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She started coughing.
“Holy shit,” he said.
And then he was running, scrambling out of the barn before the raging fire he’d drawn could bring the whole thing down around them.
He got her into the grass, in the bright sunlight, where fifteen minutes ago they’d been lying together. Horses were clustered together along the fenceline, some inside the field, some out. He could see blood on some, could smell burned hair.
But he was more worried about Layne. Her clothes were blackened with soot, her face streaked with blood.
But he didn’t see a cut at her hairline. And she wasn’t coughing now, just drawing in big gasps of air.
He could hear sirens.
“Talk to me,” he said. It sounded like he was crying. “Layne please. Talk to me.”
She coughed then. “Are they . . . are they out?”
He didn’t have the heart to tell her some hadn’t gotten out.
He took a breath, ready to lie.
But she grabbed his arm, her nails digging into his skin.
“Truth,” she coughed.
He stared down at her. And shook his head.
She started crying.
“I’m sorry,” he said, choking on the words. “I’m so sorry.”
The sirens were getting closer. Flashing lights strobed through the trees at the end of the property.
He couldn’t be here.
“Layne,” he said. “I have to go.”
She stared back at him. Her eyes were piercing, alert through the tears.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“I knew you’d run,” she said.
The words hit him like a fist. He fell back.
But she was right: he ran like hell.
CHAPTER 32
Gabriel didn’t see the trees, didn’t feel the air on his face. He didn’t feel the pain in his legs, the way the cool air burned his lungs. He just ran. It took every ounce of focus to keep moving forward, to run away from Layne.
He wanted to bolt back to her, to erase that look from her eyes. To hold her hand while the firefighters turned his flames into smoke and bits of cinder.
He kept feeling the way her body had hung in his arms, lifeless.
n instant she wondered if his big secret was that he was a smoker. But she couldn’t work that out in her head. She’d never seen him smoke a cigarette, had never smelled cigarettes or pot or anything on him or his clothes and god knew they’d spent enough time together over the last few days.
But why would he be carrying around a lighter if he wasn’t a smoker?
