Saving You (7 page)

A few minutes later, he shrugged into his
water resistant jacket, pulled the hood over his head, and jogged
out into the rain. The firehouse was always a quick walk from
Faith’s place, but today Mick reached it in record time, bursting
in the front door and taking the stairs to the second floor office
space two at a time.

Jake was on the phone, but as soon as he
spotted Mick he lifted a hand and raised one finger. He ended the
call a minute later and crossed to where Mick stood dripping near
the hooks on the wall. But Mick didn’t intended to add his jacket
to the line of raincoats, not when he planned to be heading back
out as soon as he found out where to meet up with a search
crew.

“
How you holding up?” Jake
said.

“
I’m fine,” Mick said,
ignoring the way his heart lurched in his chest. “And I want to
help. I want to join a search party.”

Jake shook his head. “Mick, I can’t let you
do that. You don’t have the training these men and women have
and—”

“
I don’t give a shit about
training,” Mick said. “My fiancée might be dying out there, and I
need to go look for her.”

“
I get it, Mick, but it’s
more complicated than that,” Jake said in a cautious tone that made
Mick fight to keep control. He couldn’t lose it with Jake right now
or he’d never get assigned to a search party.

“
Listen, I know CPR,” Mick
said. “Faith taught me not long after we got together. And I’ve got
a sharp eye, am in good physical condition, and spent half my
summers growing up in a boat with my dad. I know how to handle
myself around water. I can be an asset to one of your
teams.”

Jake shook his head again, but Mick could
tell by the look in his eyes he was wavering.

“
And I can follow orders,”
Mick said, pressing on before Jake could speak. “I won’t do
anything crazy, and I’ll listen to whoever you put in charge. Just
please, Jake, let me help.”

Jake pressed his lips together, but before
he could respond a young woman in an orange windbreaker appeared at
the top of the stars.

“
Chief Hansen,” she said,
sounding out of breath. “We just got a call from the bar down the
street. We’ve got two men who didn’t heed the evacuation order who
say they’re smelling gas on the main floor of their building. They
think a line might be leaking but the shut off valve is
underwater.”

Jake muttered something beneath his breath
Mick suspected was a curse.

“
Give me a second,” Jake
said to the woman before turning back to Mick. “I’ll send you out
on the next boat with Ben, as long as you understand that when you
find her there’s a chance you’ll be finding a crime scene. And if
that happens you will not be allowed to touch anything, or disturb
evidence. Do you understand?”

Mick’s jaw clenched as he nodded. “I
understand.”

But he refused to think about being too
late. Faith wasn’t going to die. He couldn’t lose her, not now, not
when they were so close to starting their life together. She’d been
so warm and alive in his arms this morning, he had to believe she
would be in his arms again before night fell.

“
All right,” Jake said,
eyes softening as he put his hand on Mick’s shoulder. “I’ll be
praying for you, and I’m already praying for her. I don’t want to
imagine a world without our Faith in it.”

“
We’re going to find her,”
Mick said, swallowing hard. “I can feel it.”

He wanted to believe he was telling the
truth, but all he knew for sure was that he was grateful to be
following Ben to the police cruiser idling outside the firehouse,
and catching a ride to where the boats were launching. His heart
was still pounding in his throat and his thoughts racing, but at
least he was on the way to help with the search.

The officer driving the cruiser pulled to a
stop at the top of a hill, letting Ben and Mick out fifty feet from
where an ambulance, a television van with a camera mounted on top,
and several other police cruisers were parked. On the other side of
the gathering of vehicles, the road sloped down as it led into the
Thousand Oaks Subdivision. The road was covered in swiftly moving
water, eddies visible on the surface as it rushed through the trees
on the left and on toward the water logged homes. The subdivision’s
concrete sign was completely submerged and most of the houses
beyond had floodwater up to the top of their first-story
windows.

“
They were at the rear of
the subdivision when she disappeared,” Ben said, pointing toward
the far edge of the clusters of houses as they walked. “They said
the water’s moving faster there since there aren’t as many
obstacles to slow it down.”

