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“I’ll check with Tessa and take care of it. Don’t worry about it.”
“Thank you,” she said, her mind already back to the apartment.
As she grabbed a box and looked to see what she could use for old clothes, her chest tightened at the thought of having to go alone. Asher would go if she asked, but she knew he was at his parents’ house, helping his mom direct their hired crew with last minute party setup, and she didn’t want to take him away from his family.
Out of the blue, Loyal’s surprisingly concerned “Are you okay?” the morning after the fire popped into her head. It had been her first non-hostile experience with him, and shortly after, he’d offered her a ride to her building so she didn’t have to walk. She had a fleeting urge to ask for his support now, but it was quickly doused with the memory of his expression when she’d thrown his half-brother in his face.
If she called Loyal—which she couldn’t because she didn’t even have his number—he’d probably tell her to go to hell. And justifiably so.
She was well and truly on her own.
Roxanna found an old smock she’d used for painting a year or so ago, grabbed a medium sized box for whatever she could salvage, threw in a couple garbage bags for good measure, and headed out.
When she parked her old Jeep behind the blackened building, she saw a couple of her fellow tenants milling about. Her heart thumped hard as she gathered her things from the passenger seat, checked in with the building manager, and cautiously made her way inside. The smoke smell lingering in the air outside was twenty-times stronger inside, and she pressed the back of her hand up to her nose as her stomach churned.
Grim hellos and subdued smiles were exchanged with anyone she met in the hall, and then she slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor. Shock halted her steps when she saw the extent of the damage. Walls were burned down to the studs, and what was left resembled charred prison bars. She could see into every room thanks to no walls and the burned out windows allowing outside light into the powerless building.
When she moved to the doorway of her apartment, any hope of salvage was snuffed out in one stomach-sinking glance. Footsteps and voices drew her shell-shocked gaze as two fireman in half their gear—boots, pants, T-shirt, and suspenders—appeared at the top of the stairs.
“We have gloves and a mask that we recommend you wear.”
She accepted the supplies the taller, dark-haired guy handed over. “Thank you.”
“If you need anything lifted out of the way, or carried out to your vehicle, let us know, okay?”
She nodded, and they moved on to check the other apartments.
Finally, Roxanna took a deep breath and stepped into the only space she’d called home since the day she’d packed her things in Wisconsin and moved to Colorado. She hadn’t looked back—there wasn’t much to look at—but this loss here, pretty much a total loss, was a nauseating gut punch.
Not a total loss.
The reminder was swift and true. She needed to always consider first that she was alive. All her neighbors were alive. What she had lost were only material items that could be replaced. For as long as she’d been practicing life affirmations at Lift Your Spirit, that should always be her first thought.
It would always be her first thought from now on.
With that in mind, she squared her shoulders, fit the mask over her nose and mouth, and pulled on a pair of gloves to start picking through the ashes of her belongings.
Almost two hours later, her efforts resulted in half a box of blackened items she might be able to clean up back at the shop. Soot darkened her skirt, arms, gloves, and probably her cheeks from when she’d swiped stray hairs away from her face. Somehow she must’ve breathed ashes or dust particles in, because her eyes and throat were itchy, her lungs were tight, and she was so stuffed up it was almost impossible to breathe out of her nose.
But all she had left to go through was her bedroom—or what used to be her bedroom—so she kept at it. She didn’t plan on coming back again.
Her phone was right there, melted to the charred remains of her nightstand. Moving aside the burnt pieces of what was left, a sudden memory made her pulse skip. Then her stomach dropped with dismay and she frantically dug into the debris.
She swallowed hard when she finally lifted a gold chain enmeshed in a melted puddle of plastic from the ashes. The amulet from a grocery store vending machine had been worthless from the start, but her mom had made it something special when she took her into a jewelry store to buy the chain.
Tears stung Roxanna’s eyes, sparking anguish and anger. She shouldn’t care about losing something so trivial from the woman who had betrayed her time and again, and yet the necklace represented that one perfect memory she’d cherished of her mom. That one perfect day they’d spent together when she was nine, when she knew her mother loved her.
Before the selfish woman abandoned their family. Before she’d betrayed her husband and daughter, and before she came back to do it all over again ten years later.
Chapter 11
“Batman returns.”
Loyal offered his brother’s fiancé a grim smile as he joined the group congregated off to the side of the haunted house that had been constructed in the lower, detached garage. His mom always went all out to raise as much money as possible for the kids.
Asher and Honor made a striking couple as Zorro and his wife from that nineties The Mask of Zorro movie. Merit was unsurprisingly a one-eyed pirate—he wouldn’t want a full mask obscuring his pretty mug from the ladies. Bells had gone all out as Beauty from Beauty and the Beast in her golden ball gown, and Reyes, the youngest of the Torrez siblings, had opted for the classic Grim Reaper with a scythe.
Loyal scowled as he adjusted the string securing his black cape around his neck. Batman had seemed ideal to hide behind the mask, but he hadn’t counted on the cape choking him—or the skin-tight spandex pants showcasing the family jewels. He kept fighting the urge to cup his hands in front of his crotch and hoped hooking his thumbs in the utility belt while holding his long-neck beer bottle was cover enough.
