Sugar And Spice (Holidays: Valentine)

by Charlotte French

  Quinn crossed the street, jacket hanging open, face streaked with smoke and grime. He sat on the curb next to Crissy and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. She pressed herself into that kiss, into him, her fingers digging into the rough, heavy fabric of his jacket. All she could smell was smoke, cloying, suffocating, and she wondered if she’d ever be able to smell anything else ever again.

  “I found this,” he said, sliding something into her lap. “I wish I could have saved more.”

  Crissy looked down. Her scrapbook. A little melted at the edges, plastic bubbled and warped from the fire. Singed recipes and photographs poked out of the edges. She ran her hand over the buckled cover, curved into a slight horseshoe shape after the intense heat. This was it. All that was left of her dreams, her hard work.

  “How are you holdin’ up, sweetheart?” Quinn asked softly.

  Slowly, Crissy looked up and managed the smallest, weakest smile. “I’m okay,” she said.

  Quinn frowned and reached out, brushed his thumb over her chin. “No, you’re not.”

  That was the final straw. She had held herself together all day. She hadn’t cried when she lost her kitchen. She hadn’t cried as Amy stayed by her side on the cold pavement.

  Crissy let out a tiny sob as she leaned into Quinn, her scrapbook clutched to her chest. Quinn wrapped his arms around her and Amy rested her cheek against Crissy’s back as she cried.

  ***

  The tears eventually slowed to hiccups then to silence. Quinn didn’t move, didn’t say anything. Amy’s hand rested between Crissy’s shoulder blades, a steady, soothing pressure, reassuring in the knowledge that she wasn’t alone despite her life falling to pieces.

  Finally, Crissy pulled back, wiped the palms of her hands over her eyes. A headache was beginning to blossom behind her left eye, from crying, from the stress of the whole day. Her skin felt grimy and gritty from soot and ash. She glanced at the remains of the coffee shop and tightened her hold on her battered scrapbook.

  Quinn slid his hands down her arms and wrapped his fingers around her wrists, pulling her to her feet.

  “Let’s go home,” he whispered. “I just did laundry yesterday and there will plenty of my clean shirts to choose from.”

  Crissy nodded slowly and let herself be guided back to Quinn’s house with Amy trailing after them. Quinn pushed into the bathroom and turned on the shower until it was steaming hot, fogging up the mirror. He cupped her face in his hands and she sighed, closing her eyes.

  “Get cleaned up,” he said. “The water will do wonders, I promise.”

  Quinn turned to leave but Crissy caught his little finger. He glanced at her, waiting. She tucked her fingers under the hem of his shirt. Without looking away from her, Quinn shut the door and shrugged out of his jacket, allowing Crissy to shove his shirt up and over his head before she let it drop to the floor.

  Slowly, carefully, Quinn and Crissy peeled the offending smoke-thick clothing off of each other. Crissy sucked in a pained breath when Quinn turned her hands over and let the hot water pound on her skin, bringing her blistered skin to the forefront of her attention. He scrubbed the smoke and ash out of her hair, has hands gliding in smooth, even strokes over her head. When he washed her hair clean, the faint smell of smoke still lingered and he started all over, washing her hair three times through until she smelled nothing but strawberries and vanilla. Then she did the same for him, placing feather light kisses across his shoulders.

  There were more tears, lost in the shower spray that drifted down the drain. But it was different here, crying alone with Quinn rather than in the street. She felt even more raw now, like she was extracting her grief from a deeper place, a more damaged place she hadn’t wanted to allow herself to touch until now.

  Quinn said nothing. He simply let the water run over them both as he pulled her down into the tub, his chin tucked against her shoulder, and let her cry until there was nothing left.

  When Crissy was quiet again and the water had cooled, goosebumps shivered over her skin. He wrapped her in a towel and retrieved one of his shirts for her and a pair of leggings she’d left behind earlier in the week.

