Cinders (15 page)

She tried to move and winced, flopping back down to the hard ground. Her right arm ached and a sharp pain ran up and down her leg. Her head, too, didn’t feel right, like it was fuzzy somehow. Little by little the pieces came back—she’d confronted...confronted...

Maureen. Right
. Her stepmother. Gina’s memory was hazy, struggling to remember bits of information she should know.

She knocked me down the stairs. Oh God, I probably have a concussion
.

Gina listened but heard no other signs of life. Again, she tried to rise, at least to a sitting position, and still blinked against the darkness. Something tickled her nose, something beyond the general mustiness the permeated the air—the nauseating scent of gasoline. Gina coughed and raised her left arm to cover her nose.

It was then she realized her fingers grasped something—something small and thin, boxy, locked in her grip. Unable to see it, she felt around the exterior and rough end. A matchbook.

She started to open it but paused. With light, she could see where she was—her body bruised and aching, possibly with a fracture and likely a concussion, she didn’t want to risk fumbling around in the dark. But the heady scent of gasoline cautioned her.

She moved her right hand over the ground, feeling gingerly and wincing as pain spiked up and down her muscles with the movement. The floor beneath her was solid dirt.

Where the hell am I?

At last she decided to take the risk and folded open the matchbook, grasped a match, and ran it along the side. The scent of sulfur flared briefly and then the light burned, illuminating the space directly around her.

Immediately she recognized the small cold cellar beneath the bakery. Gina struggled to her feet, yelping at the unbearable pain blasting through her lower leg as she stood. She toppled over, barely keeping her grip on the match as she slammed into the dusty cinderblock wall. Terror rose even as she tried to stuff it back down. The cellar door locked from the outside—if Maureen went to the trouble of dumping her down there, Gina could be sure she’d bar her escape.

The match burned down and Gina shook it out, giving it a few seconds to cool before she dropped it. Too soon the overwhelming darkness got to her and she struck another, leaning against the wall and stretching her arm out with the lit match to take another look around. Her gaze settled on the chain in the center of the room that led to the single bare bulb, the cellar’s only light source. Gina limped to it, crying out every time she moved her sore leg, and gave the chain a tug. Light flared out and she blew out the match.

A door slammed upstairs. Gina looked up, could glimpse nothing past the floorboards. Her heart hammered and eventually she fell to her knees, dragging herself toward the creaky old steps across the cellar. The intense pain in her leg didn’t wane but she endured—getting out of the cellar had to be her top priority, possible fractures be damned.

“Is anyone up there?” she called, bracing her hand against the trapdoor. It didn’t budge and she pushed again, this time getting her shoulder into it. To her surprise, the door gave, and flipped open. Sudden light assaulted her eyes and she ducked back down, blinking against the spots playing over her vision.

Slowly she opened her eyes again, taking in the shifting orange glow and thick clotting smoke above.

Oh God, she set the shop on fire. With me below.

And if gasoline was involved, it was only a matter of time before the whole place went.

Gina discarded the matchbook and covered her face, scrambling the rest of the way up the steps and hunching over to keep low. She scanned the kitchen, already ablaze with dancing flames. Her gaze struck the dark letters carved into the floor by the trapdoor:

I’m sorry. Gina.

Her eyes widened despite the smoke stinging them—Maureen wasn’t just setting the place on fire, wasn’t just trying to
kill
Gina, but was making it look like suicide by arson.

The woman was pure evil.

But she didn’t have time to think on it, instead pulling herself out of the cellar and falling onto her hands and knees on the floor. The intense smoke filled her nose and she coughed deeply, squinted against the fire circling the room, and started crawling around the supply crates stacked by the trapdoor. Surely Maureen couldn’t bar the doors from outside, not if she wanted Gina to appear guilty of the crime. Maybe she expected her to die of smoke inhalation first. Maybe—

A dark shape solidified across the kitchen, legs visible past the butcher’s block in the center of the room. Gina frowned, coughed again, and crawled forward. The ruined skirt of her gown caught on the crates, tore, but she kept going, moving as swiftly as she could with her aches and pains until she got a better look.

