She slung her arms around my neck and leaned into me. “You know, I’ve completely lost track.”
My smile widened. I liked that. At first, she’d been counting religiously, as if waiting for the bottom to fall out. Now, I felt none of that from her at all. I’d had no real reason to worry about the gala.
“Does that make you my girlfriend?” I was teasing but also serious. The words stuck to the roof of my mouth like peanut butter. God, it had been years since I’d ever thought that word out loud without a joke behind it.
“I don’t know.” She arched an eyebrow at me. Always defiant. Always pushing. Just how I liked her. “Does that make you my boyfriend?”
I pressed my mouth to hers until she sighed against me. “What do you think?”
“Yes,” she all but panted. “Yes to everything.”
“Good girl,” I purred.
She laughed and kissed me again. “So, celebratory lunch?”
“Or I could take you out somewhere nice for dinner.”
“Or both.”
“Both,” I agreed easily. “Whatever my girlfriend wants.”
She squeezed my hand. “I like that.”
“Me too.”
Her brows knitted together. She lifted her nose into the air. “Huh.”
“What?”
“Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Smoke?”
“I don’t smell anything.”
But I stopped thinking and scented the air. She was right. There was a hint of smoke. I hadn’t seen any on the horizon when I drove in. But I wasn’t exactly paying attention. I’d been buzzing from the news and too excited to see her. I couldn’t even remember the drive.
“No, I do smell it,” I told her.
“Maybe someone burned popcorn or something,” she said. But there was doubt on her face. It didn’t smell like popcorn. “I should check it out.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“It’ll only be a minute.”
“If there’s smoke, there could be fire. No way I’m letting you investigate that alone.”
She huffed in that I am woman, hear me roar way of hers but eventually relented when it was clear I wasn’t letting my fucking woman walk off into a potential fire alone.
“Fine.”
I followed behind her out of the office. As soon as we were out of the safety of her office, I could see that the hallway was hazy with smoke. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t noticed the smell before. I pulled my T-shirt up to cover my mouth and nose and gestured for Piper to do the same.
“We should get out of here,” I told her.
“In a minute,” she said, rushing faster forward.
The deeper we veered through the maze of offices, the thicker the smoke got. We didn’t see anyone else. Either everyone had left or they were all gone for lunch already.
We reached the door that opened to the barn. The door was cracked, and smoke billowed out of it. I coughed and crouched down to escape the worst of it. It was getting hotter, too.
“Piper!” I cried. “We have to go. It’s not safe.”
“Peyton’s wedding dress,” she gasped.
“What?”
“She was…she was keeping it here.” Tears formed in her eyes from the smoke. “It’s just in the closet. I can get it!”
“No, that’s crazy,” I said, grabbing her arm.
“It’s from a New York designer. She had it made for her. I need to rescue it.”
“It’s a goddamn dress. You’re not going in there.”
“I’ll be quick.”
A stubborn look of determination crossed her face. She was going to go into a burning building to save her sister’s wedding dress. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so goddamn dangerous. Who knew what the next room looked like? It could be engulfed in flames. The ceiling could collapse. The smoke could suffocate her.
She was going to do it anyway.
I saw the moment when she made up her mind. And it was the same moment that I made up mine that we were fucking done here.
I grabbed her around the waist. She screamed as I tossed her over my shoulder and stepped away from the billowing smoke. She hit her fists against my chest and coughed harder as she tried to speak. The smoke was getting thicker. We needed to leave. We never should have come this way. It was way past time for us to be able to do anything to fix this. And I didn’t care if she beat me to a pulp; I was going to get her out of there.
The door I’d come in from earlier was standing ajar. I kicked it open and inhaled my first gasping breath of fresh air. I carried Piper a dozen feet away from the building before dropping her on her feet.
She collapsed to her knees and hacked up a lung. “Hollin! I could have gotten it.”
“Look!” I snapped, pointing back to where we’d come.
She gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth as she stared at the barn she’d grown up in, the barn she loved, go up in flames. The fire was primarily on the opposite side of the building from where we’d been, but it was spreading fast. The building was old, and it went up like tinder.
Tears streamed down her face. “Oh my God.”
“I know.”
“What are we going to do?”
I dropped onto the ground next to her. “We wait.”
And then we both heard the sirens in the distance.
27
Piper
My home was burning to the ground. And my heart shattered into a million pieces as I watched the flames engulf it. I’d grown up in that building. I’d worked in it for years. It was as much a part of me as the vines and fields.
At least they were safe. The fire hadn’t jumped to any of the fields. Our entire crop could have been destroyed in a matter of hours if that had happened. I had no idea how we would have come back from that. A whole year of wine would have been gone.
Luckily that hadn’t happened. That was what people were saying.
We were lucky.
I didn’t feel lucky.
I felt empty.
The firefighters had shown up and were trying to control the raging fire within. We still had no idea what had caused it. Everyone was speculating it was an electrical fire. The building was old and could have used some maintenance, but I hadn’t thought anything like this could happen.
My dad rushed up to me. “Mija, you’re all right.”
“I’m fine, Papa,” I said, letting his warm presence envelop me.
He brushed back my hair. “I was so worried. I was down at the cellar when it started. You’re not hurt?”
I shook my head. “Shaken up. Some smoke inhalation. I’m fine.”
Hollin stood next to me with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the fire consume my entire life. More tears came to my eyes as I glanced at him. I was okay because of him. He’d saved me. He’d carried me out of the smoke and flames when I was too stubborn and stupid to listen to reason.
“Thanks to Hollin,” I told my dad. “He carried me out.”
My dad held his hand out to Hollin. “Thank you, Hollin. Thank you for saving my daughter’s life.”