’s a fire in the children’s wing of Vance Memorial Hospital.” He looked up and down the hallway for the ever-present fire extinguisher that should have been somewhere close by.

The nurse was back inside the nurse’s station, finally calling for help.

Over the cell phone, the dispatcher said, “We should have received an automatic call if there was a problem—”

“The fire started in the janitor’s closet,” Rafe interrupted, running up the hallway, searching for an extinguisher. “The sprinklers haven’t come on and—”

“What’s your location, sir?”

Rafe relayed that information as best he could, noticing that the nurse had called whomever she needed to because he heard a summons over the intercom. “Dr. Firestone to the pediatric wing.”

Just then, he saw another nurse notice the smoke coming from beneath the door. She punched a code on the keypad next to the door.

Rafe raced back toward her. “Don’t open the door!”

But he was too late. The latch clicked and she pushed the door open. Acrid black smoke billowed out of the room, accompanied by the unmistakable whish of air being sucked into the room. Rafe pulled the nurse from her frozen position in front of the door. In the next instant, flames licked into the hallway, flicking like a snake’s tongue.

“Are you okay?” he asked her, urging her away from the open door.

Her eyes wide and frightened, she nodded, then ran toward the nurse’s station. Suddenly, there were people everywhere, while someone shouted orders.

Rafe ran back toward the entrance to the wing, wishing he remembered where he had seen the fire extinguisher. Finally, he found it near the entrance where the doors were now closed. He grabbed the canister and rushed back to the fire, where black smoke continued to pour out of the closet.

He lost track of time after that, something that always happened when he was fighting a fire. Prayer and intense concentration on the task at hand occupied his mind. The only things he knew for sure were that the sprinklers weren’t coming on and the canister didn’t contain nearly enough volume to put out the fire. The best he could hope for was to contain it until the fire department arrived.

Lucia Vance arrived at the hospital with her fellow firefighters a scant six minutes later. Since their station was the closest, they arrived before the four other engines that had also been called out, just as they had when they had responded to a false alarm an hour earlier. During her last shift, they had answered four false alarms here, and this was the second call today. Just as she had the previous times they had responded, she carried a roll of hose over one shoulder and an ax in her hand. She and the other four firefighters followed the incident commander, Neil O’Brien, into the building. Each time they had responded to a call, the alarm had come from somewhere in the remodeled section of the hospital. This time, the emergency panel indicated the fire was on the second floor of the brand-new pediatric wing. Each time, the panel had showed a suspected fire in different areas—no two calls had been the same.

“It’s gotta be another false alarm,” said Lucia’s partner, Luke Donovan. “No way would there be a fire there. Not with all the sprinklers and sensors.”

“You’re probably right,” O’Brien said, leading the way. “Meyers and Jackson, secure the elevators. The rest of you come with me.”

They entered the stairwell and made their way to the second floor. As soon as they came through the door, Lucia smelled smoke.

This was no false alarm.

The floor was bustling with activity, and a nurse rushed toward them, pointing toward one of the adjoining hallways. “Down there.”

“Vance and Donovan, make an assessment and report back,” O’Brien ordered.

Lucia followed her partner down the hall, the smell of smoke stronger with each step they took. They turned a corner, and the smoke hung from the ceiling like an ugly black blanket billowing in a breeze.

The silhouette of a man kneeling on one knee suddenly became visible. He was clearly a civilian since he wasn’t in turnout gear, but he expertly wielded the extinguisher.

He violently started when Lucia touched his back. “We’ve got it, sir,” she said through her mask. He looked up, his face streaked with smoke, his eyes the most vivid green she ever remembered seeing.

“The stairwell is that way,” she said when he stared blankly at her. “You can go.”

He nodded, his eyes somehow boring right through her, then handed her the canister, the athletic grace of his stride catching her attention while she and Luke briefly assessed the fire. All around them, hospital personnel were busy evacuating patients, but despite the fire, everything seemed calm. Eerily so, Lucia thought as the assistant fire chief joined them.

“At least it’s confined,” O’Brien said. “Donovan, they need extra help with a couple of critical patients that they have to get away from this smoke right now. Since you’ve got the back for the job, you’re the man.”

Luke shook his head. “Can’t leave my partner—”

“This isn’t a discussion. Get going. I’ll stay here with Vance.”

Lucia looked over her shoulder at O’Brien, who stood there with his radio to his mouth as he talked to one of the lieutenants on an engine that had just arrived. Since he had been gunning for her for months, she thought it odd that he had dismissed her partner. It would have made more sense if he’d had three other people around to do the job of putting out this confined fire.

“Be safe,” Donovan said as he headed back in the direction they had come.

“Get going, Vance,” O’Brien ordered.

Refocusing her thoughts on the task at hand, she found the valve halfway toward the end of the hall. She hooked up the hose and switched on the valve. As she aimed the nozzle toward the open door, she thought she smelled the distinct aroma of lacquer vapors. One more odd thing, almost as odd as O’Brien sending her partner away.

In the next instant, an explosion knocked her off her feet, the force of the blast throwing her against the opposite wall.

A monstrous blossom of fire unfurled through the space where the closet door had been, pinning her in place and reaching for her.

TWO

Giving the firefighters a backward glance, Rafe headed for the stairwell. All around him, there was a buzz of controlled activity, the kind that came when a crew had trained for this kind of disaster and knew exactly what to do. It was clear that an evacuation was being prepared for.

