Page 19 of Smoke and Fire
My life and circumstances had been crazy once too, and others had stepped in when I needed them. Maybe I hadn’t asked them to pretend to be a romance author . . . but even that didn’t seem so bad now that his blue eyes weren’t staring at me.
“Dagnabbit,” I muttered.
Customers had mentioned Bastian’s name before. Hernandez, I thought, mentioned his best friend, the hotshot. Something vague about a father and sister lingered in the background of my thoughts, but disappeared before I could recall anything solid. My next thought came with unfortunate clarity.
How do I find him?
That moment, I knew I wanted to say yes. The ridiculous hourly payment would be nice, not to mention seeing moreof Bastian. It would provide an alternate career route I’d never thought of before, and help me not feel a sense of wallowing in my current position. Inevitably, we’d have to speak again and I liked that thought.
Too much.
So much that I couldn’t turn away an opportunity to help him, even if relationships were scary. Nothinghadto happen between us, and likely nothing would. Not with the way Jakob still thrived in my head. This would be a baby step in the right direction. The direction away from Jakob and into my new, uncertain future.
If Bastian strolled through that door right now, I’d take the job and slice the panic right out of his life. My gaze zoomed outside where the mountains cut a sharp slope up. The smoke pillar had thickened today, but not drastically. It only made me think of him more. I chewed on my bottom lip, lost in thought. No, I wouldn’t wait.
I had to go after him.
He couldn’t be that far away. The man apparently walked everywhere because I had yet to see a vehicle. With a growl, I flipped the closed sign on the shop, turned the lock, and rushed outside.
Time to say goodbye to Jakob’s lingering influence.
6
BASTIAN
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
The words battered my brain with every step down the street. What had I been thinking?
I didn’t know Dahlia beyond the curious looks she leveled my way the less than thirty minutes we’d been in the same room together. Of all the people to approach with such a wild request, I’d given it to the one person who’d say no.
Self sabotage at every level.
Panic made my chest tight as I headed down the street, toward the neighborhood where Hernandez and Dagny lived. Pineville was so small it wouldn’t take me long to get there. My bag hit my back as I walked, thoughts in a spiral as I thought about what to do next.
Lizbeth? Would she work for me? Unlikely. I already knew Lizbeth, but not personally. Her obsession with books and the local book club made her a Pineville legend. Besides, she managed a business with her husband.
Didn’t she have a baby coming soon?
Dagny . . . no. I wasn’t ready for Dagny, and then Hernandez, and then all three of my high school best friends—collectively called the Merry Idiots—to know my secret. Dagny was busy with the construction company that just hired her on after she graduated college last year anyway. Not a good fit.
My steps to Hernandez’s place slowed. I still needed to go to the store, stock up on blister stuff for my kit, some new laces, and protein bars. So many protein bars. But not yet. Now I needed to call someone that I’d been avoiding for too long.
With a sigh, I headed back toward Dad’s house. If I didn’t call Pri now, she’d strangle me later.
AFTERIRETURNED HOME,Psycho butted her head against my leg while I sat at the table and listened to Pri prattle in the background.
A tingling sensation pervaded my hands as I tried to hold my phone. I put it on speakerphone when my thumb went numb and set it on the table. My muscles and tendons ached as I stretched them out, swollen from all the chainsaw work on our last fire.
“Your anonymity as a person isn’t really the problem with Jess, is it?” Pri asked and pulled my attention back to the moment. “I mean, I don’t want to circle the wrong tree here.”
Despite occasionally grouchy emails, Pri had a gentle nature. Her quiet way of speaking and easy demeanor had first drawn me to her. It bled into her voice now, as if she nudged a box of eggs toward a precipice. Calmly and with painstaking care. Regardless of delivery, however, a precipice was still a precipice.
“It’s about the money,” I said. “We’re both aware that my intentions aren’t exactly the purest. This isn’t some higher calling. This is how I save my family.”
“But you’re so good at writing romance, Bastian,” she cried. “There’s some inner romantic in you that’s dying to get out. Why else would you have written a romance book? You could have gone straight to a culturally and historically more masculine-dominated genre, like mystery or thriller.”
“Because romance sells. I studied the markets before I wrote the book.”
