Lucy And The Loner. Elizabeth Bevarly

by fast.

      The cat hissed, spit, growled some more, flailed at the air, reared up on its hind legs as if to strike... then keeled over, quickly losing consciousness. Boone’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Okay, so maybe not the exact answer he was expecting, but it would make his job infinitely easier.

      “A fighter to the end, huh?” he muttered as he scooped the animal up as effortlessly as he had its owner only moments ago. “I admire your spirit.”

      He tucked the cat into his coat and called out to Thompson, and the two men turned to flee, barely making it out of the house before the floor above the living room crashed down in an explosion of pyrotechnics. The reverberation of the noise and the flash of heat at his back told Boone how close he’d come to being trapped. Wouldn’t have been the first time, he reminded himself. Then again, did he really want to go through an experience like that again?

      As he raced from the house into the chaos outside, he saw the woman he had carried to safety earlier being restrained—barely—by one of the other firefighters. Behind her, an ambulance with red lights tumbling through the haze of smoke stood ready to carry her to the hospital. But she’d obviously refused to make the trip until she knew the fate of her child, and Boone wasn’t exactly surprised.

      He could see that she had been watching for him to emerge from the house, and when she saw him, she catapulted forward. Her face was still streaked with black from the smoke, her short hair was matted to her forehead with perspiration and the water from the firehoses, her clothes were wet and filthy and clung to her like a second skin. But those eyes...

      He had to force himself to look away. He’d never seen anyone with eyes that blue. And the soot on her face only made them appear that much more vivid. Her gaze penetrated him to his soul when he approached her. This was a woman who would never be able to hide her feelings, he thought. Her eyes, huge and round and thickly lashed, were the kind of eyes that a man would lose sleep over. Some men, anyway, he amended. Not him. He never lost sleep over anyone. Not anymore, anyway.

      He was overcome with a sense of guilt and failure at having come from the house without her son, and could only watch helplessly as she kept moving forward, her gaze never leaving his, her pace never slowing. Her lips parted, but no words emerged. Which was just as well. He could already hear her accusing, panicked voice demanding to know why he’d come out of the house without her child. As she drew near enough to reach out and touch him, Boone withdrew the still-unconscious cat from his coat, to hand the animal off to one of his colleagues before returning for the boy.

      But at the sight of the motionless animal, the woman halted in her tracks and fell to her knees. Then she buried her head in her hands and began to weep as if her heart were broken.

      “Mack,” she sobbed without looking up, as if she couldn’t bear the sight of the unconscious beast. “Oh, Mack. You were too late to save him.”

      Boone gazed at her for a moment, completely dumfounded. Then, finally, he realized what he had done. He held up the caL “This is Mack?” he asked incredulously.

      The woman nodded and finally looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. Her gaze dropped briefly to the motionless animal in his arms before returning to fix it on Boone’s face. Then she began to cry freely again.

      Boone could only stare back at her for a moment, so entranced was he by the piercing intensity of her gaze. Finally, he shook the hypnotic sensation off and managed to ask, “Mack is your cat? I went back into that inferno to save your cat?”

      She nodded mutely as she lifted a hand to gingerly stroke one of the cat’s dangling paws. “Oh, God, he’s dead. You couldn’t get him out. Oh, it’s all my fault.” She buried her face in her hands again, and began to cry even more helplessly.

      She was terrified that she had lost her cat, Boone realized, the same way a mother feared the loss of her child. Her whole body shuddered with every sob that erupted from inside her, and her dark head moved helplessly back and forth. Before he could stop himself, he threaded his fingers through her short hair, stroking the damp tresses until she looked up at him again. Gently he urged her head backward and pushed her bangs back from her forehead.

      “No, lady, don’t cry,” he said softly, swiping at a fat tear that tumbled down her cheek. The cat twitched in his arms when he did so. “It’s okay. Your cat’s still alive. He’s even starting to come around. He just needs oxygen.”

      She gazed at him levelly, those blue, blue eyes incredulous. “He’s alive?” she cried. “You got him out okay? He’s not dead?”

      Boone shook his head and turned to make his way quickly to the oxygen he had used earlier, with the woman following only inches behind him, scrambling three steps for every one of his. “He was unconscious, but he’s starting to rouse,” he called over his shoulder as he went. “And he does need oxygen.”

      He settled the animal gently on the grass beside the teddy bear the woman had left there, picked up the same plastic mask she had worn, and dropped it over the animal’s muzzle. Then he shed his gloves and began to slowly stroke his hand over the cat’s thick, wet fur, rubbing it lightly under the chin and cupping a hand over its rib cage to feel for its heartbeat.

      Okay, he conceded as he watched the helpless creature lay still and half-conscious. Maybe cats weren’t so awful after all. This one, at least, had shown some spirit and had a strong will to survive. Boone had to respect that. It was something he identified with greatly. Survival was his reason for living, after all.

      “His pulse is strong,” Boone told the woman. “Just give him a minute.”

      Stooped down on his haunches, he was more than a little aware of her hovering over him. She stood close behind him, her knees pressing against his back and her hands settled on his shoulders. Obviously, she had no qualms about getting familiar with strangers. Boone had to force himself not to physically shake her off. He did have qualms about getting familiar with strangers. And not just ones with huge, haunting blue eyes, either.

      But now that the immediacy and danger of the situation had passed, he was able to consider her a little more fully. Still holding the mask over the cat’s muzzle, he turned around to look at her.

      Man, she was a mess. Soot-covered, water-damaged, shivering from the cold and damp, she was bedraggled enough to qualify for urchin status. In spite of her appearance, however, there was something compelling about her. Boone wasn’t sure what, but something in her struck him as being just as spirited, just as much a survivor as her cat was. Had he not gone in after the animal, he was quite certain she would have done so herself, barefoot and unprotected as she was. Even at the risk of killing herself, she would have gone back to retrieve that cat.

      He wasn’t sure he could say the same thing about himself. He was a loner, and he couldn’t imagine caring so much for someone that he would place that someone’s well-being above his own. Sure, part of what he did for a living was save lives. But hey, that was his job.

      He was still thinking about that when the animal beneath his fingers began to twitch again. Then the cat began to thrash. Then it began to scratch. Before he could stop it from happening, the big black beast bared its claws again and tore a thin red line down the entire length of Boone’s thumb.

      “Ow, dammit,” he growled.

      Now he remembered why he hated cats. One of the reasons, anyway. He stuck his thumb into his mouth and sucked hard before pulling it out again to inspect the damage. While he was contemplating his wound, the cat disappeared from his grasp.

      “Mack!” the woman behind him cried, bending over Boone so quickly and powerfully that she nearly knocked him sprawling to the ground. She yanked the cat up into her arms and buried her face in its fur, then started making kissy noises against its neck and ears. She glanced down at Boone, her expression concerned. “Is it okay to take the mask off now?”

      He nodded, still sucking on the side of his thumb. Bastard cat, he thought.

      The woman carefully removed the oxygen mask and held her pet aloft. “Oh, Mack,” she said, lowering the cat again