He looked back at the firefighters one last time, wondering if there was something more to the fire that he hadn’t noticed. Figuring he was an extra set of hands for whatever might be needed, he headed toward the nurse’s station.

Within a few steps, his heart lurched when he remembered the kids in the chapel. Surely they were gone already. But what if they were still there? Since they weren’t patients, they might have been overlooked. He reversed his direction and headed for the chapel across the hall from the janitor’s closet. How could he have forgotten about them while he was searching for the extinguisher? Rescue was always the first order of the day with fire—a fact as basic as breathing.

“Get out of here,” one of the firefighters said, a stocky man, the insignia on his helmet identifying him as a battalion chief.

The man rushed past him, speaking into his radio before Rafe could answer.

Relieved to see another firefighter hooking a hose up to the valve, Rafe opened the chapel door.

He stepped inside, the door automatically closing behind him. The two kids were nowhere to be seen, the beanbag where they had been sitting empty. Since kids often hid from fire, he couldn’t assume they were gone simply because he didn’t see them.

“Anyone here?” he called. Through the big window, Pikes Peak was beautifully framed, just as advertised in the news article that had made him look for the chapel in the first place. Snow gleamed on the mountain, pristine and surreal compared to the smoke-filled hallway. Whispering a quick prayer for the safety of everyone around him, Rafe looked around for the kids once more.

Just then an explosion in the hallway rattled the windows, the concussion of it dropping Rafe to his knees. A brilliant flash of orange flared through the hallway window.

Behind him, a child cried out.

He whirled around and found the two children huddled behind the heavy drape that framed the window. Relieved they were safe, at least for the moment, he went to the door to check on what had happened.

“It’ll be okay,” he said reassuringly to the kids as he peered through the window. The smoke was thicker, obscuring the view of anything in the hallway, then shifting and revealing a reflective stripe on a bundle on the floor next to the door. Not a bundle. A person. The firefighter he had last seen hooking up the hose to the valve.

Without a second thought, Rafe knelt, flung open the door, grabbed on to the coat and pulled. The firefighter moaned.

“I’ve got you.” Through the smoke, Rafe could see the closet was fully engulfed, and, oddly, there was a wall of flames between them and their route to safety. There shouldn’t be that much fire. Once again he wondered why the sprinklers weren’t coming on.

The instant he had the two of them back inside the chapel, he closed the door. During those scant seconds, the small room had filled with smoke, which rose to the ceiling.

Next to the window, the two children watched him with wide eyes, neither of them speaking.

“Why don’t you two sit down on the floor there next to the window? Breathing will be easier,” Rafe said, eyeing the smoke that was seeping beneath the doorway. He went to the window and pulled down the drape. Rolling up the fabric, he laid it on the floor next to the door, covering the crack as best he could.

Rafe pulled the helmet and mask off the firefighter, doing his best not to jar him—her! he realized as a long, black braid tumbled out of the hat. Her eyelashes were as dark as her hair, making her skin look all the more pale.

“¿Está muerta?” one of the children asked, a little boy who looked as though he could be no more than four or five.

“No,” Rafe answered, reassured by the pulse beating strongly beneath his fingertips. She wasn’t dead. “La señorita no está muerta. ¿Hablas inglés?”

The boy shook his head.

To the woman, he said, “Can you hear me?”

She moaned again.

Rafe took off his jacket, folded it, and slipped it beneath her head as she lay on her side, her canister of air still strapped to her back.

“Are you visiting a brother or sister?” he asked the children in Spanish.

“Mi hermana,” the other child said, creeping closer to hold the boy’s hand. “Ana.”

“Ah. This is your brother—tu hermano?”

She nodded. “Ramón.”

“And what’s your name?” Rafe asked, continuing to speak in Spanish while keeping a close eye on the firefighter. Thankfully, color was beginning to seep back into her cheeks. She didn’t seem to be unconscious, but she wasn’t with it, either.

“Teresa.”

Pulling his cell phone from his jeans pocket, Rafe dialed 9–1-1, reminded of when he had done so a little earlier. This time the line was busy, and it remained that way for the next several times he dialed the number.

Next to him on the floor, the woman opened her eyes. When her gaze lit on him, she immediately struggled to sit up.

Rafe pressed a hand against her shoulder. “Just take a breath first.”

Her eyes were huge in her face, her skin too pale. “I’m okay,” she said around a cough. “The explosion just knocked me down.”

“All the more reason to take a minute.” Rafe figured she was lucky. Her lungs could have been seared by the heat from the explosion.

“I’ve got to get back—”

“There’s fire clear across the hall.”

“We’re trapped?”

There was still a way out of the chapel, though not his first choice. Rafe glanced toward the big, west-facing window, and her gaze followed his.

“That’s a last resort,” she said, evidently coming to the same conclusion he had. Sitting up, she put the small radio strapped to the outside of her turnout coat to her mouth. “Donovan, are you there?”

There was a moment of static, then a voice said, “Lucia, where are you?”

When she met Rafe’s gaze, he said, “The chapel across the hall from the janitor’s closet that’s on fire.”

She nodded and repeated the information, adding, “I’m in here with a civilian and two kids.”

“Stay put,” Donovan said. “We’ll have water on the fire in the hallway in a minute.”

