Fire

by McAdams, Molly

  One of those rare, breathtaking smiles crossed his face, shifting his expression entirely. Chasing away any darkness and anger that lingered under the surface, making him look so light and free for that brief moment.

  “That’s why I think tonight is worth any wait too.”

  I managed to tear my attention away when the car dipped as Beau turned into a driveway, a smile of my own breaking free when I saw the plantation house sprawled out before us.

  Sleeping peacefully, waiting for the day when Beau and I would make it ours.

  The giant house sat on five acres and sang comfort and hospitality. From the sweeping porch to the grand doors and the rest of the stunning architecture, it was pure southern charm.

  I’d fallen in love with it the first time I saw it.

  The same year I’d moved here, the family who had owned it for generations had left it to the town of Amber. I’d taken it as a sign. Over the years, Beau and I had made big plans for the place. One of which was getting married on the back of the property.

  We might have snuck onto it a time or two.

  “This is a great surprise,” I murmured, my smile still impossibly wide as Beau pulled around to the far side of the house so his Explorer wouldn’t be seen.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Our place,” I said, voice wistful as I reached for the handle of my door. But he grabbed my arm to stop me.

  Excitement and mischief tugged at his mouth as he studied me. “You think this is your surprise?”

  My stare darted out the windshield before meeting his again. “What—yeah. We haven’t been here in months.”

  “Yeah,” he said as he leaned forward to capture my lips with his. “But we’ve never been inside.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath as he pulled away and got out of the small SUV, a wicked smirk on his handsome face.

  I scrambled out of the passenger side and met him around the back just as he was pulling blankets out. “Wait, what do you mean? You can’t—we can’t . . .” I looked to the house, words failing me.

  “I found a window that wasn’t locked,” he said softly, hesitantly, his brow creasing when he looked at me. “Say the word, and we’ll stay in the back instead.”

  “I wanna go in.” I reached for the arm that wasn’t cradling the blankets, awe swirling through me before what he said finally registered. “What do you mean you found a window? You just went around looking? You could’ve—”

  “Gotten arrested?” His arrests had been such a sensitive subject since they’d both been linked to his anger—his fighting. He’d been so ashamed of them. Embarrassed for me. But the way he’d just tossed the words out there, it was as if the thought didn’t bother him at all. “Putting this look on your face? Getting you in that house? It would’ve been worth it.”

  My pulse went all kinds of crazy with affection and excitement. “You’re crazy.”

  One side of his face scrunched up in an adorable, teasing expression. “That title belongs to you.”

  I pushed at him, feigning offense even though I couldn’t stop smiling. “Have you been in?”

  His head shook, just a slight shift, but it still made such a big statement. Then again, everything Beau did seemed to be that way. Subtle looks or movements that had a massive impact. “Not setting foot in there without you.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  He reached for me with his free hand, not saying a word as he led me around the large house to where we normally spent hours getting lost in each other and dreams for our future.

  But instead of continuing through the overgrown flowers to the gazebo, he took me up to the back porch. The faded wood creaking beneath our feet as he pulled me past the bay windows I knew looked into the kitchen and over to the opposite edge of the porch where another unkempt flowerbed began. A knowing look on his face when I glanced from the large windows overhead to him.

  “One of those?” I assumed. At his faint nod, I asked, “How did you find this . . . why?” A hushed laugh made up of excitement and nervousness and awe bubbled past my lips. “What made you decide to go looking?”

  He shifted the bundle of blankets to my arms and headed into the mess of wildflowers growing up and tangling with the dormant spring plants. Talking as he stopped below the second window in and began working on it. “Last week, after one of your fights with your parents, you said you’d give anything to be just you and me, in this place, living out our future.” The window opened with a groan, and Beau just stared at the open space for a moment before looking to me, hand stretched out in invitation. “I can’t speed up time, but I can give you the rest.”

  I went to him, my soul dancing from the overwhelming love I felt for this boy. “Beau—”

  “It isn’t too late,” he said quickly, softly. “We don’t have to go in.”

  “Why wouldn’t I wanna go in?”

  “The worst thing you’ve ever done is sneak out to be with me. This—going into the house—that’s . . . Savannah, that’s big.”

  I lifted my chin to stare him down and watched as the corners of his mouth kept tilting up as if he was fighting a grin. “Excuse me, but I’m gonna own this house one day. And as the future owner, I’m simply checking on it because I’m concerned for its current state.”

  “Uh-huh,” he rumbled, all kinds of amused. “Sheriff’s gonna love that one.”

  “I’m sure he will. Now, help me up.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Beau easily hoisted me up, the same way he’d done so many times when helping me get to that first big branch at Madison’s tree, and I hurried to dump the blankets through the window before carefully climbing in and dropping down.

  My mouth parting as the size of the house hit me anew.

  Seconds later, Beau’s loud thud as he landed behind me echoed through the empty great room, chasing away the silence for a fleeting moment before we were surrounded in it again.

  And then he was beside me.

  Quiet.

  Fingers weaving through mine and gripping tight.

