Risk Everything. Janie Crouch

accelerants in a construction area. It was like a pressure cooker.”

      A pressure cooker that would’ve killed her if Tanner hadn’t been there to stop her from opening that door and get her out of the hallway.

      Taking the fire extinguisher, he tucked her under his arm again and propelled them both back toward her office. Once there she was at least able to breathe again.

      “You’re going to have to let the firefighters go after that blaze, freckles. There’s nothing you can do. Let’s just get everybody out of the front of the building.”

      She nodded, sucking in huge gulps of air. “You saved my life. I just called 911 a couple minutes ago. How did you get here so fast?”

      “I was already here when you pulled the alarm.”

      They rushed together toward the housing units.

      “You were? Why?”

      He stopped for the briefest of seconds and gave her a hard kiss, before taking her arm and spurring her down the hall once again. “I went by your apartment to tell you I wanted both. We could go before the judge tomorrow and have the church wedding in two weeks. All I knew was I had to have you in bed with me tonight. When you weren’t there, I came over here to plead my case.”

      “Holy hell,” she whispered, then coughed again. “If you hadn’t needed a booty call…”

      She would’ve been dead.

      He gave a short bark of laughter and shook his head grimly at the same time. “Yeah. Thank God I’m addicted to you.”

      A few moments later they were in the housing area.

      “Bree!” Marilyn said. “What’s going on? Is this some sort of drill?”

      Bree was still coughing from the smoke she’d taken in and her run down both hallways.

      “No,” Tanner answered for her. “Not a drill. Everybody needs to get out. There’s a fire in the other section of the building.”

      The panic was almost instantaneous. Mothers began calling for their children and some of the other women yelled for anyone who might still be asleep. Most of the kids were crying and Eva and Sam were looking up at Bree and Tanner, eyes huge in their pale faces, Tromso’s leash in their hand.

      Bree couldn’t stop coughing. It paired horribly with the dog’s whining.

      Tanner put both hands on her shoulders. “You need to get outside and stop exerting yourself.” He turned to Marilyn. “Can she take the kids outside and you and I will get everyone else out?”

      Marilyn nodded.

      Bree started to argue but another coughing fit overtook her. Tanner was right—he and Marilyn would get everyone out. The most she could do to help right now would be to get out of the way. She nodded and offered Eva and Sam her hands. They took them and she led them quickly outside, some of the other residents along with them.

      Outside was pure chaos. Lights from fire trucks, police cars and ambulances lit up their block like it was some sort of disco rave party. Half the town was frantically pacing back and forth, and everyone seemed to be talking all at once.

      Eva and Sam were looking even more traumatized, so Bree pulled them back toward the outer edge of the action. She wanted to reassure them, but every time she started talking she was besieged by coughs. So she just crouched beside them and put an arm around each small, shivering body.

      It wasn’t long before a paramedic came up to her.

      “Miss, I think we ought to get your cough checked out. Can you come with me?”

      She shook her head. She wasn’t leaving Sam and Eva alone in this craziness. “I’ll stay with them,” she managed to get out.

      The paramedic smiled at the kids. “Yeah, this is pretty nuts, isn’t it?”

      They both nodded solemnly.

      He gave Bree a kind smile. “This sort of situation can be pretty overwhelming for folks their age, especially in the middle of the night. But you really ought to get that cough checked out. How about if I escort you over to the ambulance, and I’ll personally stay with the kiddos to make sure they’re not scared.”

      “I don’t know—”

      “I can keep them over at the side, out of harm’s way and where it’s not so chaotic. Probably best for everyone that way.” He gave her a smile.

      Bree was about to agree, but then she looked down at Sam and Eva, who still hadn’t said a word. One silent tear rolled down Sam’s cheek and he was clutching Tromso’s leash with shaking fingers.

      No. She wasn’t leaving them. She didn’t care if she had to hack up a lung until Tanner and Marilyn arrived.

      “I’m fine. I’ll stay with them,” she whispered.

      The paramedic looked like he was going to argue, but then there was some yelling closer to the building, so he shrugged and took off. Bree sat watching the burning building, clutching two tiny hands in hers, trying to establish the extent of the damage in the dark. And offering up constant prayers that no one had been hurt.

      When Tanner jogged over to her a couple minutes later, she didn’t resist at all as he pulled her against his chest. He smelled like smoke, but she was sure she smelled the same. “Everybody’s out and accounted for. Doesn’t look like anyone was hurt or that there was much damage to the living quarters.”

      Marilyn clutched her kids to her and they all watched the firefighters attack the blaze in the back of the building. It looked like most of it was contained back there, not the living quarters, but it was impossible to tell.

      More townspeople continued to gather around. Tanner had to step up into his role of law enforcement when some teenagers kept trying to get too close to record for social media what was mostly now just smoke.

      The blaze was completely out before Bree let Tanner lead her over to one of the ambulances so she could be examined. The younger, female paramedic was quite a bit less friendly than the guy Bree had met outside, stuffing an oxygen mask over Bree’s face and suggesting she go to the hospital for follow-up. Bree didn’t want to go but knew from the determined look in Tanner’s eyes there would be a trip to get her lungs checked out in the next few hours. She might as well get it out of the way tonight.

      Because it looked like there was going to be a whole lot of stuff requiring her attention tomorrow.

       Chapter Four

      Tanner had almost lost Bree.

      Two days later that knowledge still wasn’t ever very far out of his mind. If he’d gotten there one minute later, if he hadn’t been thinking with his libido rather than his brain, she would’ve opened that door and provided the fire somewhere to escape.

      And the escape would’ve been straight through her.

      She hadn’t been aware that the screeching noise they heard from inside the room was from the fire building in intensity. Opening the door would’ve provided more oxygen to the flames and caused them to engulf her.

      If she’d opened that door, they would’ve been planning the final details of a funeral today rather than a wedding. Fear still clawed inside his gut at the thought, as he sat staring at the charred remains of the doorway.

      “Pretty jarring to look at, isn’t it?” Grand County fire inspector Randall Abrahams said from behind Tanner.

      It would take a couple of days before the official report would be filed and Tanner could act on it, so Randall had agreed to meet Tanner out here as a personal favor in order to try to get this wrapped up before the wedding.

      “You have no idea. Bree almost opened that