Her gaze lit on the two children, then came back to Rafe. “You were the one fighting the fire when we got here.” After he nodded, she added, “Your children?”

“No. Just met them.” He motioned toward them. “This is Ramón and Teresa, and they’ve been visiting their sister, Ana. I’m Rafael Wright. Are you okay?”

“Not bad for having the breath knocked out of me.” She pulled off her gloves, then ran a slim hand over her forehead. “I’d just hooked up the hose to the valve. I hadn’t gotten a drop of water on the fire before the explosion.” With an easy motion that came only with practiced repetition, she slipped the air tank off her shoulders and set it with her helmet and mask.

“I didn’t see your partner.”

She looked at Rafe. “Chief O’Brien sent him away. Said he’d stay with me.”

“A heavyset guy?” When she nodded, Rafe added, “He was headed back toward the stairwell right before the explosion.”

“Well, that figures.” The inflection in her voice gave Rafe the idea that she didn’t like or respect O’Brien. Still, she spoke into the radio once more. “Vance reporting in.”

“Are you hurt?” came a gruff voice, clearly not Donovan’s, over the speaker.

“Your chief?” Rafe asked.

She nodded, and into the radio said, “I’m okay, sir.”

“Donovan said you’re trapped in the chapel. When we get this baby put out, you’ve got some explaining to do.”

Rafe bristled at the man’s tone. As a hotshot superintendent who had often been the commander on a fire, he knew there was a time to hold your people accountable and a time to put their well-being and safety first. A fleeting look of irritation chased across her face, confirming to Rafe that he hadn’t imagined the man’s imperious tone.

“Strange the sprinklers in this brand-new building haven’t come on,” Rafe said.

She nodded. “As strange as all the false alarms we’ve had the last few days. We expected this to be another one.”

The smoke at the ceiling grew thicker, and Rafe motioned to the kids. “Ven acá,” Rafe said, motioning for them to come sit beside him and the firefighter. “Sentémonos aquí.”

“They don’t speak English?” Lucia asked as the kids approached.

Rafe shook his head, and again spoke to the children, repeating the same words, then adding in English, “Come sit next to me.”

She held her arms out to the little girl, who somehow recognized the gesture of comfort and came toward her. Settling the child in her lap, the woman touched the child’s chest. “Teresa.” Then she repeated the gesture against her own chest. “Lucia.”

Lucia, Rafe mentally echoed. The name fit her. As exotic as her dark brown eyes and her creamy complexion.

“My partner is out there,” she said, “and he’s going to have us out of here muy pronto.”

Her fractured Spanish made the kids smile, just as Rafe suspected she had intended. She looked from the child to him and the little boy, who had sat down between them.

“If these kids are like my nieces and nephews, they don’t care what you’re saying—they just need to hear the sound of a calm voice.”

Rafe nodded.

“What brought you to the hospital?” she asked.

“A friend.”

She grinned when he didn’t add anything more, the expression transforming her face from pretty to vibrant. “Ah, the old visiting-a-friend routine. Personally, I thought this was the place to meet strangers.”

Rafe smiled back, recognizing that she was deliberately trying to turn their attention away from the fire on the other side of the door. “So far, that strategy is working.”

She glanced at the children. “Ask them about their sister.”

In Spanish, Rafe asked about Ana’s illness but was only able to find out that she was a couple of years older—seven to their three and four—and that she was very sick.

“I know what that’s like,” Lucia said, her gaze going from one child to the other. “My father is in this very hospital in intensive care.” Rafe watched her as she looked around the small chapel. “As soon as we get out of here, I’ll need to go see my mother and call my brothers. They’ll all be worried.” She glanced at Rafe. “Do your parents worry?”

“About what?” He was still caught on the part of her statement that her father was in the hospital.

“You.”

He shrugged. “Some, I suppose. More about my sisters.”

She smiled down at the little girl in her lap, who automatically smiled back. “See? A man can go off to be a policeman or a spy or a mountain climber and that’s okay. But a girl is supposed to play it safe—”

“Don’t be including me in your generalities. I never said that.” Some of the best firefighters on his hotshot crew were women. “I don’t believe that.”

“Do you worry about your sisters?”

“Of course. One is a homemaker and has a little girl. My other sister teaches school.” He gave Lucia a grin. “Now there’s a dangerous occupation.”

Lucia gazed down at the two children. “That wasn’t a very nice thing for him to say, especially since he doesn’t think you can understand him.” She brushed a hand over Teresa’s hair. “Children are gifts from God—everyone knows that. I wish that I could make you understand that I’ll be praying for your sister.”

The gesture was so nurturing that Rafe was entranced. Movies painted the heroic picture of a big firefighter tenderly caring for those smaller, weaker. This more feminine version of that same image made Lucia more appealing than she could know—especially since the gesture was not even a conscious one on her part.

Teresa leaned her head against the sleeve of Lucia’s turnout coat.

“Rezebo mi oraciónes por vuestra hermana,” Rafe said. When Lucia looked at him, he repeated in English, “I’ll say prayers for your sister.”

She smiled and looked from one child to the other, repeating the words, words that made both of the children smile.

