Everlasting Desire by Amanda Ashley Page A

think of the enthusiastic young man who had proposed to her so many times being burned alive in the inferno.
    â€œI don’t know.” Rhys stared at the fire. It was like a scene out of hell, with the flames shooting skyward and sparks falling in the streets and landing on the crowd. Men and women, some with their clothing on fire, ran out of the building, trampling each other in their panic. Rhys shook his head. There wasn’t much in his existence he feared, but fire…It was one of the few things that could destroy him.
    Megan watched in morbid fascination as the firemen went to work. A few of them dashed into the burning building while others manned the fire hoses. The air crackled as thick streams of cold water met the hot, hungry flames.
    It wasn’t long until the reporters arrived, shoving their microphones in the faces of spectators, asking people who had just survived a horrible ordeal the same stupid questions reporters always asked at scenes of death and destruction.
    Rhys glanced at Megan. “Are you ready to go?”
    Megan shook her head. She couldn’t leave, not until she knew whether or not Drexel had survived. And then she saw him, sitting on the curb across the way. His pants were singed, his face and hands were smeared with soot, his right arm looked badly burned. But he was alive.
    The reporters saw him, too. Like vultures on a fresh kill, they swarmed around him, all asking questions at once.
    â€œWhy can’t they just leave him alone?” Megan exclaimed. “Can’t they see he’s hurt?”
    â€œDo you want me to get rid of them?”
    â€œCan you?” she asked hopefully.
    â€œWatch me.” Flexing his shoulders, Rhys pushed his way through the crowd of reporters. “Drexel, do you want to talk to these clowns?”
    Drexel shook his head, then started coughing.
    Standing in front of the boy, Rhys fixed his gaze on each reporter in turn. “You heard him, ladies and gentlemen, he wants to be left alone. Now get the hell out of here.”
    As though pulled by the same string, the reporters all turned and walked away.
    â€œCome on, kid,” Rhys said, “let’s get you out of here.” And so saying, he swung the young man into his arms and carried him toward an ambulance that had just arrived at the end of the block.
    When one of the attendants started to protest that there were others more in need of immediate care, Rhys forced his will on the EMT, then opened the ambulance doors, jumped inside, and lowered Drexel onto the bench that ran along one side of the vehicle.
    The EMT came in behind Rhys and began examining the burn on Drexel’s right arm.
    Drexel stared up at Rhys. “You,” he said, his voice gruff from all the smoke he had inhaled. “I know you….”
    â€œWe met at Shore’s.”
    â€œYoung man,” the EMT admonished, “You shouldn’t try to talk right now.”
    â€œThe medic’s right,” Rhys said. “Save your breath.”
    â€œMegan…I saw her….” Drexel broke into a paroxysm of coughing. “Is she…?”
    â€œShe’s fine. You’ll be proposing to her again in no time.”
    Drexel smiled faintly; then, with a pain-filled sigh, he closed his eyes.
    Rhys stared down at the kid for a moment. Had he ever been that young? With a shake of his head, he jumped out of the ambulance and returned to Megan.
    â€œIs he all right?” she asked anxiously.
    â€œHe’ll be fine. He’s got a bad burn on one arm, and he inhaled some smoke. Nothing too serious.”
    Rhys glanced at the six covered bodies lying in the street. He could have told the firemen there were two more inside, but the dead were beyond help, beyond caring.
    The fire was under control now. Cops were directing traffic away from the scene. The scream of sirens pierced the night as ambulances pulled away from the stadium. Reporters, their cameramen in tow,