Page 73 of Slow Burn
Joe rubbed a boney hand over his chin, that sunken look to his face common to decades-long alcoholics. “I got a place. Thanks.”
“Well, let me at least sit with you awhile,” Jocelyn insisted.
“I’ll be alright.” He sent her another of his grim smiles. “You go on. Take Cole up on his folks’ guest room. I’m sorry about the…” He trailed off, gaze going to what was left of his house.
“Oh, Joe,” she whispered, tears in her eyes again.
He smoothed a hand down her arm. “Go on, Jossie. Get you some sleep.”
“I’ll call you in the morning,” she promised, and he nodded before turning back to his pickup parked at an angle right behind her car.
He was gone before the first beams started collapsing, and it was a mercy only she and Cole were the ones watching the place come crashing down instead of him.
“Come on, Darlin’. There’s nothing more we can do.” He put his arm around her shoulders to lead her away.
She didn’t fight him.
twenty-seven
“Kiss me with fire in your mouth.” - Unknown
Jocelyn held her silence like a sacred relic as Cole drove them away from the wreck of her uncle’s house. She didn’t look back. Didn’t ask where they were going.
A hundred years of memories had been burned to ash. Some good, some not—but Joe had been fighting to tip the scales toward hope. Now it was all gone.
Downtown was deserted. Whatever spirit the festival had carried, the fire had smothered it. Cole’s grip on the steering wheel was iron-tight, his jaw set in grim silence. He swung into the alley behind his restaurant and parked her car beside his truck.
Wordlessly, Jocelyn followed him through the back door, past the hum of the now extra busy restaurant, and up the stairs to his apartment. She had no energy left for questions. Both places she’d been staying at in the past week had gone up in flame. It was only mild consolation that her new clothes and all of the notes she’d painstakingly put together were safe in her car.
Cole flipped on the light, and silence filled the small apartment, pressing on her like smoke seeping into her lungs. It was too loaded, too toxic, and everything was starting to spin. She needed something in her hands, something to anchor her, to keep her from unraveling. She had to find a clue, a link, an explanation. She needed to understand why.
Her purse hit the kitchen island, and her hands speared inside. She dug past her laptop to yank free the battered journal that had started this whole search. Pages rustled beneath her frantic fingers, the notes and clippings a blur as she hunted for the articles about the old fires, flipping faster and faster. She didn’t notice her trembling until the paper tore under her urgent hands.
The sound broke her, and a sob clawed its way up her throat.
Cole was suddenly there, his hands sliding gently down her arms until his fingers wrapped around her wrists. His touch was firm but careful as he pulled her away from the chaos of the journal. The heat of his skin seeped into hers, solid and grounding.
She collapsed against him as he cocooned her in his arms, holding on when she tried to retreat, his steady warmth keeping her from shattering.
The smoke was back in her mind. The pain. The choking. The heat at her bedroom door when she was nine. Crawling toward the window to the man who’d saved her—but not her mama.
That had been no accident. Someone had done it on purpose, had set the blaze that robbed Jocelyn of her childhood. And now they were sending her a message. These fires weren’t random—they were warnings. But she’d survived the flames once. She wouldn’t bow to them now.
The sobs tapered as resolve slowly replaced grief, brick by brick.
Cole loosened his hold as her breathing steadied. He had clutched her as though he could keep the pain from spilling out, and for the first time, she let herself admit she’d needed that, that she didn’t have to push him away.
Turning in his arms, she leaned back against the counter to look up at him. He didn’t step back as he studied her face. Worry etched itself into his forehead. He wasn’t the man who’d saved her back then, but he’d saved her just now—from breaking apart.
Lifting her hand, she brushed her palm against his cheek, the scruff tickling her skin. “Thank you,” she whispered. Her fingertips lingered longer than they should have, tracing the line of his jaw as if testing how much temptation she could get away with.
“For what?” The words rumbled low and soft, like he was worried someone might overhear.
It drew a smile to her lips. “For being here.”
His hand slid over hers, thumb brushing lightly over her knuckles. “Anytime.”
Silence poured over them again, but it was different now, heavier, slower—charged in a way that had her skin crying out. Her heart hammered against her ribs, her breath tangling with his as every inch of her screamed with the awareness that they were too close, too still, too dangerous. His gaze traced her face like he was committing it to memory, and Jocelyn felt herself unfurling like a flower to the sun, despite every warning she’d ever carried. Murphy women were disasters with love, and she should remember that.
