Page 45 of Slow Burn
Anger again.
It didn’t stir any in her. In fact, pressure built against her eyeballs, the threatening fear and sadness at the possibility flipping her calm upside-down.
“No.” She had to pause, swallow back her tears. “I’m asking what you know. What he told you.”
Cole came toward her, hard-edged. “Why the hell didn’t you ask him at dinner?”
Finally, her own fury surfaced, and she thought,Thank God. She wasn’t sure she could handle it if she broke down right then and there, let her grief and heartbreak spill out in the face of his anger.
“Because I wasn’t questioning a damn thing until I found that paper. And then I couldn’t stop wondering if the man who saved my life also betrayed me. Or if your mama’s kindness was just an act to cover a scheme to run me out of town.” Her chest heaved, the pressure of the anger and grief a band around her ribs, getting tighter and tighter. “I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to hurt them by asking the question. But—”
Cole’s voice sliced through hers, sharp as barbed wire: “You sure don’t mind cutting me open with the question, do you?”
Her silence only seemed to wound him further.
“Got it,” he said bitterly. “They matter more to you than I do. I’m nothing, so why not shove the hard questions on me instead of them?”
“No,” she said softly. “You’re not…”
His chin shifted forward when she didn't continue. “Not what?”
“Not nothing.” It was all she could offer just then. Because hewasn’tnothing, but he wasn’tsomethingyet, either. She wasn’t sure if she could handle it if he ever became something. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
He interrupted her with a humorless laugh, low and ragged. Turning away, he dragged a hand through his hair again, ruffling curls loose.
“I don’t, Cole,” she insisted. “But I need answers.”
Answers had become as precious to her in that moment as the air she dragged in and out. And because he’d turned away from her, he couldn’t see that, even if shehatedasking the question, it might alleviate the pain that had slowly been building the moment her fingers touched that piece of card stock, torn on the edge just like the note she’d found.
She was burning up with it, this heartbreak that was waiting to happen.
He spun back, face carved in fury. “Well, here’s one for you. Pop didn’t set that fire. He was walking off a high.”
She blinked. “What?”
Cole’s jaw worked, and those eyes, those serene pools, shifted from her face. It was shame that made him turn away, she realized.
“He was addicted to pain killers—Oxy. Been clean since that night.” The words came raw like they’d been dragged against jagged rocks.
She heard more in his voice than the shame. There was betrayal there, and the complicated history of a man who’d had a difficult relationship with his father.
Now that was something she could empathize with.
Cole put his hands on the hood of his truck like he needed the anchor. Despite his stillness, the buzz of energy pulsed in the air. “Always had this image of him in my head, you know? The guy who put his life on the line for everyone but us. And then he wasthe hero. Even if he wasn’t there for his family, at least he was the picture of what a man’s supposed to be.” His laugh was short and bitter. “Turns out that picture was crooked as hell.”
Sadness nudged at her heart, softened her voice. “Doesn’t knowing he’s human make him… more real? More like the rest of us?”
Cole muttered a curse. “Ain’t that the funny part? It just pisses me off more.”
Silence grew heavy between them until she spoke again, quiet and careful. “Nobody else knows, do they?”
His lips pressed thin.
“And if they did… it’d ruin him.”
“It’s not exactly rare. Lot of guys on the crew wrestle with one demon or another. You live in fire every damn day, you start lookin’ for a way to take the edge off. High-risk job, high-risk stress relief.”
Her heart squeezed. High-risk stress relief… like arson? She almost flinched at the thought. She wanted to believe the best about John, if not for his own sake, for Ellen’s and Cole’s. But she couldn’t deny that walking off a high wasn’t exactly an alibi. If anything, it pointed to the greater possibility of him having started the fire, even if accidentally. Who better to set a fire and make it look like an accident than a firefighter?
