After Midnight (36 page)

Noah stood in the studio in his basement. He’d known before he left New York to fly back and meet with the record company that the studio was completed. He’d kept it to himself. There was no sense in getting anyone’s hopes up before he saw it with his own eyes, made the final inspection.

Unclipping his mobile phone from his belt, he pushed number two and activated speed dial. Dominic picked up on the third ring.

“It’s ready,” Noah said without preamble. “Get things started.”

“Have you met with the record execs yet?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. I met with Tony this morning.” Tony was the band’s manager, as well as a loyal friend of Noah’s. They’d seen each other through many tough times. “He’s confident we’ll be offered a contract.”

“Yet you don’t sound pleased at all,” Dominic pointed out, then disconnected.

Noah sighed wearily. Dominic was right, he wasn’t pleased. He didn’t feel a sense of excitement over a new beginning or relief that something he worked so hard for was finally within his grasp. He couldn’t seem to feel much of anything besides the ache in his gut that grew a little larger every day.

Isabeau.

Standing in his bland, colorless home it became clear to him how much he’d lost. Damn it, everywhere he looked, even here in the studio, all he could see was her smile. All he heard was the laughter she’d brought with her during their time here on their way back from London.

Shit, if he closed his eyes and tried hard enough, he swore he could smell her. It wasn’t possible, he understood that, yet it was something he kept finding himself doing, as he stood in the very spot he’d stripped her clothes from her body and made love to her. What had he been thinking, to take her in the studio, the one place he needed his concentration most? From here on out, he would forever equate this room with her—her scent, her taste. The feel of her flesh sliding atop his.

Swearing viciously, he closed his eyes. He’d had his share of women, most of them during the height of his musical career. They lined up, all but lay at his feet. He’d been young back then, awed by all the attention, and he’d taken advantage. But only Isabeau made his blood pump hot and fast in his veins. She was the woman he couldn’t keep from touching, the woman who caused him to lose control of his sexual urges. All he had to do was breathe in the scent of her, and he was hard as a rock.

He’d loved before. He’d loved Beth, but she’d never made him feel the way Isabeau made him feel. It wasn’t just need and desire, it was a sense of coming home. A sense of completion that had been there since that fateful night he’d wandered into her bar. The night he’d looked up into the palest eyes he’d ever seen and fallen.

She’d become everything to him.

His heart.

His oxygen.

His future.

He couldn’t let her go. Life without her was as empty as this house. Standing in it, with the silence settling around him, he came to a conclusion. It meant him asking something of her again, something he wasn’t certain she’d be willing to give. But he had to take the chance.

Heading for the stairs, he ascended them two at a time. Hurried, driven by a need to have everything ready before he flew back to find her, he crossed to the front door and the car parked in the driveway. He needed to get back to Sacramento before the stores closed.

He needed to see a man about a ring.

****

Heat.

After being cold for days, Isabeau was finally warm. She sighed in her sleep and rolled over, expecting to be pulled against Noah’s solid chest. It was a moment before the pull of sleep eased enough for her to realize two things. One, Noah wasn’t in her bed. He hadn’t been for days now, and no matter how many times she awoke in the middle of the night reaching for him, she always came up empty. Her pain was all consuming. Her lungs heaved. Her chest hurt. The second realization came to her, this one far more terrifying than the thought of spending another night without Noah.

Her building was on fire.

It wasn’t the pain of loss that tightened her chest, but the chokingly thick black smoke that surrounded her.

“Oh, God,” she mumbled, only to start coughing.

Simultaneously she reached for the cordless telephone on the nightstand and rolled to the floor. Her eyes teared as the dense smoke burned more than her lungs. Blindly, she pushed a button on the phone and lifted it to her ear. She stabbed again, frantic when the dead phone wouldn’t turn on.

She scanned the room, checking for flame, searching for her way out. Fiery sparks danced in the air. A terrifying roar sounded just before the windows near her bed burst and flames licked in over the sill.

Frozen in fear, she watched as they ate their way toward her mother’s photographs. How could this be happening? Why hadn’t her sprinkler system turned on, her alarm sounded? Without thinking, she lunged off the floor and toward her wall of memories. Her bare feet became tangled, the floor rose to meet her. Her arms shot out in front of her to protect her face as she skidded across the wood toward the theater chairs.

The flames licked closer. Blinding pain shot up her arm and she screamed. Rolling off her stomach, she scrambled back, away from the wall. Reaching out blindly to tug at whatever had tangled itself around her ankles. The building groaned. Downstairs, glass shattered. But the smell was the worst, like nothing she had smelled before. And the pain in her arm…

Nausea surged. Forcing it back made her cough harder. Panic built as she tugged at the leather around her ankles. Finally freeing her legs, she fisted her hand around the strap and began to crawl. Smoke filled the room, blinded her. She followed the rug that ran the length of her home, moving in the direction of her outside door. It was the darkest part of her apartment, indicating the fire had yet to reach that side of the building.