Rafe knew too well what it was like to have a parent in intensive care. Even though that had been a whole lifetime ago, the feelings suddenly at the surface were as sharp as they had been when he was no older than Ramón. He hadn’t understood the significance of his mother being moved from intensive care into hospice. For a while, he had even hoped the change meant she was getting better. Since he was again allowed to sit next to her on her bed and put his arms around her, that had to have meant she was getting better—or, at least, so he had reasoned as a four-year-old boy.

Too vivid was the memory of that last day when she had taken him to the chapel and cradled him in her lap. He had sensed something was terribly wrong, and the ache in his chest that day had been suffocating.

“God is always with you,” his mother had whispered, her hand warm against his chest. “Always. No matter where you are or what you are doing, just look inside. God is right there.” She’d had tears in her eyes when he had looked up at her. “He loves you, just as I love you.” She gathered him closer, and to this day, he could still feel her cheek against the top of his head. “All you have to do is close your eyes and pray. You’ll feel God, and you’ll feel me. Both of us loving you.”

He had hung on to the promise his entire life, and he had always found it to be true. Especially in tense situations like this one, with a fire in the hallway and a two-story drop to safety through the window.

Lucia’s radio crackled to life, and Donovan said, “A little break at last, partner. The sprinklers finally came on. You should be seeing water seep under the door.”

Glad to have an activity that brought his mind back to the present, Rafe scooted across the floor toward the door and, sure enough, the drape he had taken off the window was wet. “That’s exactly what’s happening.”

Lucia relayed the information.

“It won’t be long now,” came the answer.

While they waited, Lucia continued to talk to the children, and as she had predicted, they responded simply to the sound of her voice.

“You’re good with kids. Do you have children? I know you mentioned nieces and nephews,” Rafe asked, wanting to ask her instead if she was married.

“No children,” she said. “Three nieces and two nephews so far, plus some honorary ones. What about you?”

“Never been married,” he said.

“Me neither,” she said.

“So no children,” he continued, as though finding out she was single hadn’t meant anything. She was single.

He looked down at the two children sitting between him and Lucia. Men weren’t supposed to have the ticking biological clock, but he did. He didn’t like the sudden realization that even if he found a woman today that he’d like to marry, he was still several years away from having children.

“You mentioned a sister—”

“With a little girl,” Rafe said. “Yeah. She’ll be two soon. They live in Atlanta.”

“A long way from here.”

“Yeah.” For the ninety-ninth time over the last day, Rafe thought maybe he could talk his sister into moving closer if her marriage ended. If, he reminded himself. Better that things work out in her marriage instead of his selfish wish to have her closer.

“What do you do, Rafael Wright?” Lucia asked with a smile, “when you’re not putting out fires and rescuing small children and damsels in distress?”

“Put out fires,” he said, looking steadily at her and thinking a man could lose himself in her dark eyes. “Don’t rescue many damsels, though.” When she raised an eyebrow in question, he added, “I’m the superintendent for the Sangre de Cristo hotshot crew.”

“You’re a firefighter?”

“Big difference between structure fires and wildfires,” he said.

“But you’re a firefighter?”

He nodded. “I’m also a volunteer for the city wildfire volunteer squad.” In the year he had been here, the volunteers had been called upon only once, since the city had a well-trained wildfire unit. He liked being involved, though, and feeling as though he was part of the community.

“Well, that at least explains why you’re so calm,” she said, glancing toward the smoke clinging to the upper part of the room. “Most civilians would have been climbing the walls by now.”

The radio crackled to life once more. “We’re coming in,” came her partner’s voice at the same moment as the door was pushed open, shoving the wet drape out of the way.

The big firefighter who came through the door had removed his mask. He grinned when his gaze lit on Lucia. “Way to go, partner. Sit in here where you can hug the kiddies while Jackson and I do the hard work. You slacker,” he said without a bit of heat in his voice.

“I love you, too, Donovan,” Lucia said from where she sat on the floor with little Teresa in her lap.

“Everybody in here okay?” asked another firefighter who came through the door.

Rafe stood. “She needs to be checked out,” he said, nodding to Lucia. “The explosion knocked her out.”

“That would be down, not out,” she said tartly. “There’s a big difference.”

Donovan’s attention sharpened and he pinned Lucia with a laser-sharp stare. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you—”

“I’m fine.” As if to prove it, Lucia handed him the little girl, then stood in a fluid movement. “Say hello to Teresa.” Smiling reassuringly at the little girl, she patted Donovan’s turnout coat and said, “Teddy Bear.”

“Teddy Bear?” Teresa repeated.

“That’s right.” Lucia grinned at the big firefighter. “Be nicer to her than you are to your own little girls.”

“Don’t you start,” Donovan said to Lucia before smiling at the child. “Everything is going to be just fine, little one.”

Lucia grinned at Rafe while waving toward the big firefighter. “This lug is Luke Donovan.” She nodded toward the other firefighter. “Gideon Jackson.”

“Rafe,” he said, extending his hand first to Jackson, then to Donovan. “Rafael Wright.”

“Wright. I remember you,” Jackson said. “I was in one of your classes last spring when I was getting recertified to fight wildfires.”

“Nice to meet you again.” Rafe drew Teresa’s brother forward. “This is Ramón. These two have a sister here somewhere and I bet parents looking for them, too. They don’t speak any English.”

“No problem,” Jackson said, offering a hand to the little boy and heading for the door. “We’ll go find them. ¿Cómo se llaman su mamá y su papá?”

