Their Unlikely Protector
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Meghann Whistler
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Chapter One
When Brett Richardson first saw the plume of smoke as he drove through the streets of Wychmere Bay, his hometown on Cape Cod, he thought he was imagining things. It was like a bad flashback to that horrible night at Half Shell two months ago—except he actually hadn’t been there that night to do anything about the fire that had burned his parents’ restaurant to the ground.
He blinked and looked back toward the beach. Nope, his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him. It was after two o’clock in the morning and he’d been driving for hours, but there was enough moonlight that he could see it clearly: the smoke was definitely there.
He reached for his phone before remembering that it had died in the middle of his catering gig up in Boston.
All right, everything’s fine. Just drive by and make sure the fire department’s there before you head home.
He shouldn’t even have been on this street right now. No, he should have been on his way to the Sea Glass Inn, where he was staying until he found a cheap apartment to rent. But after getting off the highway, he’d gone on autopilot and headed for his childhood home—the one he and his sister had put on the market last spring so that he could buy out her share of Half Shell.
The sale had closed two months ago.
One week before the restaurant had gone up in flames.
But maybe the fact that he hadn’t been paying enough attention to where he was going was a good thing, a God thing, because as he turned the corner onto the next street, he could see what was causing all the smoke.
A house. On fire.
And no lights or sirens anywhere.
He threw his car into Park in the middle of the road and leaped out, adrenaline shooting through his body. The garage of the small Cape Cod cottage in front of him was blazing, and there was no one else in sight.
There was a car parked in the driveway, though. Were the residents still inside asleep?
For a split second, Brett weighed his options. Go bang on the neighbors’ doors, then wait for someone to answer and call 911. Or go break down the door of this house, and make sure everyone was safe.
He charged up the front walk. The fire was loud—the roar of it like a continuous roll of thunder—and hot, hotter than he’d expected.
He pounded on the door. “Fire!” He couldn’t hear anything inside over the rumble of the flames. “Wake up! Wake up! Fire!”
He tried the handle. Locked.
He threw his shoulder against the door and winced at the pain. Then he did it again, and again. Nothing. The skin on the left side of his face felt like it was being seared by the heat from the flames.
He ran to the back of the house. It was quieter back here, with the fire emanating from the front of the garage. He banged on the sliding glass door. “Get up! Get out! Fire!”
Still, nothing. No signs of life.
Maybe nobody’s home.
But maybe they were. There was no way he was leaving until he knew for sure.
Glancing around the back patio, he spotted a relatively large garden planter, picked it up and heaved it through the slider.
The tempered glass shattered—like a windshield, the shards weren’t sharp—and Brett rushed inside. It wasn’t hot in here, but it was smoky. “Fire!” he yelled, putting his arm over his mouth in an attempt to keep out the smoke. “Anybody home?”
“Help!”
It was a woman’s voice, but now he thought he could hear a kid crying, too. He hurried toward the sound. “Where are you?”
“Upstairs!”
The cottage had a dormer roof, so there couldn’t be more than one or two small rooms up there. He charged up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.
He found the woman in the middle of a child’s room, looking frantic, a toddler on her hip, and a sense of déjà vu hit him hard between the ribs.
Did he know her?
Even in pajama shorts and a ratty T-shirt, with her black hair haphazardly pulled back from her face, she was stunning.
Where had he seen her before?
If he hadn’t been in such a hurry to get her and the boy out of there, he might have stopped to think about it more. “There’s a fire. We have to go!”
“My brother! I can’t find him!”
Brett gestured to the boy in her arms. “He’s not...?”
“There’s another one! They’re twins!”
“Take him and get out,” he ordered. “Call 911.”
“I can’t leave without—”
“Go!” he yelled. “I’ll find him. Get out!”
In the span of two seconds flat, the expression on her face went from startled to mad. She was probably a foot shorter than him and half his weight, but she looked about ready to challenge him to a fistfight.
“Get him to safety,” Brett said, nodding at the boy clutching her neck. “Please.”
As quickly as the fight had entered her, it fled. Her shoulders sagged. Her lower lip quivered. “His name’s Dylan. Find him, Brett. I’m begging you.”
She knew his name, which meant he really did know her. But how? He coughed—the room was getting smokier. He’d have to figure it out later.
“I will,” he said. “I promise.”
Maybe it wasn’t a promise he could keep, but he’d die before he’d let a little kid burn in a fire.
The woman turned and ran toward the stairs, the toddler in her arms crying in fright. Brett got down on his hands and knees to peer under one of two cribs. “Dylan? Buddy? Where are you? There’s a fire. We have to go.”
The boy wasn’t there.
Brett crawled to the other crib, checked underneath it. No one.
“My name’s Brett. I’m here to help you. Your sister took your twin outside. We need to go, too.”
He scooted over and opened the closet. The kid wasn’t there, either.
“Where’d you go, Dylan? Your sister’s worried about you.”
He looked in the corners of the room and behind the door. No Dylan.
The smoke was getting bad now, and Brett’s eyes were stinging. He charged into the hallway. From the top of the stairs, he could see that the fire had moved into the house, flames licking the wall the living room shared with the garage. Adrenaline shot through him all over again. This was serious. He and the kid really could die up here. “Come on, come on. Where are you?”
He banged into the restroom and checked the bathtub and the shower stall. Nothing.
“Dylan!”
No answer.
The first flare of panic went off in Brett’s chest. What if he couldn’t find him?
Stay calm, stay calm. You’ll find him. You have to.
