Page 90 of In Safe Hands
Chapter 19
It was hard for her to unlock the training room door, but it wasn’t because of fear that time. She was embarrassed and didn’t want to face the people she’d made worry. Ian’s words about growing a pair rang in her head, giving her the strength to stiffen her shoulders and twist the dead bolt.
With the weights moved and the rack dragged off to one side, all she had to do was twist the knob and pull. Daisy decided she was sick of standing on the wrong side of doors because she was too scared to step through them. Blowing out a hard breath, she closed her fingers around the knob and opened the door.
Ian, looking extra-large in his bunker gear, was leaning one shoulder against the hallway wall. He’d removed his mask and pushed up the clear face shield onto his helmet. Reluctantly, she met his gaze and was surprised he didn’t look angry.
“Aren’t you mad?” she asked.
He seemed honestly confused by her question. “No. Why should I be?”
Before she could answer, Chris came barreling toward them. The force of his hug lifted her feet off the ground and squeezed the air out of her lungs.
“Dais!” His voice was rough. “Jesus, Dais. You scared the shit out of me.”
She wrapped her arms around him, feeling his heart hammering against her. The realization of how scared he’d been brought another rush of guilt. She’d done that to him. What kind of horrible, selfish person was she, to endanger Ian’s life and to terrify the man she loved?
“They wouldn’t let me past the perimeter.” His arms tightened even more, and she squeezed him in return, trying to apologize without words. “All I could do was stare at the house, just waiting for the explosion.”
He took a step back, although he kept hold of her shoulders. With a little space between them, she could see Chris’s face and the destroyed look on it.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was my fault. I’m the one who scared everyone.”
“Fuck.” He moved his hands from her shoulders to her face, cupping it gently. His fingers were shaking. “I thought I’d lose you.”
She grabbed his wrists, not to pull his hands away, but because she needed to touch him. Opening her mouth, she wanted to tell him how much he meant to her, how much she regretted putting that tortured look on his face, but what came out was something different. “I did a peroneal strike on Ian.”
Chris blinked. “What?”
His hands prevented her from turning her head toward him, but she could see enough of Ian in her peripheral vision to tell that he looked amused. “I’m sorry. It was just instinct. He was going to do the fireman’s carry and take me outside, and I just couldn’t go.” Dropping her gaze, she stared at Chris’s chin. “Not yet. I’ll do it, I promise. Just…not yet.”
Chris was quiet for too long of a time. Although she wanted to check out his expression, to see if he looked mad or exasperated or impatient or exhausted, she just couldn’t bring herself to look any higher than his chin. It was a nice chin, strong and square with a hint of stubble, but it didn’t give her much feedback as to what he was feeling.
“Knee strike?” he finally asked, and surprise allowed her to meet his eyes. His expression didn’t show any of the emotions she’d been expecting. Instead, he looked…blank.
She nodded slowly, wondering what was behind his impassive mask.
“Nice. You took him down with one knee strike?” His mouth curled up in a proud smile. “Look at you, warrior woman.”
There was the sound of a throat clearing from Ian’s direction. “I wouldn’t say she took me down.”
“Not all the way,” Daisy agreed, feeling a little light-headed from relief that neither Chris nor Ian was furious with her. “He just sort of sagged a little, and I was able to pull my arm free. I was going to land a couple more kicks, just to make sure he stayed down, but then I remembered he was Ian, not a bad guy, so I just ran.”
“That’s the whole point of our training,” Chris said, his eyes warm as they fixed on hers. “Getting away. Not that I don’t wish Walsh had managed to catch you and drag you out of this house.”
The thought of what might have happened if she’d been a little slower still had the ability to turn her legs into rubber. The logical portion of her brain scoffed at her for fearing going outside more than being inside a gas-filled house, but it couldn’t change her body’s conviction that terrible things would happen once she stepped through her front door.
“Hey, Jennings. Can you let go of your lady long enough for me to do a quick check?” a male voice behind Daisy asked. When Daisy turned to see who’d spoken, Chris’s hands dropped away from her face and landed on her shoulders again. He tugged her closer, so her back pressed against his front.
“Junior,” he greeted the firefighter, who was already pulling out a blood-pressure cuff from his medical bag.
“Why don’t we take this party into another room?” Ian suggested. “It’s getting crowded in this hallway.”
“Things are a little busy back there.” Junior jerked his head in the direction of the living room. “The repair guy’s here fixing the leak, with the sheriff hovering over him asking questions about what caused it. That, and the windows wouldn’t open, so we had to break some of them when we were ventilating. They’re boarding them up now.”
“The windows are broken?” Her stomach jumped at the thought of the open spaces that would surround her without the protective glass barriers.
Chris’s hands started to massage her shoulders as he moved his mouth close to her ear. “I’ll call Lenny over at the hardware store and see how soon he can get here. Until then, they’ll be covered in plywood.”