  Trying to take in this dream we’d shared for so long—and it was just one room. Darkened except for the moon shining in through the many windows. Haunting and beautiful and more than I ever could’ve imagined.

  Perfect.

  The day I’d met Beau, my heart had felt full in an inexplicable way. Like it was too big for my chest. Like it might escape me at any given moment.

  At nine years old, I hadn’t understood.

  It’d taken time to realize what that feeling meant.

  That he was special to me, and me alone. That he was mine, and I was his. That he was my home.

  Standing in that house, I had the same feeling. My heart was too full—too big. And with each breath, it was threatening to escape.

  Without a doubt, this was home.

  “Beau . . .”

  “I know.” He stepped forward, glancing back over his shoulder when I just stood there in wonder, a small smile lighting up his features. “Come on.”

  * * *

  A giggle wrapped up in a moan slipped free when Beau placed soft, open-mouthed kisses on my stomach hours later. The action tickling and making me ache for him all over again.

  I laced my fingers through his dark hair, my eyelids slipping shut as a peace settled over me in a way I’d never known.

  We’d explored the entirety of the house, falling more and more in love with it with each room we stumbled upon. Expanding on the dream we’d had for so long now that we were finally seeing it.

  The plantation house turned into our bed and breakfast.

  Beau had been saving everything he made working for his dad in their orchard. I’d just started teaching three- four- and five-year-olds at the dance studio—it wasn’t much with taking my own classes, cheer, and going to school, but it was something.

  We’d find a way to make it work. We had to. This was our future—I could see it.

  “You really wanna double the size of the kitchen?” B
eau asked, resting his chin on my stomach so he could look at me. “Thing’s already big.”

  I lifted an eyebrow in defiance and felt his hushed laugh.

  He raced his hands up my thighs to grip my bare hips, making my stomach curl with heat even though I was still trembling from the bliss he’d just given me. Slow. Reverent.

  Easy.

  “It’s big enough for how much I like baking now. Baking and cooking for other people?” I tugged playfully at his short hair. “Double the size. And I want two islands in there.”

  “Two,” he said dully.

  “Mmhm. Need them, actually.”

  He studied me for a moment before those dimples graced me with a hello. “Yes, ma’am.” When he continued, there was a hint of humor behind his words. “Blossom Bed and Breakfast.”

  “It’s a great name,” I said defensively.

  “I know it is,” he agreed immediately.

  “You’re making fun of it.”

  “Babe,” he murmured, giving me a look that said he clearly hadn’t been. “I was thinking about tiny you in a massive kitchen with two islands.”

  I gave his hair another tug. “Watch me dominate that kitchen one day.”

  “I plan to.” He shifted his head to sweep his mouth along my stomach before meeting my stare again. “I’m gonna get you this house, Savannah,” he continued, voice softer than before. “I’ll do whatever it takes to make that dream come true, I swear to you.”

  “I know.” I let my fingers drift through his hair to lightly scratch along his neck and back. “What do you want?” One of his brows ticked up in question. “I’ve been talking about all the things I wanna do to the house . . . what do you want?”

  “You,” he said without hesitation. “I just want you.”

  Instead of getting lost in Beau’s undeniable love for me, my dad’s words echoed in my mind, hushed and ominous, like a wraith in the abandoned home. I let my head fall back against the cushion of blankets as I struggled with worry over the unknown. “Beau, no matter what happens, I’ll always come back to you.”

  He went still.

  His fingers gripping me like he could keep me there. The air in the great room filling with suffocating dread in an instant.

  “What?” he asked, voice soft, dark.

  “Please don’t let your mind go there,” I begged, heart wrenching because I could feel the way he was at once terrified that I was leaving him and accepting it because he thought it was best for me. “You know I would never willingly leave you.”

  He didn’t respond.

  Just stayed there, partially laying on me, still as stone.

  “My dad said something tonight when they came to check on me, and I—” My throat tightened as that deep worry rose and bloomed in my chest. “What he said, I just know—I could feel it—they’re going to do something.”

  A slow sigh sounded from him before he rolled away, his deep voice echoing in the room. “Your grandparents’?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  His hand slowly curled around mine in response.

  “I’ll always come back to you, no matter what happens,” I repeated. When the responding silence got to be too much, I said, “I need to know where your head’s at.”

  “Trying to figure out what to do,” he said softly. “If following their rules around them will be enough, or if . . .” Beau cleared his throat, his voice twisting with sorrow when he continued. “If I really do need to let you go for—”

  “No.”

  “Savannah—”

  “No,” I said quickly and scrambled to sitting, grabbing at the closest thing to me to cover my bare chest. “Just no.”

  He sat up with me, anguish and denial ripping across his fierce expression. “Savannah, if I need to let you go for the next year and a half so I can at least have you near me? I’ll do it.”

  “I can’t,” I said, choking over the emotion tightening my throat.

  “So, you’d rather spend the next year and a half with states between us?”

  “No, I just—” My chest shook from my trembling breaths. “I can’t pretend that I don’t love you. That I don’t need you.”

