“I’m so sorry,” I breathed.
She shook her head slightly, her eyes looking exhausted and sad, like all her tears were burned up, too. “It’s not your fault, Micah.” She hugged her arms over her chest and looked back at the smoldering remains of what was her whole life just two hours earlier. “Things happen—because that’s what we’re supposed to go through next. We have insurance. We’ll survive. This was my dad’s baby.” She closed her eyes as words failed her. “I’m thankful that he has dementia right now. Is that a horrible thing to feel?”
“No,” I whispered. “It’s a love thing to feel.”
Allie blinked two new tears free and whisked them away as she nodded toward where Gabi was already halfway down the street.
“Go. Make sure Lanie is okay.”
I could find only one shoe, not that they’d served in that function, anyway. I grabbed it and ran to Gabi’s car and jumped in.
“I saw your Mustang back there,” she said.
“I haven’t even looked,” I said. “She must think I don’t love her.”
Gabi gave me the side eyeball. “You’re one of those people, aren’t you?”
I covered my face with my hands. “I don’t know,” I said, feeling the force of all my mistakes and sins descending on me with a fury. “I don’t know who I am. I don’t know anything anymore.”
“Hey,” Gabi said, grabbing my arm as she one-handed a turn. “Don’t berate yourself. You are not at fault for what that asshole did.”
“He burned down the diner,” I said. “Destroyed people’s livelihood.” Tears choked my words. “Because he was mad at me. Mad at Leo. Who fucking does that?”
“His choice.”
“But his choice could have been somewhere else!” I cried. “I could have gone to Denning, to Forest—hell, I could have gone to Egypt. I could have kept going,” I said. “Grabbed a taxi like a normal person. Not climbed on a bike with a random stranger who just so happened to be the person he hates most.”
Who I just told that I loved.
“And then you wouldn’t have met me,” she said. “And we wouldn’t be starting a wildflower farm together.”
I swallowed hard. How could I do that now? After—
“Oh, my God.”
I sat forward and followed her gaze, the dread I’d become acquainted with washing over me like a thick mist. A dim lamplight upstairs was on—as if maybe Lanie was reading. The rest of the house was totally dark. Our headlights shown on the porch, as distorted shadows of Leo and Nick approached, and sitting up there like a king was Jeremy.
Casually rocking in a porch rocker.
“This nightmare won’t die,” I said under my breath.
“Come on.”
I got out and walked across the gravel, not even caring about the pain on my bare feet. All I felt was hate. Mortification. Absolute repulsion for this person who somehow manipulated me into being what he wanted me to be all while completely disguising the monster he was. I knew he could be a narcissistic ass at times. I never imagined him capable of this. Not this.
Nick ran up to the porch and halted.
“What’s that—” he said. “Why do I smell gasoline?” He took the stairs two at a time. “What the hell are you doing? Get off my property.”
Jeremy held up a lighter and flicked it. It illuminated his face in the most unflattering of ways. Gone were the attractive face and pretty eyes. The easy lazy grin that had won me over all those years ago. All that flame picked up was crazy. Bat-shit crazy.
“Back it up, baby brother,” he said, sitting forward to lean on his elbows. “It’d be a shame to see this beautiful old house go up in flames like mine did.” He took his finger off the lever as Nick backed down the steps. “With such a cheap little lighter, too. Leo, you should really invest in something sexy like one of those stainless-steel numbers with the special engravings.” He wiggled the blue plastic. “These are boring.”
I remembered seeing Leo’s lighter on the coffee table next to the petrified cigarette. Jeremy was repeating history? Sweet Jesus, this needed to end.
“Stop it!”
Jeremy jerked toward my voice. “Of course you’d come with your new posse. I could have put money on it.”
“What are you trying to prove?” I asked. “You destroy the diner, and now you’re terrorizing a family? Who are you?”
