Total pages in book: 23
Estimated words: 24365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 122(@200wpm)___ 97(@250wpm)___ 81(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 24365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 122(@200wpm)___ 97(@250wpm)___ 81(@300wpm)
We sit there like that, breathing each other in, the world narrowed to warmth and weight and the sound of her sighing when my thumb traces slow circles on her back.
“You know,” she says after a while, voice muffled, “for a grumpy hermit, you’re surprisingly gentle.”
I smirk into her hair. “Careful. I’ve got a reputation.”
“Uh-huh.”
I feel her smile against my shirt. Feel the way she relaxes, how her body trusts mine without question. It’s humbling. Terrifying. Everything.
We shift eventually, gravity and discomfort forcing us up onto the couch. It’s just as awful as before, springs poking in all the wrong places, but she curls into me anyway, knees tucked up, head on my shoulder.
“This thing is a crime,” I mutter.
She laughs. “You stayed.”
I slide an arm around her waist. “Don’t push your luck.”
She tilts her head to look at me. “You okay?”
I meet her gaze. “I think I could be.”
Her fingers trace the edge of my collarbone, light and exploratory. “You don’t have to figure it all out tonight.”
“I know.”
“But you don’t have to do it alone either.”
I close my eyes briefly, absorbing that. “You’re dangerous.”
“Occupational hazard,” she says lightly.
The music fades into silence. Outside, wind brushes the windows. Inside, everything feels suspended, like we’re standing on the edge of something vast and unnamed.
She yawns, small and unguarded.
“You tired?” I ask.
“Mm,” she hums. “But I don’t want you to go.”
I press a kiss to the top of her head, gentle, reverent. “Then I won’t.”
She relaxes fully at that, her body heavy and trusting against mine. My chest tightens with something that feels dangerously like hope.
I stare out the window at the dark, at the faint reflection of us tangled together on that ridiculous couch, and realize with startling clarity that I don’t feel like a loner tonight.
I feel like a man standing at the beginning of something.
Almost everything.
Chapter Twelve
Ember
The siren cuts through my morning like a blade.
I’m halfway through setting up for the kids’ class—cups of rinse water lined up, brushes soaking, a stack of heavy paper weighted against the draft—when the sound slams into my chest. Not the distant wail you learn to tune out. This one is close. Urgent. Wrong.
I step outside just as smoke curls up from behind the old garage at the edge of the property.
“No,” I breathe.
The garage isn’t part of my studio, not exactly, but it’s close enough that my heart starts hammering. Too close. The smell hits me next—sharp, chemical, not wood or dust. Not accidental.
I don’t think. I move.
Boone is already there.
He comes out of his workshop like something unleashed, jacket half on, radio clipped to his belt, eyes locked on the plume of smoke with a focus that steals the air from my lungs. This isn’t the quiet man who drinks his coffee slow and pretends not to watch me through the window. This is the man carved by fire and purpose.
“Ember,” he snaps, voice rough. “Back up. Now.”
“I just—”
“Firefly,” he says, softer but no less commanding. “Please.”
I freeze. He doesn’t look at me again. He doesn’t have to. I step back because his tone leaves no room for argument—and because something in his posture tells me this is the moment everything he’s been holding back comes roaring to the surface.
The garage door is scorched black around the edges. Smoke seeps from the seams like it’s breathing.
Boone crouches, fingers brushing the metal without hesitation. He swears under his breath, then points the fire extinguisher in one hand and cracks the door open just enough to blast the interior.
White powder explodes inside.
The fire dies fast. Too fast.
“That’s not right,” he mutters.
He pushes the door wider, scanning, eyes sharp, movements economical despite the hitch in his step. He doesn’t rush. He assesses. I’ve seen him work on engines, methodical and precise, but this is different. This is instinct. Muscle memory. A language he never forgot.
I edge closer despite myself.
“Ember,” he warns without turning.
“I’m staying back,” I promise, heart in my throat. “I just—tell me it didn’t spread.”
“It didn’t,” he says. “Because this wasn’t meant to.”
That lands cold.
He straightens slowly and turns to me, and for the first time I see something fierce and alive in his eyes. Not fear. Not anger. Purpose.
“This was set,” he says. “Badly.”
My stomach drops. “Set? Why would—”
“I don’t know yet,” he cuts in. Then his gaze flicks past me, sweeping the studio, the windows, the back door. Protective. Possessive. “But it wasn’t random.”
A fire truck pulls up at the road. Then another. The yard fills with movement and noise and familiar faces—Saxon barking orders, Ash scanning the perimeter, Axel hopping out with a medical bag he probably won’t need but brings anyway.
Savannah catches my eye and hurries over, hand warm on my arm. “You okay?”
I nod, even though my hands are shaking. “Boone—”
“I’ve got him,” she says, squeezing. “He’s in his element right now.”