“I need to check on the animals. They’re at the clinic and—”
“Take a shower and put on some clean clothes,” he suggested, making her feel dowdy and insignificant again. “Trust me. The animals aren’t going anywhere in the next few hours.”
It irked her that he was right. She felt and smelled disgusting. She’d go home and take a hot bath and figure out what happened next.
And then she’d visit the clinic. There were things to be done. Most of all she wanted to see the animals. To see the tail wags and hear the purrs. When everything around her was going wrong, their unconditional affection never failed to perk her up.
“Okay.”
“Do you want a lift?”
She knew she should say no. This was the most she and Chris had spoken since their breakup. It was only a ten minute walk, after all. But it had been an extremely long day and she was wrung out. “A drive would be great, actually.”
She reached for her purse out of habit, but it wasn’t there. It had been in the office and she’d forgotten it in the panic to free the animals. “Crap,” she muttered, shoving her hands in her pockets. Tomorrow she’d have to start the annoying task of replacing all her identification and cards.
“What’s wrong?”
She sighed. “My purse. It was inside.”
Chris just smiled. “So your priority was the animals and not your purse. Admirable.”
She followed him across the grass to where his truck waited, parked along the curb. “Maybe, but it’s going to be a pain in the ass replacing all my stuff.” The least of it was the forty dollars she’d had in her wallet.
He opened her door and shut it behind her once she was settled on the seat. She watched as he jogged around the hood of the truck. He’d gotten so big, so muscled. His uniform had concealed his physique with its bulkiness, but in his jeans and T-shirt she could see his figure with disturbing clarity.
Growing up in the same town, she’d always known who he was. He was a few years older than her and she’d watched, fascinated, as he’d outgrown his boyish lankiness and become a man. When they’d started dating, he’d always stayed in shape by playing hockey and softball, but now… Now it was like he’d settled into his body. A man’s body, filled with easy confidence. She generally tried to ignore the gossip around town, but she couldn’t imagine that he spent too many Saturday nights alone. She couldn’t be jealous. She’d been the one to set him free, after a year of dating and a couple of months of wearing his ring.
He hopped up beside her and started the engine. “Look,” he said, pulling away from the curb. “I’ll tell the inspectors to have a look for your bag. There’s always a chance it made it through. It’ll stink to high heaven, but you might be able to salvage your ID.”
She swallowed, once more aware of how gross she looked and smelled. “Thank you, Chris. I really appreciate that.”
He shrugged. “You’ve had a rough day. Are you sure you’re okay?” He stopped at a stop sign and looked over at her.
“I’m fine,” she insisted, but she suddenly felt cold and scared and threads of panic jolted through her body. “I just need…I need…” Good God, she needed to put an entire sentence together, didn’t she? But it was suddenly like everything that had happened bulldozed her, leaving her reeling and unsure. “A shower.” It was the only thing she could think of that made sense.
They turned a corner and she could see her house. Her mother’s car was in the driveway and Ally knew that she couldn’t face her mom and dad, not yet. Her mom would fuss and flutter and her dad would start lecturing about how foolish it was to start the shelter in the first place. It was too much to deal with, and the panic welled up as Chris’s foot touched the brake. “No!” she gasped, gripping the door handle until her fingers went white. “I can’t go home. I can’t face them yet. Dammit.”
Chris put his foot on the accelerator and kept going. Ally let out a breath of relief.
“You need to let them know where you’ll be,” he advised. “They’ll worry.”
He was right. “My cell is in my purse,” she answered, trying to exhale long breaths and regain some sort of composure.
“Use mine. You can come to my place for a while.”
“Your place?” Oh goodness, that probably wasn’t a good idea. None of this was a good idea, and yet the whole day had been a disaster. What was one more?
“Unless you have somewhere else you want to freak out?”
“Freak out?” She straightened her spine. “Excuse me, but I think I’m entitled to a minor freak out after what happened today.”
Infuriatingly calm, Chris grinned. “I never said you weren’t. I’d be surprised if you didn’t, really. So you can come back to my place and freak out in privacy so no one will have to witness it. I don’t mind.”
Something twisted inside her. She didn’t want to fall apart. She especially didn’t want to fall apart in front of Chris. It would be humiliating. He already thought she was a little flighty and scattered, didn’t he? She swallowed thickly. Her throat was sore.
You can never settle on anything
, he’d accused her, condemnation in his eyes.
You can’t expect me to chase you forever.
Suddenly her eyes were burning in addition to her throat.
“Don’t worry,” Chris said quietly. “I’ve seen it plenty of times before. When the danger and fear is over and people relax, then they really get scared. You’re not the first, Ally.”
She supposed his words were meant to comfort, but instead there was a sinking sensation, an emptiness left inside her. No, she wasn’t the first. She’d never come first at anything. It wasn’t news, but somehow it was different thinking it to herself and hearing it from someone else.
He drove to his house, a bungalow hidden by trees on White Rock Road. It wasn’t anything overly special. Probably twenty years old or more, plain white siding, dark blue shutters on the windows. An oversized garage sat to the left of the driveway with a handful of cars waiting outside. A large white and blue sign announced
Jackson’s Auto Repair
. His business as a mechanic paid the bills, and he was a proud member of the Volunteer Fire Department. Chris was only a year older than she was and he already had a mortgage, a new vehicle, had a career. He was a respected member of the community.
It was rather intimidating.
He’d always had a path clearly marked, hadn’t he? The only thing missing was the wife, the kids, the dog. But give him time. He’d have it all, right on schedule. She’d bet money on it—if she had any.