Oh God, Brennen
.

She tried to rush forward, slipped. Got herself crawling again and stopped at his side, coughs wracking her chest. Brennen’s eyes were closed and he didn’t stir, blood leaking from a wound on the side of his head.

Immediately she checked his suit pockets but didn’t find his cell phone or his car keys. His hand was outstretched, and a few feet beyond it sat one of her high heels.

Gina leaned over him, tried to wake him, all the while coughing against the smoke. He stirred but didn’t open his eyes and panic rushed through her again.

The door. Get out the door. God, please don’t let Maureen have locked us in.

She reached blindly for one of the counter drawers above her and grasped a fresh tea towel, held it over her face, and scanned the room for the back door. Flames crawled up the wood, eating away at the paint and blocking her exit. Internally she cursed and turned back to Brennen, tried once more to shake him awake. Smoke stung her eyes and she closed them, breathed through the tea towel over her face, and tried to think.

Front door?
Though if Maureen had focused the fire around the back one, surely she’d done the same with the front.

Then she remembered the phone.

She worked her way across the kitchen, avoiding the fire snaking toward her, then pulled herself to her knees and blindly reached for the receiver mounted to the wall.

It was gone.

Defeat weighed heavily on her shoulders. God, it was all her fault, and now Brennen—

Over the crackle of fire, a voice sounded—someone shouting. Gina squinted and looked around but couldn’t see anyone. Still, maybe there were neighbors—maybe
someone
was around to hear. She took a deep breath, pulled the towel from her face, and screamed, “Help! We’re in here—”

A coughing fit overtook her and she bowed her head, tried to keep from the smoke. Perhaps she was merely hearing things, her concussed head making up a savior to comfort her while she and her lover were about to perish.

Wood splintered then, a loud thunderous sound like an explosion coming from the direction of the main room. Gina cringed and looked around, bracing for some other horrible thing to happen to them, but instead a figure moved through the smoke toward. Strong hands grasped her upper arms, lifted her, and carried her through the smoke and fire. She shut her eyes and curled in on herself, choking until her lungs ached.

And then cool air hit the bare skin of her exposed arms and face. Gina blinked and looked up at the star-pricked sky above. The arms holding her set her down on the cement curb, the face of the man solidifying into one she recognized.

“Mike—” She fell into another fit of coughs. “Brennen’s—”

“In there, I know, hold on!” He ran back into the store and she realized he didn’t use the door—the entire front of the shop was caved in, flames licking around the jagged edges of wood and stone. A car idled a few feet away, the hood dusty with debris and glass. He must’ve driven through the front to get to them.

She waited in tense silence, unable to look away, praying soon she’d see the two men emerge. A minute stretched on like hours but eventually she got her wish, Brennen walking with his arm slung over Mike’s shoulder. The two of them stepped over the flaming debris and made it to her side where they collapsed.

Brennen’s dark, squinting eyes caught sight of her and then his arms drew her to him, wrapping her in his comforting embrace. “Thank God. Thank God, I thought she’d already...” He coughed and choked, lungs wheezing.

“I’ve already called 911,” Mike said between panting breaths.

Gina looked past Brennen’s shoulder. “How did you know?”

Mike eyed Brennen. “Waited twenty minutes from when he said he was going to the bakery to look for you and he didn’t reply when I called.”

“I owe you.” Brennen coughed again. “So, so owe you.”

“I’ll cash in eventually.”

As sirens wailed in the distance, Gina looked past both men toward her burning shop. The one that had once been called Bella’s. The one that had once been her mother and father’s, that should have been hers. Now the sign for Sweet Haven burned, everything she’d endured hell for gone up in smoke and flames.

