This Very Moment Page 18

  Hastily, she grabbed the drawing on the wall and made for the door. The thick smoke entered her lungs, and she coughed and tripped over the blanket she had left on the floor. Her head hit sharply against the coffee table, filling her head with pain as she fought to remain conscious.

  * * * * *

  The clock in his BMW told Bill it was after eight. He drove rapidly through the dark streets as he headed for home and Kylee. She would be waiting for him. After the long day, she might be asleep, but she would be waiting.

  With a smile he recalled the last time he had seen her sleeping on a couch. He had loved Nicole at the time, as he would always love her, but something about Kylee had touched him even then. In the almost two months since she’d come back into his life she had changed him, had given him a reason for living. She had created happiness in his life when he had thought that emotion was gone forever. He had been wrong about a lot of things.

  As he approached the block of his gated community, he saw a dark cloud rising in the air, lit by a strange light that didn’t come from the street lamps. A chilling dread fell on his shoulders, reaching out a claw-like hand for his heart. For an instant, he saw Nicole again, black in his arms.

  Shoving the agonizing vision aside, he drove like a man possessed through the gate and over to his street. Horror flooded his senses as he saw the whole row of condominiums where he lived awash in flames.

  Kylee!

  The scream ripped silently through his head and heart and soul. When he’d last talked to her she had been nearly asleep on the couch. Was she still there? Had her dinner caught fire while she slept?

  He remembered the dream of holding a burned Nicole in his arms, only to look down on her face and find that it was Kylee. In that same dream he had dropped her and run away.

  She has to be okay!

  He left his car down the street and ran to the crowd gathered by the growing blaze that lit the evening sky. Sirens wailed in the background. Under the smokey light radiating from the fire, he searched urgently for Kylee’s face, her golden halo of hair.

  Nothing.

  He grabbed people from behind, turning them to face him, but none were Kylee.

  Oh, dear God! He prayed as he had never prayed before. That morning during Jeffery’s surgery, he had begun to believe that God did exist, and if God had cared about Jeffery enough to help Bill with the surgery, maybe He could also save Kylee.

  Kylee wasn’t in the crowd, nor did she emerge from the raging inferno that was now his home. The front door gaped open as if mocking Bill’s despair.

  It’s all my fault!

  He wanted to cry and scream at the unfairness of it all. He had already lost one woman he’d loved to flames—to bear another such burden was beyond his ability. The sirens were louder now, as they had been on that day in France, but Bill knew they would come too late for Kylee.

  He hadn’t been able to save Nicole. There had been nothing he could do. But he could try to save Kylee—or die trying. Death seemed nothing when compared to losing her.

  Bill ran toward his condo, but two men held him back. “Are you crazy?” someone asked.

  “She’s in there. I have to get her out!”

  The men wouldn’t release him. “No one’s in there,” one said.

  “Or if they are, it’s too late,” added the other.

  “Let the fire department handle it,” an old lady in the crowd told him. “Look at those flames. You might not get back out.”

  Bill knew that, but he also knew Kylee was inside. He felt her presence there as certainly as if he could see through the wall. “Let me go!” He flung off their arms with a strength he had never felt before and darted to his open door. “Kylee!” he shouted. “Kylee!”

  No answer.

  Red and orange flames licked the sides of the entryway and roared in the hall that had once led to the sitting room. The Christmas decorations on the stair railing were a smoldering mess. At the sight, fear stabbed through him. He recalled vividly the day he had been burned on the train: the putrid smell of cooking flesh, the biting smoke that filled his lungs and nostrils, the choking and the helplessness. How badly it had hurt—what agony! That was even before he had learned Nicole was dead.

  Bill was aware that his hands shook, that his flesh cringed at the thought of the fire eating its way through his body. His motions slowed with his fear, and he wanted more than anything to get himself out of danger. Only the idea of saving Kylee was stronger. He had run away once before when Elaina and Troy had taken off with the charity money, and once again in his dream, but there was no way he would leave her now. Let the fire destroy him as it had destroyed his life once before. So long as Kylee was saved, nothing else mattered.

