Page 22 of Her Rugged Guardian

It didn’t suit my mood at all, the darkness reminding me of too many memories.

I slapped another row of singles on, crawling closer to the roofline, forced to straddle the peak in order to get to the last course on the one side.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

The feisty vixen’s face continuously slipped into my mind, making me uncomfortable as hell. She wasn’t my type. I was into buxom blondes. Yeah, the bigger the tits the better. Not some chick with thick dark hair and dancing green eyes. And I sure had never been into the next-door girl types, the ones with just a hint of freckles across the bridge of their nose and their rosy cheeks.

Shit. There I went again. I had to drive the woman out of my mind.

Little Miss Cinnamon Girl had risked running into me again by returning to her car, still glaring up at me as she unloaded groceries and cans of paint. I looked forward to seeing her handiwork. I’d looked her up for the sheer hell of it. I’d been right in she’d been a bigwig in the world of advertising, vice president of a large firm in DC. She’d risen in the ranks quickly after graduating with her master’s degree, her work rivaling the big New York firms. While I knew her mother had left her the B & B, I still found it surprising that Cassandra had decided to toss aside her high dollar salary to take on such a significant challenge.

What the hell did I know? I wasn’t some relationship guru by any means. Huffing, I had to stretch to grab another shingle, hearing the first rumble of thunder a little closer than I wanted.

A sudden vision popped into my mind hearing the noise and I was instantly frozen where I was as the flashback rolled, the images vibrant as if they’d just happened yesterday.

“Everyone needs to get the fuck out of here! The place is going to blow,” Shane called out from behind me.

Smoke was billowing, swirling in black all around the team. However, I was certain I’d heard a voice crying out for help. “Not yet, Cap’n. We still have someone inside.”

“Everyone is accounted for, bud,” Mike said from behind me. “We gotta get out of here. The propane tanks are going to blow.”

“Not until I do another sweep.” I’d never been one to follow orders and this time was no exception. I was certain one of the students remained inside. There was too much commotion, kids running everywhere. There was no way every child in the school had been accounted for.

“Get back here!” Captain Biddle yelled, but as usual, I ignored him, pushing deeper into the blackness, dragging the hose behind me.

Creaking sounds were all around me, the timbers of the roof ready to cave in. The fire was burning hot, flames licking up the sides of the walls, spiraling across the roofline in an eerie shade of blue. I moved through the debris, pushing it aside, my heavy breathing the only sound I was able to hear.

Whoosh!

“Jake!” one of the men called, his voice muffled by the roaring flames.

I’d never seen a building go up this quickly, the fire out of control even though other departments had been called in to help. There was no chance of saving the building. I doused a firewall standing between me and another section of the school, forced to stop and concentrate on my breathing.

“Is anybody there?” I called out, uncertain even if anyone remained inside they could hear me. As a portion of the roof caved in, I was forced to duck, barely avoiding being crushed by the heavy weight. An ache formed in my chest. It was becoming useless. I’d be forced to turn back. I waited for thirty seconds longer before turning away.

“Help…”

“Fuck,” I snarled, popping the last of the nails into the shingle. The vision was too much to bear, the ache in my heart gripping, stealing my breath as it had done before. Why had the ugliness come back to haunt me today?

“You need to live your life. You need to stop thinking about the tragedy.”

The words had been said by everyone who’d pretended to care about me as well as those who didn’t give a shit. Well, fuck that. I sat down on the roof, trying to catch my breath. The truth was that I hadn’t wanted to live. I didn’t deserve to live. I closed my eyes, doing everything I could to ignore the memories.

That’s the moment the sky opened up, rain pouring down over me in torrents. I lifted my head, glaring up at the sky, throwing my middle finger toward the heavens. If only the night of the fire there would have been rain pouring down from the sky. Then maybe, just maybe I could have saved her life.

Yeah, and maybe I’d want to live.

CHAPTER 7

Cassandra

No man had six-pack abs like Jake. It wasn’t human.

Ugh. Why had I been staring at him? And he’d seen me. Even worse.

What did it say about a recently single woman who was thinking like a hussy? That’s the word my mother would use. The number of lewd images that had crossed my mind was pathetic, even if they were tasty.

Jessica would be jumping up and down about now, pumping her fist as she dared me to take a tumble on the wild side. Not this girl. Not ever again. I’d done that once, grabbed a brilliant white tee shirt that had turned yellow in time and been run over by a bus. And not just any bus. One of those three-ton monsters holding metal bands and all their equipment.

---