Rafe smiled as Ramón told Jackson his father’s name as they went into the hallway.

“Where’s Vance?” a gruff voice demanded from the hallway.

“In there,” came Jackson’s answer through the open door.

The stocky fireman Rafe had seen earlier came into the chapel, an angry scowl on his face. “This is the final straw,” he said, waving toward the blackened hallway. “Do you have any idea how much damage was done out there because you left your post? You’re on notice, Lucia Vance, and when I’m done with you, you’ll be finished as a firefighter.”

THREE

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Rafe took a step toward the man. “She didn’t abandon her post.”

“No?” The battalion chief gave Rafe a scathing once-over. “Here’s some advice for you. Keep your nose out of things you don’t know a thing about.” He looked over at Lucia. “Get out there on the mop-up crew. Since you sat out the fire, it’s the least you can do.”

Obeying the order the way Rafe would have expected of his own people, she left without a word while he folded his arms over his chest. The difference was, he was reasonable. Lucia’s chief wasn’t. “That explosion threw her against the wall. She could have died out there if—”

“That would be just like her,” O’Brien said. “Find a pretty boy to tell pretty lies for her.”

Feeling his temper rise, Rafe pointed a finger at the man. “She was nothing but professional, which is more than I can say for you.” He headed for the door, then turned around. “Your name is O’Brien, right?”

The battalion chief nodded. “What’s it to you?”

Rafe shrugged. “Personally, I like to have my facts straight when I file a report.” He gave the other man a smile that was all teeth, adding, “Battalion Chief O’Brien.”

Rafe strode out of the chapel, then came to a dead stop in the hallway. Ceiling tiles were curled and melted, and the Sheetrock was charred. Here and there, the metal framing beneath the Sheetrock was visible, the metal studs twisted into grotesque shapes. Not just surface smoke damage, but real structural damage, Rafe thought. That said a lot about how hot the fire had been and how close it had been to getting out of control. He shuddered as he imagined what might have happened to Lucia if he hadn’t been there to pull her out of harm’s way. That thought brought him back to square one with Chief O’Brien. No wonder Lucia didn’t respect the man. In Rafe’s book the man was an idiot.

Lucia Vance, he thought. Vance. Vance, as in Mayor Vance, who had been shot several months ago and who was still in the hospital? Rafe figured he had to be right. How many other Vances were likely to be in this hospital in intensive care? What made no sense was why the daughter of a wealthy and powerful family was a firefighter.

He looked around, hoping for a glimpse of her. He’d have to ask her about that the next time he saw her. And he knew he would be seeing her. For the first time in his life, he had envisioned his children’s faces within a woman he was attracted to.

“Are you really okay?” Lucia’s mother asked a couple of hours later in the hallway outside the intensive-care room where her father was still in a coma.

“Fine.” Lucia didn’t dare hug her mother, much as she wanted to, since she was still in her filthy turnout gear and her mom was dressed in chic black linen pants and a turquoise jacket. “I can’t stay. We’re headed back to the station in a few minutes.” She looked toward the room where her father was. “No change today?”

“I think his color is better,” her mother said. She always had something positive to say about any sliver of improvement in his condition. Lucia studied her father through the window between the hallway and his room. He looked the same to Lucia, but she hoped the change her mother saw was indeed there. When her dad woke up, they had a lot to talk about. First on the list was the apology she owed him for an argument they’d had the day before he was shot.

“What’s with the coat?” Her mother pointed to the jacket in Lucia’s arms.

Lucia glanced down at the well-worn leather bomber jacket she had found in the chapel after she had checked on it the last time. Rafael Wright’s name was neatly printed on a label on the lining. She didn’t dare blurt out that the least she could do was return the man’s jacket since he had saved her life—at least not to her mother, who didn’t need to know how close a call it had been. “It belongs to a guy who rescued a couple of little kids in the chapel,” she said, striving for a nonchalant tone. “He was so kind that…”

“One of the staff can take care of getting it returned,” her mother filled in after Lucia’s voice trailed away.

“Yes, I’m sure they could.”

“But you’re taking it back to him.” A statement of fact.

Lucia nodded.

“He must have made an impression.”

He had and, though Lucia knew her mother would have figured that out anyway, she wasn’t ready to say so aloud. Her mother would say something to her brothers, and with their police and FBI connections, they’d probably run a criminal history on Rafe before allowing her to get close enough to return the man’s coat. It wasn’t like she was planning on marrying the man, or even dating him, for that matter. She just wanted to return his coat.

“Lucia?”

She jerked her gaze to her mother’s. “Don’t mind me. I’m just a little muddled, that’s all. Reverend Dawson has another prayer service scheduled for Dad tomorrow night.”

“I know.”

“Since I’ll be off work then, I’ll be there, too. And I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon to spend a couple of hours with Dad. Emily said she’d come after me so you can have most of the day to yourself.”

Her mother glanced through the window to the bed where her father lay, and Lucia’s gaze followed. For all her life, her dad had been the strongest man she knew—invincible. Logically, she knew he was in a coma, but emotionally—where she still felt like a six-year-old where her father was concerned—she wanted to believe he was merely taking a nap. Each day he remained in the coma added to her worry that he might never recover.

