I stepped aside but didn’t go far.
Becca looked at me over the mask—eyes shining in the rotating red and white lights—and my words came out quiet, almost lost under the sirens. “I have to go.”
“Cross your heart, you’ll come back,” she murmured.
I looked at her for a long moment—memorizing her face in the firelight, the soot on her cheekbones, the way her eyes streamed with tears, the stubborn set of her mouth that said she was still fighting even now.
“Cross my heart,” I said.
Then I leaned in, kissed her once—slow, certain, ash and smoke and her and the cold night air—pouring everything I couldn’t say into the kiss.I love you. I’m terrified. I’m never letting you out of my sight again.When I pulled back, I rested my forehead against hers for one heartbeat, breathing her in.
“Don’t scare me like that again,” I whispered.
She gave a small, shaky laugh against my lips. “I won’t.”
I kissed her once more, then turned around and went to work.
But every step I took away from her felt like pulling against gravity.
She was still there.
She was breathing.
She was mine.
And I was going to make damn sure nothing ever came close to taking her from me again.
Chapter 34
Becca
“Welcome toSomebody Said in Sweetbriar. You can walk out of the smoke steady on your feet, but the part of you that was afraid stays inside, breathing slow and waiting for the next spark. That’s the part nobody sees.”
The paramedics had cleared me—lungs okay, no burns beyond the raw scrape of smoke, a handful of shallow claw marks on my collarbone that one of them had cleaned and covered with the bored efficiency of someone who’d seen worse before breakfast. Matt had told me Aggie was at Rosemary’s. They’d taken Gerald to the vet, and now they were both safe with her. I pictured her wrapped in one of Rosemary’s quilts with her cat pressed against her chest and held onto that image and tried to let it be enough for now.
Levi was still at the fire.
That was the part I kept coming back to. Everyone else had moved away from the flames—that was the human instinct, the sane and reasonable one—and Levi had moved toward them, the way it was his job to do, and I knew that. I understoodit. I had always understood it in the abstract. It was different, understanding it while I could still smell the smoke in my own hair.
Matt had stayed close through all of it, a steady presence at my elbow while the paramedics worked, while I breathed through an oxygen mask, while the trucks moved and the radios crackled, and the organized chaos of it sorted itself into something manageable. He hadn’t pushed. Hadn’t peppered me with questions or told me I’d been reckless, though I suspected that conversation was coming at some point, and I was grateful he was saving it. Then he’d steered me gently toward his truck with one hand between my shoulder blades, and I hadn’t argued.
Now he pulled to a stop in the gravel drive as the sky warmed to afternoon gold, hazy from the smoke-filled air. He killed the engine, and for a long moment the cab was quiet except for the faint crackle of cooling metal and my own uneven breaths.
He turned to me, face soft in the dim glow from the dashboard. “You’re staying here, Bec. No arguments.”
I nodded, too tired to fight it. And too aware that my trailer was twenty feet from a burned-out Airstream, and that Levi was still somewhere back there in the forest behind the campground, doing his job, and that I wouldn’t sleep until I heard his voice.
He got out first, came around to my side, and opened the door before I could reach for the handle. When I stepped down, my legs felt unsteady, like the ground was still shifting under me. Matt steadied me with a hand under my elbow—gentle, automatic, taking care of me the way he’d done since we were kids.
“Come on,” he said quietly. “Let’s get you inside.”
He walked me up the steps, arm around my shoulders now, solid and warm. The door creaked open to the familiar smell of lemon cleanser and coffee, undercut tonight by the lingering biteof ash that clung to both of us. He flicked on the hall light, soft and yellow, chasing the shadows back.
“Fridge is stocked,” he said as we moved toward the kitchen. “Milk, eggs, leftovers from last night if you’re hungry later. There’s coffee in the cupboard. Tea is in the tin on the counter—chamomile if you want to try to sleep.” He gave my shoulder a light squeeze. “Help yourself to anything. You know where everything is.”
I managed a small nod.
He steered me toward the stairs. “You need a shower. Towels are in the linen closet—clean ones on the top shelf. Use whatever clothes you want from my room. Flannel shirts, sweats, whatever fits. Don’t worry about it.”
