by Stewart, Anna J. ; Sasson, Sophia; Carpenter, Beth; Jensen, Muriel
* * *
CASSIE COULDN’T RESIST the private smile at how beautiful Grady’s great room looked. Corie and Ben’s wedding was going to be stunning. She was so thrilled that her sister’s life had come to such a happy pass. To have helped just a little to make it happen delighted her.
“Did you get any sleep on the sofa last night?” Donald asked Grady. They were carrying the standing chandelier to the back wall. “Because you can have your room back. I assure you I’ll be fine. During the mess in Bangkok, I slept on the floor of a government office.”
“I’m fine on the sofa. Get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
The job done, Donald wrapped Cassie in a bear hug. “Good going, Cass. You could go into wedding planning when you come back here to live. It’s going to be quite an event.”
“Actually, Corie, Jack, Grandma and I are talking about going into business together.”
“You are?” Grady stopped in the act of hauling blankets out of the guest closet.
“We are. Corie’s a wonderful designer, and I have a lot of contacts in fashion. Grandma knows about shopkeeping, and Jack’s just good to have around.”
“Wow. So, Grandma’s staying?”
“I’m pretty sure.” She turned to her father. “Helen told her she can stay in the guesthouse as long as she wants. What about you, Dad? Are you staying?”
He shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe. I saw a little bar for sale on the waterfront. I know nothing about it and have no experience, but it’d be fun to do something where people come in to relax, rather than in IT where they call you because nothing’s working and they have a deadline in an hour, and you have to help them make it.”
Donald helped Grady spread a flannel sheet over the leather sofa. “I’m sure your workday is a lot worse than that, but sometimes I think I’ve had enough of people hanging over my shoulder, pointing to their watches and telling me to hurry up, to last a lifetime.”
Grady tossed a pillow to the end of the sofa. “Usually, life is pretty calm around here.” He grinned at Cassie, who watched them with a smile. “Until this week.”
Donald laughed. “Wedding wonderland, huh? Well, it’s almost over. Then your life will get back to normal.” He glanced from Cassie to Grady. “Or will it?”
Grady threw a thick thermal blanket on top of the sheet on the sofa. “Normal’s not what it used to be. Anything I can get for you before I go to bed?”
Donald offered his hand. “Nothing at all. I so appreciate your hospitality. Good night.”
“Good night, Don.”
Donald blew a kiss to Cassie and disappeared down the hall to Grady’s bedroom.
Grady wrapped his arms around Cassie. “You going to be able to sleep? Want a brandy or something?”
“No, I’ll be fine.” She hugged him tightly and he breathed her in, thinking what a wonderful way this was to start a new year. “I probably won’t sleep much, so, if you hear me moving around, don’t worry.”
“You’ve done everything you can to make the day perfect for Corie and Ben. You should relax.”
She kissed his cheek and drew away. “I’ll relax when they’re married. Go to bed. I have a few things to clean up in the kitchen, then I’ll turn out the lights.”
“Okay. Sleep tight.”
Cassie finished cleaning up then went to the stairs. Grady lay on his back on the sofa, an arm across his eyes. He was already breathing evenly in sleep.
She couldn’t resist going to the new switch that controlled the overhead chandelier. The tiered light came to life in the shadowy space. It was beautiful.
She suddenly remembered the extra batteries she’d bought for the standing chandeliers and went to her purse to retrieve them. She took them out of their packaging for easy access and stashed them in the little drawer in the designated wedding cake table.
She flipped off the light and went upstairs imagining Corie and Ben and the priest standing under the hanging chandelier.
Changing into her negligee, she climbed under the covers, thinking over tomorrow’s schedule. Sarah was picking her up at seven to meet Corie, Rosie, Helen and Diane for breakfast before they all went to Hair’s to You to be beautified.
The guys would be over in the morning to set up chairs and put up the food tables. It was all coming together. She felt reasonably certain Grady would be visiting her in Paris, and there, in the City of Lights and of romance, she could convince him that life could be unpredictable and still wonderful, that surprises weren’t all bad, and that she could make his life worth the long-distance logistics. She smiled to herself and drifted off.
