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Wading back into the mess, Frankie returned to the area where she’d found the pan. Lifting a wall panel, she found the metal sink and tangled pipes. She began to sift through the broken porcelain and glass near it carefully, looking for any shard of blue. So many fragments of a broken life slid between her gloved fingers. This was like looking for a needle in a burnt haystack.
But she wouldn’t give up. These people needed her help. This felt real and concrete, unlike the last few months of all-consuming un-reality.
She lifted the metal sink and shifted it to the side. A sparkle caught her eye. She whipped off her glove so she could delicately pinch the golden rings from the ashes. She dropped them quickly onto her other hand and blew on them to cool them before returning them to their distraught owner.
“Oh my God! Oh, you found them! You’re an angel!” Sylvia’s tears fell fast and free, soaking Frankie’s neck as she was pulled into a fierce hug. Sylvia tugged her son into the hug too.
“Okay, can we go now?” Tyler allowed the hug, but his voice was all annoyed teenager.
“Hang on a minute. Sylvia, did you have insurance?”
“We did. Brendan made sure we were covered before he deployed.”
"What branch?"
Tyler piped up. "Dad served in the army."
Frankie felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Gabe would want her to help. Hell,shewanted her to help. She needed to stop hiding behind her big brother's larger-than-life image. She was going to make this offer, because it was whatshewanted to do.
“I’m a builder here in the area. If you decide you want to rebuild, I want you to give me a call.” She repeated her name and number for Tyler as he put it into his cell phone.
“You’ve already helped.” The rings were already back in place on her finger, the smaller holding the larger one in place. “You gave me back the one thing I couldn’t bear to lose. I’ve got my son and my health. Everything else is replaceable.”
“Well, when you decide to replace it, I’d like to help. I can design something custom based on your insurance payout, and get it roughed in pretty quickly. I'll build your new home, on time and under budget. That's the Valenti way.”
“We’ll see.” Sylvia and Tyler picked their way back to their car and drove off, leaving Frankie to ponder in the ashes.
Her offer felt right in her heart, unlike the churning stress of the last few months.
She put her mask on and got back to doing the hard work that made a difference for people.
She’d cleared another home with the volunteer crew when Jake pulled up in his fancy car. She hadn't seen him since he'd disappeared on Friday. Her mom had said he called to check in, but she'd been resting. All of the pain and frustration and sadness bubbled up in her chest, mixing with her new ideas and desires, into a toxic sludge that was just waiting to boil over and burn it all down.
He had a lot of nerve coming to find her here.
Perversely, it pissed her off even more that she was first seeing him while completely disheveled. He always made her self-conscious. He had no right. He’d missed everything with the fire. And she’d missed him, dammit, even though she hated to admit it.
She’d needed him, and he’d hadn't been there for her.
That had been a hard lesson learned.
“Frankie.” The way his voice dropped when he said her name vibrated deep in her belly.
“Jake.” She kept her voice hard as concrete.
“I was hoping to catch you at the vineyard. They told me you were down here helping out.”
“Because that’s what you do in a disaster. You stick around and help people out.” She pushed her disdain into her voice. She would be strong. She couldn’t let herself weaken before she’d gotten to the bottom of this.
“I was already down in LA when I heard about it. I had promises to keep, and Jo told me you were okay. I thought I could be more helpful putting out fires there, getting all the details sorted.”
“Promises to keep? Is that code for ‘I got you your money back. Where's my promotion?’”
“What exactly are you implying?”
“It’s awfully convenient that you were in LA when your maneuvering finally came to fruition.” Her temper was flaring high now, and the words coming out of her mouth burned through her filters.
His head reared back as if she’d singed him. “Do you honestly think I would endanger lives for a TV show?”
