Page 198 of Smoke and Fire
She tucked herself under my arm when I lifted it up and settled it around her shoulders. Something about her warmth at my side felt like a drug. I absorbed the feeling until it could have controlled me if I let it and curled her closer to me.
The caveman inside my chest wanted to immediately reject the idea of Jakob anywhere near her. Dahlia wasn't mine. No matter how much I wanted it to be different—and how much sense did that make?—we didn't know each other well enough for that.
Instead, I let the quiet ride until I couldn’t anymore. "What did Jakob want yesterday?" I asked.
"Closure," she murmured. “He left. He’s back in California now.”
“Oh.”
“I tell you all that,” she continued after a pause where my thoughts became a weird mess, “because you revealed yourself today in a big way. I appreciate the vulnerable position it must have been for you and I wanted you to know my heart, too. Fair's fair. I think we're all a bit of a mess inside.”
She’d offered a gift. Transparency for transparency. On impulse, I leaned down, pressed a kiss into her hair, and whispered, “Thank you.”
She stayed at my side as I lifted my arm back over her shoulders and reached for the gear shift. We pulled away from Dad’s, homeward bound.
This time, not alone.
LATER THAT NIGHT,I stared at the laundry twirling in the dryer, my own thoughts a jumbled mess.
The latest briefing on the fire played in the background, complete with a weather report. Outside Dad's house, wind brushed against the windows with angry bursts of attitude.
My brain registered the words of the incident commander as he appeared on the screen, but not what they meant. Didn’t matter. Tomorrow was my last day of our break before I had to head back out there. My fingers flexed against my palm, less eager than they’d ever been to get back to the fire.
Dahlia’s hand in them, however . . .
I slammed that thought closed.
No, I didn’t know what to think about Dahlia. Although the day had been fun, the opening of wounds had come at a cost.
By the time we finished eating harissa at an Armenian restaurant, we both seemed ready for a break. I’d felt a twinge of regret letting her go back to her RV, but shucked it off to focus on all the things I had to get done. Laundry. Bills. Errands. Nessa needed more oil paints and canvases. Dad probably needed some more clothes and his favorite shaving cream.
Grungy yellow shirts and dark green pants whirled around each other in the dryer as I stood there and thought about Dahlia. A whole new aspect of her had cracked open and spilled fresh light. It only gave me more to tumble over.
The ring of my phone startled me out of my thoughts. I accepted the call without checking the name.
“Hello?”
“B-bash?”
I stepped away from the wall where I’d been standing for ten minutes.
“Hey Dagny.”
“C-calling to check on you. I saw the t-truck in front of the fire station today and wanted to s-s-see how you’re d-doing.”
“I’m . . .”
Gooddied in my throat.Finewouldn’t even make it to my lips. None of those applied on anylevel. There weren’t a whole lot of people that I could really open up to, but there was somethingabout Dagny I trusted. If I'd ever needed a woman’s insight before, it was right now.
“Hernandez working tonight?”
“Yeah. Swing sh-sh-shift today for a b-buddy. Should be home at m-m-midnight.”
“Can I come over?”
“S-sure.”
Twenty minutes later, Dagny cracked open her door, saw me standing there, and threw it open. Her warm smile and tight hug felt like coming home. She motioned inside. “C-come on. I l-left out some d-dinner if you want.”