* * *
BEN AND CORIE exchanged vows in front of a crackling fire while loud bagpipe music played. Cassie looked on, arms folded against involvement in this wedding that was not at all what she’d planned. They were supposed to exchange their vows under the chandelier that Grady’s friend had wired under the loft. It would have been beautiful. Instead there was this whining, crackling…
Cassie sat up in bed, wide awake. Her nostrils caught the acrid smell of smoke and her ear realized the whining sound wasn’t a bagpipe at all but a smoke alarm. She ran to the railing to see that the great room was on fire, black smoke filling the space, the sound of the alarm about to split her eardrums.
She ran through a litany of Oh, my God!s, took a second to slip on her tennis shoes and ran down the stairs, thinking in panic that when she’d gone to bed, Grady had been asleep on the sofa and her father was in Grady’s bedroom!
Halfway down the stairs she was brought up short by the darkness in the house and the thick black smoke. She could taste it, feel it burn her eyes. It wrapped around her in an evil caress, then tightened and tightened until she couldn’t get free, couldn’t move, couldn’t see in any direction. Panic started in the pit of her stomach and inched up her torso, constricting her heart, her lungs, her throat. She opened her mouth to scream and choked on smoke.
Making herself move instead of dissolving into a sobbing puddle took more effort than she thought she had in her. But there was Grady on the sofa and her father was in the back of the house and she had to get to them.
She used the handrail to guide her down the stairs, through the smoke, screaming Grady’s name the whole time. Hurrying toward the sofa, she collided with the coffee table, crying out, then using it to guide her around it to the sofa. “Grady! Grady, we have to get out!” she shouted, running her hands along the upholstery, expecting to feel his hair, his shoulders, his blankets. But she felt nothing. Just the sofa. Then her hands hit a stack of fabric. It took her a precious second to interpret that. He was already up and gone. Or somewhere in the house, overcome by smoke?
She turned to shout his name. Certainly, if he was in the kitchen or the bathroom, he’d have heard the smoke alarm.
For an instant she stared at the flames, unable to believe what she was seeing. Flames were eating up the table under the loft, had apparently ignited the bunting and an Oriental rug. Flames licked toward the edge of the sofa.
She ran around it and toward Grady’s room. As she did, burning tulle fell from the loft railing, igniting a lampshade. She stepped over something that glittered in the smoke and realized the hanging chandelier had fallen.
“Dad,” she shouted, feeling the walls on both sides of the corridor. They were hot to the touch. “Daddy!”
He met her at the door, his hair rumpled but his eyes clear. “My God. Fire?”
“Yes!” She grabbed his arm and pulled him with her. “We have to go now!”
Her father stopped in his tracks. “Where’s Grady?”
“I don’t know, but he’s not on the sofa. Come on!” Cassie tried to push him in front of her, but he caught her arm instead and hurried through the kitchen and the foyer to the side door. She heard the shrill bleat of sirens as she broke free and pushed he
r father into the cold predawn air.
She ran back into the house, nagged by the fear that Grady might still be inside, overcome, unconscious.
Several steps into the room, she screamed his name again, the darkness and the smoke trying to overtake her. She felt that familiar constriction trying to take her down. She spread both arms and screamed in an effort to fight it as she made herself move toward the kitchen. Smoke burned her eyes and her nostrils and she had to lean against the door frame as the darkness swirled.
* * *
GRADY DAWDLED OVER his selection at the bakery. Buying doughnuts and Danish for breakfast had seemed like a good idea when he’d woken up hungry and feeling remarkably mellow. The bakery wasn’t open yet, but would be, despite the holiday. Nothing stopped the production and consumption of food in Beggar’s Bay.