  Bill tore off his jacket and threw it over his head. Taking a deep breath, he plunged into the roaring wall of flame that blocked his way into the sitting room. The jump lasted only a second, but to his terror-filled mind it was an eternity. On the other side of the flames, he sank weakly to his knees, unable to see through the thick smoke that stung his eyes and nose. His shirt and pants felt hot against his skin.

  Fighting panic, he staggered blindly toward the couch. Please, dear God in Heaven, he begged.

  Halfway to the couch his foot hit something soft. Bending swiftly, he crouched and reached out with his hands. It was Kylee—or at least he assumed it was her. He gathered the limp body into his arms, unsure if she was breathing. His hand touched a blanket and he wrapped her into it. Coughing dryly and fighting dizziness, he struggled to the door, the body in his arms growing heavier by the second. Again he leapt through the angry wall of hissing flames.

  He stumbled and went down on one knee, but he forced himself to his feet again. His stinging eyes teared so much that he couldn’t see the door to the outside, but he knew where it was. Blindly, he reached the doorway and staggered out into the night.

  The sudden rush of December air was cool and welcome against his seared flesh and sore throat. He gulped the fresh air and tried to take another step forward, but an excruciating pain ate at his back and his legs refused to work. As he sank to the ground, he was aware of someone taking the motionless body from his arms, but the realization came from far away, as though in a distorted dream. As he tried to reach for Kylee, he was knocked to the ground and rolled across the grass by several strong hands. Pain filled his senses.

  “Is she all right?” he begged.

  No one answered.

  “Tell me!” he screamed.

  Agony ate at his consciousness. Abruptly everything went dark.

  * * * * *

  The first thing Bill became aware of was the terrible pain in his back. It was all-encompassing, filling every thought and particle of his being. It was a barrier beyond which he could see and feel nothing.

  Gradually, other things penetrated the barrier. He found he was lying on his side in a bed. He could hear someone talking quietly. A woman’s voice.

  Remembrance came back to him. “Kylee,” he moaned. “Kylee!”

  Was she dead?

  Not knowing was a worse pain than what he felt from his back, yet at the same time the uncertainty at least allowed a slim hope. A terrible, desperate, longing kind of hope that made him weep.

  A soft hand wiped a tear on his cheek. “I’m here.”

  He forced his eyes open. “Kylee?”

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  With difficulty, his eyes focused through the pain. She sat in a wheelchair near his bed, her hair hanging limply around her pale face.

  “Oh, Kylee, you’re here. I have never seen you so beautiful.” Alive, he meant. Alive was beautiful. It was everything. He reached for her hand and renewed pain shot through his body. He groaned, “Well, I can’t be dead. It hurts too much.”

  Kylee chuckled softly. “You’re in the hospital. We both are, only I’m being released today. You, however, will be staying a week or two.”

  From the pain he felt, Bill believed her. “What day is it?”

&n
bsp; “Christmas Eve.”

  “I’ve been asleep that long?”

  Kylee’s smile faded and an abject expression taking possession of her face. “They tell me you’ve been in and out but not really aware. It was touch and go for a while.”

  Bill let that information digest before asking, “What happened? It was my stove, wasn’t it? I should have known better than to buy one like that.”

  “Your stove?” Her brow furrowed in puzzlement.

  “That started the fire. It short-circuited or something.”

  She shook her head. “The fire started at that older couple’s house next door to you. Mrs. Simpton was making some Christmas candy for the neighbors, and she went to deliver a batch she had made earlier and forgot about it. The candy burned and the curtains caught fire. By the time she returned it was too late. Her whole place was ablaze.”

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  Kylee shook her head. “Her husband was at their church building, doing some cleaning, and the neighbors got out in time.”

  “Except for you.”