These long months since he had been shot by an unknown would-be assassin had taken on a grotesque normalcy, where her mother kept a vigil while the rest of them took turns spelling her and pretended to live life as though it wasn’t in limbo. Lucia wondered if she would recognize normal if it ever came again. She could only hope.

The one thing that had remained constant through these months of waiting for her dad to wake up was their sustaining faith. As her mother had often said, whether her dad awoke or not, he was in God’s hands. Though Lucia knew that, she longed for her dad to simply open his eyes.

“You better get going,” her mother said, ignoring Lucia’s filthy gear and planting a kiss on her cheek. “And I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Once more, Lucia resisted the urge to sink into her mother’s arms and managed a smile that, she hoped, hid how needy she felt. She moved toward the stairwell. “Tomorrow.”

When she came out of the hospital toward the pumper, she’d hoped to make it back to her crew without any further comment from Battalion Chief O’Brien. No such luck, though. He watched her approach with narrowed eyes.

“Any time you’re ready to go, Vance.” He had taken off his turnout gear and his slacks and shirt were crisply pressed, as though he hadn’t just been through a fire.

Gideon Jackson mildly said to him, “We just got the hose rolled back up, Chief. She’s not late.”

“She wasn’t here, which is more to the point,” O’Brien said. “You want to go on report, Jackson?”

“If you think you’ve got something that should be brought to my attention,” Gideon replied in that same calm tone.

Without saying anything more, O’Brien got in his red SUV, the insignia on the door identifying his rank.

After he was gone, the rest of the crew took off their turnout gear and finished stowing the equipment. Once they were underway, Gideon Jackson said to Lucia, “Don’t let him get to you. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on, and the rest of us know it.”

Donovan grinned at her over his shoulder from the front seat. “That happens when you walk around with your foot in your mouth all the time.”

“Did you guys find those two little kids’ parents?” Lucia asked instead of telling the two she appreciated their support. Donovan wouldn’t respond to anything mushy, and Gideon would be embarrassed.

“Yep,” Gideon said. “It was a happy reunion all around. You never did say how you found them.”

“I didn’t,” Lucia said. “I didn’t have any idea anyone was in the chapel. The explosion threw me across the hall and I must have landed near the chapel door. Next thing I knew, this guy pulled me into the room, and there were the kids.”

“All I can say is it’s a good thing Wright was there,” Gideon said, “and a good thing the door to the chapel was steel with reinforced glass. We were afraid for a few minutes that fire was going to get away from us and take the entire floor.”

Lucia shuddered, remembering the burn marks on the ceiling and wall in the hallway. She didn’t know what had led Rafe to be on the floor, but she was thankful. If not for him, today’s call could have turned out very differently. It was definitely something to include in her evening prayers later.

The rest of the shift went without incident, and though she was able to sleep during part of the night that finished her twenty-four-hour shift, Lucia was exhausted when she got home the following morning. She knew her emotional upheaval was the cause, not the lack of sleep. As usual, her big orange tabby, Michelangelo—nicknamed Gelo—greeted her at the door.

“Hey, you.” She picked up the cat, enjoying their ritual of being mutually needed. Emotion clogged her throat, and she pressed her cheek against the cat’s soft fur, a purr rumbling against her face. Gelo kneaded her arm and continued to purr loudly as Lucia headed for the kitchen to brew a pot of green tea. “Anything exciting happen while I was gone?”

The cat gave her a soft meow.

“Good.” She sniffed, then squared her shoulders, mentally going through the list of why she shouldn’t be so weepy. Setting Gelo on the floor, she brewed the pot of tea, choosing a favorite pot that she had purchased during a visit to Italy with her mother.

Lucia knew she was a good firefighter who had done her job well, no matter what Neil O’Brien thought. She hadn’t been seriously hurt. Her fellow firefighters had rallied around her. Compared to her father’s injuries and the worry that that was causing her mother, Lucia’s problems with Chief O’Brien were small potatoes.

The front doorbell rang, and the cat ran toward the door. Lucia followed, peeked through the security peephole, then held open the door for her good friend Colleen Montgomery. As the two youngest children of their respective large families and the only daughters as well, they had become allies early on.

Colleen breezed into the living room with her usual boundless energy. “I heard about the hospital fire. Just came by to make sure that you’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“According to Gideon Jackson—who would cut off an arm before lying, I might add—you were trapped in the chapel on the pediatric wing and had been hurt—” She took a breath to give Lucia the once-over. “You don’t look hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

“And you rescued a good-looking guy and his two kids.”

“I didn’t rescue him. And they weren’t his kids.” Lucia headed toward the kitchen, where she pulled a couple of mugs out of the cupboard.

Colleen grinned. “And he’s not ugly.”

Feeling her cheeks heat, Lucia shook her head. “No, he’s not ugly.”

“That, my friend, is a topic we’re going to pursue later.” Colleen raised her eyebrows while patting the outside pocket of her purse, which was large enough to hold a notebook and other things she needed as an investigative reporter for the Colorado Springs Sentinel.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“The lady doth protest too much.” She handed Lucia a clipping she had pulled from her purse. “This was in yesterday’s paper.”

Lucia read the large print of text put into a black-framed, two-column-wide box like an ad. “‘Let fire come down from heaven and consume you, for our God is a consuming fire.’”

