And now he was gone.
Forever gone.
“Kenzie? You still with me?” Aidan’s lean jaw was tight with tension and was scruffy, as if he hadn’t had time to shave in a day or two. Or four.
“Unfortunately.” She’d like to be anywhere but “with” him. She could feel his longer, stronger legs moving, bumping into hers, and it made her irrationally mad. She didn’t want help, not from him, but when she wriggled free to prove herself fine, she went down like a stone. Straight beneath the surface of the icy water, where she promptly did the stupid thing of opening her mouth to breathe and got a lungful of extremely cold salt water for her efforts.
Thankfully, she was immediately hauled back up again and pulled against a hard chest, one hand fisted in the back of her shirt, the other arm across the backs of her thighs in a grip that could have rivaled Superman’s.
Firefighter to victim.
Not ex-boyfriend to ex-girlfriend.
And wasn’t that just the problem? Once upon a time he really had had her, only he’d been the one to let go. He’d done it, he’d said, because of their respective careers and because he didn’t like hiding their relationship from his friend Blake, but she knew the truth. It was because he’d decided she’d been falling in love with him and he hadn’t been ready for love, so he’d shooed her away and had moved on.
She’d hated him for that for a good long time, for not givinghimselfachancetofeelwhatshe’dfelt,and,yeah, he’dbeenright—she had beenmorethanhalfwayinlove withhim.It’dtakena while,buteventuallyherangerhad drained, and she’d acknowledged that he’d been right to break it off with her before she’d gotten even more hurt… But that hadn’t eased her pain at the time.
Maybe she should consider herself lucky they were doing this reintroduction in an official capacity—him on the job, and her being just one in a blur of people he rescued. Less personal.
“Stop fighting me.” His voice cut through the shocking noise of the night: the sirens, the shouting of the other firefighters and personnel, the ever-present, horrifying crackling of the flames, the small waves smacking into each other, waves that would be cresting over her head if it wasn’t for Aidan’s holding her with what appeared to be little to no effort. “I’ve got you.”
“I don’t want you to have me.”
“Okay, roger that. But at the moment you don’t have a choice.”
“Of all the firefighters in this damn town…”
She thought she caught a flash of a grim smile. So he was no more thrilled than she was. He wasn’t even looking directly at her, his attention instead focused on the boat behind her, and the dock behind that, reminding her that not only was he saving her hide, he was simultaneously looking for other people who needed help.
“I was alone on the boat,” she told him.
“What were you doing?”
“Saying good-bye to Blake.”
Sorrow, regret, and anguish all briefly flashed in his eyes. “Kenzie—”
“He didn’t do those things you’re all accusing him of, Aidan.”
She had his attention now, all of it, and she’d forgotten the potency of having Aidan Donnelly giving her one-hundred-percent of his focus. “He didn’t.”
“Did he say something, anything to you at all, before he died?”
Died…Hearing the words from his mouth made Blake’s death all the more real, as did being back here in her hometown, and it hit her hard. Throat so tight that she couldn’t speak, she shook her head. No, Blake hadn’t said anything at all, which made her feel even worse. “It wasn’t him who set those fires. I know it.”
“Kenzie,” he said very gently, but she didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to hear anything he said, so she shook her head again and closed her eyes, which brought an unexpected and horrifying sense of vertigo, making her clutch at him. “I want out.”
“I know. They’re coming for us right now.”
That was good. Because something was definitely wrong. Her vision was getting fuzzy. Her brain was getting fuzzier. Scared and a little overwhelmed, she pressed her face into the crook of his neck, her nose to his throat, the position hauntingly familiar and at once flooding her with memories.
She’d been here before.
Okay, not here, not in the water, freezing, scared, but she’d been held by him, had pressed her face against his warm flesh and inhaled him in, absorbing the way he held her close, as if he’d never let anything happen to her.
He smelled the same, a scent she’d never quite managed to forget, and it was messing with her brain in spite of the fact that she’d just survived an explosion, a nighttime swim in the freezing ocean, and an uncomfortable reunion with the one and only guy she’d ever let break her heart.
Dammit. She blamed Blake. Blake…
“Kenzie.” Aidan gave her a little shake. “Stay with me now.”
No, thanks…
“Open your eyes,” he demanded. “Come on, Kenzie. Stay awake, stay with me.”
As opposed to giving in to the delicious lethargy slowly taking over? Nah… “Too tired.”
“I know, but you can do this. You can do anything, remember?”
She nearly smiled at the reminder of her own personal motto, but then remembered who was talking. Yeah, she’d once believed that she could do anything, with him at her side.
He’d proved her wrong.
Oh, boy. Her eyes were closing. It’d be so easy to let them, to just drift off and not feel the cold anymore, but even in her fuzziness, she knew that was bad, so with great effort, she pried her eyes open.
And her gaze landed on him. The last time she’d seen him, she’d been so young. They’d been so young. She’d just turned twenty-two, been signed by a Los Angeles agent, and had landed her first small walk-on role. He’d been two years older, fit and gorgeous, and on top of his world as a young firefighter.
Plastered against him, her hands clenched on his biceps, her legs entwined with his, her chest up against him the way it was, she could feel that he was still fit.
Very fit.
And thanks to the flames and also the spotlights from the guys on the dock keeping track of them, she also knew that he was still gorgeous. If he hadn’t cut her loose without a backward glance, she’d be happy to see him.
Very happy.
A group of firefighters had made their way through the flames to the end of the neighboring dock, and had secured it with criss-crossing lines of water. One of them leaped into the ocean, and with long, sure strokes swam toward them.
“Here,” he called out to Aidan, holding out an arm for Kenzie.
“I’ve got her,” Aidan said.
But Kenzie had had enough, of Aidan and his capable, strong arms, of his scent and especially of the memories. So she reached out for the second fire-fighter, going into his arms without looking back, arms that had never held her before, arms that didn’t know her, arms that didn’t evoke the past.
Even though she wanted to, she wouldn’t look back.