We watch in a dazed stupor at the beautiful flames dancing against the dark backdrop. At some point, two pickup trucks pull into the yard, releasing more men to gape at the wonderous hazard before us. One man races toward us, and within seconds, I recognize the outline of Jedd.
His name whispers on my lips, and Howard turns to me, reaching an arm out to stop me from moving forward, but I brush past his forearm. Limping, I have never moved me so fast on crutches as Jedd and I draw toward one another. He crushes me to him the second we are within arm’s length and buries in my neck. I can’t reciprocate the embrace because he’s trapped my arms at my sides.
“You weren’t hurt?” he questions, mumbling into my skin, and I melt into him.
“I’m fine,” I whisper at his ear, the one where he can hear me, and he shudders against me. Slipping me into position, his arm around my waist, and his thigh between my legs, he moves us in the strange manner he likes best as we return to the collected observers. Nathan is here and Tower is present, as is Vernon Grady, whose arms are crossed over his big chest. He’s chewing at his lip.
“He knows what he’s doing.” Carter McClure reassures Vernon of his son’s ability as a fireman. Vernon nods without taking his eyes off the raging fire.
Turning to me, Carter says, “We haven’t found any evidence of someone inside. Any idea how the fire might have started?”
“Someone inside?” Jedd asks, tightening his arm at my waist.
“Beverly mentioned a homeless man was living in her barn,” Carter clarifies for Jedd, and Howard snorts.
“A wha…” Jedd’s voice fades as his arm slips from my back.
“Boone,” I mutter. “I think Boone might have been staying in there.”
Jedd’s midnight eyes turn to me, reflective of the blazing flames like a mirror. “He what?”
“Who’s Boone?” Naomi asks, and Carter crosses his arms, awaiting an answer.
“That crazy boy of Hasting Crawford?” Scotia interjects in her condescending tone, and my brows pinch at her harsh labeling.
“He isn’t crazy,” I defend as if I know anything about the man. Jedd remains eerily quiet.
“Well, we’ll still check for signs of life, but I’d say he had fair warning to get out. Any chance he started the blaze?”
“He certainly did,” Howard interjects. “I’d like to press charges, and you’ll be hearing from my insurance company.” Howard aims a pointed finger at Jedd.
“Put your finger down before you hurt yourself,” Scotia warns as I step out of Jedd’s arms.
“Howard, shut up.” I glare at my soon-to-be ex-husband.
Mouths gape and snickers happen, but I’m only warming up with him.
“I don’t know who you think you are, or where you’ve been, and frankly, I don’t care anymore. You’ve done more damage than this burning barn, and I’m done with you, Howard. So done. So don’t you think you can come back here after twenty years. Twenty years!” I yell. “And make statements and claims and accusations. The Lord teaches us to forgive, Howard. And God above knows I tried and struggled for years to do so. But you know what, Howard? If I don’t forgive you, I can’t forgive myself. Forgive myself for what I’ve done to me, to Hannah, to this land. So I forgive you, Howard. I forgive you for stepping out, but now I want you to get out. For the twentieth time today, this is my home. Get off my property!” I’m screaming so loud, Carter McClure flinches, and Scotia punctuates my ire with an audible huff.
“Now, baby,” Howard says, reaching for me, but he stops short. A moment passes before I realize it isn’t the horror in my expression—the disgust that he’ll touch me—that stops him, but the horror in his as he doesn’t want to be near the crutches at my arms.
“You bastard,” I say as angry tears blur my vision of my husband. The man who promised to love and honor me, in sickness and in health, yet has done none of these things.
Carter McClure clears his throat. “As we don’t need this kind of drama right now, might I recommend a room at Donner Lodge, Howard?”
“This is my house,” Howard states, but his declaration has no strength.
“If you don’t get off this land, I’ll testify in a court of law you set that fire yourself,” Scotia warns, and once again, I want to hug my big sister even though I’m confused by her sudden protective nature.
