Page 92 of Better Off Wed
The vibration of my phone in my pocket only angered me. Would she not just leave me alone? She must’ve called a dozen times. How much clearer could I make it that I just wanted hergone?
Finally, I was in the bedroom again, staring at her wedding dress. She’d looked like a goddess that day, and I’d known I didn’t deserve her. I never would.
I sat on the bed, staring at the white fabric, remembering how it felt to have her in my arms. To feel the weight of her fingers ghosting over my scars. She never shied away. She never pretended they didn’t exist. She was the only person who looked at me and accepted me the way I was now.
My family still treated me like the old Gideon. The man frombefore the fire. They pretended my scars didn’t matter, but they did. My scars had fundamentally changed the way the world saw me. The way I saw myself.
Sadie had seen me and loved me. All the broken pieces of her had fit into the hole in my heart like the two of us had been made for each other. And suddenly I didn’t care whether I deserved her or not, because I still wanted her. Because she wasmine.
My woman.
My future.
My wife.
If she didn’t want to stay here, I’d follow her to the city. I’d follow her to the end of the earth, because life made no sense without her in it.
I huffed to myself. Yeah, we had to talk. I had to tell her that she could do whatever the hell she wanted as long as I could be right there beside her for every minute of it.
My phone buzzed again. A text.
The woman just wouldn’t leave me alone—because she knew it too. We belonged beside each other. The world made no sense unless we were together.
But when I pulled my phone out of my pocket, it wasn’t Sadie’s name on the screen. All three of my brothers had called me, as well as my cousin Fletcher and one of my employees. And, strangely, the most recent three calls had been from Cash Bridges.
Something had happened.
Heading outside toward my vehicle, I glanced over the treetops and felt my gut clench. A plume of smoke marred the sky. Something in town was on fire. Dread walked down my spine on spindly, cold legs. Even from here, I could smell the smoke. Ichoked on it, though it was only the ghost of a scent. The ghost of a memory.
My phone was still in my hand, so when Jack called, it only took a flick of my thumb to answer. “Yeah,” I said.
“Life’s a Stitch is on fire,” Jack replied without preamble. “Sadie’s car is outside with all her stuff in it. We can’t find her, and she isn’t answering her phone.”
My vision went funny, tunneling in the middle and fuzzy around the edges. My steps were awkward and too heavy as I stumbled to my car. I barely heard the engine start before I was tearing down the driveway in a spray of gravel.
She’d wanted to talk, and I’d ignored her. Was she still in the building?
Fear tasted like ash and accelerant on my tongue. By the time I slammed on the brakes outside the seamstress’s shop, my back was soaked in sweat and my scars felt like they’d tightened to the point of pain. The heat of the fire assaulted me as soon as I opened my door. It prickled on my front, uncomfortable, familiar.
Time slowed, and I took in the scene in a single glance.
Fire licked at the upper windows like awful tongues. A dull roar filled my ears, and it might’ve been the fire or just the memory of those three trips I made into the burning warehouse five years ago. My breaths were fast, and cold sweat drenched my back.
Someone was screaming my name, and then all the windows in the building exploded out from the heat of the fire. I lifted my arm to shield myself, feeling the pressure of debris hitting my scars but not the pain. Sirens screamed in the distance, but it had to be cops because the closest fire department was milesaway. The building would be ash and rubble by the time the firefighters arrived.
Caroline Black sprayed the neighboring building with a garden hose. She yelled at me, but the words didn’t register. Her eyes were wide with panic.
I shifted my gaze back to the building, knowing what I had to do.
All of my worst nightmares were rolled into one. I had to run into that building, feel the searing heat of the fire against my skin, and save the woman I loved. I had to endure more injuries, more destroyed skin and flesh, more weeks of recovery in the hospital, because she was in there. I couldn’t lose her.
I had no choice. There was no other option. I had to go in.
Time snapped back to real speed, and I started sprinting. I made it three steps before a motorcycle blocked my path, screeching to a stop close enough that I felt the heat of the exhaust pipe against my calf when I stumbled into it.
Cash Bridges opened his mouth, and I saw red. I grabbed the man by his stupid leather jacket and hauled him off his bike while Cash yelled. I threw him to the ground, but I didn’t have time to take care of Cash properly. I’d punch the biker in the mouth when Sadie was out of that building and in my arms.
Cash kept yelling, and I ignored him. I made it to the door, ducking as flames gusted out.
