Page 53 of Smoke and Fire
After that, I sent my address. My teeth worried my bottom lip as the circle below the messages spun around for a while. Finally, in a vaguely-more-open spot on a forest road, it sent. I let out a long breath. Ten seconds later, all reception cut out.
Hopefully, she got it.
I plugged my phone into the port to charge while we drove, rested it on my pack in the seat next to me, and looked out the window.
Two days left until the book launch, and I’d officially found my first real-life stalker.
Weird.
No doubt my hotshot crew would be turned right back onto the same fire after our 48 hours of rotation out. Who knew if this inferno was going to turn on us and roar with sparky rage?
If Jess could just push through another launch or two without being revealed, then everything could fall apart without impacting Inessa and Dad.
That's all I needed.
15
DAHLIA
Despite myself, I couldn’t wipe the stupid grin off my face.
Bastian had asked me to take care of his cat and that felt like a win. Not only because he turned to me when trouble came up, but now I’d get to see inside his house. For a closed-off man like him, this could be a game changer.
“No,” I said out loud. “This is just him asking for a favor. This doesn’t mean he returns my somewhat speedy and concerning interest in him. That’s not what this is! I will approach cautiously.”
This is not the same as Jakob,Inner Me said.You were young and lonely and twenty-two when you met Jakob. You knew there were problems, but you proceeded into the relationship anyway. You never really felt much around him. Nothing like Bastian.
“So physical butterflies are an indicator of a powerful relationship?” I cried, hands thrown in the air. “That’s insane! You sound like Lizbeth. I have a tendency to find someone else that gives me attention and I latch on without asking myself whatIwant.”
One person isn’t a tendency.
“It’s close enough!”
Do you want Bastian?
“I want to stop feeling like I’m mentally unstable because I’m having a conversation with myself,” I replied. “In short, I don’t know the answer to your question yet.” I swallowed hard. “I’m . . . giving it time.”
Oooookay.
I scowled. Down the road Inner Me pointed out way more self-analysis than I wanted. No, I didn’t want to think about just how much I liked Bastian and what it meant. Right now, I’d enjoy the fact that Bastian trusted me with his cat, but that was it.
Nothing further.
Setting aside the giddy rush from Bastian’s request and the surge of curiosity that followed, I turned my thoughts back to work.
The Frolicking Moose had been quiet and steady through the drive-through, as usual. In Jess’s world, the launch of the historic twenty-first book in the series was only two days away, and the social media group vibrated with energy.
The typical thirty posts a day had exploded into sixty. Sub groups formed as people re-read the series in anticipation of the launch. They held video meet ups to talk about the characters and what they thought would happen next.
Emails poured in from book bloggers, reviews, and influencers. My notebook had extensive details on the influencers that had posted about Jess the most, what they preferred about each character, and our last correspondence. They seemed to like the attention, even if it wasn’t Jess, which only fed the inferno.
Meanwhile, another conflagration continued to burn, this one far more real.
The voluntary evacuation hovered over Pineville like smoke from the Pinegulch fire. RV's sped away, half-emptying the lot. Locals eyed the plume as they walked around. Radio stations chattered updates. Tourism had started to slow because of restrictions on the National Forest, so Maverick grumped around the shop, mumbling aboutbottom linesandin the red.
Outside, a constant, sooty pillar decorated the horizon and loomed in every conversation and thought.
Meanwhile, I fretted over my phone and turned Jess pages like a dying woman whose pain could only be sated by these words. In my haste to read the books as quickly as possible, I made it all the way to book twelve,Engagement is a Fantasy.
