Nothing on this planet could stop me from pacing up and down on the night before the legal wedding.

Playing with the triplets until their bed time hadn't spent any of my nervous energy. Margaret had made some chamomile tea I suspected had caffeine. Mami attempted to keep me still for a few minutes after convincing me to try on the wedding dress for some final adjustments, but all it had accomplished was that my twitching had got me poked by the pins.

When all that had failed, Gabe had tried to physically restrain me. Kindly, of course. He settled me on the sofa beside him, an arm bracketed around me as much for comfort as to weigh me down. It struck me that it was something Carlos would've probably done too, and while I'd lost him years ago, thanks to Cata I had found a new brother.

Papi saw the whole thing, perched on the armchair where Margaret typically sat. He narrowed his eyes at me and said, "Eso es que no te quieres casar."

No, I just didn't want to get married in these circumstances. Pace and I deciding to marry after getting pregnant had been our decision, hasty and crazy, but one we had reached together. All of these conditions and the rush weren't.

"No, papi." I sighed. "No es eso."

"Y entonces qué?"

"Es un cambio grande," Cata said, guessing at something that might have been bothering me without me realizing. "Bueno, dos cambios grandes... si es que solo vas a tener un bebé."

The side eye she sent to her husband made me smile, but that only lasted a second. While Gabe was distracted, I jumped to my feet and paced again.

What I truly yearned for was my to-be-husband. I wished we were in his bed, curled up together under the warm blankets, which wasn't possible not just because he had a shift tonight but also because under papi's strict supervision there could be none of that.

I took a deep breath, reminding myself in a few days I'd legally be Mrs. Leblanc and papi and co. would be back in Florida. No one would be able to stop me if I wanted to cuddle up with my man.

Words I never thought I'd think, but here we were.

I flopped back on the sofa, not even caring I wrinkled the pretty dress I was supposed to wear tomorrow. It was simple, a white sheath dress with an outer layer of lace, long sleeves and a skirt that reached just past the knees. It made both of my parents happy and frankly, me too, because I looked damn fine in it and it was warm.

A buzzing sound came from the kitchen. My phone was on the coffee table before me and I picked it up, but the screen was blank.

"Oh, it's probably mine," Margaret said, putting her laptop on the coffee table and going to get her phone.

Bless her, not only for housing an unruly family of Latinos but also for not complaining about the mess we made, or all the Spanish floating about the air.

"What?" she screamed into the phone and immediately all our heads turned to her. Margaret's face was pale. "Right now?"

"What's going on?" I asked. Her expression shriveled up even more.

"Okay, I'll try to keep her calm." Which sounded like entirely the wrong thing to say when she'd just screamed and was looking at me like she wanted to cry.

"Margaret," I warned her.

Her shoulders drooped as she cut off the call. "That was Lena Lee and, um. I need you to stay calm."

I jumped to my feet and Cata followed not a second later.

"It's the arena," the woman said.

Oh, thank God. I thought something had happened to Pace.

"Did they cancel last minute?" Cata asked, giving me a look I read as if she had reached the same conclusion as me.

"Qué pasa?" mami asked but then Margaret opened her mouth.

What came out was, "No, it's burning down."

This time, Gabe and Cata shouted, "What?"

My brother-in-law translated to my parents and I heard it as though I were underwater. My movements were slow and strained as if I weren't moving through air either. I crossed the living room, grabbed my coat and rushed out of the door.

Someone screamed at me to stop, but unless they planned on physically restraining me, I had no plans to comply.

"At least put on a scarf," Cata said, catching up with me before anyone else. "It's damn cold at night."

Heat drained off of me the closer we got to the blaze. The flames and smoke could be seen from above the canopies of the trees and the rooftops in a town that didn't even have tall buildings. The fact it was such a small settlement might be why the fire appeared to be so huge.

As we joined what appeared to be every single townsfolk watching their beloved hockey arena burn down to the ground, it wasn't the impact to the community or the fact my wedding was ruined what I thought about.

My heart hammered in my throat as firefighters worked around the building to contain the fire. There was no doubt in my mind that Pace was among them, so I searched for him. First, by craning my neck, second, by circling the perimeter as best as I could weave myself through the throngs of people. My family and Margaret followed along in silence, except for mami who'd stayed behind with the kids. Cata kept her hand firmly around mine.

Finally, I broke through the front line of people, which was where I actually found Lena Lee.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, more shocked at seeing me there than at the raging inferno in front of us.

I answered the question with another one. "Where's Pace?"

And Lena Lee proceeded to ignore that. "You should be at home. This is probably not good for your health."

"I'm not fragile." It came out way harsher than I intended, but that wasn't what mattered right now. "Where is my fiancee?"

"Cálmate," my sister said beside me.

I couldn't.

Suddenly everything was too real. As if somehow what Pace did for a living hadn't truly registered. When he'd pulled me out of the rubble my old car had become, it had been me in danger. Not him. Now, it was clear to me he was a firefighter. He was one of those crazy people who went into blazing buildings and risked their lives to save others.