But tucked in Brennen’s arms she knew without a doubt she was home at last.

Happily Ever After

On a bright, sunny day in Midsummer, the gleaming glass of the door to her new bakery beckoned.

Gina stood there for a moment, still hardly able to believe it. Built on the foundation of the old one, after the debris had been cleared and last cinders burned out, the new shop was not the old one of her memories or the one of her stepmother’s but something new entirely. It was
hers
. Despite months of paperwork and confusion, while Maureen’s lies and fraud were all untangled despite her unwillingness to cooperate from jail, the moment had finally arrived for her to claim what was hers.

She stepped gingerly forward, her keys clutched tightly in hand. Though her fractured leg had healed and cast had been off for weeks, she still moved stiffly. But bones mended, scars faded, and what was left behind remained stronger than ever.

The unlocked door opened silently on well-oiled, new hinges. The interior was similar to what had been before, though the drywall was painted beige and the laminate floor flat and smooth without the warping the wood once had. New shelves and glass display cases waited. The grand re-opening was in a week, giving her time to decorate and bake new stock, but this was her first opportunity to see the finished building.

She left the door open so fresh air could trail in and made her way to the front window, digging through her purse as she went. She paused to set out a mason jar and a dozen fresh cinnamon sticks, and set them on the sill right where the sun would hit. For now, the scent of fresh paint clung to the air but soon that would fade and once again the shop would smell like it was meant to.

A fist rapped on the door and Gina glanced over her shoulder, smiling at Brennen as he entered.

“I thought you were following right behind me?”

“I was,” he said as he entered. “But I wanted you to have a few minutes to yourself.”

“I still can’t believe it’s real.” She glanced around again. It would take some adjusting to, but she was glad to have this new venture. “I’m nervous. Like someone’s going to take it away at any second or I’m going to wake up in the attic and find it’s all been a dream.”

“Get used to it, sweetheart—everything’s going up from here and you deserve every second of it.” He swung his hand up to display a small cardboard box the size of her palm, white with “Gina’s” on it in teal and a small fluffy cupcake logo.

Gina grinned—she hadn’t realized he’d already ordered the boxes for her. When she accepted it, she found it weighted, and met his eyes in question.

“I made you a celebratory cupcake,” he said with a wicked grin. “I’m sure it’s not as good as yours but—”

“It’s always better when someone else makes it,” she reminded him. Gina lifted the lid and then her heart thudded at the sight of what waited within.

There was a cupcake, simple chocolate with vanilla icing and a dusting of shaved chocolate, but what drew her gaze was the white gold band and princess-cut diamond standing on top. She stared, mouth agape, words lost to her.

“It seemed a little more fitting than a traditional ring box,” Brennen said, at last drawing her attention up to his eyes. He stared down at her, serious and loving, and his finger gently traced her cheek. “Gina Cassidy, after we clean the icing off your engagement ring, will you consent to marry me?”

She plucked the ring from the cupcake and pressed the edge to her lips.

Brennen winced. “Maybe answer
before
you taste my terrible icing?”

Gina chuckled and he set down the box on the windowsill so he could slip the ring onto her finger. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

“And give me baking lessons?”

She settled into his arms, her heart leaping with joy. “And give you baking lessons.”

In the sleepy hamlet of Midsummer, the people seem friendly and peaceful. But when dusk falls, the town's dark underbelly is exposed. Danger lurks around every shadowed street corner, where neighbors are not who they seem and true love's happily ever after is never guaranteed.

Welcome to
Midsummer Tales
, Asha King's new fairytale-inspired romantic suspense novella series.

****

Coming Soon...

Bryar Rosings’ Story:

A young woman rebelling against her isolated existence in the country, never knowing the danger coming for her
...

A troubled former pop star falling for the one girl who doesn’t know who he really is
...

Her dark past will spell their end unless he can save them both.

Beauty

A Midsummer Suspense Tale