  Amy was waiting in the kitchen with fresh coffee, her feet tucked underneath her as she sat at the table. She slid a mug across to Crissy. Quinn stood off to Crissy’s right, well within reach if she needed him.

  “I called Manu,” Amy said. “We’re going to put up a partition in the living room. It’ll be all yours. You can stay as long as you like.”

  Crissy nodded slowly. What was she going to do now that the shop was gone? She’d have to start over somewhere else, find a different restaurant to cook for.

  “You’ve got a baby on the way, Amy,” Crissy said. “You don’t need me crowding up your apartment.”

  “That’s months away still.”

  She sighed. It wasn’t like she had many options at this point. There was no way in hell she was going to call up her family and ask to stay with them.

  “You could stay with me,” Quinn said softly.

  Crissy looked up at him.

  “If I start driving you crazy or if you just need space,” he continued, “I’ve got an extra room. You have a few things here already. And it doesn’t have to be permanent, if you don’t want it to be.”

  Crissy glanced at Amy, gauging her reaction. Amy shrugged, her gaze searching Crissy’s face.

  “Would you be comfortable with that, sugar?” she asked. “I don’t care if I’ve got a dozen fat, screaming kids stuffed into my apartment. I will always make room for you, no matter what.”

  Crissy hesitated, tracing her finger over the rim of her coffee cup in thought. Amy reached across the table and took her hand.

  “Whatever you choose,” she said, “we will support you, both of us.”

  Crissy smiled slightly and nodded. “I think I’d like to stay here, just for a little while.”

  Amy squeezed her hand. “Sounds good to me, sugar. Try to get some sleep, okay? You’ve been through hell and back again today.”

  Amy lingered for a few minutes more before she left, hugging Crissy tight. As Quinn walked her to the door, they spoke in hushed tones, low enough that Crissy couldn’t hear. Not that she needed to. They knew they were talking about her, about the shop, and what to do after this.

  “Keep an eye on her, would you?” Amy said.

  “I’ll call you if anything changes,” Quinn replied. “I promise.”

  “You’re a good man, Quinn. Thank you for taking care of our girl.”

  After Amy left, Quinn shut the door and came to stand behind Crissy. He laid his hands on her shoulders and pressed his thumbs deep into the tight muscles in her back. She hissed a breath and bowed her head. He kissed the top of her head as he massaged her shoulders until she was practically limp in her chair from the pressure of his hands.

  “What am I supposed to do after this, Quinn?” she said softly, rubbing at her forehead.

  Quinn took her hand as he sat next to her and pulled her out of her chair until she stood between his knees, looking down at him.

  “You’ll be sad, frustrated, upset,” he said. “You’ll take it easy for a few days. Then you’ll pick yourself up again and keep going.”

  “Keep going with what? There’s nothing left.”

  “With your abilities, there will be plenty of places that will hire you in a second.”

  He reached around her and picked up her scrapbook, holding up in front of her.

  “Do you see this?” he said. “Do you see how much work you’ve already put into this?”

  She nodded.

  “Years,” he said. “You have been at this for years. No matter how many setbacks you’ve had in the past, you’ve always made it through. This is just another setback, sweetheart. It feels huge, impossible to overcome right now, but you will.” He placed the scrapbook on the table and cupped her face in his hands. “You will, Crissy. You always have. This won’t stop you either.”

  She turned to
kiss his palm as she sat on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.”

  ***

  In the middle of the night, Crissy sat bolt upright with the sharp scent of smoke filling her nose and lungs, coating her tongue. Quinn still slept soundly, face pressed to her shoulder, one arm around her waist. She eased out of bed and into the kitchen, searching for the source of that smell. She pressed her hands to the burners on the stove but they were all cool, no heat to speak of. She checked the outlets and unplugged every appliance on the counter she could reach.

  But still, she smelled smoke.

  “Crissy?”

  Quinn stood in the living room doorway, hair ruffled with sleep, squinting at her.

  “What’s goin’ on, sweetheart? It’s three in the morning.”

  She stood in the middle of the living room, feeling helpless and confused.