  She grimaced. “I went back for something. I didn’t think the fire would take over so rapidly. I guess it got a good start on me, coming like it did from the Simptons.”

  “All that devastation from a batch of Christmas candy.” Bill was relieved that his stove was not the cause, but even more relieved that no one had been hurt. “What did you go back for?”

  The way her mouth pursed, Bill knew she didn’t want to tell him.

  “Well?” he insisted.

  “The drawing you made of your parents.”

  He frowned. “You shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t important enough to risk your life for. Nothing in the condo was worth that.”

  “I know.” She gave a deep sigh and tears invaded her former calm. “It burned anyway. I almost killed both of us for nothing. I’m sorry.”

  “We’re alive, and I’ll make another sketch.”

  She leaned her face close to his, gripping his hand tightly. “I’d thought I’d lost you. I’ve never prayed so hard in my entire life.”

  “Me, too.” Bill spoke the words simply, but they were not wasted on Kylee.

  “I knew you’d find Him, and I was ready to wait for that for however long it took.”

  Bill had never wanted to kiss her more than he did at that moment, but when he made a movement toward her, pain rippled through his body. “I love you, Kylee,” he said instead. “I love you so much. The fire—I didn’t know if I could make myself go into the fire, but I had to try. Even if—” Even if I died myself.

  She leaned forward and rested her cheek against his. “I’m glad you did. The doctor said that in another minute it might have been too late for me. You saved my life.”

  Bill felt tears on his face but was unsure if they were his own. “You are my life.”

  At that, she kissed him. Ignoring the pain, he kissed her back. Against her soft lips, he murmured, “So does this mean you’ll marry me?”

  She gave a soft laugh. “Yes, I will marry you. But first you’ll have to get out of here.” Her eyes briefly wandered the room and lingered on the Christmas wreath tacked to the door. “This isn’t really where I had imagined spending our first Christmas together.”

  “I don’t mind.” Bill paused, searching for the words to describe the feeling of gratitude and love in his heart. “This is the best Christmas ever, Kylee. For the first time I understand why anyone would willingly give his life for another person. Why God cares about His creations. His children.”

  Tears trickled down Kylee’s left cheek. “Because of love.”

  “Because of love.”

  There was more, but Bill could not voice it. Perhaps one day he would succeed in capturing the feeling in his art—to draw how God’s love had helped him set aside the burden of his own self-inflicted cross, the one he had carried since Nicole’s death. For some incomprehensible reason, his life had been saved on that fiery train, and he was finally headed toward fulfilling that purpose. He could quit living in the past . . . and hiding from the future.

  He could forgive himself.

  He met Kylee’s eyes again, her face full of a love that his fingers itched to replicate. Someday soon he would draw her looking at him this way. He would burn this very moment into his memory and onto the paper, and it would become the beginning. The future was theirs.

  * * * * *

  Bill was baptized two months later, and shortly after Kylee and Bill were married.

  “I’ll love you forever, Kylee,” Bill said, kissing her.

  As Kylee stared into his eyes, she knew without a doubt that her future was with him, that everything in their lives—good and bad—had led to this moment. “I know,” she whispered. “Me, too.”

  Bill and Kylee spent a busy year organizing many surgeries for unfortunate children. They took Jeffery to the park at least once a week to play ball, and Anna sometimes accompanied her new friend. Donations continued to flow into Children’s Hope. The founders of the charity were never apprehended, but an FBI investigation led to the recovery of ten million stolen dollars.

  A year after their marriage, Kylee and Bill were at yet another fundraising banquet when Kylee felt a sharp, biting pain in her abdomen. “I think it’s time,” she said.

  “What? Now?” Bill’s face was alternately surprised and scared. “It’s too soon!”

  “Only two weeks.”

  Leaving their guests, he drove her rapidly through the streets of Los Angeles, while she called the doctor on her cell phone. Four hours later she gave birth to a healthy daughter.

  Love and gratitude filled her heart as the nurse placed the tiny baby in Kylee’s arms. “Hello, Pauline,” she cooed.