There was one more small room up here, barely big enough for a bed and a dresser. “Are you in here, Dylan?” Brett called out, getting back onto his hands and knees to look under the bed. “Your sister’s worried about you, buddy. The house is on fire, and we have to get you out.”
The boy wasn’t there.
Had he gone downstairs by himself? Maybe he’d already made it outside.
Brett started for the stairs, but before he could take the first step down, he heard something. A squeak. A sob.
He froze. “Dylan? Call out if you can hear me. It’s Brett. I’m here to help you.”
Downstairs, the fire had whooshed from one wall to three, the sound loud and hungry, like animals scrapping for food. The smoke was getting thicker, the heat traveling up. Brett was sweating profusely, perspiration dripping into his eyes. If he didn’t get out of here soon, he’d have to jump out a window to avoid the flames.
Lord, if the kid is up here, show me where he is.
The panic receded, just a little. If he had to jump out a window, he’d do it, but he wasn’t leaving without the little boy.
He heard another sound. A bang. A yelp.
He pulled his shirt up over his mouth and nose and turned his back on the stairs, determined to find the kid this time. In the boys’ room, he once again checked the cribs and the closet. He even pulled out the bureau drawers.
Nothing. Still, nothing.
And now it hurt to breathe.
Where were the firefighters? Why weren’t they here?
“Dylan!” he yelled, then listened hard. It was difficult to hear anything over the roar of the flames downstairs, but something—maybe a sound, maybe just a feeling—told him to go back in the bathroom.
He went in, and he saw that the door to the cupboard under the sink was slightly ajar.
“Dylan?” he called, getting down on his knees as he opened the cupboard.
The boy was squished in beside the pipes, chubby hands curled around his knees, eyes squinched shut, tears rolling down his face.
“Hey, buddy. I’m Brett. I’m going to pick you up so we can get out of here.”
He lifted the boy, whose body was small but solid. The kid squirmed and kicked him, so Brett tightened his hold.
“It’s okay, dude. Your sister asked me to get you. There’s a fire so we have to leave.”
Brett jogged to the top of the staircase, but the flames had already reached the bottom steps. If he wanted to go that way, he’d have to run through the fire, and although he’d have been willing to risk it if it were just him, he wasn’t about to subject the boy to the flames.
“Scawy,” the boy said, not fighting anymore, but clinging tightly to Brett’s neck.
“Yeah, it is scary, isn’t it?” Brett took the boy into the bedroom with the cribs, where there were lots of windows. The woman’s bedroom only had one.
“Stinky.”
“Yup, stinky, too.”
He tried to open one of the windows, but it was stuck shut. Went to the second one. It, too, wouldn’t budge.
“Come on,” he muttered before yanking on the third and final window, which was also sealed closed. He set the boy down at his feet and rubbed his temples. His eyes were watering, and he was starting to wheeze. He had to get them out of here, and fast.
He crouched down so he could look Dylan in the eye. “Hey, buddy, can you go crawl under that crib right there for a second? I’ve gotta punch out the window, and I don’t want you getting hit by the glass.”
After Valerie Williams woke her neighbors, screamed at them to call 911 and unceremoniously dumped Derrick on their living room couch, she ran back outside.
What she saw terrified her.
The house was burning. Her father’s whole house was in flames.
Dylan’s in there. Dylan’s still in there.
Her heart was pounding, and she felt sick.
She shouldn’t have left without him. Why had she left without him?
Because Brett Richardson, loudmouth Brett Richardson, told you to.
Shame curdled in her belly. Why had she listened to him? Why had she trusted him? She’d only known the guy for a few years in junior high and high school, but if there was one thing she remembered about him, it was that he was an annoying jerk.
An annoying jerk who was still in there, searching for her little brother. An annoying jerk who might have passed out from smoke inhalation, who might be dead.
She took a couple of steps toward the house, but some of her neighbors had collected on the lawn around her, and one of them caught her by the elbow. “You can’t go in there.”
She tried to shake him off. “My brother’s in there. He’s just a baby.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t let you do it.”
“Let go of me, Martin!” She wrenched her arm, almost pulling it out of the socket when her neighbor tightened his grip.
“No.”
“Please,” she said, her voice cracking. Please, please, please...
There were only two things her father had asked of her before he died. One, that she take over his role at the town’s fall fundraiser this year, spearheading the silent auction. And two, that she assume custody of her little brothers.
Although neither request was convenient given that she was in the running for a life-changing promotion at work, she’d instantly agreed.
How could she not? After her mother had left when she was seven, her father had been everything to her.
He’d been everything to those two boys, too. Her stepmother hadn’t even bothered to stick around for the entire pregnancy. She’d simply filed the divorce papers, signed away her parental rights and dropped the twins off on Valerie’s father’s doorstep when they were two days old.
Now they were almost three, and for the past two weeks, they’d been Valerie’s responsibility.
God willing, they’d be her responsibility for the next fifteen years.
Please don’t let anything happen to Dylan, Lord. Please, please, please...
She heard one of the neighbors gasp, and she snapped her head up to see Brett clearing shattered glass out of one of the second-story windows.
“Dylan!” she screamed, and a few seconds later, Brett held up her little brother for her to see.
He found him. Thank God.
Her neighbor let go of her elbow, and she fell to her knees in the grass. Before she could even catch her breath, though, she turned to him, her voice shaking as the panic inside her spiraled back up. “We have to go get him. Martin, can you catch him?”
Martin’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, doubt and hesitation flashing across his face.
Which was precisely when she heard the sirens.
The fire department was coming.
She could only pray they’d reach her brother before the flames.
