Page 63 of Burning For You

Not a lie. “You know why I’m doing it. It’s going to help me with my book.”

“Did you start your book yet?”

“No,” she admitted. “I haven’t had time.”

“Are you sure you’re not using that as an excuse to do what you are?”

Her lips twisted in frustration. “I’m not using anything as an excuse. I needed more information.”

“Information you could have just asked me at any point. I would have told you the truth. Do you think your father and I haven’t seen that fire report?”

Her feet halted. Her heart not only stopped racing but almost sank to the floor. “You have? Why?”

“Because we wanted to. We needed to know everything we could about what happened that night. We didn’t know if it’d help you adjust or if you’d have questions, but you didn’t. Or not much.”

She’d listened to what they’d said to her about what happened, but she was too busy grieving the loss of everything she’d known in her life.

Not the loss of love she’d never gotten. Or the possessions that had strings attached. A cluttered home she took care of more than her parents did.

But the loss of just the life that she’d lived.

What her future was going to hold. Where she’d end up.

On top of that, she was healing from a broken leg that needed surgery.

She was in a stranger’s house that was much bigger and nicer than anywhere she’d been in her life.

A classmate of hers and that was uncomfortable to navigate.

But somehow she had.

And in that time, she healed in a lot of ways, and asking more about what happened the night her world changed felt like a betrayal when she was already feeling both comfort and the guilt for having that guilt in her life.

“Everything was happening so fast back then. It took me years to start thinking. Or to wonder.”

“And you could have asked and you didn’t. You just recently brought it up but didn’t do it in the context of wanting to know the truth. You asked if we remembered anything else. That’s it. If you’d asked me if I ever saw the report, if I thought maybe it was wrong at any point, I could have saved you years of wondering. I’m hurt you didn’t trust me enough.”

Just great. Even more guilt on her shoulders.

“Don’t take it that way. I just didn’t know if you would have that information and it didn’t seem like that big of a deal.”

Which was a lie she was positive Carrie Lancaster saw right through.

But her adopted mother wouldn’t call her out on it.

“Now you need to be careful. The police are going to look into it.”

“I asked Tate if he’d let me know what they find out or not. They don’t want me writing an article on it though. Not that I was contacted.”

“That’s right,” her mother said firmly. “This is more about safety, not getting press. That isn’t your job and you know it. Don’t turn it into that either.”

It’d never been her plan to. She didn’t even understand why the person made the comment about her having a new career.

Unless she was looked into and they saw that she’d only had a handful of stories prior.

She wasn’t doing this full time and hadn’t in years.

Not since she was trying to fill the holes in her income. Or through college when she needed more spending money.