Finally finding himself with time to wander through the future offices of Bayside Detectives, he let himself into the back of the building and climbed the stairs to the second floor. He felt a sense of excitement as he walked slowly from room to room, imagining the phone ringing, Ben talking with a client, his mother’s ugly armoire filled with all the things Cassie thought it should contain. He made a list of furniture to look for, supplies they would need, and drew a rough plan of the few rooms.
Eventually he heard activity upstairs in the restaurant, the subtle aromas of breakfast preparation. It made him hungry. He closed the office, ran down the stairs and headed for the bakery.
A cherry fritter for him was an automatic decision, but he wasn’t sure what Cassie or Donald would prefer. His solution was a carefully chosen half dozen assortment. He carried the bag out to the car, munching on one of the cherry fritters, then went to the gas station, the only one he knew of that still washed your windows and checked your oil with a fill-up.
He headed home, marveling at the beautiful morning. Turning up Black Bear Ridge Road, he saw the play of sunlight through the bare deciduous trees and making conical shapes in emerald out of the Douglas fir that lined the last few yards—
He braked suddenly at the sight of black smoke billowing out of his house. He held on to the steering wheel and leaned forward, unable to believe what he was seeing. Then a side window blew out and fire leaped through the opening.
“Oh, God!” he said as he floored the gas and turned into his driveway. As he bounded out of the truck, Donald in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, his face blackened from smoke, threw himself toward the house.
“Don!” Grady shouted to stop him. “What happened? Where’s Cassie?”
Don caught his forearms as he ran toward him. “Thank God you’re okay. She shoved me out and went back in.”
“Stay here. I’ll get her.”
“No, I want to go.” He held Grady’s arms and shook him. “She has claus—”
Grady handed him his phone. “I know. Call 9-1-1. I’ll bring her out. I know the house, so I’ll be faster.” Without waiting for agreement, Grady rushed inside, through the corridor to the great room—and stopped for a second, shocked by how bad the fire was. Smoke billowed and rolled, and he couldn’t see much of anything except a significant point of flame. He guessed it was the table under the loft.
He couldn’t imagine how Cassie was functioning in this little piece of hell. Not only was it hot and hard to breathe, but the darkness caused by the smoke was pervasive—and claustrophobic. She must be terrified. He needed to save her.
“Cassie!” he shouted, covering his mouth as he ran into the room. “Cassie? Where are you?”
Hearing no sound but the crackling flames, he advanced to the stairs and collided with her before he saw her. She was headed toward the kitchen. Her face and her bare arms and shoulders were black with smoke. She coughed and fell against the newel.
“Cassie!” He framed her face in his hands just in time to hear her raspy voice say, “Grady,” and to see her eyes close as she began to collapse. He swept her up against him, remembering that this was the way they’d met. He took a moment to get his bearings, then turned sideways and headed for the door, now open and admitting firefighters on the run. He sheltered her with his face against hers as he ran against the traffic.
* * *
CASSIE, GRADY AND DONALD sat on the rear bumper of the fire truck, wrapped in blankets a firefighter had given them.
Cassie had regained consciousness the minute she’d hit the early morning air and now sat silently, an arm around Grady’s waist, as they all stared at the frantic activity in and around the house. The fire was out, the fire chief had told them, and the smoke was dissipating. She’d half expected to see the roof ablaze, but the flames hadn’t broken through.
“I wonder what happened,” Cassie asked in a small voice.
“I have no idea.” Grady sat with a hand on her knee, filled with gratitude that she was unharmed. He felt sick. He’d never been one to need fancy clothes or a mansion, but he’d loved this house from the moment he’d seen it, driving up this road with Ben, answering a call about a missing dog. It represented everything he believed in—solid, unpretentious, a place in which to live a quiet, steady life.
He’d been sure he’d never be able to afford it, but the owner had moved away the year before and had been paying two mortgages ever since. He’d been anxious to get out from under this one and was selling at an absurdly low price.
Grady loved being a bachelor in this house. He’d filled the place with furniture he’d saved for, gifts from friends, folk art finds from his collector mother. He wondered with black humor if he’d be lucky enough that the blue armoire was a loss.