  “I could have sworn I smelled smoke,” she said. “I thought maybe I’d left the stove on or something.”

  Quinn crossed the room and cupped her face in his hands, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

  “I don’t smell anything,” he said. “Let’s get to bed, okay?”

  She glanced around the living room, hesitating, wrapping her arms around her middle. Quinn slid his hands down her arms and took her hands.

  “I’ll check the house,” he said, “while you go back to bed.”

  Reluctantly, she nodded and headed to Quinn’s bedroom. She sat in bed, knees tucked up to her chest, until Quinn returned. He slid under the covers with a sigh and pulled her into his chest.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary,” he said. “Coast is clear.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yep.”

  She hummed, her mind still haunted by that ghostly sharp smell of smoke. Quinn nuzzled into her neck and his hand came to rest against the back of her head, warm and heavy and comforting.

  “I still smell smoke sometimes too,” he mumbled against the crook of her shoulder and neck.

  She went still. “You do?”

  “Fire’s like that,” Quinn mumbled, voice hoarse with approaching sleep. “It doesn’t just destroy homes and possessions and lives. It gets in your head. Doesn’t let you have any peace, even when it’s been put out hours, days, years ago.”

  Crissy said nothing for several seconds then wrapped her arm around Quinn’s waist, sliding her knee between his legs and hooking her ankle around his calf.

  “I don’t know how you do it,” she whispered. “Face fires all the time.”

  “Well I don’t know how you bake all the time without dropping from exhaustion.”

  “That’s entirely different. Baking is not dangerous.”

  Quinn grunted and pulled away just far enough to peer at her with one eye.

  “I happen to distinctly remember your kitchen on fire after a certain small cooking accident,” he said.

  She squinted at him. “Fine. I’ll let you win this round just so you can go back to sleep.”

  He smiled softly and tipped his chin up to kiss her. “I knew there was a reason I fell in love with you.”

  She merely hummed in response as his head drifted back down to her shoulder again and her fingers twined through his hair. She knew she wasn’t likely to fall asleep again, not as quickly as Quinn could, not with the smell of smoke still lingering faintly in the corners of her mind.

  “I watched my house burn down when I was little,” Quinn said quietly, eyes closed.

  Crissy’s fingers stopped in Quinn’s hair. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Megan and I were little, around six, seven years old. I don’t remember much but I remember the heat. I remember how fast everything went up. And I remember feeling…so, so helpless, watching it all go up in flames and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. We lived in the mountains, a good hour’s drive away from the nearest town. And that was on a good day, when there wasn’t two feet of snow to get through.”

  Crissy said nothing and kissed Quinn’s neck instead. She knew a little of that heartache, feeling helpless, unable to do anything while your home burned. But being so young…she couldn’t imagine how much that must have hurt.

  “It broke my dad,” Quinn continued, his voice so soft, barely a breath in the silence, Crissy almost missed it. “We moved. We started over. But…he wasn’t the same after that.”

  Crissy waited, not wanting to interrupt Quinn’s sudden bout of honesty. His father wasn’t a topic he touched on very often and she wasn’t sure how much she should push him to talk, if at all.

  His arms tightened slightly around Crissy and he kissed her collar bone. “I face fires every day because I have to,” he said. “Because I need to keep my family safe.”

  He nosed up the curve of her throat and brushed his thumb along her jawline.

  “Because I need to keep you safe,” he added, slowly opening his eyes to look at her. She smiled, kissing him lightly, and melted into him. In a matter of moments, she felt herself drifting off to sleep, listening to the steady thrum of Quinn’s heartbeat, the warmth radiating from his skin beneath her fingertips. She was safe. As long as she had Quinn, she would always be safe.

  ***

  Amy came by every day to spend a few hours with Crissy while Quinn was at work, always bearing more take out than any of them could possibly eat. They watched movies or played games or simply lounged on the couch, pelting each other with popcorn.

