Chapter 6

Pierce's feethit the floor before he'd even finished flinging the sheets aside. His heart pounded as he grabbed his boxers and pulled them on. He'd joined the fire department not only because he wanted to help his community but also because he enjoyed the thrill of danger. This wasn't the same. Not this time.

"I'll get out of your way, but let me know if there's anything I can do," Holly asked as she slid out of bed. Not as familiar with the room as he was, she found the switch on the bedside lamp and turned it on.

"Out of my way?" he asked, pulling his shirt over his head. Where had his damn pants gone? Ah, there. "You're not in my way, and you don't even have your rental car here."

"I'll just get an Uber or something," she said. Her voice shook, though she was trying to sound casual as she got dressed alongside him.

"No." He would worry far more about her if she had to find her own way back to her Airbnb, which would make dealing with this fire call even harder. Pierce wouldn't mind if she stayed at his place, but then he'd feel like he was abandoning her without her rental. His mind raced through options and quickly landed on the right one. "Come with me."

"Are you sure?" She wiggled her hips as she tugged her skirt back on.

"Yes," both his wolf and his human answered. He already knew what she was to him, but wanting to have her by his side at a moment of such disaster only confirmed it. This wasn't the time to worry about a mate or the implications of bringing her with him, and he let himself fly along on instincts for the moment. "I'm sure."

She got dressed just as quickly as he did and hurried out the door with him, waiting to tie her boots until she got in the truck. "How bad of a fire is it?"

He gripped the wheel as he flew out to the edge of town. He could still hear the dispatcher's voice echoing in his head. We got a call. It's your dad's house. "Bad enough that they sent the whole team out before they called me, so it's not just a stove burner that got out of control."

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

He felt her genuine concern. He needed it, but it only made his situation more difficult. Holly was amazing. She was smart and cute, a demure writer who looked at the world with wide eyes. Tonight, she'd also shown that she could set herself free, her body moving alongside his both at the club and in bed. Now, she was comforting and caring. How unfair was it that she'd only be there for a few more days?

As he rounded the corner, his heart sank into the pit of his stomach. The column of smoke and steam that rose from the house had turned pale, the lights of the fire engines that surrounded it flickering in the misty air. Where once there had stood a beautiful house, a place Pierce would always think of as home, there now only remained a hollowed-out shell. The skeletonized framing supported part of the back wall where the kitchen had been. Hunks of melted metal and plastic that were formerly appliances still lurked there, recognizable only because of their shape and placement to each other. Most of the roof had caved in, and debris had scattered everywhere. "Holy shit."

"Oh, no." Holly put her hand over her mouth.

With the driveway full of emergency vehicles, Pierce parked on the lawn. He stepped onto the grass that Rick had always been so meticulous about. His father would've thrown a fit over tire tracks through his precious greenery, but it didn't matter now. Water squelched up out of the dirt, runoff from the fire department"s efforts to save their chief's home. He spotted a familiar figure standing on the walkway that led up to where the front door used to be and slowly moved toward them.

Holly slipped her fingers between his. "Would you like me to come with you?"

He tightened his grip in answer, walking through a nightmare to where his father stood watching the smoldering remains of the home. "What happened?" His heart had worked its way back up and into his throat, and the words barely strangled out around it.

Rick turned and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Electrical fire." His eyes dodged to the side, noticing Holly. "Hello again, young lady. I'm glad to see you've recovered."

"Yes, thank you. I'm—I'm so sorry for your loss."

Tears glimmered in his eyes as he crossed his arms in front of his chest and turned his gaze back to the subject at hand. "Thank you. I have to say, I've never liked it when we've seen this happen to someone else. It's even harder when it happens to you. Someone else loses their home, and you start thinking about how to help them get a new roof over their head, some clothes, and a couch to sit on. When it's you, you don't even know where to start."

Hayden came around the corner of the house, still clad in his gear. He stripped off his helmet and chucked it on the ground. "Son of a bitch. We got here as fast as we could, Dad."

