Page 49 of Falling for the Grumpy Stranger

I hated her innocent blink because it was anything but innocent. “Who? Your little cottage dweller? Haven’t seen her. Maybe she decided you weren’t good enough.” Her laugh was harsh. I realized it was always the same laugh with her whether she was happy or just mean, like now.

“I want you out of my house.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket to call Ella. It rang … somewhere in the house. I looked back at Christine. She shrugged with a bat of her lashes. “Where is she?”

“Who? I told you I haven’t seen her.”

I raced through the house, following the sound of her phone. It led me to the closet in the entryway. I pulled open the door. Ella’s coat and scarf had been tossed inside.

“Where is she?” I bellowed. Then it struck me like a vat of hot oil being thrown in my face. I pushed out the door and raced across the yard to the carriage house. The sirens were getting closer. I could see the red swirling lights below. A crackling sound was followed by a burst of air that carried flames and embers into the smoky black sky. The roof was caving in.

My heart beat so hard I could feel it in my throat. I reached for the iron latch on the big sliding doors. I pulled my hand back. It was hot like molten lava.

“Ella!” I yelled through the door cracks. “Ella!” I felt sick with nausea as a past nightmare came back to me. Not this time. This was going to end differently. This had to end differently.

I raced around to the small door. The latch was burning hot. I backed up several steps and slammed the door with my shoulder. It took three good rams before it caved in. Smoke billowed out. I pulled my sweater up over my nose and mouth and dove through the smoke. Flames had taken over every wall, and the overhead beams glowed red as they fell one by one from the collapsing ceiling.

It was too dark and smoky to see. I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight. “Ella!”

And then I heard it. The tiniest mouse of a sound through the incredible clamor of the fire. “Rhett?”

I swung the light on the phone around, and the sight in front of me nearly brought me to my knees. I pushed aside a burning beam and lunged through a cloud of smoke and red-hot embers. Ella was on the ground, in a fetal position, holding her knees close to her chest. I dropped down next to her.

“I’m here, Ella. Put your arm around my neck.”

She was trembling uncontrollably as she put her arm around me. I swept her up into my arms. There was little time. I looked for the clearest path and carried her through the smoke and past the maze of fallen beams to the door.

The coughing started the second we reached fresh air. I still held Ella as I dropped to my knees. I lowered her to the grass. The red lights came up the gravel path. Minutes later, the fire crew got to work.

“Anyone inside?” one asked.

“Not anymore.”

He radioed to the paramedics that we needed assistance. Ella sat up weakly. Her face was covered in soot. “Thought I was a goner.”

I wanted to say something, but my throat was too tight thinking about how close we were to a terrible ending. I nearly lost her. I nearly lost Ella, and that thought terrified me. I needed her in my life.

I wrapped my arms around her.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

ELLA

The fire had eaten most of the carriage house by the time the fire truck arrived. I could attest to that because I’d had an unenviable front row seat to the whole thing. I was still having a hard time swallowing how close I came to dying. When I heard Rhett’s voice drift through the smoke, I thought it was my imagination, my mind conjuring the one voice I longed to hear.

It took less than half an hour for the blaze to be doused, Rhett and I to recuperate enough from the smoke to be able to breathe without coughing, and the police to arrest Christine for attempted murder. Her greed and obsession with Rhett had led her to destroy the cushy, posh existence that waited for her, even after the divorce. I managed to flash her a wink and smile as they walked her past. Even then she was putting on big crocodile tears for the police and insisting she was the victim in all this. Not sure how she was going to spin that with the lawyers, but I was sure she’d give it her best.

Rhett carried in a cup of cocoa, my first request once the coughing had subsided and my throat no longer burned with the acrid taste of smoke. There was a knock on the door as he handed me the cup. “That will be your sister, Aria.”

Aria had called me while I was still being treated by paramedics for minor burns and smoke inhalation. She’d seen the fire from her place and wanted to make sure I was all right. I kept the most shocking details to myself at the time, letting her know it was the carriage house and I’d breathed in a little too much smoke. She planned to come right up to the site, but I told her to wait until the emergency crews were finished.

I stayed on the couch, tucked in a blanket and cradling my cup of cocoa. A flurry of familiar voices rolled in from the entryway. It wasn’t just Aria. It was all my sisters. I put down the cocoa and hurried out to meet them. We had our usual exuberant round of hugs as if we hadn’t seen each other in ages.

Layla stopped, put her hands on her hips and surveyed the room. “Not nearly as bad as I expected.”

“Were you expecting ghosts and paintings with eyes that followed you around the room?” I asked.

Layla shrugged. “Well, let’s face it, we all came up here with our friends in hopes that a ghostly spirit would float out of the chimney or a pair of yellow eyes might stare down at us from a dusty window.”

Isla raised a brow at her. “You really did hang out with some weird friends.”

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