“Now, Ms. Simmons,” Chief McClure begins.
“Don’t you ‘Ms. Simmons’ me, sir.” Her voice brooks no argument despite the fact it’d be a false accusation against Howard.
“Mr. Townsen,” the chief warns.
“I can’t get anywhere with your trucks in my way, but I’ll go,” he says begrudgingly, and then remains where he stands. I look to my side, noting Jedd is no longer close. My eyes find him standing only a few feet away by Vernon.
“Back to the start of the fire,” the fire chief states. “We need to decide if we put her out or let her burn?” Carter keeps his eyes on me. “It’s your call, Beverly.”
It’s my call. Watch the old building burn and hope Boone isn’t inside, or put out the flames on a building which is already a loss. I didn’t know my homeless angel was Jedd’s brother until hours ago, but it feels like a lifetime has passed since then. I still don’t know if the homeless man and Boone are one and the same, but I have a strong suspicion they are. I want to ask Jedd what he thinks—let the barn go or put it out—so I turn to him to find him watching me, and something in his expression halts my tongue.
“Jedd?” I question, no longer concerned with the barn but his thoughts and the expression on his face, which I can’t read. He quickly steps up to me, bracing one large palm over my heart.
“Bee, I have to know.”
My eyes search his, still questioning him with only his name. “Jedd?”
He leans forward, kisses me briefly in front of everyone, and then pulls back, keeping his eyes on me a second longer. He’s turning his back on me, and it’s like watching something move in slow motion. The loss of his eyes. The curve of his shoulder. His back, broad and solid.
“Jedd, you promised you wouldn’t leave,” I call out, frantic and panicked as he doesn’t respond to me. Instead, he breaks into a sprint, heading toward the raging flames.
“Jedd!” I scream as I watch him running away from me.
And then an explosion occurs.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
[Beverly]
I wake on my bed. Someone carried me in here as the world went black after the explosion. I remember cursing my legs and watching Jedd disappear. I couldn’t chase him, yet Nathan restrained me anyway, my voice screaming louder than the roaring fire.
Gingerly, I move, struggling to make sense of it all, struggling to find a purpose to sit up, but I need to look out the window. Making my way to my rocking chair, I focus on the burning barn, now a pile of rubble, like a ginormous bonfire. The barn where Jedd built a room against my wishes. The place where I snooped through his things. The space where we spent a night together on his cot. All gone.
Jedd.
I have no idea why he thought entering the flaming structure was a good idea, but I also understand his motive.
His brother. I didn’t know.
I stare at the lulling flames, now settling after the explosion.
Jedd.
Why did you go after him? Why didn’t you let the firemen do their job? Why did you need to be a hero?
I can’t close my eyes; the vision behind them something I don’t want to imagine. I’ll never sleep. I don’t want to sleep. I want Jedd.
Only Jedd.
A singular pulse.
Voices travel into my room, but I can’t make out who says what. Instead, I sit here and watch out the window. I hope Howard is gone. I think my sisters remain.
As I stare through the glass, the display across the gravel drive looks like something from a television program. Fire people and fire trucks litter the area. It’s more realistic than reality television, and while reality telev
ision was once the highlight of my days, Jedd had become my reality. He was real.
“It felt like a fantasy,” I say to no one. I don’t flinch when my bedroom door opens and I see the reflection of light from the hall in the glass. Then the door closes.
“Bee?” My eyes shut. I’m already dreaming of him, hearing his voice in my head. Rumpled sheets and sleepy mornings. Quickly, my eyes open. I can’t close them. The visions of Jedd, flames, a fire. There’s a movement in my periphery, and I turn with a start.
“Sweet butter on a biscuit,” I shriek, but my voice croaks as my hand comes to my throat. “Jedd?”
He collapses before me, kneeling between my knees as I sit on the rocking chair. He smells of smoke and burnt ashes and life.