She got out of his truck before he could come across and open her door. It was perfectly quiet up here—far enough away from the highway that there was no traffic noise, and the nearest neighbor was several hundred yards away and on the other side of a line of maples, their leaves already turning orangy-red in the mid-autumn warm days and cool nights. Her feet crunched on the gravel of his driveway as he went ahead and unlocked the door.
She stepped inside.
His house was scrupulously clean, if a bit barren. A leather sofa, coffee table and entertainment unit made up the sum total of furniture in the living room. There were no pictures on the walls, no little decorating touches. The hall to the left was down to the bare wood, and closed doors led to the assumption that the bedrooms were down there. The kitchen was big and roomy with solid maple cupboards and a table and chairs in an eating area. Beyond the table was a sliding patio door leading to a greying deck.
“I’ve only been here a few months,” he explained. “I don’t have a lot of furniture. I didn’t have room for it in my last apartment, and I’m renovating so it kind of seemed pointless to buy stuff before I get it all done.”
She nodded. “I should call home,” she said quietly. “Or text.” There was an added attraction to texting. It would be a lot cleaner and easier than a phone conversation.
“They’re probably worried. You should call.”
She knew he was right, so she picked up his phone and dialled the number. He was right, as usual. Her mother was horribly worried. She’d always been overprotective and a trouble borrower, ever since Ally’s sister had died in an accidental drowning. Now her voice came through the receiver loud and clear. Ally was constantly aware of Chris standing just a few feet behind her as she made her assurances that she was fine. And then when she said she was at Chris’s for a while, there was a telling pause on the other end of the phone.
A silence that she knew Chris heard as clearly as she did.
And since she was at Chris’s, and her parents had always thought she was crazy to give him back his ring, no more was said about it.
She hung up the phone, uncomfortable in the quiet.
Chris put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, then moved past her and down the hall. “Come on,” he said. “Bathroom’s this way. You can get cleaned up. You’ll feel better.”
He opened a door on the right and flipped on a light switch. “Towels are in the cupboard behind the door,” he called from the next room. She opened the cupboard and took out a fluffy bath sheet. When she turned around, he was standing in the doorway holding clothes in his hands.
“They’ll be a little big.”
Her stomach did a little flip knowing she was going to be wearing his clothes. “Thanks,” she answered, taking them from him. Her fingers brushed against his hand and tingled from the simple contact. It seemed to erase the time they’d been apart, taking her back to three, four years ago when it had been nothing to curl up in Chris’s sweatshirt or feel his hands on her skin.
She’d gotten used to seeing him around town without all the memories rushing through her brain. It had been over for a long time. But not today. Today was different. And right now it was just the two of them standing in the doorway of his bathroom.
“You can use my shampoo and stuff,” he said, his voice sounding lower, softer than she remembered. Before she could look up into his eyes, he turned on his heel and left her there, standing awkwardly holding the enormous towel and his clothes.
She had to stop this nervousness around him. They’d been over and done for a long time, and it had been her choice. Why couldn’t they just be friends, acquaintances, neighbors? It was a small town. They’d managed this long, right?
She turned on the water and let it heat up before stripping off and stepping in the tub. The scent of acrid smoke rose in the moist steam of the shower, stronger as she stuck her head under the spray. Her lip wobbled as she reached for Chris’s shampoo, something herby and woodsy, the same scent she’d recognized when he’d come up behind her tonight. She ran her fingers through the tangles in her hair. Now the scent was all over her, running down her back and shoulders as she lathered and rinsed. She eyed his bath puff and body wash and decided to simply soap up using her hands. She washed off the dirt of the day, the panic, the fear and the loss.
It was the loss that did it. Her hands halted and tears sprang to her eyes as she felt her heart break. Not just for the loss of the shelter, though that was absolutely devastating. But for Chester and the kittens, and the rest of the animals who were now without a home. The thought of them left inside the building while the fire…
Her face crumpled and she braced her hand on the wall of the shower. She should have done more. She should have gotten them out somehow.
She should have made sure that fire never happened.
When she had cried herself out and the water was losing its heat, she shut it off and squared her shoulders. She wanted to know how and why that fire started.
And once she knew that, she was going to start over. Everyone said she wasn’t a finisher, but that was just because she’d never found the one thing she believed in enough to see through to the end. Until now.
But she wasn’t going to do it tonight. She folded her dirty clothing into a neat pile and realized with heat in her cheeks that even her underwear reeked of smoke. She’d have to go commando beneath Chris’s clothing, an intimate thought made tactile as she pulled on the baggy flannel pants and T-shirt, feeling the soft material against every inch of her skin. She pulled the drawstring as tight as it would go and ignored how obvious it was that she was not wearing a bra. At least the shirt was dark blue and not a pale colour…
She’d ask him to take her home. She’d had her cry and cleaned up. There was no other reason to stay, was there?
Chapter Two
Chris stood up when he heard the bathroom door open. It had been hellish sitting in the living room listening to the shower running. He’d started to worry when she seemed to be taking so very long. Now, as she came down the hallway carrying her dirty clothes, he understood why the shower had been a long one. Her eyes were red-rimmed and slightly puffy. She’d had herself a cry in there and Chris was a bit relieved, to be honest. It was far better to get her emotions out than hold them inside to fester like an uncleaned wound. Ally had lost the shelter and not all the animals had been saved. He knew she was traumatized. Her tears were a sign she was starting to deal with it.
“Thanks for the use of the shower,” she said quietly. It looked like she was trying to smile but her lips only curved up briefly before falling again.
“Here.” He reached down and picked up a glass. “I got you a glass of wine.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You have wine?”
“I keep the odd bottle around.” He held out the glass until she came forward and took it.