Can't Help Falling In Love (The Sullivans Book 3) Page 3

  Megan swallowed hard, reaching out to cover the other woman’s hand. “Thank you so much,” she whispered. “If you hadn’t told him—”

  Megan shot a glance at Summer, who was happily unwrapping her doll. Her daughter seemed to be totally engrossed in her toy, but Megan knew darn well that she was actually taking in every little thing around her. Every expression, every word. Megan didn’t want Summer to turn what had almost happened into a fear that she’d take forward with her.

  But Mrs. Thompson was shaking her head. “That firefighter was the real hero. They didn’t want to let anyone else into the building, but he didn’t hesitate to run in to save you. I just hope he’s all right after what happened to him.”

  Megan looked up at her friend in horror. “He was hurt?”

  Susan frowned. “You didn’t know?”

  “No.” She couldn’t remember anything after they’d made it down the stairs.

  “Mommy?”

  Megan knew she should be pulling it together for her daughter, that it was the most important thing for her to do, but instead, all she could do was ask, “How badly?”

  Her friend sighed, looking even more upset. “They had to carry him out on a stretcher.”

  Megan felt just as she had when they’d been stuck in the bathtub—like she could hardly breathe, like the darkness was coming down over her again.

  She jumped up from the couch. “I have to call the firehouse. I have to find out how he’s doing.” Susan stood with her and followed her to the front desk. “I need to use your phone. Please.”

  The young man behind the counter nodded quickly, and she realized he must have overheard their conversation. “Of course. No problem.”

  Her hand was shaking on the receiver as she called Information for the phone number of fire dispatch. She asked them to transfer her to the firehouse in her neighborhood.

  By the time the call went through, she was near-frantic. A man’s low voice barely said hello before she was saying, “I’m the woman the firefighter saved yesterday. Me and my daughter. I just heard he was hurt. I need to know how he’s doing. Was he hurt badly? How long will it be until he’s okay again?”

  The man on the other end of the line was silent for a long moment. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t give you that information.”

  “He put himself in terrible danger to save me and my daughter. I need to thank him. I need him to know how much what he did means to us.”

  “I understand how upset you are, but—” He stopped speaking, and she heard another voice in the background. “Hold on a moment.”

  Another man came on the line. “Is this Ms. Harris?”

  She was momentarily surprised the man knew her name. “Yes, this is Megan Harris.”

  “My name is Todd Phillips. I’m the captain at Station 5. How are you and your daughter doing?”

  “We left the hospital a few hours ago,” she quickly told him.

  “I’m very glad to hear that. And I’m sorry about the fire in your apartment.”

  Megan knew the time would come when she’d grieve the loss of all her precious mementos of her daughter’s baby years and of David. But the loss of their things paled in comparison to the horrifying knowledge that a firefighter had gotten hurt while saving them.

  “I need to thank the firefighter in person for what he did to help me and my daughter.”

  She could almost hear the fire captain shake his head across the line. “I’m sorry, Ms. Harris, but—”

  “Please,” she begged. “I owe him everything.”

  Everything.

  After a short silence, he said, “I’ll need to check with Gabe first.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  She gave the fire captain the number for the phone at the front desk before hanging up, but even as she and Summer finally went upstairs to their new temporary home, and her daughter zombied out again in front of the Disney Channel, Megan couldn’t stop worrying about the man—Gabe—who had given up his own safety for theirs.

  She was on the phone in her room, wading through more red tape with a representative from her bank, when there was a knock on her door. The young man from the front desk was there with a message.

  “A fire captain called. He said he’ll meet you at the hospital in thirty minutes.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Out. Gabe Sullivan wanted out of the damn hospital bed. He wanted to yank the IV out of his arm, too, and was just about to do that when his mother walked in.

  “Don’t you dare take that out.”

  Mary Sullivan had already been in to see him earlier in the day, but this time she’d returned with two of his brothers and their significant others.

  Nicola ran forward. “Oh, my God, I was so worried about you!”

  When Marcus’s pop-star girlfriend had heard that the city’s fire stations were facing heavy budget cuts, it had been her idea to play a show to raise money for them. She was clearly alarmed that at the tail end of her acoustic benefit concert, Station 5 had been called out to the three-story building on Conrad Street…and that Gabe had gotten hurt.

  She threw her arms around him, and he purposefully pulled her closer as Marcus looked on. The way his brother shook his head said he knew exactly what Gabe was doing. Any other time, Marcus would have had him up against the wall for getting this close to his woman, but evidently being stuck in the hospital had some bonuses. Such as the fact that Marcus was too happy that Gabe was alive to lose it over the placement of his hands just above the curve of Nicola’s hips.

  Still, Gabe knew he could push things only so far when Marcus wrapped his hands around Nicola’s waist, growled, “Get your own damn girlfriend,” and yanked her back against him.

  Gabe understood exactly why his oldest brother had fallen for the pop star. She wasn’t just easy on the eyes and talented, she also had a huge heart. Gabe had never been with anyone like that—someone with whom he could actually imagine having a long-term relationship with rather than just a few hours between the sheets.