Mick nodded, but didn’t say a word except to
mumble his name as he was introduced to the man and woman he and
Ben would be going out with. The woman, Tami, was a member of the
SPD, and the man, Kelvin, was a trained search and rescue volunteer
and former Navy Seal, a big guy who looked like he was pushing
forty with a formidable build that made Mick breathe a little
easier. If Faith was pinned by debris, together he and Kelvin
should be able to move just about anything.

Hell, Mick felt capable of lifting a car off
the ground with one hand. He was so ramped up on adrenaline, he
barely noticed how unexpectedly cool the water was as he waded out
to the boat. His fear for Faith was keeping him warm.

Now, he could only hope she’d found
someplace to get out of the water and seek shelter. If she stayed
in the water too long, she could risk suffering from exposure,
despite the fact that it was seventy-five degrees outside.

As the outboard motor rumbled to life and
Ben guided the small craft out into the water, Mick sent out a
prayer that they would find Faith before it was too late.

Chapter Seven

Brandon opened his eyes to find a
heart-shaped face dominated by big brown eyes staring down at him,
and smiled.

So it hadn’t been a dream after all.

“
Good morning,” he
whispered, his voice rough with sleep. “Did you sleep
okay?”

Lucy nodded, the hair sticking out around
her head bobbing softly. She looked like a wild thing who’d been
raised by wolves, or an elf escaped from one of those fantasy
movies his brother, Kurt, used to watch when he and Brandon were
kids.

Growing up, Kurt had loved anything with an
orc, dragon, or elf in it, and spent most of his time with his nose
in a book, or online playing World of Warcraft. He’d been a nerdy
kid—not a jock like Brandon—but he’d never seemed particularly
unhappy. He was simply quiet, the kind of person who kept their
thoughts to themselves and enjoyed the company of imaginary people
more than real ones.

But in high school, things had changed. Some
guys in his gym class had started bullying Kurt, calling him a fag
and making his life miserable. For the first time, Brandon hadn’t
been there to protect his big brother. They were only fourteen
months apart, but that meant Kurt had gone on to ninth grade alone,
leaving Brandon behind in middle school for one more year.

After his mom found Kurt in the garage,
Brandon had wondered if things would have been different if he’d
been at school to defend Kurt, to see how bad things were getting
and put a stop to it before it was too late. For a long time, he’d
blamed himself for his brother’s suicide. But finally, with time,
he’d been able to forgive himself, and promised to do whatever he
could to keep what happened to Kurt from happening to anyone
else.

That was part of the reason he’d let Lucy
come home with him last night. He might not be sure he believed in
premonitions and sixth senses, but he could tell she was genuinely
worried about him and wanted to keep him safe, and that was a
feeling he could empathize with.

Besides, waking up to a beautiful girl—even
if she’d slept in his bed, while he couched it in the living
room—wasn’t something Brandon was going to complain about. Not in
the least.

“
So I guess I’m still
alive,” he said, stretching his arms over his head, wincing at the
crick in his lower back. The couch was fine for a night, but if
Lucy insisted on keeping vigil tonight, Brandon might have to blow
up an air mattress.

“
You are,” Lucy said, with
a confused shake of her head.

“
Don’t look so
disappointed.” Brandon smiled.

Lucy’s mouth curved before she pulled her
full bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m not disappointed, just
confused. I really thought…” She trailed off with a shrug. “Maybe I
read the energy wrong. There were a lot of people around last
night, and I am out of practice. Or it could be that it hasn’t
happened yet.” She frowned, her thin brows drawing together as she
shook her head. “But I’m not getting any negative energy from you
this morning.”

Brandon sat up, swinging his feet down to
the floor. Lucy was sitting cross-legged on the leather-covered
coffee table Brandon had inherited from his parents when they moved
to South Carolina. They’d left as soon as Brandon graduated from
the academy and joined the Summerville Fire Department, past ready
to escape the house where they’d lost their oldest son. They hardly
ever came back to Summerville anymore, preferring to pay to fly
Brandon up for visits on holidays and during his vacation time.