"You and I both know that sometimes it doesn't matter."

"Still." Hayden did a double take as he noticed Holly and gave her a polite nod. "I'm sorry my brother dragged you along for this. You must think Eugene is nothing but natural disasters at this point."

"That's all right." Holly's hand slipped out of Pierce's and tucked around his waist. "I'm sorry that it's happened."

Pierce returned the embrace, settling his arm along her back and cupping her hip in his hand. Sadness moved through him like a whole new beast that inhabited his body. The porch where he and Hayden used to wait for the bus, fighting over who got to sit next to Joanna Murphy, was now just a hunk of concrete, barely visible under the half-burned pieces of wood that'd fallen from the porch roof. On the second floor, all the way to the left, a few shards of glass remained from the window of his childhood bedroom. He used to watch their little neighborhood from there, sitting on his bed and dreaming of what his life would be like someday. He'd sat on that bed and even dreamed of finding a mate, especially as he'd reached high school and some of his friends were already meeting the people they were supposed to be with. Pierce had wondered when it would happen for him, knowing it would be the start of something incredible.

He"d found her, but this wasn't exactly the happy ending he'd hoped for. He was about to lose her within a matter of days, and it didn't feel so different from the house burning down. When Holly was gone, he would feel just as hollow and damaged as the remains of the home before him.

"Damn thing is, I had an appointment with an electrician scheduled for next week," Rick said quietly.

"What was happening? Was something acting up?" Hayden asked.

Rick shook his head. "No. Not a thing. Nothing was any different than it had been for years. I was just getting frustrated that there was only one electrical socket on the outside of the house, so I was going to have him put in another one. The place was old, and I thought I'd have him check everything else out while he was here. I'm sorry, boys."

"Don't apologize, Dad." Knowing that his father felt bad about the whole thing only made it harder to bear. "It could've happened today, tomorrow, or three months from now."

"Yeah, I know. And we can all justify it any way we want to, but I still feel terrible about it. There were a lot of memories in that place, both in my mind and in the physical things. Your mother had put together those baby books, and she had a box for each of you up in the attic with some of the things from your childhood. There was the doorway where I measured you each summer."

"I was always taller," Hayden said, giving Pierce a sad smile.

"Not always," Pierce replied. "There was that one summer when everyone called you my little brother."

"I know the material things shouldn't matter," Rick went on. "Even when they're sentimental, they're just things. But, well, it sucks."

"I know, Dad." Hayden put his arm around Rick's shoulders. "It's the people that really matter, though. That's something I thought about a lot after Jack had his accident. Pierce and I are just glad to know you're all right."

Pierce glanced down at Holly. Her head was tipped back, the light from the fire engines flickering over the various angles of her face. Yes. Hayden was right. It was the people that mattered. It broke his heart to know that all the memories from his childhood home were gone, but what was he doing to create new ones? What memories would he be missing out on when Holly returned to Cape Cod? She was right there next to him, her back warm against the inside of his arm, the feeling of her body still fresh on his, yet he already missed her. His wolf was crumbling under the grief of the house and of her.

Holly's eyes slowly traced over the scene before her, and Pierce had to wonder what she was thinking. She was a writer. She'd told him how she liked to look for the story that no one else noticed. When they'd been at Selene's, he'd asked her more about her work. He'd been fascinated to hear how she liked to pick things apart into the different senses and how she wanted to completely recreate a world to drop a reader straight into it. Was she doing that now? What story could there be other than one of loss and sadness?

Rick rubbed his hand over his face. "I know. And you're right. I just need to quit moping and start thinking about what I need to do. I've got to call the insurance agent. I guess I might as well get all the utilities turned off because they'll charge me a minimum even if there's not a single lightbulb on."

Pierce turned his mind back to the real matter at hand. He could feel sorry for himself knowing that Holly wouldn't stay, but it wouldn't change the fact that they had a lot to deal with now that the house was gone. "You know we'll help you out with all of that, Dad. And you should take some time off of work, too."

