Fallen: An Everyday Heroes World Novel (The Everyday Heroes World) Read online

  Contents

  A note from K. Bromberg

  1. ZACH

  2. LILY

  3. ZACH

  4. LILY

  5. ZACH

  6. LILY

  7. ZACH

  8. LILY

  9. ZACH

  10. LILY

  11. ZACH

  12. LILY

  13. ZACH

  14. LILY

  15. ZACH

  16. LILY

  17. ZACH

  18. LILY

  19. ZACH

  20. LILY

  21. ZACH

  22. LILY

  23. ZACH

  24. LILY

  25. ZACH

  26. LILY

  27. ZACH

  28. LILY

  29. ZACH

  30. LILY

  31. ZACH

  32. LILY

  33. ZACH

  34. LILY

  35. ZACH

  36. LILY

  37. ZACH

  38. LILY

  Epilogue

  Everyday Heroes World

  Books by Rebecca

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also Written By K. Bromberg

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  © 2021 KB WORLDS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

  Published by KB Worlds LLC.

  Cover Design by: KatDeezigns

  Editing by: Spellbound

  Formatting by: DL Gallie

  Published in the United States of America

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to the Everyday Heroes World!

  I’m so excited you’ve picked up this book! Fallen is a book based on the world I created in my USA Today bestselling Everyday Heroes Series. While I may be finished writing this series (for now), various authors have signed on to keep them going. They will be bringing you all-new stories in the world you know while allowing you to revisit the characters you love.

  This book is entirely the work of the author who wrote it. While I allowed them to use the world I created and may have assisted in some of the plotting, I took no part in the writing or editing of the story. All praise can be directed their way.

  I truly hope you enjoy Fallen. If you’re interested in finding more authors who have written in the KB Worlds, you can visit www.kbworlds.com.

  Thank you for supporting the writers in this project and me.

  Happy Reading,

  K. Bromberg

  For my readers.

  You wanted a sexy fireman…well here he is.

  Enjoy

  xoxo

  1

  ZACH

  Flopping down on the ugly couch in the living quarters of the firehouse, I was rat shit exhausted. I was coming off the shift from hell. Minutes after starting my shift yesterday afternoon we were called to a house fire caused by someone falling asleep with a cigarette in his mouth. Then a kid got his fingers stuck in the drain in his bathtub and screamed blue murder into my ear as we tried to pry his chubby fingers free. Then a call to a car accident that I wouldn’t get over in a hurry. Being first on the scene to a multi-vehicle multi-fatality was never fun.

  “Aren’t you heading home?” Grady asked as he dropped onto the arm of the couch beside me.

  “Yeah, in a minute,” I replied running my hand over the stubble on my chin, catching the scent of fuel on my fingers. Even though I’d showered and changed into jeans and a t-shirt, I could still smell it on my skin.

  Clamping his hand down on my shoulder, he looked down on me like he was about to impart some kind of wisdom. Not that I was naive enough to believe he actually possessed any. It’d been six months since I’d joined the crew and they’d accepted this Aussie without question.

  “Dylan’s cooking breakfast. Wanna join?”

  “Nah. I’m going to just head home.”

  “You sure? You know she cooks enough pancakes to feed an army.”

  “Thanks, but I’m good.”

  The truth was, I would’ve loved to go over for breakfast. Dylan was a great cook when it came to breakfast foods, but the last thing I wanted to do was to sit and watch as Grady and Dylan grossed me out with their lovey dovey bullshit. All it did was remind me of Katie. The woman who broke my heart and had me leaving the only home I’d ever known, headed for the other side of the world.

  “All right then, I’m out.”

  “See you in a couple of days then.”

  “Have fun. And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” I replied, already thinking about how to waste my days off. It was funny how much I’d come to appreciate days off. Even something as simple as doing laundry, renovating my house or just sitting out the back on the porch grilling steaks and cracking open a cold beer was about all the excitement I was up for these days.

  Standing up, I yawned and stretched my arms above my head ignoring the ache in my shoulders. Finding my phone, I checked my messages expecting to see something from Mom, only to find it blank. Digging in my pocket I pulled out the keys to my truck and headed to the door. The sooner I headed home the sooner I could crash and start trying to put what I’d seen last night behind me.

  I’d just clicked the fob unlocking the truck when an alarm I hadn’t heard before sounded. Glancing over the hood, I saw that Grady had stopped where he was too. “What’s that?” I called out, heading back towards the door.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, throwing his duffle bag on the back seat and starting in my direction.

  Two steps from the main door he froze. “Shit!”

  “What?”

  “The safe haven box.”

  “Safe haven box?”

