sickness. But now you live with people who aren’t sick. People who try really hard to stay well. Because it’s more fun. Do you like living with us?’
‘Yes.’ Then, almost defiantly, ‘Yes! And I don’t like being sick. I didn’t want to be burned. I was scared.’
‘No one wants to be sick. If you’re sick you can’t run, swim, jump on your pogo stick, make the best Easter buns in the world. From now on you have to stay well so you can do all those things.’
Dom was stroking Martin’s hair, softly, softly. His hands were stained black, his face was grimed, he’d come close to death himself, but it seemed now that he had all the time in the world. This man was the gentlest man she’d ever met, Erin thought.
She’d thought she’d met the most caring of doctors.
She was wrong.
‘Dom went all through the house to find you, Martin,’ Erin whispered, guessing there’d been healing tonight but instinctively guessing there was room-even a need-for lightness now. For both Dom and for Martin. ‘Dom wore a big, wet blanket and he crawled through the house looking for you. He looked like a big, wet bear.’
‘And Erin looked like a littler bear,’ Dom said, seeing where she was going and going with her. ‘She crawled, too. Mummy and Daddy Bear looking for Baby Bear in the cupboard.’
And suddenly, amazingly, Martin managed a smile. A bit watery. A bit pale, but a smile for all that.
‘I’m not a baby bear. I’m not fuzzy enough.’
Dom chuckled.
It was an amazing sound.
Erin blinked and suddenly her eyes widened and she looked at him-she really looked at him-and the thought came to her with such blinding clarity it almost hurt.
This guy’s awesome.
And…
I could really, really love this guy.
And…
Stupid or not, I think I already do.
Dom was hugging Martin and smiling, but suddenly his gaze shifted and he was looking at her. Their gazes locked and she knew she ought to look away but she didn’t.
Big, gentle, kind, clever, he was so damned sexy that if the kids weren’t here she could have had him on the spot.
It must be the shock, she thought, stunned. To be thinking of jumping him, right here, right now…it was totally inappropriate.
But, oh, if she could…
He was looking a question. She tried to pull herself together-and failed.
‘I…I…’ She couldn’t think of what to say next.
‘Are you okay?’
‘No,’ she managed. ‘I’m a bit shocked. I’m a bit full of smoke. If…if you don’t mind I need to go see if the house is still standing. It…Maybe it’s important.’
‘We’re all fine,’ Dom said. He couldn’t move. He had his arms full of Martin but Erin was so choked up, the need to leave was imperative. She went to rise but Dom’s hand came out and gripped her wrist, holding her down.
‘You really are okay?’ he demanded, sounding worried.
‘I really am okay,’ she managed. ‘I’m just a bit…a bit…Well, we’re fine. But if you don’t mind, I left my shoes in the house and I need to see if the firemen have saved them.’
‘Your shoes,’ Dom said blankly.
‘And my Easter egg,’ Nathan said from behind them.
‘And my pogo stick,’ Martin whispered.
‘Of course,’ Erin said. ‘See? I need to save shoes and egg and pogo stick.’
‘But-’
‘I need to go, Dom,’ she said, more urgently this time, but then as his hold on her wrist tightened she couldn’t help herself.
She turned to face him, head on. His face was right there. His eyes were on a level with hers. His mouth…
Yeah, okay, his mouth. Inappropriate, inappropriate, inappropriate.
What the hell. He was tugging her closer.
She let herself be tugged.
And kissed.
What had she expected?
A feather kiss? A kiss of reassurance, friendship? It stood not a snowball’s chance in a bushfire of being anything so tame. His kiss-his demanding hold-his touch-were an affirmation of the blast of emotion that had just hit her.
His kiss was…hers.
That’s what it felt like. Here was an unlocked link, an open part of her that had been left free, waiting for the right connection. It was a connection of heat, of want, of need, of everything she’d been waiting for all her life. Here it was, in this one kiss.
In this one man.
Everything faded. Everything.
To an observer maybe the kiss was light. She couldn’t melt against him-Martin was already there. She was somehow kissing him-being kissed-over the top of Martin’s head. But Dom’s kiss was as demanding as hers, taking comfort, taking heat, taking whatever she had to give.
Dom. Her hero.
Her man.
In the last couple of days, her world had been blasted apart. Or maybe her world had been blasted apart twenty or more years ago with the death of her brother and sister, and maybe it had taken until now to come out from under the rubble. Since her siblings’ deaths she’d been drifting, trying to make sense of everything, but nothing quite had. She’d been trying to make herself three people.
But she couldn’t be what she was supposed to be. Her tumble down the cliff had shown her just how stupid that ambition was. She’d nearly died. And now again tonight…This was the only life she had. This was her life. Hers.
And now it felt like she was giving that life away-but gaining so much in return. Dom. A life for a life. It felt right, it felt wonderful, and it felt like the other half of her whole had slipped magically into place.
The kiss extended far past the point where a casual kiss would have stopped. For she couldn’t break the link. Dom was leaning against the fire truck, his arms full of Martin, his legs draped with dog, but he was kissing her just as much as she was kissing him. Their mouths were fused in a searing blast of heat that left the rest of her weak and useless. Every fibre of her being was focused on that kiss.
Somewhere behind them a window broke. The smash of broken glass hauled them out of their thrall. If it hadn’t, maybe they’d still be kissing. For both of them this night had meant terror, and in this kiss both of them had found release.
But it was more than that.
As Erin pulled back she knew it was far, far more than that. But Dom was looking confused, and the boys were looking at her in confusion as well.
‘Kiss us, too,’ Nathan whispered, and she gave a shaky laugh and did just that.
‘Of course. ’Cos we’re great.’ She kissed Nathan on the tip of his nose; she kissed the subdued Martin on the top of his head; and then, for good measure, she kissed Marilyn’s weird, squashed nose as well. ‘We’re all fantastic. Now, if you don’t mind, I really need to go find a pogo stick and some eggs.’
CHAPTER NINE
AMAZINGLY the fire had been contained to one room.
