Then he bit off his question with a muffled curse because it didn’t matter what she was doing with the bonnet, because she’d given up on the ties, and with an agonized cry, darted for the burning building.
Cursing again, he lunged and caught hold of her coat, but she twisted and pulled without stopping and managed to slip from his grasp.
He watched her disappear into the building, and his knees gave out.
“Nay,” he whispered, because suddenly, amazingly, it was all clear.
He loved Bonnie Oliphant, and he hadn’t allowed himself to acknowledge it. Not until he saw her leaving him.
She’d left him—she’d entered a fire—because she believed the risk was worth it to save her manuscript.
He trusted her judgement and respected her agency, the way she’d told him he hadn’t Rose’s, but he’d bedamnedif he sat and watched another woman he loved die in a fire.
“Nay,” he growled again, pushing himself to his feet and stumbling after her. “Nay!”
He grabbed his scarf and pulled it up around his nose and mouth and held his forearm up to protect his head. Then, taking a deep breath, he plunged into the fire after the woman he couldn’t live without.
The woman he loved.
CHAPTER 11
Sounds filtered through the darkness.
Bonnie had been floating for years, or possibly moments, the world a confusing mix of red and yellow and black. There’d been voices—yelling, pleading, praying—and the terrible scent of burning paper likely coated the inside of her nose and mouth forever.
And always—always—the pain.
Part of her was aware enough to recognize the feel of the medicine someone poured down her throat, and she welcomed the oblivion. The water helped as well, and sometimes there was soup, the squash soup she’d liked so much.
But that was likely a delusion, wasn’t it?
As was his voice, reading to her from her own book.
But now, slowly, she realized all she heard was…silence. It was dark, and the sharp pain in her head and leg had faded to a dull, constant throb. And everything was silent.
She opened her eyes.
At least, shethoughtshe’d opened her eyes, but all she saw was darkness, still. She took a breath, pleased to discover it didn’t hurt as much as she’d feared. She’d been in the fire, hadn’t she? She remembered reaching the case with her manuscript, but then a beam had fallen, blocking her escape…
And the fire had reached her.
But now she could breathe without coughing, which seemed miraculous. She was lying on her back, and…
Gently, her right hand patted the area around her. She was in a bed, the blankets pulled up to her chest, but her arms were free.
And her head…
The pain wasn’t as sharp as it had been. Slowly, worried about jarring her body more than necessary, Bonnie lifted her hand to touch the bandage around her forehead. She barely managed to contain her hiss of pain, and she jerked her fingers away.
In doing so, she snagged the cloth which had been laid over her eyes, and grateful to learn the cause of the darkness, pulled it away.
The light was near blinding, but in a relieving sort of way. Squinting, so the tears which had formed wouldn’t overwhelm her all at once, Bonnie tried to learn where she was.
The ceiling above her was familiar.
Why?
It wasn’t the ceiling of the room at the Oliphant Inn where she’d grown up. It wasn’t the ceiling of her room at the boarding house, or the guest room at Blabloblal where she often stayed.