  “Yeah, I think that’s what it is. I never thought it’d get used though. Not in this town.”

  Instead of going inside, he rounded the corner towards the back of the brick building. Grabbing his shoulder, I stopped him in his tracks. “What the hell is a safe haven box?”

  “It was introduced a couple of years ago. It’s a place where people can anonymously drop off their unwanted babies knowing they’re safe and they can’t be prosecuted for it.”

  “What the fuck? Unwanted babies?”

  “Yeah. Bloody sad if you ask me.”

  “Are you…you okay with this?” I asked, unable to mask the shock. How did I not know about this? Why the fuck was there a place where people could get rid of their unwanted babies? The thought alone disgusted me.

  “What? Hell no! But it’s better than what was happening.”

  Scared to know the answer, I asked anyway. “What was happening?”

  “People were abandoning them in public toilets, at bus stops or even parking lots. At least this gives them somewhere safe, warm and dry to leave them. It’s got an alarm rigged up, so we know straight away, so the kid isn’t there for long.”

  “This is crazy.”

  “Doesn’t Australia have something like this?”

  “If it does, I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Come on. Let’s go see if it’s kids playing g
ames, or someone actually needs us.”

  “Is it wrong that I’m hoping it is kids?”

  “Me too. Me too.”

  Silently we made our way around the corner. There was no one out there. Only a few cars, a couple of old wooden pallets and a stray gray cat prowling. It didn’t give me any comfort.

  Following Grady over to the wall, he pulled open a hatch I hadn’t even seen. My heart shattered. If I thought Katie had destroyed me, the sight before me was the final straw. Lying there, wrapped in an old flannel shirt, was a tiny baby.

  “Is that?” I asked dumbly.

  “Yeah. Let me get him out.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  I don’t know why I offered to be the one, but I just needed to. Reaching in, as carefully as I could, I picked up the most precious thing I’d ever had in my hands. Once he was in my arms, I looked down at him. He was so small. He barely weighed anything at all. He had huge blue eyes and barely any hair. All it took was a blink of his long black lashes and he captured my heart.

  Hugging him close against me, I lifted him to my face and breathed him in. All I could smell was the thick putrid stench of cigarette smoke. “What happens to him now?”

  “What makes you think it’s a him?”

  “He looks like a boy. Don’t you think?”

  “Looks like a baby to me.”

  “You’re hopeless Grady.”

  “Come on. Let’s take him to the hospital to get checked.”

  “And then?”

  “Then he gets placed with a foster family until a more permanent solution can be found.”

  “And if one can’t be found?”

  Grady didn’t get a chance to answer before the bundle in my arms started squealing. “What’s wrong with him?”

  “Let’s just get him to the hospital.”

  After checking the box for a note, or a change of clothes or anything that might let us know who this little guy was, we headed back towards Grady’s truck. As we went, the shirt he’d been wrapped in came loose. Juggling the squirming, screaming child in my arms, I dropped it on the ground and kept going.

  “Do you need this?” Grady asked from behind me, the shirt dangling from his fingers.

  “Nah. It’s disgusting.”

  “We need to wrap him in something. We don’t want him to get cold.”

  Stepping up to the passenger side of Grady’s truck, I laid him down on the front seat before pulling my long sleeve shirt over my head and wrapping him snuggly. After checking it wasn’t too tight, I cradled him against me.

  “Need me to hold him?”

  “I got it.”

  I have no idea why I was so protective of him; I didn’t even know his name or where he’d come from, but he completely owned me. Climbing into the truck, I buckled my seatbelt and held him tightly against me as he continued to howl. His cries broke my heart.

  As Grady backed out of the lot, he suggested, “Hold him against your chest.”

  “Against my chest?”

  “Yeah. Something about skin-to-skin contact.”

  Even though I wasn’t entirely sold on Grady’s suggestion, I was willing to try pretty much anything. Unwrapping him, I settled his head over my rapidly beating heart. A few breaths later, he quietened and settled.

  “Zach?”

  “Huh?”

  “We’re here,” Grady told me.

  Looking up, I saw we were parked out the front of the hospital. I’d been so captivated by my new favorite little man; I’d barely realized we’d arrived. When Grady opened my door, I felt sick. I was going to have to give him up, something I was seriously considering impossible.

  Carefully I climbed out, trying not to bump the boy in my arms. “Want me to come in with you?” Grady offered.

  Wanting to keep him to myself for as long as I could, I shook my head. “I got this. Go home to your wife.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  “I am.”