“Jedd?” My hands cover his face, my sight blurring as tears well up. His mouth crashes against mine, and the fantasy feels so real. His lips on me. His breath mixing with mine. His tongue stroking mine. He groans, and I pull back.
“Jedd.” It’s as if I still don’t believe he’s before me. My fingers coast over his face. “You’re…You’re…” I break, sobs catching in my throat as he tugs me to his chest. I hold onto him, covering my mouth to suppress the fear and relief.
“I’m okay, honey. I’m right here. I didn’t go anywhere.”
I pull back. “But I saw you run to the barn. You went into the fire.” My hands rub over his shoulders and down his arms, both of them.
“I didn’t, darlin’. Grizz caught me just before I made it to the door. I’m sorry I scared you, honey. I had to know…I just had to see for myself.” His voice cracks.
“I’m so sorry, Jedd. I didn’t know. I should have told you I was feeding him. I should have told you he was here in the barn, and all this time…”
“Shh, honey. Shh.” So Jedd. He’s soothing me when I should be soothing him.
“Thank you for Boone. For feeding him. For taking care of him.” We stare at one another a moment before his hand curls around my neck, and he tugs out foreheads together. His gratitude sounds like goodbye.
“You promised you’d never leave me.” I close my eyes even though I’m afraid he’ll disappear. A new wave of emotion settles over me.
Jedd slowly pulls back. “I’m not going anywhere. Ever. Do you hear me? Because earlier…”
My hands return to his face, stopping his words. Earlier, I told him to leave. There was so much happening at once. Too much information to process. I needed space. I needed to think.
“Howard’s gone,” I say, and Jedd nods.
“How do you feel about that?”
I stare back at him. He can’t possibly think I’d be sad.
“I love you, Jedd,” I blurt. He slips back to sit on his ankles, staring up at me. “I know it might be too much and said too fast. I know we’re still learning each other, but I just…I have to tell you how I feel. I thought I’d lost you tonight. The fire. I thought you were gone forever. Not even just out there.” I wave a hand toward the window. “And I don’t want another second to pass without you knowing how I feel. I love—”
The words are swallowed as Jedd leans forward, covering my mouth with his and kissing me hard. My knees separate, and I press myself as close as I can to him as our tongues tangle. I come to the edge of the seat, legs open, core pressing at his belly. I need to be closer to him. Cupping his face, I slowly draw back.
“I’m so sorry about Boone. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
His hand covers my mouth.
“I found Boone. He’s fine. Well, sort of, but I don’t want to talk about Boone. I need you. I need you right now.”
His hand coasts down from my neck, slipping lower toward the hem my sweater. I waste no time pulling it over my head and working at his flannel.
“My arm,” he exhales between kisses as our mouths only part with the removal of clothing.
“Leave it,” I mumble against his lips, reaching for his jeans. He works them himself, down to his knees as I work mine off around his body. His arm scoops me to the edge of the rocker again, and he kneels upward.
“Jedd,” I moan, all the emotion pouring out in his name. I need him. I want him. His mouth comes to mine as he guides himself to my entrance.
“I love you,” he says against my lips, and I draw back to meet his eyes. “I think I’ve loved you since the moment I stood on that porch and you were trying to make me leave. But I’m not going anywhere, Bee. I’m here to stay.”
“Don’t ever scare me like that again. The thought of losing you…” My mouth comes to his, lingering as I savor what he’s said to me. He loves me. We kiss and we kiss until we both need more.
“Bee,” he groans, and I lean forward, allowing him into me, filling me, completing me. We use the rocking chair as support, gently drawing us together and apart but never separating. We clutch at one another. His hand in my hair. My hand on his shoulder blade. My leg curls over his hips as I slowly rock, and he meets me, tender thrust for tender thrust, until I still, purring his name at his good ear.
“I love you.” My voice tremors with emotion. The feel of him inside me. The warmth of him around me. The depth of him in my heart.
