I knew she was in a hurry to get to her Mom in the hospital so I didn't ask too many questions when Cassie asked me to cover the last appointment for her calendar shoot. She was on a tight deadline and since I had keys to her studio and had been her sidekick on other shoots and in so many aspects of life over the past 20 years, I was the only person she trusted. And despite the subject matter, I would never dream of telling her no.
I had checked the cameras and lenses and was just about to go through the shots I knew would already be loaded on her laptop when I heard boots outside, followed by a knock on the door.
"Coming!" I called and headed towards the door.
I flung it open and came face to face with the one person I had hoped to never see again...Bill.
"Nancy?" he stared at me in awe, dropping his gear in the doorway.
"Bill..." I whispered, my hand immediately going to my turtleneck.
His beautiful smile lit up his entire face as he took a step forward, reaching out for me. I quickly stepped back, dropping my gaze to my feet. I pivoted, turned my back to him and walked back to the desk.
I clutched my neckline tighter, trying to get a grip on the situation. My hands shook. Three years and three states between us but yet...here he was. How could this have happened? What were the odds that he would be the last firefighter to pose and that I would be the pinch-hitting photographer?
"I was supposed to meet Cassie here. Do I have the right address?" Bill asked, coming up behind me.
"Oh, um...yes," I muttered. "She had a family emergency."
"Is John okay?"
"You know John?" I asked, surprised that he would know Cassie's boyfriend.
"Firefighters and medics tend to run in the same circles," he explained. "I met him about six months ago when I relocated here to take care of my grandfather."
I had remembered him telling me that he had become a firefighter because he had always wanted to be like the man who raised him, the man that stepped up when his own dad had denied him.
"How is your grandfather?"
"He passed away two months ago," Bill said as he walked around the desk and stood directly in front of me.
"I'm so sorry, Bill," I looked up at him briefly before focusing on the computer. "I remember how very much he meant to you."
"You remember?" he seemed shocked. "When you disappeared, I felt like everything we had shared meant nothing to you."
I flinched and felt my cheeks turn bright red.
"Cassie is with her Mom. She fell and they think she fractured her ankle. Hopefully she'll be fine," I explained, changing the subject.
"I take it this is where you ran to, why I haven't been able to find you," he wondered, not letting me off the hook so easily.
I gripped my turtleneck and sighed.
"Are you really not going to tell me what I did wrong?" Bill tucked his hands into his jeans and rocked on his heels. My eyes were at level with his crotch and I watched the fabric stretch at his gesture, pulling tight across his cock.
"Bill...you did nothing wrong. You did your job and I thanked you for it for two months. We both had to get on with our lives and I wasn't your responsibility," I told him, my voice shaking.
"Not my responsibility?" he asked, bracing his hands on the desk, leaning toward me. "Is that why you thought I sat at your bedside? Do you think I do that with everyone I pull out of a fire? It was different between us and you damn well know it."
I stood up and walked towards Cassie's display...a ladder propped against a brick painted wall, a fire hydrant surrounded by fake grass, a pole to slide down, a sledgehammer and a couple of authentic firehouse hoses.
"In looking through Cassie's photos, she didn't do too much with the ladder but I'll let you choose wherever you feel most comfortable posing," I called over my shoulder. "There's a bathroom just past the main door if you want to change into your gear."
I listened to his boots on the cement floor as he walked back toward his gear and I focused on grabbing a tripod to set up a camera. Too quickly, the footsteps were behind me again. I glanced back just in time to watch him drop his gear again, this time at his feet. He glared at me as he reached behind him, yanking his black sweater and undershirt over his head.
I stood there in awe as he revealed his torso. His beautiful, strong, sculpted, jet black torso. His biceps were huge and I remembered what it felt like to be wrapped in them, one under my legs, one secure around my lower back. His hands clenched in fists at his sides as I took in every inch of him and that's when I noticed his arm...his puckered with scar tissue left arm.
My hands flew to my mouth as I noticed the burned tissue. He had draped me in his jacket and carried me out of the fire in his short-sleeved shirt. And each and every day that he sat at my bedside, he had sworn to me that he had a superficial injury bandaged under his sweatshirt, that he was fine.
"I would do it all again, Nancy," he promised as he walked towards me. His hands grasped my elbows as I sobbed into my palms.
"You saved me," I cried, "and you were hurt because of me."