His poker games around the kitchen table had been fun. He realized, of course, that that was due to the men who came to play rather than the house in which they played.
Ben’s wedding! Thoughts of his poker buddies reminded him that today was Ben and Corie’s wedding. And his house was the venue.
He turned to Cassie and saw the pale sadness on her face.
* * *
A HIGH, SHRILL scream was going on in Cassie’s brain. She held the blanket tightly around her, felt Grady’s arm encircle her shoulders and her father take her hand, but she couldn’t stop staring at the broken windows and the fire hoses inside. A chill the blanket and the love of her favorite men couldn’t chase away set up residence in the pit of her stomach.
She’d wanted so much for her sister to have the world’s most wonderful wedding, and now most of what she’d gathered to make it spectacular, and the gorgeous home itself, had burned. What could Grady do now? And what could she do to save the wedding? And him?
Half-developed thoughts bounced around in her head, trying to find a solution worth pursuing, but kept bouncing back unfinished. She couldn’t think. Ben and Corie would be so disappointed!
“Do you think your friend made a bad electrical connection for the hanging chandelier?” Donald asked, leaning around Cassie to see Grady.
Grady shrugged under the blanket. “It’s possible, but he’s done other work here before that’s been perfectly reliable. The table we were going to use for the wedding cake was fully engulfed, though. I can’t imagine why. I mean, something would have had to set it on fire. The chandelier had fallen to the floor, so maybe that had something to do with it.”
Cassie leaned into Grady as the early morning gave way to a beautiful, clear day, completely at odds with the destruction of Grady’s home. “Grady, I’m so sorry,” she said on a cough. “I feel like this is all my fault. If I hadn’t suggested having the wedding here, this might not have happened.”
“We don’t know that.” He squeezed her closer. “Maybe you don’t even want to think about this now, but do you have any ideas about the wedding? I mean, it’s New Year’s Day. And I don’t think anyone else has a house big enough.”
Ben and Corie appeared in the chaos in jeans and parkas, picking their way over hoses as t
he firefighters in the background walked in and out of the house, water everywhere.
“Grady,” Ben said as Corie wrapped her arms around Cassie. “I was up early, listening to the scanner. What happened?”
“Not sure,” Grady replied, standing to accept Ben’s comforting hug. “Place was on fire when Cassie woke up. I had gone to the bakery for doughnuts.” Then with an expression of disbelief and censure, “You were listening to the scanner on the morning of your wedding?”
“You know how it is. Always a cop.” Ben’s gaze ran over the three of them. “Thank God you’re all okay.” He turned to look at the house. “The roof seems to be intact.”
“Yeah, the fire was contained, and they seem to be doing a good job of putting it out. When I got here and found smoke pouring out, Donald came to tell me Cassie had pushed him out the door and run back in. I went in after her.”
Cassie absorbed their exchange while listening to her sister tell her she was so grateful she hadn’t been hurt, then hugging her fiercely in punctuation. When she drew away, her eyes were clear and warm. “I don’t want you to worry about the wedding. We can always do it in Father Eisley’s rectory.”
“Fifty people won’t fit in there.”
“I know. But we’ll get married there, then if we explain about what’s happened, I’m sure everyone will understand if we cancel the reception. We can send food to the homeless shelter.”
Then Cassie had a sudden, completely unexpected, inspiration. It made her smile. Corie looked just a little worried. “What?” she asked.
Cassie turned to Grady. Sensing her excitement, both men stopped talking and turned to her.
Grady smiled ruefully. “Run for cover. I know this look. What?”
“What if we have the ceremony and the reception on the back lawn?”
Grady took the question calmly then asked with measured reason, “In the dark? In forty-degree weather?”
“Why not? Power’s out, but we have the standing chandeliers for light…” Her smile battled with a quick frown. “Provided they survived the fire. If they didn’t, there’s always candlelight and your lanterns.” The smile won then wavered briefly again. “How will we keep the food cold?”
