Page 109 of Seal of Honor
Audrey stumbled back, a scream trapped in her throat. The heat was unbearable now, the flames an oppressive monster closing in on her. She turned to run but tripped over something solid. She crashed onto the floor hard, gasping as her shoulder took the brunt of the fall. Pain exploded up her arm, and she cringed, squeezing her eyes shut to try and block it out. Gabe’s cane had tripped her, and it now sat on the floor next to her. She picked it up and held it to her chest as her eyes burned and smoke clogged her lungs.
Gabe.
The thought of him made her heart ache. What would he do when he found out she was gone? Would he blame himself? Would he retreat into the hard, impenetrable shell she’d noticed the first time she’d met him?
She couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing him smile again, never hearing his rare, full-bodied laugh that warmed her from the inside out. With a surge of adrenaline, she forced herself to her feet, clutching Gabe’s cane tightly.
She needed to fight. To breathe. To live. For Gabe.
* * *
He’s going to kill her.
The words echoed inside Gabe’s head, a gruesome mantra that played over and over and over as he hobbled up the driveway in a ridiculous lopsided run. Earlier, when confessing to Audrey he’d screwed up because he was afraid of loving her, he said it terrified him more than anything else he’d ever faced as a man or a SEAL. At the time, he’d been telling the absolute truth.
Not so anymore.
This terrified him more. Knowing that she may be in trouble right now, that he could be losing her at this very second, and he couldn’t get to her fast enough because he’d left his cane in the bedroom and his damn foot didn’t want to hold anymore.
Bang!
A gunshot.
Gabe staggered and almost went to his knees there in the driveway. “Audrey!”
No answer.
Screw the pain in his foot. He didn’t care if the fucking thing fell off.
Redoubling his speed, he leaped onto the porch and slammed through the front door. Smoke. It clogged his nose and assaulted his eyes. Flames danced in the hallway, eating their way across the floor and ceiling into the living room.
“Audrey!”
He spotted a body in the flames, grotesquely withered into a husk, and his heart stopped.
“No!” His voice was a raw gasp. He lurched forward, reaching out towards the charred remains, determined to get her out of the fire, even though he knew it was too late.
Except…
The body was too tall, and what was left of the clothes were all wrong. Dark hair still clung to the charred skin in dark hanks.
It wasn’t her.
His heart started beating again, and he looked around, pulling his shirt up to cover his nose and mouth. “Audrey!”
The roar of the flames swallowed the echo of his call, and the house groaned in protest all around him as it succumbed to the fire. Then, a cough—faint, muffled. It came from the right, away from the raging inferno, toward the bedroom.
Gabe staggered towards the sound, his instincts overpowering the sharp pain radiating up from his ankle and the fire blistering his skin. He heard another cough, weaker this time, and burst into the room.
“Audrey!”
The sight that greeted him made his breath hitch. There she was, slumped against the far wall under the window, his cane clutched in her hands like a lifeline. It looked as if she’d tried to open the window but hadn’t had the strength to get it all the way up.
He scooped her into his arms and tried not to think about how limp she was, tried not to worry about whether she was breathing. He just hugged her close and got her out of that hell.
Outside, Gabe carried her to the edge of the beach and sat her down where the waves rolled up and kissed the sand. No doubt the salt would sting like a bitch in her burns, but he had to get the chemicals he smelled on her off her skin. She moaned when the ocean rolled over her and struggled against his hold.
“I got you, Aud. Shh, honey. I know it hurts, but I’m here.”