“Something happened to the diner?” he asked nonchalantly. “That’s a shame. First I heard of it.” He made the sign of a cross on his chest with the lighter. “Swear to God.”
“That’s bullshit,” Nick seethed.
“No,” Leo said. “He wouldn’t be here if he did it personally. He had his cousin do it. Where is good old Roger?”
“Can’t say I know what you’re talking about,” Jeremy said, sitting back into the rocker again and rocking gently. “Haven’t seen Roger in ages.”
“My wife is upstairs,” Nick said, hovering at the edge of the steps. “I realize that means nothing to you, since setting a restaurant on fire with people still inside doesn’t faze you, but I’m telling you right now—you do this…you hurt one hair on her head, and you won’t frame me for shit. I’ll hang your ass personally.”
“Wow, Leo,” Jeremy said. “He turned out as mouthy as you are.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said, walking across the grass, passing Leo, passing Nick, and walking up the steps. “What is your point here? What do you want?”
“Micah, stop!” Leo yelled behind me as Jeremy flicked the flame on again.
“He won’t do it,” I said, bluffing with every ounce of acting ability I had. Using my anger to fuel my courage. “He won’t hurt me. And he sure as hell won’t set himself on fire up here.”
Jeremy’s eyes panned my body. “Aren’t you just a vision? At least you have pants on this time.” One eyebrow raised. “Interesting barefoot-hick thing you have going on, though, sweetheart. Is that shoe special to you?”
I looked down, unaware I still had my wooden wedge in my hands. I could feel the gasoline on my tender, scraped-up feet. None of it made sense. It was like living in a surrealistic painting.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“What do I have to lose, love?” he said calmly.
Too calmly. Possibly, I underestimated things.
“Why?” I said, my voice tremulous with rage.
Jeremy moved the lighter slowly, back and forth, watching the flame move sideways.
“Because he can’t keep taking what’s mine,” he said, as if talking to himself.
“I didn’t take anything,” Leo said, one foot on the step next to his brother. “I didn’t even know Andrea was your ex when we met.”
“We were on a break,” Jeremy said, looking up from the lighter. “She wasn’t an ex.”
“Well, evidently your idea of a break meant something else to her,” Leo said. “Because she was done. And later when you threw a fit? She still wanted nothing to do with your lunatic ass.”
“You want to play with me?” Jeremy said, lunging to his feet and grabbing my upper arm. “Because I may die up here, but I’ll make sure you don’t get this one, too.”
“This one?” I said, pulling at my arm in vain. He wasn’t letting go. “I’m not your spare change or your blow-up doll.”
“You were mine,” he said, holding the flame under my face. I could feel the heat licking my chin as I jerked my head away. “I loved you. And you broke me.”
“I wasn’t your anything,” I spat. “I belong to me. And you don’t love, Jeremy. You control. You manipulate.”
Jeremy looked at me with an emptiness I’d never seen on him before, and I knew what he was about to do in the second that he did it. Everything slowed down, as though some invisible switch had been flipped. I felt his hand toss the lighter at the same time Nick and
Leo jointly bull-rushed us. Leo yanked me around the waist and twisted me out and over the steps like some Olympic event, while Nick tried to bat away the lighter, missed, and tackled Jeremy with a roaring “Noooo” as they hit the porch decking.
I landed in a tumble in the grass as Leo went over the railing. And the lighter hit the gasoline-soaked deck with a—pphmff.
Like the kind that happens when flame hits water.
The fizzle made no sense. I could smell the gasoline. On the wood, on me, on everything. The shadow of Nick’s head popped up looking curious, as Jeremy shoved him away.
“Hey, guys,” said another voice from the right. “Did we miss the fun?”
It was Bash. Hell, I’d forgotten about Bash, as he strolled up with Lanie from around the side of the house.
Nick scrambled to his feet and pushed Jeremy to the side as he ran down to Lanie.
“So glad you check your texts,” he said, pulling her into his arms and high-fiving Bash.
