Lucy And The Loner. Elizabeth Bevarly

so glad you’re safe,” she went on, cuddling the animal in her arms exactly the way one would a newborn baby. She turned to gaze anxiously at Boone again. “He is going to be okay, isn’t he?”

      At his nod, she expelled a shaky breath, her eyes filling with tears again. “You’re sure?” she asked anxiously. “I mean, he’s not going to have brain damage or anything, is he?”

      “He’ll be fine,” Boone assured the woman, inspecting the damage to his hand again, wondering if he could say the same about himself. He hoped the beast’s shots were all up-to-date.

      The woman dropped to her knees beside Boone and threw her free arm around him, to hug him close. Her next word was muffled against his neck, but it seemed to be, “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.”

      Boone peeled her arm from around his neck, more than a little uncomfortable with her gesture. He wasn’t a hugger and never had been. He didn’t like huggers and never would. Hugs were just so...so... An involuntary shudder wound through him. He just wasn’t into that touchy-feely stuff. As quickly and discreetly as he could, he pushed himself away from the hug and moved out of range of any further public displays of affection.

      Seemingly oblivious to his rebuff, the woman stood and began to nuzzle and hug the cat again as if it were a child. And oddly, the cat seemed to tolerate her gestures with no problem at all. Boone could only shake his head in wonder at them both. In spite of the cool morning, he was wringing wet with perspiration, thanks to the heat from the flames and the heaviness of his protective gear. So he unsnapped his helmet and removed it for a moment, to wipe the sweat off his face and out of his eyes before returning to fight the fire.

      He was still running his hands briskly through his damp, dark blond curls when he heard the woman say, “Everything’s going to be okay, Mack. Just you wait and see.”

      Boone was about to replace his helmet on his head when, as if cued by her comment, what was left of the house behind them came crashing in on top of itself. They spun around in shock and surprise to find flames thoroughly consuming her home. Boone eyed the woman warily, uncertain how she was going to take this new development.

      Although she’d cried freely when she’d thought her cat was dead, her eyes were dry as she watched her house burn, her expression completely impassive. It was almost as if she didn’t care, he thought, wondering why not. Almost as if—

      Her legs buckled beneath her then, and she fell hard onto her bottom beside Boone. She snuggled the cat close to her chest, nuzzling his head with her cheek. Then, still staring at her burning house, and almost as if she wasn’t even thinking about what she was doing, she felt around on the grass with her free hand until she located the teddy bear she’d been carrying with her. And she clutched that to her heart, too.

      All Boone could think was that he hoped she had some heavy-duty fire insurance. Because the only thing she was going to have left in the world was the truck parked in her driveway and literally the clothes on her back.

      And a recalcitrant tomcat.

      And a ragged teddy bear.

      “Sorry, lady,” he said softly. “But it looks like you’ve lost everything.”

      She shook her head, squeezing the cat and the teddy bear close to her heart. “No, I haven’t,” she told him with a sad smile. “Everything I need, everything that matters most, is right here with me. Thanks to you.”

      “Don’t thank me,” he said with a negligent shake of his head. “Just doing my job.”

      “You have no idea what you just did.”

      Her words were cryptic, but he decided that was a result of her shock at seeing her possessions go up in smoke. He shrugged off the comment and replaced his helmet, ready to rejoin the battle. Of course, he conceded, the battle now was essentially lost—her house was toast. There was nothing more he or his colleagues could do except make sure the fire was confined to the one building until they finally extinguished it.

      “What’s your name?” he heard the woman ask as he turned to leave her.

      “Boone,” he replied automatically. “Boone Cagney.”

      “I owe you, Boone Cagney,” she told him. “I owe you big. And I always pay my debts. Always.”

      He turned to look at her and shook his head, shoving his hand into a heavy glove. “You don’t owe me jack, lady. Like I said. Just doing my job.”

      “Lucy,” she murmured softly.

      He turned to look at her and nearly lost himself in those spectacular blue eyes. “What?”

      She was still holding the cat and the bear, and for some reason, Boone was overcome by a massive wave of protectiveness. Which was really crazy. Protecting people was his job. It wasn’t something he wanted to do in his personal life, too.

      “My name isn’t ‘Lady,’ ” she told him, her gaze steady and dry-eyed. “It’s Lucy. Lucy Dolan.”

      “Well, Lucy Dolan,” he said, forcing himself to look away from her amazing eyes, “you need to get on that ambulance and go to the hospital, just to be on the safe side. And you might want to get your cat to a vet, just to be sure. But you don’t owe me anything.”

      “Oh, yes I do,” she countered. “And you can’t imagine how huge the debt is. I don’t know how I’m going to repay you, but I will. Somehow, some way, I’ll settle the debt.” When he turned to look at her again, she nodded sagely and vowed further, “I promise you that, Boone Cagney. I promise you that.”

      Two

      Lucy nudged a black, sodden, still-smoldering lump with the toe of her borrowed sneaker, and wondered what the sooty blob had been before succumbing to the fire. The teapot her mother had ordered from England and loved so much? The box that had held her father’s fishing lures? The piggy bank full of quarters her grandmother had given her for her twelfth birthday? It was impossible to tell.

      She tilted her head to the right to contemplate the object once more, squeezed her eyes shut to fight back the tears that threatened, and inevitably replayed in her mind the events of the night once more.

      So much of what had happened was just a blur of unrecalled chaos now, and she guessed there were some things she would never quite fully remember. She supposed she was lucky neither she nor Mack had been hurt beyond a little smoke inhalation and the jerky handling necessary to save their lives. Ultimately, confident she was perfectly all right, Lucy had declined the complementary ride to the hospital that was evidently the consolation prize when one’s house burned to the ground. But she’d made an appointment with the vet for Mack this afternoon.

      Perfectly all right, she repeated to herself. Oh, sure. She was perfectly all right. Just fine and dandy. Hey, she wasn’t going to let a little something like losing all her worldly possessions spoil her day. No way. She shivered and tried not to think about how badly this whole episode could have turned out if it hadn’t been for the big blond firefighter.

      What was his name again? she wondered. Oh, yeah, Boone Cagney. Boone Cagney who had emerged from smoke and fire to carry her and Mack to safety, then hopped back up on his big red truck to disappear into the night. Without a word, without a trace, without even realizing the magnitude of what he had done.

      Lucy sighed deeply and stared at the sparse remains of her house. Gone. Everything. Just like that. The track and field hockey trophies from high school that had lined her bedroom windowsills like soldiers. The airplane models she had built so passionately as a child. Her favorite pair of blue jeans—the ones it had taken four full years to get faded just the way she liked them.

      Odd, the things people felt wistful about once those things were gone. And now Lucy had nothing.

      Actually, that wasn’t true, she reminded herself. As she had told Boone Cagney, she did still possess the two things that were most important to her in the world—Mack and Stevie. And, of course, there was