  “Okay. Call me if you need anything.” Clapping me on my back, he draped my shirt over my shoulder before climbing back into his truck and leaving me standing there in the emergency bay of the hospital. When the breeze ruffled my hair and left me covered in goose pimples, I hugged him tighter, trying to ward off the cold.

  “Come on, little man, let’s get you checked out and warmed up.” He answered with a gurgle as I carried him inside.

  Stepping inside the waiting room, I headed for the lady seated behind the counter. When she looked up over the top of her black-rimmed glasses, I didn’t miss the way her eyes widened, and her cheeks flushed. Not that I could blame her; I could barely believe it myself. I’m sure I looked like shit. I needed a shave, my shirt was tossed over my shoulder, my arms were covered in tattoos, and I had a tiny baby snuggled against me.

  “C-c-can I help you?” she stuttered as she pulled her glasses off and set them down on her desk.

  “I need someone to take a look at this little guy.”

  “What seems to be wrong with him?”

  Looking around at the waiting room, I wasn’t surprised to see people staring back at me. I didn’t give two shits what they thought about me. They weren’t important. But this little guy, he was. And he deserved more than being gawked at like he was an exhibit at the zoo.

  “Have you got somewhere private we can talk?” I asked, looking at the examination room behind her.

  Eyeing me warily, she nodded and flipped up the divider in the counter and ushered me through. When the door clicked closed behind us, I sat on the edge of the bed. When I tried to put him down, the screaming started again. Unable to stand it, I held him close.

  “Look…” I began as I explained about finding him in the safe haven box and getting him here. As I told her what I knew, I watched as her heart broke and she felt as bad as I did.

  “How can someone do that?” As soon as her words came out, she clamped her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. It was unprofessional and judgmental. I apologize.”

  “Hey, no need to apologize to me. I’m right there with you. How anyone could give this little guy up, I have no idea.”

  “Okay. Well, let me check some vitals, and then we’ll get the pediatrics team to check him over.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we call in Children’s Services.”

  “And he’ll become just another kid in the system.”

  “Unfortunately, yes. But it’s better than the alternative.”

  I tasted bile. I hated that she was right. I hated what she was saying, but it didn’t make her any less correct. It was bullshit.

  Sensing my mood, she stretched her arms out to take him from me.

  2

  LILY

  “Oh. My. God.”

  “Are you okay, Lily? You’ve gone very pale. Maybe you should sit down for a minute,” my ex-best friend and nurse, Sarah, suggested, reaching for my elbow.

  “You didn’t tell me about… about… well, about that,” I muttered, my eyes unblinking as I stared through the glass at the most beautiful sight I could ever imagine.

  “Ah. Zach Higgins. Now I get it.” Sarah smirked.

  “Zach Higgins? That’s all you’ve got to say? I’m standing over here in physical pain from where my ovaries just exploded from just looking at the guy, and all you have to say is, Zach Higgins? You’re fired as a best friend.”

  “Fired? Why am I fired?”

  “You could’ve warned me I’d be walking into… well… this.”

  “So what? So you could’ve freaked out and talked yourself out of it? Nope. No way. It’s for your own good.”

  “Well, a heads up would’ve been nice.”

  “Noted. Now, do you want to go and meet her?”

  “Tell me again.”

  Leading me away from the window and the sight that could incinerate underwear, she took me to a quiet room and went over everything she’d already told me on the phone. A little girl was left in a safe haven box early this morning. The fir
e fighter who found her brought her in for a check-up. She’s about two weeks old, a little underweight and under nourished but all in all in good health.

  “Okay. So, I take her home and look after her…”

  “Until a permanent solution can be found.” Sarah sounded like she was reciting from the unemotional textbook, not talking to someone she’d known since kindergarten. “Lily, are you sure you want to do this? I mean, it’s a big responsibility.”

  “You don’t think I can?” As I said the words aloud, I could taste the bitterness there.

  “Absolutely you can. I know you can. I just know you well enough to know you’re going to get attached.”

  “You make it sound like a bad thing.” I did not like the way this sounded. I was hurt by Sarah’s insinuation. She knew me. She knew all I ever wanted was to be a mom. And she knew, she’d stood beside me and held my hand when the doctors confirmed that, for me, it was almost going to be impossible.

  “Stow your claws, Lily. All I am saying is I know you, and the moment you hold that gorgeous little girl in your arms you’re going to fall in love with her and not want to give her up. And you need to keep in mind, that there’s a very good chance you will have to give her up.”

  She was right. I was already in love with the idea of her and once I had her in my arms there was no way I was going to want to let go. It would hurt and I would cry and it would more than likely break my heart, but I didn’t care. I was doing it. I’d deal with everything else later. It was future Lily’s problem. First though, first I had to meet her.