  Bill sat on the bed next to her and gathered her into his arms. “She’s perfect,” he said in her ear. His finger caressed the baby’s cheek.

  “Yes, she is. Everything is perfect.” Kylee lifted her face for his kiss.

  THE END

  We hoped you enjoyed This Very Moment. Beginning on the next page, we have included a sample chapter of Tell Me No Lies, a clean romantic suspense novel by Rachel Ann Nunes, as well as a sample of her novel This Time Forever, a clean contemporary romance. A list of all books by Rachel Ann Nunes can be found in the About the Author section following the sample chapters.

  Tell Me No Lies

  by Rachel Ann Nunes

  CHAPTER ONE

  I blinked to hold back the tears, stunned by what I was hearing. No! I don’t believe it. But I did.

  Hurt followed the disbelief, growing to an agony that urged me to physically lash out at Sadie, my best friend and bearer of the terrible news, but I was frozen in place, as though my heart had stopped pumping blood to my suddenly useless limbs.

  Besides, it wasn’t Sadie’s fault.

  Oh, Julian. How could you?

  Sadie put a hand on my shoulder, but the sympathy in her eyes did little to comfort me. “I’m sorry, Tessa. I really am. I didn’t want to tell you, but . . .” She sighed and continued in a whisper, “I would want to know if it were me.”

  Her words released me from my mute state. “I need to be alone.”

  “Of course. I understand. Call me if you need me.” Sadie stepped close and hugged me while I stood without moving. I barely noticed her departure.

  My eyes wandered the room of my childhood, only recently familiar again since I’d come home to Flagstaff to prepare for the wedding. Mother had insisted on dinners and celebrations, and because Julian and I planned to live in Flagstaff, where he would work in his family business, it only made sense for me to leave the job at my father’s factory in Phoenix several weeks early. I missed the job and my friends the minute I’d left, but Julian and I were ready to take the plunge into matrimony—or so I’d thought.

  The door to my walk-in closet was open, and I could see the wedding dress I was to have worn in just over forty-eight hours. Bile rose in my throat, and a tear skidded down my cheek. I brushed it impa
tiently away. I wouldn’t cry for a man who had betrayed me.

  Since tonight we were having the rehearsal dinner, last night had been Julian’s bachelor party. Sadie’s brother had been at the party and had told her all about Julian disappearing early with a woman whose hands had been altogether too familiar with a man who was about to be married.

  I slumped on my bed, covered with the homemade quilt my grandmother had made, my eyes still locked on the white satin dress. Drenched in lace and small pearls, it had a sweetheart neckline and a gorgeous chapel train. The dress cost seventeen hundred dollars and had taken three weeks of daily shopping to find. My mother had been with me every one of those days, which had been a torture in itself.

  I bit my lip until I tasted blood.

  I’d met Julian Willis when I’d come home to visit for the Christmas holiday, though if the truth be told, my visit had more to do with my horse, Serenity, than seeing my parents. At my mother’s insistence, I’d tagged along on their invitation to attend a party thrown by the Willises. I hadn’t minded going, once I met Julian. If his blond good looks and toned physique hadn’t won me over, his attentiveness and charm would have. After countless trips to Phoenix on his part and numerous weekends home on mine, the inevitable had happened: we’d fallen in love. He asked me to marry him, and I said yes.

  Two weeks later, my father and Julian’s had negotiated a business arrangement to take effect after the wedding. The Willis family owned a huge frozen food conglomerate, and my father produced a line of breakfast cereals, where I managed the swing shift. With the help of the Willises, our business would expand to new markets my father had never before reached. I wasn’t sure what the Willises were getting out of the deal since our business was stable but not growing. Maybe they would simply have in-laws who were up to their standard of living.

  Not that we’d ever been poor in my lifetime—thanks to my grandpa who’d worked himself into an early grave to create that first bowl of sugar-coated cereal. I still missed him terribly.