He backed into her room. Slammed the door shut with his booted heel and whirled to face the window.
Sydney struggled in his arms. “Gunner, I can...” She coughed. “I can help...”
He put her on her feet. Only long enough to shove open her bedroom window and stare down below. A one-story drop. Maybe a broken leg, depending on how he landed. Could be much worse, though, if he—
“I can’t go through that window.” Sydney had backed away. “I can’t jump!”
He caught her arms and pulled her right back against him. “You can’t go down those stairs, baby. You wouldn’t make it.” Not without receiving burns all over her body.
There were tears in her eyes. “I can’t take that drop, I—” Then her eyes widened. Her hands twisted in his grasp, and her short nails dug into his skin. “The storage room down the hall. There’s a lattice leading down from the window there. We can go on that!”
If the lattice held them.
Sydney scrambled and jerked on a pair of sneakers
Giving a grim nod, he grabbed for the blanket and bundled her up once more.
“Gunner, stop, I can—”
He had her in his arms. If the fire was coming, it would get him first.
He rushed down the hallway, holding her tight. The rising smoke was so thick now that every step burned his lungs. He coughed hard, trying to clear his throat and chest. Not working.
Then he was at the other door. Inside that storage room. Carefully, he put her down on her feet. The window didn’t want to open, as if it had been sealed shut, so Gunner just used his fist to break the glass. The glass rained down on the ground, his fingers bled, but he didn’t care. He could see the lattice, just to the side. It looked old and shaky, and he sure didn’t have a whole lot of faith in it.
It wasn’t going to hold them both at the same time, that was for sure. But he’d already planned to get her out first.
She’d dropped the cover. It was smoldering, smoking. Sydney’s glance locked on his.
“Go,” he told her. “Get to safety, and I’ll be right behind you.”
She nodded and then she—kissed him.
He hadn’t expected the move and it was all too brief. A frantic brush of her lips against his, and then Sydney was climbing through the window holding tight to that lattice.
As she climbed down, Gunner realized that he was holding his breath.
Then the lattice started to crack. He heard the wood groaning.
Hurry, Syd. Hurry.
Her feet touched down on the ground. “Come on, Gunner!”
He was already out the window. He grabbed the lattice and double-timed it, and when the wood snapped, when the lattice broke in two, he leaped the rest of the way to the ground.
No broken bones. No burns. They were both damn lucky.
He caught Sydney’s hand, and they rushed away from the fire, heading toward Gunner’s truck. The hungry blaze was destroying that house, burning higher and higher with every moment that passed.
If he hadn’t come back, would Sydney have been able to get out on her own? He hadn’t heard any alarms sounding in her house. If she’d been sleeping...
She might never have wakened.
He pulled her into his arms, held her close against his chest. His heart was racing, and fear had sent adrenaline spiking in his blood.
Too close.
He never wanted Sydney that close to death again.
* * *
THE FLAMES WERE sputtering out. Sydney stared at the charred remains of her home. Gutted. The firefighters were still using their hoses, and the scent of ash filled the air.
Sydney stood by Gunner’s truck, her shoulders hunched. The blaze had spread quickly. She’d been in bed, drifting off to sleep, when she’d heard Gunner shouting her name.
Her eyes had flown open. She’d run to her bedroom door, and only then had she felt the heat of the flames and smelled the smoke.
“You’re sure that you had fresh batteries in your smoke detector?” The question came from Logan. As soon as he’d heard about the fire, he’d raced out to the scene. Good thing he’d still been in D.C. Logan and his new wife, Juliana, divided their time between D.C. and Juliana’s beach home in Biloxi.
“Yes, I’m sure.” She’d checked it a week ago. The smoke detector had been working fine then.
It had just failed her tonight.
“Good thing Gunner was here,” Logan murmured. “I think he saved your life.”
Again.
She nodded.
“Uh...just why was Gunner here?”
Her gaze slid to the right. To Gunner. He was talking to some of the firefighters and looking pretty angry.
“Sydney?”
She snapped her attention back to Logan. “He was... He came out earlier to tell me that Slade was doing better, that he was doing outpatient rehab and counseling now.”
Logan nodded. “He is. I saw him at EOD headquarters just yesterday. Seems like a different man...” His words trailed away. He tilted his head to the right. “So...Gunner came out and just...decided to stay with you?”
Why was he asking her all of these questions? “No, he left. I didn’t even realize he was back until—until I heard him yelling my name.” Her gaze slid back to Gunner.
He was staring at her. He started to make his way toward her.
“You can ask Gunner if he saw anything or anyone before the fire started. I sure didn’t see anything. I thought I was alone.”
“Yet Gunner was here.”
Yes, he had been. Why? It wasn’t as if she’d stopped to ask him when they were rushing out of the burning house.
“The chief says it looks like arson. The way the burn marks are sliding across the rooms...” Gunner drew closer as he spoke. “An arson investigator will be out tomorrow to start the investigation.”
“Arson?” Her hand was on her stomach. She dropped it. “Why would someone torch my house?”
“With you in it?” Gunner growled.
She flinched.
“You know the EOD has plenty of enemies.” This came from Logan.
Sydney nodded. Yes, she knew that.
“You’re thinking someone is targeting us again?” Gunner demanded as his stare turned to the other man.
Logan shrugged. “We never found out the identity of the man who sent out the hits before. Just that he was based in South America. We’ve got agents in the EOD who are digging for more intel on him even now.” He paused, glanced toward the charred structure that had been Sydney’s house. “This isn’t random chance, we all know that. I’m going to send out word that all of our agents need to be on alert until we can learn more.”