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“Was there anyone in the house with you?” Gerald asked.
“Not recently,” she said. “Everyone was in the living area this afternoon for the will reading, though. I left the house for a few hours to collect my things from my parents, then came home shortly after that. But there was no one with me.”
A will reading? Damn, now I really do feel like an ass.
She had clearly just lost someone important to her, and here I was scolding her like a teacher admonishing a child. It still left one question unanswered though.
“How did the candle get up there, then?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, and bolted up to a standing position.
She wobbled, teetering from one foot to the other before nearly collapsing. I caught her by the arms just as she fell, hoisting her back up to her feet. Immediately, I recognized my mistake. Now that I had her in my arms, there was no way in hell I was letting her go. She leaned into me. Her fingers curled around my shirtsleeves, and she pressed her forehead into my shoulder.
It took all the control I had to remind my dick now was not the time to spring into action. I tried to think about something else.
Cold showers. Alaska. Ice buckets.
The fact that this stubborn, willful woman was the last thing I should be looking for at the moment.
I turned to Gerald. “Are the paramedics still on their way?”
“Yes.” Gerald nodded. “They should be here any minute.”
“She’s going to need to go to the hospital.”
“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” she said against my shoulder. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.” I looped an arm around her, as Gerald turned and headed back toward the others. I could have let her go, helped her to her seat on the back of the fire truck. Anywhere other than how I held her now. But greedily, I relished the feel of her in my arms. She felt perfect, made for me in every possible respect of the word.
“I just feel dizzy,” she whispered.
“That’s the smoke. That’s why you need an ambulance.”
“My grandmother’s house.” The words slipped past her lips so softly it was almost a prayer.
Was that whose will they read? Her grandmother? I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to upset her and risk the tender moment between us. Instead, I said, “It’s fine. It looks much worse than it is.”
She laughed, a half-hearted sound, diminished by her weakening condition. “You’re a horrible liar.”
“Here,” I said, and held the oxygen mask up to her again. I helped her to her seat and turned the machine back on. “The paramedics will be here soon.”
Another moment or two strapped with the oxygen mask, and she was already feeling a little bit better. She tugged the blanket from around her shoulders and set it down beside her. It was nearly eighty degrees, even with the sun being down for several hours. Though the giant bonfire beside us certainly didn’t do anything to lower temperatures either.
Her story wasn’t making any sense, though. How on earth could she not remember lighting the candle? Much less being in the room where it started?
“Now, do you want to tell me about the candle?” I asked.
She snapped her head upward to face me. The same glowering heat returned. “I don’t burn candles. I light incense. I never went upstairs, either. I think someone set it there on purpose.”
Someone set her up? Great.
This chick was absolutely out of her mind. It was more rational to assume someone was out to get her, rather than admit she’d left the candle burning upstairs?
“Isn’t there a possibility you lit the candle? Or maybe someone else—”
“Aww, bless your heart.” She stopped me, leaning up to pat my cheek playfully. “You’re not listening to me, sugar. I know what I did and didn’t do. And I didn’t start the fire.”
I pressed a hand against my face. Now she was using the Southern equivalent of “go fuck yourself” and honestly believed she’d done nothing wrong. This argument was getting us nowhere. “Well, someone had to.”