Her lungs burned, her throat ached. Gasping for breath, she crawled a little faster when the heat of the floor penetrated her sweatpants. She didn’t have much time. She couldn’t stop coughing, and her body felt strangely disconnected.

Stay on the rug. Stay. On. The. Rug. Without the ability to see clearly, she couldn’t risk veering off in the wrong direction.

Body sluggish, limbs clumsy, it seemed as if she would never reach the opposite wall. She coughed steadily now. Her entire body ached, her head throbbed. The fire was loud, louder than she could ever imagine as it devoured the building around her.

Her body cried out for her to stop, to rest a minute and allow her to catch her breath, but she recognized it for what it was. She was starving for oxygen. She wasn’t going to make it. Already she could feel her lungs shutting down, her airway swelling shut.

She could feel consciousness slipping away.

Suddenly, her hands came down on something cool and she breathed a sigh of relief. She was at her door, and it wasn’t hot like everything else in the room. Reaching up for the knob, she twisted and pulled.

Nothing happened.

A bubble of fear worked its way up the back of her throat and she cried out. Then her muddled thoughts cleared enough for her to remember to turn the lock.

On her knees now, she reached out with her left hand and twisted the deadbolt, with her right she pulled on the door. The dense black smoke cleared for a moment, then the room behind her howled in such a way that she stumbled out the door in a rush. She was weak, clumsy, and moving much too quickly for her legs to keep up. About halfway down the back stairs, her legs gave out completely.

Pain.

It exploded throughout her body as she tumbled down the stairs, desperately tucking herself into as tight a ball as possible. She landed hard on her hands and knees, the jolt that shot through her limbs enough to make her gasp. But she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Now that she was on the ground, she was even closer to the flames. The wall next to her moaned, and she scrambled away as quickly as she could, dragging her leather tote behind her.

She gained her feet about ten yards from the building. Her shoulder ached, her forehead stung, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t sweat that she kept blinking out of her eyes. But it was the pain in her right arm that had her cradling it protectively against her body as she stumbled, coughing and choking her way toward the street.

Red lights were flashing everywhere. Men in turnout suits were swarming out of fire trucks. One of the men saw her and grabbed her shoulders, causing her to cry out. He said something, but she couldn’t hear him over the roar of the fire and the noise of the sirens as more emergency vehicles pulled up.

Isabeau shook her head, trying to communicate. Her vision grayed, her knees weakened, and he tightened his grip when she would have fallen over. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t draw enough oxygen into her lungs. Gasping, she put up no resistance when he scooped her off her feet and carried her to the nearest ambulance.

Then, everything went silent as she slid into darkness.

****

“You do recall there’s a three-hour time difference?” Noah stated, as he groggily answered his mobile phone. “I just got to sleep.”

Silence was the only reply. Complete and total silence.

“Dom? Are you still there?”

“There’s been a fire, Noah. Around three o’clock this morning. At Izzy’s.”

He sat bolt upright in bed as panic brought him full awake, his every sense alert. “Isabeau?”

“There’s not much left. The place is…a burned-out shell.”

Crippling fear froze the oxygen in his lungs. His chest felt like someone stood on it. “What about Isabeau?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? You must know something!”

“I’m sorry, Noah,” Dominic rasped. “I don’t know anything. Pete’s making some calls right now, trying to find someone with information.”

Noah climbed out of bed, frantically stuffing clothes into his leather duffel bag. She was fine, she had to be. He’d know if something had happened to her, he would feel it. Wouldn’t he?

“Wait a minute,” Dom said, his voice grim, cold.

Straightening, he waited. Voices sounded from the other end of the line. Not loud enough that he could make out the words. “Dom? Dominic?” His chest tightened. “Damn it, Dom, talk to me!”

“A news report came on the telly. There were two people injured in the fire. One didn’t make it.”

There was a big black hole yawning at his feet, and he felt like he was being sucked down into it. He gathered his courage and asked the question he didn’t want to hear the answer to. “Who didn’t make it?”

“They didn’t say,” Dominic replied, his voice thick with emotion. “They won’t say until a positive identification is made, and the family is notified.”

Noah swallowed down the bile crawling up his throat. “I’m coming back,” he said, his voice strangled. “Call Tony, let him know he’s on his own today.”

“Sure.”

He refused to accept that she was dead. Because then, he would never see her face again, hear her whisper his name. “Dominic?”

“Yeah?”

Pain screamed through him, growing louder, stronger with every ragged breath he took. His knees crumbled, and he sank back onto the bed. “You’ll let me know if you hear anything else?”

“I’ll let you know.”

Noah stared at the mobile phone in his hand. He swallowed past a throat that was much too tight, rubbed his hand over a heart he couldn’t believe still pumped. She had to be all right. She had to be. He couldn’t let himself think about her any way but alive—smiling and laughing.

He couldn’t consider how frightened she must have been, trapped in a fire, struggling to breathe while heat and flames nipped at her. He couldn’t wonder if she’d thought of him at all, in those last moments. If she had any idea how important to him she was.