  Fortunately, a moment after Nicola was pulled away, his brother Chase’s fiancée, Chloe, was taking her place in Gabe’s arms.

  “Damn it,” Chase muttered, “now he’s got my girl. Nothing like being a hero to make women throw themselves at him.”

  Clearly, they were all so glad he was okay that they’d let just about anything slip right about now. Everyone except his mother, who was staring at him with eagle eyes.

  “I just spoke to the doctor, and he’s informed me that you’ll be staying here for another night so that they can do one more CAT scan. I’m glad about that. You took a serious hit on the head. We all need to make sure you’re perfectly healthy.”

  “Aw, Mom,” Gabe said, sounding more like a fourteen-year-old boy than a twenty-eight-year-old grown man. “I feel fine.” His head ached like a son of a bitch, but he’d suffered hangovers nearly as bad as this.

  “Since I can see that the beam that hit you knocked out what little common sense you have, I’m going to trust the doctor.” He barely stifled his groan at being stuck in a small hospital room for so many hours on end when his mother added, “And so are you.”

  Chase was doing a pretty good job of trying to act as if the bandage on Gabe’s head wasn’t that big a deal. But Marcus, who had stepped into their father’s role when he’d passed away more than twenty years ago, was clearly concerned.

  “How did this happen, Gabe? I know you’ve always been smart out there. But from what the news reports have said about the fire, the building wasn’t safe to go into at the point you did.” His brother’s expression tightened even further. “Not even close to safe.”

  Gabe wasn’t surprised that Marcus was the one to call him on what he’d done. Marcus had always dropped everything to help them when they needed it, and even though Marcus now had someone really special in his life, Gabe knew he would never stop worrying about each and every one of them.

  Although the rescue had almost ended in disaster, Gabe wouldn’t have done a damn thing differently. Not when he could still see the helpless little girl in her mother’s arms, Megan’s big eyes pleading with him to save the person she loved most in the world.

  “The building wasn’t empty.” It was the only explanation necessary for a firefighter.

  “You could have died, Gabe.”

  He held his oldest brother’s gaze. “You’re right. I could have.” He waited a beat before saying, “But I’m still here.”

  Marcus blew out a hard breath. “How many goddamned lives are you going to burn through playing hero?”

  “Marcus!” their mother exclaimed.

  Wanting to break through the tension in the hospital room, knowing this was just all part of being a firefighter’s family, Gabe said, “It’s okay, Mom. This is Marcus’s way of showing he cares.”

  Fortunately, Nicola helped thaw things out in the room by laughing at Gabe’s statement. When Marcus glared at his girlfriend, she merely grinned at him and said, “We all know you’re like one of those hard candies with a gooey center, Marcus.” He turned the full force of his scowl at her, but when she went up on her toes and kissed him, he stopped scowling.

  Before Marcus—or anyone else—could start in on Gabe again, he yawned big and loud. One sibling after another had been in and out of his hospital room all day. The nurse had even said at one point, “How many of you are there? My patient needs his rest.” Of course, when Ryan had flirted shamelessly with the woman, she’d agreed to bend visiting hours as much as she could for the Sullivan clan.

  Picking up on his signal, his mother began to shoo them out, kissing him on the cheek before leaving. “If the doctors give you the all clear and let you go home tomorrow, I’ll be by your house with food.”

  He could tak
e care of feeding himself, but he knew helping him like that made his mother feel better about what had happened…or, more to the point, about what had almost happened. She’d never been crazy about the dangers that came with his being a firefighter, but she’d supported him anyway.

  “Not if,” he said, “when.” And then, with another hug for her, he added, “Thanks, Mom.”

  They left, and he had just closed his eyes for a few minutes when another knock came at his door. His captain, Todd, stepped into the room.

  “How’re you feeling, Gabe?”

  “Good, Captain.”

  He moved to sit up straighter on the bed, and Todd shook his head. “You’re fine just like that. I know your skull must hurt like hell.” He took a good, long look at Gabe. “I’ll be sure to tell the guys at the station that you’re looking good. Better than most of them look when they haven’t been hit with a falling beam,” he joked, then nodded back to the doorway. “Are you ready to see Ms. Harris and her daughter, Summer?”

  No, he thought, I’d be better off never seeing those eyes again.

  He’d thought about Megan and her daughter one too many times for comfort. Not just because he was mentally reviewing the rescue, trying to look for what he could have done differently, how he could have gotten them out faster and more safely—but because he hadn’t been able to forget her strength, how hard she’d fought to stay conscious and what a fighter she’d been every single second of the harrowing journey from her burning apartment to the safety of the street.

  Still, he understood that fire victims often felt compelled to say thank you to the men who had saved them. Especially in a case like this, where they’d barely held death at bay.

  “Sure.” He began to nod, but a sharp shooting pain stopped him.

  Catching his grimace, Todd said, “I’ll ask Megan and her daughter to come back later.”

  Megan fit her, Gabe had found himself thinking one too many times. Megan was pretty and strong all at the same time. It would be better to think of her as Ms. Harris. Although, he had to wonder, was there a husband? And if so, where had he been during the fire, and why wasn’t he here with them now?