“Whoa,” she said, coughing, reaching up on her tiptoes to kiss him. “You reek. Why do you smell like gas? Why does my porch smell like gas?” She turned to where Jeremy was staring at the lighter on the decking. “And what the hell are you doing?” she said, ironically echoing what Nick had said when he got there.
Leo picked himself up and made the steps in one leap, grabbing Jeremy by his shirt and yanking him down the steps, his face inches away.
“He’s leaving,” Leo growled.
“Fuck you,” Jeremy said, struggling to get his feet under him.
“Get out,” Leo said through his teeth. “Get out of this town, out of this state, even. I don’t want to see you ever again. I don’t want you around Micah ever—”
“Leo.”
He turned to me with wild eyes I saw clearly in the headlights. “Oh, my God, Roman-off, you wear me out.”
I walked up to Jeremy as Leo let him go with a shove, catching my shoe as Gabi tossed it to me from the bushes. The flicker of blue lights glowed through distant trees.
“I don’t ever want to see you again, Jeremy Blankenship,” I said. “For better or for worse—hopefully worse. Most definitely poorer. As long as we both shall live.”
He grabbed my face and planted a hard kiss on my mouth as I yelped, shoving me back from it just as roughly.
“That’s for not giving me the chance to kiss my bride,” he sneered.
My left hand came up entirely on its own. The fact that it happened to be holding a five-pound wooden clog heel as it met with the side of his face and nose—well, that was just fortunate. Use what you have.
He dropped to his knees, howling and cursing.
“That’s for trying to burn me alive, you son-of-a-bitch,” I said, dropping the shoe next to his pathetic form as the police car pulled up. “Oh, so much for getting out of town. Good luck with that.”
Leo leaned down and sniffed the porch, touching the wetness and sniffing it. “How did this not go up?” he asked.
“Aunt Ruby,” Lanie said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“What?” Leo asked, turning around.
Lanie shrugged. “My aunt was—well, let’s just say she still protects things around here.” She threw a sideways glance at Nick. “I totally should have burned down the kitchen the other day and nothing happened. So…not letting the house go up in flames after being soaked in gasoline?” She nodded. “Not surprising.”
Nick gave us a look that agreed. “I know it’s crazy, but you really haven’t seen crazy yet.”
The policemen put Jeremy in the car and took our statements and, after what felt like ten hours, finally left with him. Nick and Leo looked at each other before he and Lanie left to go check on Allie, and there was something there. A beginning, maybe. There was hope.
I felt a hand on the back of my neck, and I turned into Leo’s arms as he pulled me in. I couldn’t remember ever feeling that safe. That content. Other than my brothers, no one had ever given me this sense of—peace. His hands were in my hair and around my back, holding me to him so tightly that my face was buried in the singed collar of his shirt. My nose inhaling soot and dried sweat and Leo. He had jumped up on that porch to save my life. He was taking care of me, and I should have been put off by that with my anti-help-Micah campaign, but he was—just being him. And in spite of myself, it felt damn good. I wrapped my arms around his torso and held him back just as tightly. I’d said words tonight. Big words. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t heard them, only that they’d come out of my mouth.
The tide had shifted. But this…this moment…this was all we could do with it. This memory would have to stick.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Growing up on what was now Thatcher’s porch, it always felt homey to me. More so than the house. Now every time I sat out on Thatcher’s front porch the last few days, all I could see was Jeremy sitting in that rocker. Trying to end me, trying to hurt Leo by hurting his brother. Being responsible for all that destruction and pain. Over a woman. Two of them.
Damn him, he even stole my love of this porch.
Gabi had called every day for the past week, trying to talk me into coming back. Into “coming home,” as she phrased it. It stabbed me in the heart every time she said that. Because I wanted it so badly.
