Page 107 of Hometown Hottie

“He was, but he’s still with Captain Adams,” Ryan said, quickly adding, “He’s not hurt. They’re not checking him out or anything. He’s just talking to them.”

She jerked her head in a nod. “And Mom? She wasn’t down here, was she?”

“No, she’s up at the house. We should call her. She’s bound to be out of her mind by now.” With that thought in mind, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and did just that, taking a few steps away from us to talk to Mara.

I turned back to Nova, my gaze sweeping across hers. The shock finally started to subside, and my heart ached. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“No,” she said honestly, her voice finally cracking as emotion overwhelmed her. Her eyes moved toward the burning building, a fresh sheen of tears welling on her cheeks. “That place meant everything to me, Carson. It was my dream come true, and I know we can probably rebuild, but it just won’t be the same.”

Fuck it.

I tugged her into me before wrapping my arms around her. Ryan finished up on the phone, but even he didn’t have any objections about it when he came back to find me holding her.

“I just don’t understand how it happened,” she said miserably, letting me hug her for another moment before she stepped out of the circle of my arms and looked at her brother. “Have the firefighters said anything? I’ve been trying to imagine how it could’ve started, but I just don’t know. Did I leave an oven on? A stove?”

Ryan and I exchanged a glance, back on the same wavelength as I saw the darkness of my own thoughts staring back at me from his eyes. We didn’t have any evidence, but I’d been thinking about it since she’d told me what was going on and I didn’t think this had started with an oven.

He swept his tongue across his lips, slowly moving his gaze away from mine as he glanced at the building. “I have a feeling this wasn’t an accident.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, shock making her voice several octaves higher. “You think someone did this on purpose?”

“I think we should leave and let the firemen do their jobs,” he said. “But yes, I think it’s possible.”

She arched a questioning eyebrow at me, and I nodded my agreement with him. “They’ll know more soon. We should get out of their way, but it didn’t look like that blaze started in the kitchen, Nova.”

We all piled into the truck.

“We could be wrong,” Ryan said reluctantly. “At this stage, it’s only a feeling, but Carson is right. It didn’t look like it started in the kitchen. Either way, we’ll only know for sure once the firefighters do.”

Behind the steering wheel, I took one last look at the dying flames, and unease sank like a stone to the pit of my stomach. Something bad had happened here tonight, and it hadn’t necessarily been only the fire.

Someone had done this, and if they’d gone this far, there was no telling what they would do next.