  Quinn’s house felt like a bubble for Crissy. She knew she had to face reality at some point. She would have to start the job hunt again, which she dreaded. She would have to face the polite apologies from people around town, apologies that the shop was gone, that it was such a shame. But for now, Amy kept her distracted, kept her laughing. And Quinn distracted her too, in different ways, sometimes not saying anything at all and simply holding her as she fell asleep.

  Nearly a week after the fire, Crissy broached the subject first. Amy and Quinn had been tiptoeing around it, careful not to bring it up in her presence. Crissy and Amy were playing Monopoly in the middle of the living room, bowls of junk food strewn out around them, when Quinn came home, kicked off his shoes, and dropped onto the couch next to Crissy, pulling her feet onto his lap. He sighed and sank deeper into the cushions, smiling a small, tired smile at her. Amy passed a bowl of M&Ms across the coffee table to him.

  “Sustenance,” she said.

  “Much appreciated,” he replied. “Who’s winning?”

  “Amy,” Crissy said. “She always cheats.”

  “Yep,” Amy chirped, sliding her piece across the board. “Sure do. I never claimed to be honest. Just loyal.”

  Quinn tucked a lock of hair behind Crissy’s ear and his thumb skated over her jawline. Before he could say something, more than likely something inanely normal that Crissy couldn’t even think about anymore, she spoke.

  “How did it happen?”

  Amy went still, her hand hovering over the board. Her gaze flicked up to Quinn. Crissy knew they’d been talking about her, about the fire, when she wasn’t around. Clearly they’d been doing a lot more talking than what she thought.

  “Stop that,” she said.

  “Stop what?” Quinn asked.

  “That look the two of you have been doing for the past week,” she said, gesturing between Amy and Quinn. “You don’t have to whisper behind my back like I’m some delicate little flower that will fall apart at the slightest breath of wind. I’ll be fine. Just tell me what happened.”

  Quinn sighed and rubbed the palm of his hand up and down her leg.

  “Sorry, sweetheart,” he said. “Didn’t mean to make you feel that way. We’re just…concerned for you. That’s all.”

  “I know,” she said, taking his hand. “But just tell me. I need to know.”

  “You sure you want to hear it?”

  She nodded. “It’s been driving me crazy. Did I start it? Did I leave the oven on? Please tell me it wasn’t something stupid
like that. I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “No,” Quinn said, shaking his head. “It wasn’t anything like that. The building was old, the electrical wiring was shoddy at best. It’s a miracle it lasted as long as it did without burning to the ground before now.”

  “It was a good thing you weren’t there, sugar,” Amy said. “From what Quinn told me, it moved fast. You could have died in that fire.”

  Quinn nodded. “Looked like it started in the walls and those are always hard to stop. They’re in full swing before you even knew a fire had started in the first place. The origin of the fire was somewhere in your apartment. Didn’t even start in the kitchen.”

  “Was there some way I could have stopped it?” Crissy asked. “If I’d been home?”

  “Maybe, but fires like this…they take off fast. Like Amy said, it’s best that you weren’t there. If anyone is to blame for this, it’s me.”

  Crissy frowned and placed her hand on his arm. “What? No. This isn’t your fault.”

  “Some of it might be. When you had that kitchen fire before because of faulty wiring, I should have warned you then to have the whole building checked. But I didn’t.”

  “You couldn’t have known this would happen.”

  Quinn gave a short laugh and shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “It’s my job to know these things.”

  “But you just said even if I had known about it, I couldn’t have stopped it. The same goes for you, Quinn. Just because you knew about it doesn’t mean you could have stopped it.”

  He sighed and tipped his head back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. “Maybe. Probably not going to be too happy with myself over it for a while though.”

  She leaned over and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’ve heard baking helps fix that problem.”

  He smiled slightly and tipped his head towards her, his nose brushing along the curve of her throat.

  “Yeah? I’ve heard that too,” he said.

  “You two are so disgusting,” Amy said with the biggest grin on her face Crissy had ever seen. “Well, I’m leaving before I vomit all over you.”