I didn’t want to be here, squatting in my brother’s house, sleeping in my old room, glaring at the walls for the oppression hiding behind the wallpaper. It wasn’t permanent, but I didn’t know what was. Cherrydale had always been my hometown, but going to Charmed—that had been like nothing else. Not just because I found friends like Gabi and Lanie and Carmen and—other people. But because I found me. And that meant everything.
I wasn’t sure I could be that person anywhere else, least of all the town where I learned how to bury it.
But my being in Charmed had hurt people. Indirectly, yes, but still very much real. Lives were damaged. Altered. Forever. Because I let myself be altered into someone I no longer knew in order not to see the monster in front of me.
“How can I ever trust myself again?” I said out loud.
“With closing doors?” Thatcher said through the open door behind me and to my left. “You can’t. You’re hopeless.”
He handed me a hot, fresh cup of coffee, light brown from a spoon of hazelnut cream. I seldom took the time to make it that way for myself, but it was exactly how I liked it. And he knew that.
“Why can’t all men be like you, Thatch?” I said, sipping and inhaling at the same time.
“I don’t know,” he said, sinking into the next chair with a sigh. “Ask Misty. I’m sure she has an opinion on that.” He glanced my way and winked over his cup. “More than one, probably.”
I gave him a sideways once-over. “Why are you this put-together first thing in the morning?”
It was the weekend, so he had on cargo shorts and topsiders, but with a nice pullover. He was shaved and smelled good and looked ready to go do something. It was seven o’clock. I was wrapped in an afghan in my worn-out, ratty tank top and shorts, with slipper socks on my feet and my hair pulled up on top of my head like a feather duster gone rogue. I had brushed my teeth and was feeling all on top of things before J. Crew here came strutting out.
“What? I get ready for the day,” he said. “Then I’m more likely to actually do something than just lay around here eating chips and watching reruns.”
I curled a lip at him. “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” I said. “Hey, did you look at that binder I gave you? About a plan for a wildflower farm in Charmed?”
Thatcher nodded over his coffee. “I did.”
I waited with raised brows. “And?”
He gave me one of his studying looks, and I sighed and looked away.
“Don’t put me under a microscope, Thatch,” I said. “There’s nothing to figure out. I just think that it’s a great idea.”
“Separate from both the flower farm and Graham’s,” he said.
“Yes,” I affirmed. “But in a joint venture. Wholesale to florists, a deeper discount for Graham’s since they’d be advertising it in the shop and pimping it as local and fresh, and a percentage of the profits come here in exchange for—well, essentially, me. And the use of some of our equipment.”
“Initially funded by?” he asked.
I made a face. “Some rich old man in the woods?”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “That sounds totally legit.”
“I know, Thatch,” I said. “But I—I really want to do this.”
“Move back to Charmed?”
I grimaced. “Maybe just closer. Denning or Goldworth.”
“And leave me?” he said.
“Not completely,” I said. “I’d still put in some time here. But let’s be real here. Roarke is two of me.”
“Roarke is five of you,” Thatcher said, ducking when I swung at him. “But I’d miss you. Nothing better than going out to the hothouses or a field over lunch to find my little sister elbow deep in the mud.”
“I’d be sure to come do that every couple of weeks just for you,” I said.
Thatcher grabbed my hand and kissed the back of it, looking down the street.
“If you need this, baby girl, I’m on board,” he said.
Goose bumps went down my back, and sparks of excitement shot through my belly. This could happen. Something of my own—or our own—something I never imagined and never even dreamed up could happen, all because I’d lost my mind and ended up in Charmed and met Gabi.
I closed my eyes and savored it, listening to the early-morning sounds of the birds and soft wind blowing the leaves. Faraway noises of town life, and the deep rumble of a motorcycle as it grew louder.
My eyes popped open as it echoed nearer and nearer, my heart speeding up at the same ratio.
“Oh, shit,” I said, as bike and rider rolled slowly into view, slowing more as he reached his destination.
“Someone you know?” Thatcher said, giving me a knowing look as he pushed to his feet.
Charmed at First Sight Page 24
