“I panicked.” She pressed against the towel. “The cookies were burning.”
“You don’t run into a building when there might be a fire. That’s how people die.” His voice cracked, and the words pierced the anger she carried from earlier.
“Well, I didn’t. Because I knew it was only a tray of cookies—”
“It might not have been.” His words were clipped again. Tense. He tipped her chin to force her gaze to meet his.
She blinked against the sun behind him. “It was.”
His eyes remained fierce, his fingertips still on her chin. “You take a stupid risk and people die.”
“People? I’m only a person.”
His eyes clouded. “You could’ve died, and I would’ve had to live with that, too.”
She couldn’t turn her head, his grip on her steady, so she followed the path of a dust mote in her periphery. Anything to keep her from meeting his inspection again, because all she wanted to do at the moment was hug the guy she needed to distance herself from. Hang on for all she was worth. Trust him.
“What happened to you over there, Jase?” she whispered instead.
“Everybody died.” He leaned in, his expression unreadable. “Because I wasn’t there in time.”
She gasped. Her back pressed against the brick exterior of the building. She wished in equal parts it would swallow her whole and set her free.
He dropped his fingers from her chin and straightened.
The wail of a fire truck sliced the moment in two. He withdrew and his hands dropped to his sides. “The firemen will want to talk to you.”
She nodded. This was her business and she should handle it, but right now she felt as fragile as one of his porcelain vases filled with roses. “Jase?”
He paused.
“I am sorry I scared you.” She gulped. “But I don’t want to go back where we started.” Now she was sounding desperate.Deep breaths, Heather.“I don’t want to have to pretend we’re not together, because your parents hate me.” She took another breath.Get it all out.“Before you, I thought I wanted to be alone, but it turns out I just want someone who wants me, too. As much as I want them. Someone who is all in. I think I deserve that, you know?”
“Heather—”
“I don’t think this has to hurt so bad. Maybe we should just call it for what it was—a really good shot at something that didn’t work out.”
The light in his eyes went out. “That’s what you want? To be done?”
“I want to stop feeling like you’re not one hundred percent in this.” Fingertips gripping the no-longer-cool cloth, she slid down the wall, ass to ankles, forehead to knees, heart to throat.
“This is what happens. Shit gets complicated.” He cursed under his breath, kneeling to her level.
“Maybe that’s why we should stop. It doesn’t have to be complicated.” She said the words, but she didn’t mean them.
She waited for him to reply with something to make everything better. He didn’t. He stood. She pinched her eyes closed. The kitchen door flung open.
“Something’s wrong with Babushka.” Candy was frantic. “You need to come quick.”
Heather hurried to stand, following Jase as he rushed through the shop.
27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Heather pinched her lips together, waiting for the fireman to finish his report. She needed to get to the hospital. Make things right with Babushka. God, Babushka had to be okay. She’d had some kind of episode. When Heather and Jase got to her, her face was chalky and she was having a hard time catching her breath.
The ambulance had just pulled up for the “fire”—Heather used the term loosely. The paramedics took no time in rushing Babushka to the hospital.
