To our right, firefighters are busy. The Rios Fire Department, with only two trucks and a handful of firefighters, serves a town of just under ten thousand residents.
The fire doesn’t look like it spread to the neighboring buildings or the flower shop downstairs, but I’m trying hard not to imagine all the damage the smoke and water the firefighters are pumping inside have done.
I wouldn’t move from Wyatt’s lap for all the money in the world. “You nearly died because of me.”
“When I saw the smoke, I thought I wouldn’t get to you in time.” His voice cracks on the last word, and he pulls me against his chest, wrapping his arms tight around me. “I don’t know what made me decide to take a drive tonight, but I’m so fucking glad I listened to that voice in my head.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, hugging his waist. “No one has ever fought so hard to save me before. Thank you.”
He leans his forehead against mine. “I will always be there, Maisie. Whatever you need, I will always be there to save you.”
When the tears come, I don’t try to stop them. I sob until I’ve soaked the front of his shirt. He holds me, murmuring soothing words in my ear that I barely hear with how hard I’m sobbing.
Long minutes later, a man loudly clears his throat.
I wipe the tears from my wet cheeks and pull my face from Wyatt’s shirt to see who it is.
The sheriff has always had a friendly, open expression. You look at him, and you want to believe he’s a good man who’ll do his best for you. He’s not smiling now. He looks down at us, so serious that his expression instantly sets off alarm bells.
I must’ve been crying for a lot longer than I realized because my apartment has stopped smoking, and firefighters are pullingthe hose from the building, though the smell of smoke still hangs in the air.
“What is it?” I ask, voice husky from my tears and the smoke in my lungs.
“The firefighters got the fires out,” he says, “but it’s not safe to go back into the building until the fire marshal deems it safe. They used a lot of water up there, and there’s a lot of smoke damage.”
My brain catches on one of his first words. “Fires?”
He glances to his right, and I see what I missed when Wyatt carried me out of the building.
“My car.” I struggle to get up.
Wyatt keeps hold of me. “Maybe you shouldn’t see it.”
“I need to.”
He gives me a searching look and lets me go.
My heart hurts when I see the state of my car. I could barely afford to lose the few clothes I had after Derek found me in Nevada and forced me to grab my purse and run, leaving everything I had behind. I could have replaced my clothes cheaply at another thrift store. But my car?
I barely make enough to survive as a waitress. I’d paid my car off soon after I’d graduated from high school. There’s no way I can afford to buy a new car and have a regular car payment when I might have to leave town and struggle to get another job.
I stand there looking at the smoking husk of my destroyed car, hating my ex as much as I want to cry. Derek did this. Burned everything I have. Left me with nothing.
Just when I thought he couldn’t take anything more from me, he always takes more.
He’s determined to ruin my life, and I’m running out of strength to keep going. Maybe that’s what he wants. For me to give up.
“The pot on the stove in the apartmentlookedaccidental. At least at first glance,” the sheriff says quietly beside me. “But this fire was deliberate, and the fire chief has an inkling someone set it first. Do you know who would do this?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him it was Derek Brandon, former star quarterback and my ex-husband, who turned cruel and abusive when his dreams died. But I have no car. No home. No money, except what Nico hasn’t yet paid me for the shifts I worked.
I have nothing to my name.
Now Derek is in Rios…somewhere, and I can’t afford to buy another car to leave.
After what he did to that motel worker in Nevada, I would never forgive myself if he hurt this sheriff, his wife, or Wyatt. The best thing I can do for everyone—myself included—is keep my mouth shut.
“I-I don’t know,” I lie, avoiding his gaze.
