Wilde Fire (Forever Wilde 3)

Smoke and heat came off his gear in stifling waves as I approached.

“You motherfucker!” I screamed. “How could you do that?”

His head popped up and he noticed me for the first time, eyes going wide and mouth dropping open. He pulled his SCBA off and dropped it and the photo album to the ground before holding both hands up to me in defense.

“Seth, I…” he began.

“Fuck you. I fucking hate you, you selfish prick. Fuck. You.” I’d never been so angry and terrified and heartbroken as the moment I’d seen the love of my life walk into a burning building. I turned around and raced for my vehicle, not even bothering to man up and be the goddamned sheriff on the scene of an emergency.

One of my deputies was assisting Chief Paige who was the incident commander, but I still acted unprofessionally by lighting out of there as if the house wasn’t the only thing on fire.

I got as far as the end of the long ranch drive before I realized my face was wet and my chest was heaving. By the time I pulled back up at my lake house, I was practically hyperventilating.

I didn’t even notice the headlights behind me the whole way.

“Seth, wait!” Otto called, jumping down from his vehicle and racing toward me. He’d removed the turnout gear and most likely left it on scene with the truck, and he was only in an old T-shirt and athletic pants. The T-shirt stuck to his sweat-slick skin and there were soot marks here and there across his face where the mask hadn’t covered him. It had been a while since he’d buzzed his hair and the short locks were sticking up half damp and every which way from his helmet.

“Baby, please,” he called. “Please don’t be mad at me. I had to go in there.”

That was when I realized he was crying too. He never cried. The man was stoic as hell. I was the crybaby of the two of us. The sight of the tear tracks on his face and the sadness in his eyes gutted me.

I raced toward him and grabbed him in my arms in a tight hug.

“You fucking jerk,” I cried into his neck. “No you didn’t. How could you do that? What was so important?”

He pulled back with a sniff and shrugged.

“I grabbed my mother’s favorite photo album. It’s like the family Bible, Seth. I couldn’t tell her it was gone. Those are her babies in there.”

I pulled him in tight again, caught between wanting to kill him and kiss him.

“Don’t you understand that this is her baby right here?”

Chapter 22

Otto

Otto,

Tisha woke up in the middle of the night last night with croup which means she was struggling to catch her breath. I thought I was going to lose my shit. My fingers couldn’t dial 9-1-1 fast enough. Even though my mind knew the breathing sounded worse than it was, thinking your loved one is in danger.., god, it’s terrifying.

I hope you never know what it’s like to fear for your child’s life. But then again, it comes with the territory of being a parent, and I’ve always wanted you to be a parent. You’ll make an incredible father, Otto. You are smart, kind, loving, and fun as hell. If only I could be there when you meet your first child. Wilde Man, I’d give anything in the world to share that with you.

Love always,

Walker

(Unsent)

I didn’t tell him the truth. Well, not the whole truth anyway. I hadn’t just wanted to save my mother’s photo album. I’d wanted to save some of the letters I wrote to him and never sent. And more than that, I’d wanted to grab the wedding band that had been in my mother’s family for generations. Originally, there were two of them. One was her grandfather’s and one was her father’s. When she’d showed them to us, she’d handed the rings to Hudson first, but he’d passed one of them to me without even saying a word.

It was our maternal grandfather’s ring, and I wished with my whole heart I could give it to Seth Walker one day.

I wanted to tell him the truth—that the idea of putting that ring on his finger was one of the only things that gave me a sliver of hope during some of my darkest times. I’d stashed it in my secret spot in my closet, but thanks to the make-out session we’d had previously, the little velvet bag it was in had been left sitting on my dresser. Had it still been in the wall, there was no way I’d have been able to get it before the fire overtook me.

Things really did happen for a reason.

After we made our way into the lake house and showered off the smoke and sweat, we fell asleep wrapped around each other’s naked bodies under only a thin cotton sheet. I was still burning up from going into the house on a hot June night, and the only thing keeping me pressed up against Walker’s warm body was my desperation to reassure him I was here and I was safe.