Brandon had grown accustomed to walking
softly around people years ago. After Kurt’s death, his parents
hadn’t healed so much as closed themselves up, refusing to talk
about Kurt, or the dark year after his suicide, when Brandon’s dad
had moved into an apartment for a few months and he and Brandon’s
mom had discussed divorce. By sixteen, Brandon was a pro at
skirting issues, and making sure he didn’t say anything his parents
didn’t want to hear.

But Lucy wasn’t his mom or dad, and if they
were going to have the kind of relationship he wanted them to have,
he had to be honest with her.

“
Listen,” Brandon said,
taking her small hand between his, warming her cool fingers. “I’m
not sure what to believe about your gift, but I’m glad you’re here.
And I’m glad you cared enough to want to keep me safe.”

Lucy met his eyes with that piercing look
she had, the one that made him sure she could read every thought in
his head. It unnerved him and made him acutely aware of how damned
cute she was and how much he wanted to kiss her, all at the same
time.

“
You’re going to believe,
Brandon,” she said. “Even the skeptics at the police department in
Atlanta came around eventually. And those guys weren’t open-minded.
They were the kind of men who had the same breakfast every morning
for twenty years just to avoid trying something new.”

Brandon nodded. “I’m open to coming around.
I’m not going to look up at a blue sky and call it orange. I’ve
just never known a psychic before, let alone dated one. It will
take some getting used to.”

Lucy’s eyes dropped to their joined hands.
“Well, I haven’t dated anyone at all in a long time. So…that might
take a little bit of getting used to, too. For me.”

Brandon twined his fingers through hers,
glad she was letting him hold her hand. “Your last relationship
didn’t end well, I’m guessing?”

Lucy’s head bobbed, her eyes still glued to
where they touched. “He passed away. Cancer. The quick kind.”

Brandon’s brow wrinkled. “I’m so sorry,
Lucy. That must have been awful.”

“
It was,” she said, finally
lifting her gaze to his. “But he wouldn’t have wanted me to shut
the world out. Or shut you out.” She took a deep breath. “So I want
to be completely honest with you.”

“
Okay,” Brandon said, brow
still furrowed.

“
I didn’t tell you
everything last night,” she said. “I didn’t just sense that you
were going to be in danger, I sensed that you and I… That
we…”

She broke off with a laugh, eyes lifting to
the ceiling. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous. I know I’m right,
and I know you feel it too.”

Brandon’s forehead smoothed and a tentative
smile teased at his lips. “That we’re going to be good
together?”

Lucy nailed him with
another intense look. “We’re going to be
great
together.”

Brandon’s smile took up more real estate on
his face, even as a current of awareness swept through his body.
“Well, I could have told you that months ago. The second I saw you
get out of that little car of yours, I felt like I’d been struck by
lightning. I’ve been trying to catch your attention since the first
day I came over to pester you during your shift.”

Lucy grinned one of her irresistible grins.
Even better, she shifted off the coffee table and into his arms,
climbing into his lap as if it were the most natural thing in the
world.

And it was, at least the most natural and
easy thing Brandon had felt in a long time. And as she leaned in,
pressing her lips to his, giving him his first sweet, sexy,
perfectly Lucy kiss of the morning, his soul lit up and something
broken inside him clicked back into place.

He and Lucy just…fit. It was enough to make
a guy want to believe in psychic phenomenon and love at first sight
and who knows what else. With Lucy, all kinds of previously
unthinkable things suddenly seemed possible.

They kissed for a long time—long enough for
Brandon to grow so hard it was painful—before Lucy finally pulled
away, her breath coming fast. “I think now’s a good time for more
than kissing. Don’t you?”

Brandon bit his lip, fighting the urge to
groan as Lucy shifted on his lap, her hip nudging where he ached.
“We can wait. I don’t want to rush you.”