“Pretty strange, don’t you think?” Colleen lifted the lid of the teapot to peek at the brew. “I checked, and nobody knows who paid for this. But I think this is related to the fire at the hospital.” She raised a hand. “And I knew this was a Bible verse, even though I couldn’t figure out which one, so I called Pastor Dawson and he says it’s actually two verses, one from Kings and one from Hebrews.” Pointing at the clipping, she added, “So whoever bought the ad was sending someone a message, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know.” Lucia handed back the clipping, then poured tea into the two mugs. “But if you think so, then you should turn this over to my brother Sam.” Since he was a detective on the Colorado Springs police force, he’d know how to track things down if this was as suspicious as Colleen thought. “Or maybe you should talk to Brendan.” He was Colleen’s cousin and a special agent with the FBI.

Colleen smiled brilliantly. “Now that I know you don’t think I’m crazy, I will.” She took a sip of tea, then added, “Too creepy and too much of a coincidence not to be related.”

Lucia hoped Colleen was wrong.

“Nice jacket,” Colleen said, fingering the collar of Rafe’s leather jacket, which Lucia had brought into the house and hung across the back of a kitchen chair. “Doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen your brothers wearing, though.”

“It’s not,” Lucia admitted, remembering that she had caressed the soft leather in the same way her friend was doing now. “It belongs to Rafe—Rafael—Wright.” When her friend raised her eyebrows in question, she tacked on, “The guy from the hospital.”

“Ah…the one you didn’t rescue. The one who’s not ugly.” Sipping her tea, Colleen gazed at Lucia over the top of her mug. “You’re finally ready to move on?”

“Maybe,” Lucia admitted.

The expression in Colleen’s eyes softened. “Not every guy is the kind of lowlife Stan was.” Then she smiled. “This Rafe…Rafael guy…he might be the answer to my prayers for you. Tall, dark, handsome, gainfully employed.” She paused a beat while she took another sip of tea, smile lines crinkling at her eyes. “And somebody who wants you just as you are.”

Lucia grinned at her friend. “Sounds like the guy you should be praying for—not for me, but for yourself.”

“Hey. Maybe your guy has a brother.”

“Two sisters,” Lucia said.

“I’m going to be good and not even say a word that you would know about the man’s family.”

They talked a while longer, their comfortable conversation turning to family matters, the plans Lucia had for her day off before going back to work for another twenty-four-hour shift and the research Colleen was doing for a new story—a series of articles about how drug traffic had changed in Colorado Springs since the demise of the drug cartel taken down the previous year. Since both of them had brothers who had been very involved in the case, the story was personal for Colleen.

After she left, Lucia worked around her house for a while, starting a load of laundry and taking care of other chores before heading for the hospital, where she would spend a few hours so her mother could get a break. That was a routine she would be happy to give up, Lucia thought as she drove to the hospital, her automatic prayer for her father’s quick recovery at her lips. Quick, though, hadn’t happened.

“Whatever Your greater plan, Lord,” she quietly prayed, “help us to understand.” Though she believed the potential for good flowed from every situation, she was hard-pressed to imagine what greater good was to come from her dad’s lingering coma.

She arrived a half hour early as she had planned so she could check on Ramón and Teresa, or at least their sister. With that in mind, she made her way to the makeshift children’s ward. She found the children with their parents, who spoke no more English than the children did. Immediately frustrated with the limited communication available with her own poor Spanish and vague hand gestures, Lucia cut her visit short, wishing she spoke the language well enough to communicate and wishing Rafe had been with her to translate.

Leaving the ward, she went through the main rotunda of the hospital and was drawn to the security tape that cordoned off the damaged pediatric wing. The fire doors at the entrance to the wing were closed. They didn’t keep the pungent scent of smoke, water and charred debris inside, however, the odors oozing into the rotunda.

“It sure smells awful, doesn’t it?” came a voice from the other side of the rotunda.

Lucia turned around to see Chloe Tanner, an intensive-care nurse who had thwarted a second attempt on her father’s life, coming toward her. That alone would have made her an honorary family member. She had also been a great nurse, taking good care of Lucia’s dad during those first harrowing days after he was shot.

That had been the beginning of a romance between Chloe and Colleen’s cousin Brendan, and they had recently announced their engagement.

Smiling, Lucia said, “It does, but it’s about the usual.”

“I saw the trucks for your station here.”

Lucia nodded. “We were the first to arrive.”

“I just don’t understand how a fire of that magnitude happened,” Chloe said. “After all those false alarms kept happening, one of the chiefs was out here several times doing inspections. You would have thought he might have noticed the problem with the sprinklers.”

“Do you remember which one?” Lucia asked.

Chloe grinned. “I won’t be forgetting about a man who talked to me like I had the IQ of a gnat. Battalion Chief Neil O’Brien. He’s in charge of your station house, isn’t he?”

Again Lucia nodded, knowing just how Chloe felt. “A gnat, huh?”

Chloe’s smile widened. “We might be insulting gnats.”

Lucia laughed, reminded of how much she had appreciated Chloe’s wry humor during those first tense days her dad was in intensive care. “I just had to come see—even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to get in. It was a strange fire.” That was an understatement. From the explosion to the two kids in the chapel to Rafael Wright, there wasn’t a single ordinary thing about it.

“I’m so thankful no one was seriously injured,” Chloe said. “Only some smoke inhalation, though that can be very serious, too.” She walked with Lucia toward the wide staircase that led to the first floor.