  “No,” Gabe said, “it’ll be better if I see them now.”

  He knew how it would go. She’d say thank you, he’d tell her he was happy to see her and her daughter doing so well, and that would be that. No more being haunted by her eyes, or by remembering the surprising strength she’d shown as she’d crawled across the floor of her apartment and down the stairs.

  A couple of minutes later, Todd walked back in with Megan and her daughter. Ignoring the pain in his head, Gabe sat up higher and forced a smile on his face.

  And then his eyes locked with Megan’s, and his smile froze in place.

  My God, he found himself thinking before he could shove the thought away, she’s beautiful.

  The last time he’d seen her face, it had been through a thick haze of dark smoke and the knowledge that one wrong move meant their lives were over. Her eyes were just as big and pretty as he had remembered. Her limbs looked as lean and strong as they had when he’d been helping to move her along the floor, but now he could see the softness in her, the sweet curves of her breasts and hips in her T-shirt and jeans. He couldn’t stop staring at the startling green of her eyes, the silky dark hair falling across her shoulders and the way her pretty young daughter was a carbon copy of her, the only difference being their hair color.

  She seemed just as stunned as he, and for a long moment, the two of them just stared at each other in silence, until her daughter ran over to him and threw her arms around him.

  “Thank you for saving me and Mommy.”

  The little girl’s arms were just as strong as her mother’s. Trying not to wince as a bolt of pain shot through his forehead, he said, “You’re welcome, Summer. How old are you?”

  “I turn seven on Saturday.”

  She beamed at him and right then and there he lost a piece of his heart to the pretty little girl with the two missing front teeth.

  “Happy birthday.” He’d make sure to send her a gift from the station.

  Movement caught his eye. Megan was coming closer to him and, yet again, once he looked up at her, he couldn’t seem to pull his gaze away. Without realizing what he was doing, he scanned her left hand for a wedding band and found it bare.

  “Mr. Sullivan, I can’t even begin to thank you for what you did.”

  He would have asked her to call him Gabe, but he knew his name would sound way too good coming from her full lips. Already his brain was starting to spin off into a fantasy of what it would sound like to hear her say his name in distinctly different circumstances, circumstances that would involve one less child and one less fire captain in the room…and a hell of a lot fewer clothes. He might have a bitch of a headache, but everything else was working just fine.

  As it was, he couldn’t take his eyes off her gorgeous mouth, which was wobbling slightly. She clamped her lips tightly together as she quickly brushed her fingertips over her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she said with a small laugh that held no actual laughter in it. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.”

  “She keeps doing that,” Summer told him in a stage whisper as her mother worked to win the battle with her tears.

  He whispered back, “It’s perfectly normal.”

  “We wanted—needed—to come and say thank you.” Megan’s eyes moved over his bandages before she added, “And to make sure that you were okay.”

  His voice was much gruffer than usual. “I’m okay.”

  “I’m so glad.”

  “How are you both? You inhaled a lot of smoke.”

  She gave him a small smile that did crazy things to his insides. “We’re both fine.” She put her hand to her throat. “The doctor said I’ll only sound like a frog for a few more days.”

  “You’ve got to hear her ribbit,” Summer told him. “She sounds exactly like the frog we have in my class at school. Do it for him, Mommy.”

  This time Megan’s soft laugh was closer to a real one. “I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear me ribbit, Summer.”

  The power of her smile, the way her eyes lit up and a sweet dimple appeared in her left cheek, rocked all the way through him. He could get drunk on her smiles—was already feeling as if he’d been knocked off center by just one.

  If Megan were someone he’d met at a coffee shop or bar, if she were one of his siblings’ friends—if she were anyone but someone he’d rescued from a fire—he would have not only been working on ways to get her to stay longer, but also to charm her phone number and a date out of her.

  But the only reason she was looking at him with her heart in her eyes was because he’d saved her and her daughter’s lives. He knew better than to let himself fall for her and her pretty little girl.

  His expression hardened at the memories of what an idiot he’d been in the past when he’d ignored professional boundaries and—stupidly—gotten involved with a fire victim.

  “Of course he wants to hear it,” the little girl said, and then, when he remained silent, turned to him and said, “Don’t you?”

  In the end, Gabe couldn’t let the kid down. “Sure,” he finally said in a tone that implied just the opposite. “Why not?”

  But Megan read him loud and clear, pulling her daughter away from him and into her arms.

  “We didn’t mean to bother you,” she said in a slightly defensive voice.

  He didn’t tell her they hadn’t been a bother. It was better for her to think they had. That way they wouldn’t come back. That way he wouldn’t see either of them again.

  At his curt nod, she said, “I appreciate you letting us come to see you today,” then took her daughter’s hand to pull her out the door, thanking Todd for facilitating the meeting as she went by.

  “Do we have to go already?” the little girl protested. “I bet he has some really cool stories about all the scary things he’s done.”

  In an instant, he saw in Summer the same desire for excitement and adrenaline, to live every single ounce of life, that he’d always had.