“It wasn’t.” Susan Ramsay—the wife of Rosie’s favorite plumbing subcontractor, who was also a volunteer firefighter—spoke up.
“Jeff got a call two minutes ago. He already took off. Good thing we drove separately or I would be stuck here. This is the real thing. Apparently there’s a fire downtown. They’ve called in everybody.”
“Whoa,” Emma said, looking shocked. “Did Jeff say where it was?”
Susan shook her head just as Rosie and Emma received simultaneous texts. Hers was from Sylvia and she assumed Emma’s was as well.
Heard on the scanner. The bookstore is on fire. One person injured. They’ve called out the EMTs.
“Oh no,” Emma exclaimed. “Mom, did Grandma text you, too?”
Rosie nodded, feeling sick. This couldn’t be happening. Not the bookstore, especially after Emma had poured so much energy into renovating the place.
Her daughter had turned pale, reaching out to a nearby pillar for support. “Bryce is working there tonight after hours! He was installing more shelving.”
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Olive asked, picking up on her mother’s distress but not the cause of it.
Emma looked helplessly at her child until Nancy Morgan stepped up. “If it’s the bookstore on fire, you two need to be at the scene. Why don’t you go take care of what you need to do? We’ll drop Olive back at Sylvia’s place on our way home.”
“Thank you,” Rosie said, filled with a vast relief.
Emma gave her daughter a hug and told her she would be home soon, then Nancy reached for the little girl’s hand as Emma and Rosie rushed out of the community center.
Only after they were in Rosie’s Volvo and hurrying downtown did Emma speak.
“Mom. What if he’s hurt? Or worse?”
Rosie couldn’t bear thinking about all the grim possibilities. She reached across and squeezed her daughter’s hand. “He’s strong. He’ll be okay. I’m sure of it.”
She gripped the steering wheel tightly as she navigated the familiar streets of their town, now eerily transformed by the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles that cast long shadows.
She struggled to keep her breathing steady. She needed to be strong for Emma, but fear for Bryce clawed at her insides.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Emma
The community center was only a mile away from the bookstore, but by the time they reached downtown, Emma felt as if they had crossed the Sahara by foot.
Bryce couldn’t be hurt. He couldn’t be.
She replayed her last conversation with him, his earnestness and the sincerity with which he told her he had feelings for her.
Why had she been so stupidly stubborn? Why had she not taken the glowing opportunity he’d offered her?
She knew why.
At heart, she didn’t feel like she deserved to be happy. She carried the choices she had made in her life like an iron anchor around her neck and couldn’t figure out how to break free.
She couldn’t bear the idea that he might be hurt in any way.
Hurry.
She didn’t say the word, but she thought it. Her mom was driving fast, but it didn’t feel fast enough.
Finally,finally, Rosie pulled into a parking place as close as she could get. The acrid smell of smoke hit them as soon as they opened their doors. Even from here, Emma could see the unearthly glow of flames licking at the windows.
Her legs felt weak as she hurried toward the bookstore alongside her mother.
