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“Yea. That’s fine. Here.” I dove into my pocket and withdrew my credit card. “Give the waitress this and sign it for me. I’ll be right back.”
“Wait, what?”
I tossed the card onto the table, blocking out everything else my sister had to say. There was only one concern on my mind at the moment.
And it had everything to do with making a bad decision with a woman that was all sorts of wrong for me.
Chapter Five
Lyndsey
You are a queen.
You are a goddess.
There is no way this nightmare of events is going to get you down.
I had chanted those words to myself for the past fifteen minutes. They weren’t helping. I still felt like my whole life was spiraling out of control. Nothing I could say or do mattered anymore. I was stuck here in this town because of the house. I was stuck, unable to do anything tosavethe house because my parents thought their cruel play at tough love was exactly what I needed at this moment.
I could just leave. Put the house up on the market, charred bits and all, and just leave.
With what money? I had just enough to get me through the next week. It was enough for a plane ticket back to Berkeley, some food, and the rest of the month’s utilities. But I would be back in the same situation as before.
No job, no future endeavors, and now, no inheritance to fall back on.
I needed to take this job. I needed to be amazing at it! Who knew what my cousins would do with me there? My parents hadn’t even broken the news to them yet.
“We’ll just show up and surprise them,” Mama had said. “It’ll be easier that way.”
Easier for who? My parents weren’t the ones who were going to be stuck with my cousins for ninety days. Every day ingesting their scowls and jabs at me with a smile and pretending I hadn’t just lost the most important person in my life.
How could everything just go back to normal, business as usual? How could they expect me to pretend like I wasn’t still hurting?
I sighed. There had to be another way out of this.
“Contemplating the many mysteries of life?” a voice asked from behind me.
It sounded vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t quite place it at first. The instant reaction my body had to it, though, was unmistakable. I turned around and stared up into the deep, blue eyes of the firefighter from two nights ago.
My God, he’s even more gorgeous in daylight.
Instead of the bulky pants and coat he’d worn most of the night during the fire, he now sported a pair of jeans and t-shirt. Both fit against his body as if tailored to his physique alone. And damn, what a body it was.
I resisted every urge that told me to touch him, to feel the solid muscles of his chest pressed against me once again. I wanted his arms around me, holding me the way he had that night.
When he’d almost kissed me.
Or so I thought.
“What?” I asked, completely forgetting what he had said.
“You looked lost in thought,” he said, a smile playing at his lips. Somewhere in the tiny cafe, I thought I heard a woman swoon.
My God, this man is dangerous.
“Yes. Well, there is a lot to be worried about.”
Was that the best I could come up with? That didn’t even make sense. I mean who didn’t have a lot to worry about?