  “I wouldn’t be pretending shit,” he ground out. “I’d make sure the entire town, including your parents, knew what we were sacrificing to keep the peace. Knew that every day was a day closer to when we got to be together again.”

  My head shook wildly as he spoke. “I can’t, I won’t. Beau, I’m not going to let them push us apart just to keep them happy for any length of time. I just needed you to know that I think it might be coming, and if it does, I will do whatever it takes to get back to you.”

  He dragged his palm across his jaw, dipping his head in acceptance as he did.

  “And I think . . . I think maybe we should consider some of those things we were talking about earlier.” I curled my fingers into what I was clutching to my chest—Beau’s jersey. My heart racing with anticipation and maybe breaking a little at the same time as I erased a seven-year dream. “I can’t tell you what it does to me that you remember the things I say and that you want to make them all come true. But I just want a life with you. And with our situation—with my parents—we have to take control of it so it can’t be taken from us. We have to do whatever we can.”

  Beau’s dark brows slowly pulled together as I rambled.

  Watching. Studying. Listening.

  “And that fake Elvis or the courthouse is what I want. With you. The day I turn eighteen, or the day after. I don’t care. Whatever it takes because they won’t be able to do anything once we’re married, and then it’ll just be us the way it’s supposed to be.”

  Long, torturous seconds passed before he uttered a single word: “No.”

  My shoulders shook with the force of my exhale. “What?”

  Beau’s eyes drifted down, lingering on my chest for a while before he reached out. His fingers grazing my arm before touching the jersey. “That name on you, Savannah . . . it’s right, and it’ll be right one day. But not like that.” His darkened stare flashed back up to mine, intense and somber. “Your dream for how we get married changes, then it changes for me too. Whatever it is, I’m there. But we’re not sneaking off to try to end this war with your parents. It’ll just make everything worse.”

  “Any added time of having to live with them doing this, of them treating you the way they do, will be worse than the fallout from us getting married.”

  Beau’s head slanted in disagreement as I spoke. “If you wanna keep going like we always have and just prepare for whatever might happen in the next year and a half, then that’s what we’ll do. When we’re both eighteen, we’ll test new boundaries and take it from there. But I’m not gonna marry you for a solution.”

  My spirit trembled with remorse at the whisper of offense in his voice. “Beau, I—” My eyelids slipped shut, and I lowered my head into one of my hands. Shame gathered in my throat, thick and hot. “I would do anything to be with you, to make sure they can’t take me from you. But you’re right.”

  A heavy sigh left him as he pulled me into the comfort of his arms and gently lowered us onto the blankets again. His fingers trailing up and down my spine as he spoke against the top of my head, soft and low. “Physical distance can be reclaimed. In the end, only thing that can take you from me is you. Understood?”

  I nodded, my eyelids squeezing tight as I brushed my fingers across his bare chest.

  “Crazy girl,” he murmured, all adoration wrapped up in that deep, gravelly voice.

  “I love you.”

  “Every last breath, Savannah.”

  I knocked on the Rileys’ door a few evenings later, teeth clenched tight as I tried to breathe. To calm myself when nothing was wrong.

  It was just that house. The anticipation of what I was about to be met with acted like a match to gasoline and had me all kinds of twisted up. Had that anger simmering and that haze creeping in before I ever lowered my fist to my side. Seven years of
fear and hatred from the people within that house would do that to someone.

  My eyelids slid shut and I forced out a breath, trying to relax.

  Then another.

  By the time the lock sounded, I was just as bad as when I’d set foot on their porch.

  I opened my eyes just as Savannah’s mom opened the door.

  Her expression fell into a careful mask to cover her fear as she took a step away, keeping her hand on the door like she might want to shut it in my face.

  “Jason,” she called out the way she always did, then said softer, “Savannah isn’t here.” Tone almost a warning. A threat.

  I tried really damn hard not to let it affect me.

  A harsh breath left me, my head nodding sharply as my stare darted past her to watch her husband approach, irritation practically pouring from him when he saw me.

  “Savannah’s at dance, Beau,” he said as he continued toward us. “Why don’t you go on home.”

  “I know she is,” I said, voice a little on edge. “I wanted to talk to y’all.”

  Mr. Riley let out a slow sigh before ushering me in with his fingers. “All right, come on in.”

  His wife flinched away from me where she was trapped between him and the door when I stepped inside. I pretended not to notice, running a hand through my hair and counting down from ten as I did.

  She’d always kept plenty of distance between us, but that was a first, and I had a feeling it had a lot to do with the other night. Couldn’t imagine what she’d do if she saw me actually hit someone rather than a wall.

  I followed them into the living room and watched as they moved to stand in front of the couch.

  Mr. Riley held his arm out toward one of the chairs. “Sit down.”

  “I need to stand,” I said in automatic response, then hurried to add, “Thank you though.”

  They shared a look before eyeing me curiously, more so than usual. But I stood firm near the chair he’d indicated, waiting for them to decide if they were going to sit or stand with me.

  “It helps me,” I finally explained when their indecision seemed to lean toward suspicion. “I get restless when I’m sitting.”