He’d never been so fucking happy to be breathing in Houston’s humid air.
A fire truck screeched to a stop in front of them and disgorged half a dozen firefighters. One split away from the others and hurried to them. “You just come out of the building?”
“Yes.” He kept Samara against him. They hadn’t come this far for him to let her collapse now. “I don’t know how many people are in the building. We don’t have a full staff on the weekends, so it could be anywhere from ten to a hundred people.” There had been no one else on the executive floor, but that still left twenty-nine other ones.
“Do you know where the fire started?”
“No. We came through the front doors. I didn’t see a fire. Just a hell of a lot of smoke.” Samara started to shake and he held her closer. “We need to sit down. We just ran from the top floor.”
The guy nodded. “We have an ambulance on the way. Grab a curb over there and I’ll get you set.” He motioned to the curb on the opposite side of the street. Another fire truck screamed up, blocking traffic on the other corner of the block, but that didn’t stop people from crowding on the side of the street the firefighter had indicated. Half of them had their phones out, and the other half were talking animatedly as the firefighters went to work suiting up.
Beckett shifted to give the onlookers his back, shielding Samara. He took her shoulders and looked her over. Her dress was haphazard from the run and her feet looked worse for wear, but she seemed fine otherwise. “How are you doing?” He pitched his voice low.
She looked over her shoulder as the building coughed out more smoke. “I don’t know. That was…” She shuddered. “I never want to do that again.”
He pulled her back into his arms and hugged her tight. Little tremors worked their way through her as she clung to him. “You’re safe now. It’s okay. Everything is okay.”
Even as he reassured her, he wasn’t so certain. The main lobby was all marble and steel. There wasn’t a damn thing that could start a fire there by accident—especially not on a Saturday when there was minimum traffic through the building. That pipe wasn’t jammed to block the doors by accident.
Things happened fast after that. The ambulance arrived, which made it impossible to watch what the firefighters were doing. Oxygen masks and blankets were pushed on both Beckett and Samara, and he submitted to the care to ensure that she did, too.
Time stretched on, and eventually there was a disturbance in the crowd. A leggy blonde in shorts and an oversized T-shirt shoved through two men muttering with their heads together. Her gaze caught on him, but then she focused on Samara. “Holy shit, you really are here.”
Beckett belatedly recognized Journey King, his cousin. “She’s fine.”
“That’s nice. I wasn’t talking to you.” She crouched down in front of Samara, her hazel eyes worried. “Unless the smoke damaged your vocal cords and you need him to translate?”
Samara coughed out a laugh and pulled her oxygen mask off. “I’m fine. I had more cardio in thirty minutes than I’ve had in the last three weeks, but I’m fine.”
“You’d say that even if you burned all your hair off and needed half your skin grafted.” She snapped her fingers at a bemused paramedic. “You—is there something wrong with her? Does she need to go to the hospital?”
The guy laughed, drinking her in. “Nah, she’s fine.” He made a visible effort to drag his gaze from Journey’s legs to Samara’s face. “If you get light-headed unexpectedly or have any trouble breathing, come in and get checked out, but you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
“Thanks, handsome.” Journey pushed to her feet. “Let’s get the fuck out of here. Don’t even pretend like you’re going home—you’re coming with me so I can make sure you don’t die in your sleep.”
Samara caught Beckett’s gaze, but allowed Journey to guide her to her feet. She hesitated. “Give me a second.”
His cousin finally deigned to notice his existence. “Beckett.”
“Nice seeing you, Journey.”
She cocked a single eyebrow. “You’re so cute when you’re lying. Holler if you need me, Samara.”
Samara shrugged out of her blanket and folded it neatly. She gingerly crossed to Beckett. He eyed her bare feet. “I’ll return your shoes as soon as they let me back in the building.”
“Beckett…” She sighed. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything at all.” He didn’t want her to leave. He wanted her to come home with him where he would watch over her. Things might not have been actually as dangerous as it seemed when they were running for their lives, but that didn’t change the adrenaline letdown that demanded he take her to bed and hold her until they were both sure everything was okay.
It’s not okay. There’s no way that fire was an accident, which means someone’s gunning for me—and the only real suspect is Lydia fucking King.
Not that Samara will ever believe that.
Keeping their audience in mind, the only contact he allowed himself was to reach out and squeeze her hand. “You’ll feel better if you go with her.” The selfish part of him might hate watching her leave, but he was still glad she had someone who cared enough about her to bully her into staying over. He tightened his grip ever so slightly and stroked her wrist with his thumb where no one could see it. “If you need anything—anything at all—you can call me, Samara. It doesn’t matter what time it is.”
She smiled, though the expression was filled with sadness. “Thank you.” The two words sounded a whole lot like good-bye.
Samara looked