"You don't think I will?" Rick asked.

"We know you won't," Hayden replied.

"Can you blame me? I think I'll need to work to distract me from all of this." Their father gestured helplessly at the wreckage.

Just as Pierce was hoping Holly would be around long enough to distract him for a while, she slipped out from under his arm. She moved over to the side, where a row of oak trees separated their property from the neighbor's. The trunks of the trees still remained, but the leaves and limbs closest to the home were singed badly. She hunted through their remnants for a moment until she found a sturdy stick. With her new tool in hand, Holly walked over to the remains of the home and poked the stick down into the ashes.

Pierce moved to her side, cautiously watching what was left of the home. "The house was always sturdy, but it's not right now. It could be dangerous."

She didn't look up at him, focused only on digging in the ashes. "But look."

He looked down at his feet, where his boots stood on the scraps of his life, and caught a glimpse of something shiny. He stepped back and used the toe of his boot to move a half-burned board out of the way. The movement uncovered the rest of what Holly had been excavating, and he let out a breath that collapsed his lungs. "No way."

"What are you two doing?" Hayden asked.

"Give me your gloves," Pierce commanded.

"What?" But he stepped forward and handed them over.

Pierce pulled them on, knowing everything there would still be deceptively hot. It would take a long time for anything to cool down enough to be touched. If Holly's discovery was what he thought it was, he wasn't going to wait. He bent down and lifted the corner of a picture frame. The wood was badly damaged, burned and then soaked. The photo inside was mostly preserved between two pieces of glass, with only the corners taking on some discoloration. "Look what Holly found."

"I'll be." Rick leaned in to see, and he didn't fight the tear that ran down his cheek. "I haven't been able to find that photo for years. I actually went looking for it a few months ago, on what would've been your mother's birthday. It must've slipped behind some furniture or something."

The Westwood men took a long moment to study the scene in the picture. Rick, young and proud with his arm around his wife. Linda, beautiful with her hair curled around her face and her chin lifted. The couple stood in front of their home, with freshly bloomed flowers standing out against the siding. Their boys were just in front of them on the steps. Hayden was twelve, right in the middle of that awkward stage just before his teen years hit. Pierce stood next to him, still boyish and goofy at ten.

There had been other family photos, Pierce knew. There were even times when they'd gone to the trouble of getting dressed up and going into a studio, but this one had always been Rick's favorite.

"That was a good year," Rick said, just as Pierce knew he would. "Thank you, Holly. I've lost a lot tonight, but you've given me back a little piece of it. It's like a miracle, and I needed that."

Sadness moved across her face. "You're welcome."

Rick sighed. "Well, it's late. I have a lot to do, but I can't do any of it until the morning. I think I'll head over to the packhouse for the night. I'm sure Joan and Lori can set me up with a room, and their beds are far more comfortable than what we have at the firehouse, anyway."

"You don't have to do that, Dad," Hayden began, but Rick stopped him with a wave of his hand.

"I've already thought about it. Your house is full, and I can't exactly stay here unless I want to sleep under the stars. I'm not too keen on camping these days. It's the only thing that makes sense."

"Just come stay at my place," Pierce insisted. "I know it's not huge, but I do have an extra bedroom."

"I know, but…" Rick hesitated as he glanced in Holly's direction. She'd stepped slightly away from the group of men to give them their privacy. "I don't want to be in the way."

It was kind of him to consider Pierce when he was the one suffering so much. The truth was, Pierce would probably be better off if he didn't give himself much more of a chance to get any closer to Holly. Everything indicated she was his mate, but that didn't mean they could work out the distance between them. And what if they tried? He'd already seen Hayden go through the process of marrying someone that he thought was right, only to suffer when it all came crumbling down. It hurt him, but it would only hurt worse if he tried to force it. "As long as you're not counting your sit-ups at five in the morning, I think we'll be fine."