He cast about for something to do, something to fight with.
Buckets!Christ. Not entirely full. But he didn’t hesitate to fling their contents at the walls first, to dwindle the flames licking there. Progress. But the pile of discarded, ancient shrubbery still blazed. What else could he use?
He couldn’t stay much longer. Coughing now, eyes watering, throat on fire.
There! A bloody broom. From the cleaning. He snatched it up. Not the best implement, it would burn, too. But what could he do before that?
On one side of the conservatory, glass windows ran from floor to ceiling. He tossed the buckets at the windowpanes closest to the flames. Heard his name in his wife’s voice when the bucket punched a hole in one. Damn, this had better work. The flames were too hot to get as close as he was. Much too hot. He did it anyway, reaching out with the broom, sweeping molten death toward the glass, sweeping it outside.
Again. Again. Again.
Hell.
The broom on fire now, flames licking up the handle.
Again, again.
He yelped in pain and threw the broom down and ran for it. When he hit the cooler air outside the conservatory he hit his knees, and hands wrapped around his arms. So many hands, dragging him away from the house as he squeezed his eyes tightly against the pain and coughed up every organ in his body.
Air cooler now, grass beneath him a heaven, the lap beneath his head even better. Was there anything better than heaven?
He opened his eyes.
Ah, yes, there was.Caroline.
“Horrible man,” she sobbed, pushing hair away from his forehead. “Terrible man. I hate you. How could you do that?”
“Because I love you.” His voice more of a croak than anything else.
She cried harder, leaning over him, her tears washing his face.
He’d known even as a lad that kissing could change a life. So he’d rejected her request to keep himself safe. Couldn’t run from your heart, though, and what he’d known instinctively as a young man was slamming back into him—Caro was in his heart, was the whole damn organ.
“I am yours,” he said around coughs. “Mind, slightly charred body, and what’s left of my gutted soul—yours. I-I knew it as soon as I knew you. At the Lyon’s D-den. Not a man. Not a stranger. Not just a friend.”
“Shh.” She wiped soot off his face. “Shh. Do you hear the horses? It’s the bucket brigade. They’ll have the water engine. Shh. Thank goodness I paid for the insurance. Part of my plan. Shh, Felix.”
“You’re the keeper of my goddamn heart, Caroline.” Difficult to speak, but words worth the pain. “I love you.”
He did hear the horses now, and Caroline’s attention jerked away from him. “He’s swept out a mass of something that was burning like a sinner in hell!” someone called out.
Felix coughed, gaining her attention again. “I said I love you, Caro.”
“Of course you do. Oh.” She lowered her head, covering his face with kisses. “I love you, too, you fool. Don’t you ever,everdo that again.”
“Don’t set the house on fire again.”
She laughed through her tears, and he reached up to stroke her cheek, wipe the sorrow away. “That is the first time I’ve faced danger and wanted to live. Thank you. You gave that to me.”
“Stop, Felix.”
He closed his eyes, and her hands fluttered about his face. “Someone get a doctor!”
A small slap to his cheek shot his eyes open.
Caroline glared down at him, those thick, lovely brows demanding obedience with their downward slant. “Don’t die!”
He found the strength to reach out and smooth them. “Don’t plan on it”—cough, cough—“love.”