Why couldn't he have been an accountant? Why did he have to be not just my hero but everyone else's too?

A couple of firefighters rushed by us and I recognizedone of them. It was one of the guys who'd responded to the scene of my crash.

"Where's Pace?" I asked him.

He stopped for a second, took a good look at me, said oh and carried on.

"Hey!" I called out to him but that didn't make him stop.

Fine. I veered towards the fire truck. The Captain better have news.

After struggling with getting through, I found him and repeated the question I'd been asking for the past half hour.

"Ma'am, please. Step back and let us do our job," was his response.

I did. But only like half a step.

Even if it took the whole night, I would make sure Pace was fine at the end of it.

The abrasive heat of the fire did nothing to warm me up as I stood among my people.

For hours I waited. Cata started swaying when her eyes couldn't remain open and eventually Gabe took her back. Margaret followed, not before giving me a big hug. Lena Lee hung out for longer, but she also called it quits until it was just papi and I.

"Entonces de verdad lo quieres," he said.

"Y él a mi," I murmured.

And that was my fuel tonight and probably for the rest of my life. If something happened to Pace, I knew for a fact I'd never find a love like his again. I hugged papi and prayed, both for the first time in what felt like a lifetime.

The sun was starting to break into the sky by the time the crew managed to extinguish the flames. Plumes of dark smoke billowed, carried away from us by the wind.

And then I spotted him. Somehow I knew it was Pace, even though he was covered in soot from top to bottom. He walked out of the building with ease, as though it hadn't just been engulfed in flames, and headed over to his Captain. He spotted me then and drew to a halt.

"Cora?"

I didn't think it through. Tearing myself away from papi's arms, I vaulted over the caution tape and slammed right into him. I wrapped my arms around the bulk of his turnouts as best as I could and even when the soot made me sneeze, I didn't let go.

"Gracias a Dios que estás bien," I said, over and over.

"Leblanc, get the civilian away from the scene!" someone shouted.

"Hey," Pace said, putting in some strength to pull me away. "You shouldn't be here, it's not safe."

"Exactly!"

His clear eyes blinking at me where stark against the dirt in his face. "Okay, let me finish up here and we can talk."

The nervous energy that had coursed through me all night started to ebb away after seeing him safe and sound. Papi stayed with me as I melted on the sidewalk and sat there, watching the firefighters work. Not many people remained after the scene looked less like the set of an action movie.

Papi snorted out of the blue. "Si estuviéramos en Venezuela la gente estaría saqueando esto."

That gave me a weak smile. "Yo creo que se hubieran llevado el camión de bomberos hace rato."

And the firefighters. They probably would've taken them too. For ransom.

He sighed and turned to me. "A pesar de todo, me alegra que estés aquí. Nadie de esta gente te va a hacer daño. Especialmente ese muchacho. Se ve que le importas."

I leaned my head on his shoulder. Sometimes I felt like everything about my life in Venezuela had been wrong. I hurt Carlos by never seeing things from his point of view, not even after he was gone. I almost cost Cata her US visa and had even felt glad for it. I hurt mami every time I made sure the divide in our family's beliefs was clear. I hurt papi when I went behind his back and risked my life for a cause that ultimately didn't have my back.

The hospital had been out of the materials needed to do a proper rape kit. The police had imprisoned my ex based on testimonies, but without hard proof they weren't sure how long they could keep him behind bars. With his connections to the party, it wouldn't have been for long.

That was when I realized everything I'd believed in, worked for, bled for, had been for nothing.

And I ran. But even as I left the people and the places behind, the memories tagged along with me and for a long time refused to let me live a new life.

Until Pace.

Ah, maybe marrying him in a rush wasn't such a bad idea after all. I couldn't wait to spend the rest of my second life with him.

Pace didn't look as mooney-eyed as I felt when he finally joined us. He'd changed the outer layer of his clothes into clean ones and wiped his face. Which was set into a frown.

Papi got up from his seat beside me and said, "I go home."

We watched him retrace his steps back to Margaret's for a moment before Pace took the spot papi had vacated. He zipped my coat all the way up to my chin. "You shouldn't be here."

I burrowed into the coat. "I was worried."

"Why?" Pace asked. "I was doing my job."

"Your job is dangerous."

He sighed. "Cora, so is yours. Anything could go wrong but if I start worrying about that I won't be able to function."

"But it's different," I argued, folding my arms around myself. "In my case, it would be an accident. A one in a million occurrence. I'm not purposefully putting myself in harm's way."

"And I don't ever want you to." Pace grabbed one of my hands. "And neither do I. I'm a professional and I don't take risks. You have to trust that."

Shit, my eyes were welling up.

"I just don't want to lose you," I whispered, warm tears now burning a path down my cold cheeks.

Pace pulled me against him. "You won't. We're marrying in a few hours, even if we have to do it without a roof over our heads. And then I'll be yours to worry about forever."

"Too late, I already do."

That was how, hours later, we got married under the civil law, in the midst of a town in commotion, surrounded by all the people who loved us.