Behind them, a SUV pulled up. Seth turned to watch with Romeo as Pastor Dan stepped out. “Hello!” He wore a suit.
Probably here for the rehearsal. Romeo raised his hand.
Seth cut his voice low. “Don’t tell anyone—it’s still a secret. But the fact is, I had to stop being my own worst enemy, running away from people before they hurt me. You trusted God with your life when you were fighting fires—maybe you trust Him with your heart. Stop looking at me that way.”
Romeo grinned. “I’m just trying to picture you changing diapers.”
“Just you wait. But that’s the thing, right? Five years ago, I would have never pictured this life. But God is in the business of miracles. Taking on the impossible.”
“Yeah, I dunno. I don’t think God is going to do anything miraculous here. In fact, I can’t help but think sooner or later, something tragic is going to happen.”
“Tragic?”
“Like a guest getting hurt, even killed.” He raised an eyebrow. “We had an elderly guest wander off the premises because I put him in the wrong cabin.”
“Wow.”
“They found him, but yeah, eventually, I screw up and something bad happens.”
“Like Disco.”
“Mm-hmm. Or Bud, my dog.”
“You have a dog?”
“Did. I got him as a puppy the Christmas I spent with the Christiansens. I brought him with me after Mom got out of treatment. She found a house in Duluth, a job cleaning the hospital, and was doing really well. Since she worked the second shift, I usually got up and went to school alone. I’d always let Bud out before I went, and one morning I was in a hurry, and I didn’t shut the gate. When I got home from school, he was gone. Never saw him again.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“But you get my point. I’m really not someone people should depend on. Even a dog.”
Seth looked at him. “Romeo. Trust me when I say that the things that happen to us don’t define us. It’s how we react to them. How we keep going. You forget I know you. I fought fires with you. I’d trust you with my life.”
Heat pressed a hand into him.
“And apparently, so do the Christiansens. After all, they left you with their livelihoods.”
Oh. He hadn’t thought of it like that. Just looked at the abandonment.
Not the trust.
Romeo drew in a breath. “Maybe you’re right. I need to stop believing that every time something good happens, it’s only going to turn to ash—”
“Do you smell smoke?” Pastor Dan had come up on the porch.
Seth draped the dress over the railing. Stepped down the stairs.
Romeo set the shovel down. “Maybe it’s someone’s chimney.” But yeah, smoke tainted the air.
He peered into the window. “The house—something’s on fire!”
Seth beat them to the front door. He touched it. “It’s not hot. Stand back.”
He pushed it open.
No backdraft flames shot from the room, but smoke billowed out, more gray than black. Romeo pulled his jacket up around his mouth and followed them in.
The smoke was so thick he barely made out Seth. Pastor Dan disappeared into the gray.
“Fireplace!” Romeo shouted.
A fire raged in the hearth, contained but pouring smoke into the room.
“Pastor!” Seth shouted.
“In here!”
Romeo went to a window and opened it.
Seth headed for the kitchen.
Romeo followed him. “Stella!”
Pastor Dan was running water into a pitcher, his phone pressed to his ear. “I’m calling 911!”
“Did you see Stella?”
“Who?”
Romeo glanced through the back door but didn’t see her on the porch. “Stella!” Where—
Pounding. A distant shout.
“Upstairs,” Seth said, but grabbed the pitcher from Pastor Dan and carried the water to the hearth where he splashed it onto the flames.
Romeo held his breath as he ran upstairs. The smoke saturated the upper floors, and he fell to his hands and knees and crawled toward the pounding. “Stella!” He coughed, held his breath again.
“In here!” She was coughing too. “The smoke went through the vent! I can’t breathe!”
He found the door, tried the doorknob. Stuck. “Open the window!”
“It’s…stuck…I can’t get it…open.” More coughing.
“Break it!” Sorry, Casper.
“There’s nothing—I don’t…” Coughing. Then—
“Stella?”
More silence.
“Stella!”
As Romeo stood up and threw his weight against the door, he knew.
The answer was yes—you could fall in love with someone in two days.
“Stella!”
Romeo! She wanted to form words. Want to shout out to him, but she couldn’t breathe, which meant she couldn’t talk and—
She was going to die. Right here on the bathroom floor. Having never actually lived. Never fallen in love—not really, because she couldn’t call what she’d had with Harry love. Just infatuation.
Her feelings for Romeo could be closer, maybe, but really, she was in love with the possibility, the what-if—
She could love Romeo, was already on her way, if she were honest, and now, even that future—
“Stella!”
She put her fingers on the floor, sliding them under the door, searching for any wisp of air. She was tired—so, very—
“I’m coming!”
And then he was gone. No more banging on the door, no more calling her name.
So maybe she’d imagined it. Maybe she’d imagined this entire week—the laughter, the way he made her feel brave and wanted and…
Shoot. She had way too many feelings for a guy she barely knew.
How did she know he wasn’t some kind of criminal? Like Harry.
A crash sounded at the window, then a crack, and suddenly, just like that, Romeo was in the room.
She opened her eyes, but they’d started to run with the smoke, and she sensed—more than saw—Romeo crouch beside her and pull her into his amazing arms. “I got you.”
Then he was up and at the window, her body slumped against him, and he was passing her out to someone. More arms, another strong body, but all she cared about was air.
Beautiful, crisp, cold air sluicing down her throat, into her lungs.
In the distance, sirens whined, but she closed her burning eyes, listening to Romeo. “Give her to me. I’ve got you, Stella.”
She opened her eyes.
She lay on the snow-covered porch roof, the open sky above her.
Then Romeo. His face covered in soot, his eyes bloodshot, tearing. “Are you okay?”
She pushed herself up. “Yeah, I—” Another cough consumed her, so much her eyes teared. She finally caught her breath, her chest aching.
“I built a fire. I don’t know what—”
“You built a fire?”
“The place was cold, so—”
“Are you kidding me?” He stood up even as a fire truck pulled into the freshly shoveled lot. She looked past him to see firemen pile off the truck. Romeo ran to the side of the roof. “There’s no fire—just smoke. Everyone’s out!”