“Let’s keep an eye on the weather,” Lucia said as they parted ways. “I’d be more than happy to take your kids skiing some weekend.”

Chloe laughed. “My kids, but not me.”

“You, too.” Lucia grinned at her. “I suppose I could even put up with Brendan, too, if he can get away.”

“He’d like that.” Chloe waved goodbye.

With that, Lucia headed for the intensive-care wing where her father was. Though at least one FBI agent was always in the hallway outside her dad’s room, Lucia still wasn’t used to their presence. The man on duty today said hello as she walked past him and headed for her mother, who was sitting next to the bed.

“Hi, Mom,” Lucia said from the doorway.

“You’re early,” her mother said.

“Not that much.” Lucia moved into the room, taking off her coat. “I’ve been reading to him, and to be honest, now I’m wanting to know how the story turns out.”

They talked a few minutes longer, and after her mother left, Lucia sat down next to the bed and began reading to her dad, a novel from his collection of Zane Grey Westerns. He loved those stories, and she understood why. In the end, justice prevailed and evil was vanquished. That thought took root, along with the newspaper ad that Colleen had shown her.

What if Colleen was right and it was a message? Lucia looked up from the book to her father’s sleeping face. She thought about that some more, trying to analyze the problem the way her brother Sam would. As a detective, he was good at sifting through the puzzle pieces and putting the right ones together.

If the message was a warning, she wondered if it was somehow connected to her dad’s shooting. Or was she simply giving too much importance to her own family? And if the ad was connected to her father somehow, surely one of the FBI agents who had been assigned to the case would see how everything fit together. Deciding others were far better equipped to figure out the puzzle, if there even was one, Lucia returned to reading to her father.

She spent the rest of the afternoon with her dad, not leaving until one of her sisters-in-law arrived, a continuation of the family agreement that Mayor Vance would always have a family member by his side.

Lucia left the hospital, her attention drawn to the leather jacket on the front seat of her car. Since she had looked up Rafe’s address before she left home and discovered he lived only a couple of miles from the hospital, returning his jacket seemed the neighborly thing to do. Except that she hadn’t called, mostly because she hadn’t been able to figure out what she would say after the initial hello. Her internal argument continued while she drove. Since it wasn’t yet five o’clock, maybe he wouldn’t even be home. So she’d be off the hook, a thought that brought a pang of disappointment.

Her stomach clenched with unaccustomed butterflies as she pulled into the parking lot. The apartment complex where he lived was large, but she easily found his building. The jacket firmly wrapped in her arms, she climbed the two flights of exterior stairs to his floor, found the apartment number and knocked on the door.

She could hear music from inside, so clearly someone was home.

A second later, the door opened and a tall, good-looking man with coffee-colored skin and dark eyes smiled at her.

“I was looking for Rafe,” she said.

His smile widened. “I wish I could say that you found him.”

“Is this the right apartment?”

He nodded. “Right apartment, wrong guy.” He extended his hand. “I’m his roommate, Malik Williams. And you are?”

“Lucia Vance,” Rafe said, appearing behind Malik.

The butterflies in her stomach fluttered at the sound of Rafe’s deep voice. Her gaze latched on to his, and she lost herself within his green eyes that were so at odds with his dark brown hair and olive skin. The outside of the iris was a pure, dark jade. As she realized he was studying her just as intently, her own gaze shifted to Malik’s openly curious and teasing one. She noticed a bandage above one eyebrow.

Malik’s smile grew into a wide grin that flustered her even more. He took her hand. “He wouldn’t tell me a single thing about the lovely firefighter, except for your name.” He clucked his tongue. “I knew you’d be pretty.”

They had talked about her, Lucia thought, the butterflies beating against her chest, her attention still on Rafe’s smiling face. His hair was longer than she had remembered, the color a warm, dark brown.

“And I’m pretty sure you have something else to do,” he said, taking Lucia’s hand out of Malik’s and drawing her into the apartment. “Like now.”

Malik laughed. “I do?” At Rafe’s glower, he repeated, “I do. Something very, very important back here that I’m sure I’ll remember real soon.” He slapped Rafe on the back. “She’s fine, so you be extra nice.”

Completely bemused, Lucia watched Malik amble toward a hallway. Rafe’s hand around her own was warm and solid, which made sense since the man had proven to be both yesterday.

Rafe led her through a living room that was dominated by a huge black leather couch, a matching loveseat and an equally masculine recliner. An enormous black television was surrounded by various high-tech components, smooth jazz emanating from the speakers. The kitchen was small, the stainless-steel appliances gleamed, and the counters were neatly lined with various gadgets, from a cappuccino machine that looked too complicated to use to an electric ice-cream maker. Something savory-smelling bubbled in a glass-lid-covered pot on the stove.

Letting go of her hand, Rafe said, “I’m glad to see you. Would you like something to drink?” Without waiting for an answer, he opened the refrigerator. “A soda or a lemonade, or the ever-popular iced tea?”

I’m glad to see you. Those simple words warmed her beyond anything reasonable—maybe because it was an echo of how she felt. She realized he was looking at her expectantly, and her attention shifted to the open refrigerator door.

“Iced tea.” At the breathless tone in her voice, she silently marshaled her thoughts into some coherent order. “That sounds good.”

Rafael Wright wasn’t the first man she had ever found alluring. But he was the most potent.

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