“I love you, too, honey.” His voice strains. His nose rests in the crook of my neck as he comes apart, filling me. And we hold, and we hold, knowing we’ll never let go.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
[Beverly]
I postpone my meeting with Ram for a few days in order to deal with the debris and smoking embers of my old barn. Once again, I find the structure a metaphor for me. Old and decrepit yet still structurally sound, the weathered thing had a burst of passion—heat, flames, fire—like my time with Jedd, and then an explosion, where everything implodes because of lies and truths. Finally, the remains of a tarnished land and ashy air could be a symbol of my heart—blackened and irreparable—but it’s not damage that I feel. This is another baptism. Another rising. A new Beverly who will be free of Howard someday. Who loves Jedd and is loved by him every day.
An investigation into the fire ruled out foul play.
“Honestly, it could have been anything,” Carter McClure tells me. “Best guess is Boone started a fire to keep warm inside the old thing.”
This doesn’t sit well with me, as there’d never been evidence he’d done it before. No smoky residue in the air. No fire ring. No remaining embers. Then again, I’d never climbed up to the loft where nothing remained to sift through for clues other than a surprising scrap of extra-thick yarn from the blanket I’d made Jedd. He’d told me it had gone missing. He”d actually accused me of taking it back from him. Then he’d teased me he’d just use my warmth to cover him instead.
“Better than some wielded blanket,” he’d teased, reminding us both of our first encounter.
I glance back at Chief McClure as he looks out over the smoldering ash. “Mind my asking what was going on in your house when the fire started, though?” His question surprises me. “There’s something I can’t quite make out from what that spitfire sister of yours has said.”
Scotia? She said she’d attest to Howard starting that fire. “I don’t understand.”
“Scotia mentioned seeing something large and bear-like at the corner of the barn.” McClure lifts an eyebrow as he glances down at me. “Claims she saw a light flicker and then die out.”
“Did Scotia suggest Boone started the fire?”
“Oh, Scotia didn’t say such a thing, and as far as I’m concerned, no one was ever in that barn, causing a potential hazard.” Carter winks at me, and I’m slow to take his meaning. “But a little birdie told me you were having words with Howard inside when your sisters arrived, and I’m curious if someone thought the distraction was protection.”
“That’s pretty far-fetched, even for you, Carter.” I laugh without humor.
“It certainly is, which is why I’m going to stick to my report—accidental and unintentional. Pretend we didn’t find the remnants of cotton, which looks like pieces of a blanket, dipped
in gasoline and set in an empty butter tub.”
What?
“You had a guardian angel that night, Ms. Townsen. Let’s leave it at that.”
He winks again, and I stare back at the blackened ground, still sizzling a bit in the cool morning sunshine.
A guardian angel? I certainly have.
“You’ve had a bit of excitement in the last week,” Ram teases me in his best broken Hispanic accent when I arrive a week later.
“Why do you do that?” I ask, and his brows rise in question. “Act like you’re a hick when you’re actually an accomplished attorney.”
“Old habit,” he says, straightening his tie and sitting upright in his chair behind his desk. “People have a preconceived notion, right? Especially in a small town. I must be some cross-the-border immigrant, coming to pick apples in an orchard. I play the part and pow!” He smacks his hands together. “Hit them with my intelligence as well as my comprehension of all they say in English, adding to it my understanding of the law. It’s fun to watch people’s faces in court. The sheen of sweat. The stunned confusion.” He exaggerates, wiping his brow. He reminds me of a guy from That 70s Show, but I can’t think of his name under pressure.
“Is that what you’re going to do with Howard?” I chuckle, but Ram grows serious.
“Howard’s already been here.”
I sober at the serious look on my attorney’s face versus the carefree, teasing one.
“Beverly, you know all about Janice and Howard, right?”
“I do,” I admit.
“She didn’t want to take you on as a client because of conflict of interest due to her history with him, but you also know she represented Ewell, correct?”
“Surprisingly, I only learned about it the other day.”
Love in Deed: A Silver Fox Small Town Romance (Green Valley Library Book 6) Page 32
