The sound of her name seems to snap her out of her reverie, and she grabs my arm, using it to climb into the back. Her hand rests there for a moment, and for just a split second, my senses are filled with the scent of her, just like all those years ago—the tempting musk of her skin, the berry scent of her shampoo, it overtakes even the fire around us. She gazes at me, her teeth resting on her bottom lip, and I force myself to push that aside.
“Alright, we’re good to go!” I call out to Joe, as Carlisle and I climb into the back while Dylan joins him in the cabin. Finally, the wheels begin to turn beneath us, carrying us away from the fire.
And it seems, toward a million questions that might turn out to be a whole lot more destructive than the flames tearing through the forest right now.
3
ANGELIE
“It’s alright, sweetheart,”I murmur to Chrissie, pulling her into my lap and wrapping my arms around her, smoothing her hair back from her face and dropping a kiss on her head.
“You should really leave her in the seat,” Carlisle tells me, his voice low. “It’s not safe?—”
“Carlisle, she’s terrified,” I point out. “I’m not leaving her to figure this out on her own. She’s a child.”
He grimaces, but looks away, perhaps sensing that it’s not his place to go lecturing me on how I should look after my little ones. I don’t want to seem like an asshole, but right now, all I care about is making sure that the four of them are okay—if there’s any chance of that at all, given what has happened today.
Chrissie has always been the most sensitive out of the four of them, a complete shift from her sister, Stephanie, who is curious and outgoing—even now, Stephanie is craning her neck toward the windows, trying to get a look at what’s going on outside. The boys are sitting side-by-side, occasionally looking at each other as though making sure they’re okay. Chrissie is trembling as thetears drip down her cheeks, and I stroke her forehead, doing my best to assure her that everything is going to be alright.
Even if it’s getting harder and harder to convince myself of that.
We’re out of the house, at least—that has to count for something. Nathalie tried to convince me to go to the muster point and get Mom and Dad to bring the quads there, but I refused. No way in hell was I going to risk allowing my children to stay in the line of that incoming fire for a second longer than they had to. I didn’t care what kind of danger I was putting myself in; they’re my children, and I’m never, ever going to let anything stand in the way of that.
“Where’s my sister? And my parents?” I ask, finally daring to make eye contact with Callum across the van. There’s a thick tension in the air, and I’m sure it has to do with the questions they must be piecing together about the children. I wish I had the nerve, the words, to tell them what’s going on inside my head, but truth be told, I never imagined that I would see them again—not after they left Devin Ridge behind to pursue a life somewhere new.
“They’re with the rest of the evacuees,” Carlisle cuts in. “There were buses at the muster point to get everyone out of town, and they’ll be at a hotel nearby until we can get everything under control.”
“Good luck getting my mom to agree to that,” I mutter. “She’ll be back at her house the first chance she gets. She hates being away from home.”
“We’ll deal with that when we come to it,” he intones. He sounds as though he’s doing his level best to keep his voice from giving away too much emotion, but honestly, I can see right throughhim. Whatever he’s trying to contain, it’s written all over his face, and I can’t blame him for it.
As for me? I’m still reeling from the way my life has been flipped upside down in the last couple of hours. First, that siren screaming through the air, announcing a forest fire bearing down on our town. And then…and then, the firefighters who are sent in to get us out are the very same four men who I hooked up with four years ago next month. The men who are, whether they have pieced it together yet or not, the fathers of my children.
Well. Father, singular. I know I probably didn’t fall pregnant by all of them, but that doesn’t mean that I’ve ruled any of them out of being the parent of my children. Every single one of them was inside of me that night, none of us even thinking to use protection. I feel like there’s something symbolic in the fact that I wound up having four children in the aftermath—one for each of them. One for each of the men I lost my virginity to on that hot summer night in front of the bonfire.
And now, flames have carried them back to me again, after all these years. I can almost taste the smoke in the air as the van rumbles over the road, my heart thudding against my chest as I try to make sense of what’s going on here. I don’t know if they’ve put the pieces together yet, if they’ve made sense of everything that’s happening here, and I’m even less sure as to whether or not I should mention it. They’re not stupid, not if they’ve made it this far, and I don’t want to hold back and hide this from them now that they’re right in front of me. And yet…
I try to busy myself as best I can, wishing that Nathalie or my parents were here, something to take the edge off everything that’s happening right now. I can’t fight the certainty that something is going to come spilling out of me before I can stop it. Suddenly, the forest fire tearing toward our town feels like theleast of my worries. I glance between Carlisle and Callum, my mind reeling as I try to make sense of everything I need to say to them.
And everything that I’ve kept to myself for so long now.
“Where are we going?” I ask, finally, breaking the silence between us.
“A safe house,” Carlisle replies, voice gruff. “Not far from here, on the other side of town. Fire won’t get close to it, but there’s enough room for all of you…”
He casts his gaze over the toddlers. For a moment, I think I see a flash of recognition in his face, like it’s finally starting to click for him what’s happening here. But just as soon as it came, it vanishes once more, and I tell myself that it’s nothing more than my imagination.
“How long are we going to be there?” I ask. “I mean, when can we go back to the house?”
“I don’t know,” Carlisle replies bluntly. “Your house is in the line of the fire, and if we can’t get it under control?—”
“You’re not seriously saying that my house could be burned down?” I blurt out in horror.
That’s something I didn’t even consider, something so ridiculous it seems as though he must be talking about someone else entirely. My house—the house that I have turned into a home for my family, for my children, torn away from me? I suddenly have a vision of my house reduced to ash, the flames licking around what remains of that precious place, and tears threaten at the back of my throat. Chrissie instantly notices my change of attitude, and her face crumples and she starts to cry.
“It’s alright, honey, don’t worry,” I murmur to her, squeezing her arm, forcing myself to smile as though it might undo the enormity of everything that I just heard. I can’t believe this. The world feels like it’s shifting out from underneath me—not only have these four men dropped back into my life out of the blue after what feels like a lifetime, but the life I made for myself in their absence might be under threat. It all feels like a joke, a twisted joke, except I’m not laughing, not by a long shot.
Once I have Chrissie settled, I turn to look out the window. It’s so tiny I can barely make out anything through it, but I’ll take whatever I can get right now, whatever I’m able to cling to in order to ground myself in the midst of all of this madness. Through the glass, I can make out the dark smoke beginning to rise on the horizon, the bleak, colorless fog starting to fill the air—and closing in on the location of my house.
