Chapter 7
FRANKIE
Frankie stood at the edge of the clearing, unable to tear her eyes from the inferno that was consuming the only home she’d ever known.
The flames spewing from the windows were ravenous orange fingers that devoured the weathered outer walls.
Her throat burned raw from smoke or screaming, she wasn’t sure which anymore.
Thick black smoke twisted skyward like a demon, staining the clear bayou morning. The wooden beams cracked and popped, making sounds that reminded her of all the times her father stoked the fireplace on the cold nights. She would never enjoy that sound again.
Stone wrapped his arms around her from behind in a firm grip, one hand crossed her waist, the other sat across her collarbone, holding her securely against his chest. She should have shoved him away.
She didn’t need comforting, didn’t want it, but her body betrayed her, melting into the solid warmth of his embrace.
Even from this distance, the heat singed her face, but the burning in her chest had nothing to do with the fire. The burning was fueled by her absolute sorrow. Her father had built this home with his own hands.
“Before you, your mama and I lived in a tin can barely bigger than a jon boat,” he’d told her one night after a few rums. “But when we found out we were having a baby, I wanted you to have better. You deserved better. Because of you, we became a family.”
Her mother had already told her the ugly truth in words she would never forget . . . an unplanned pregnancy, a shotgun wedding, trapped in this shithole . . . all because of Frankie.
Her father’s pride had never wavered, though.
“I built this home for you, Frankie-girl,” he would say with joy shimmering in his eyes.
He would be crushed to see the flames destroying his home. The stilt house wasn’t much, but it was where she’d been born and slept every single night . . . and where her father had taken his last breath.
He’d been dead just five weeks. Five long weeks of brutal hell. Now what was left of her life was disintegrating. She had no family. No home. No career. No assets. Nothing to prove that she’d ever lived in this corner of the bayou.
A massive knot wedged in her throat, and she couldn’t stop a sob bursting from her lips.
Tears spilled from her eyes, yet she didn’t brush them away.
Not even when Stone held her against his chest as if he could physically shield her from this fresh hell.
His steady breathing was a stark contrast to her own ragged gasps.
She should have hated being restrained like this, but his silent strength kept her from shattering completely.
Each crack of burning timber sounded like bones breaking. The heat rolled toward her in suffocating waves, bending the air and turning the brown creek water into a mirror of the inferno.
Sparks rained through the upstairs floorboards, falling like dead fireflies onto the welding studio she and her dad had built together beneath the house.
That sacred space was where he’d first placed a welding torch in her twelve-year-old hands and shown her how to bend metal.
God, they’d laughed when her first attempts at a sculpture resembled a pile of raccoon shit.
“No!” The word ripped from her throat as she tore free from Stone’s arms and bolted toward the blaze.
He grabbed her wrist, and as he yanked her backward, a massive timber beam crashed down in a fiery explosion of sparks and flames.
She fought against Stone’s grip. “Let me go! I need to—”
“No. Frankie, it’s too late.” He wrapped his arm over her chest, pinning her against him.
She fought to break free, kicking and wrestling against his arms as another section of the roof collapsed in a shower of burning debris. “Everything I own is in there!”
Stone hugged her tighter, and the solid wall of his body behind her was the only thing stopping her from crumbling to the mud, just like her home.
“It’s not worth risking your life,” he growled against her ear.
The words suffocated worse than his restraining arms. Her father would have said the same thing.
Everything was going up in smoke. Every photograph, every book, every piece of clothing, every trace of the life she and her father had built together. Even her precious welding tools wouldn’t survive this inferno.
Her tools were more than possessions. They were her livelihood, her identity. Every specialized tool they’d scrimped and saved for was stored safely beneath the stilts where floodwaters couldn’t reach them.
Oh fuck! The acetylene tank! If that explodes, the whole place will blow sky high.
She backhanded Stone in the balls. When he buckled over, she twisted out of his grip and sprinted toward the fire, favoring her sore ankle.
“Frankie, stop!” Stone’s voice chased her, but it barely registered over the roar of flames and the pounding in her skull.
“The tank will explode!” she shouted as she pounded across mud that sucked at her boots.
The heat hit her like a fist, searing her skin as sweat soaked her clothes. A thunderous crack split the air as a section of the roof collapsed in on itself.
“Frankie! This is crazy. Stop.”
But she didn’t stop. Couldn’t. She veered around her favorite pelican sculpture with its beak speared deep into the blackened mud.
Smoke stung her eyes as she ducked under the skeletal frame of the building, dodging falling debris.
Flaming splinters and embers rained around her like an apocalyptic storm.
“Frankie! What are you doing?” Stone loomed behind her, but his voice sounded miles away.
Her heart hammered as she reached her workstation and dropped to her knees in the ash-coated dirt. A blazing chunk of timber crashed down from the roof and landed on her bench, scattering her tools like bones.
Shrieking, she reached for the tank, but her hands trembled so violently she could barely grip the valve. Her eyes blurred with tears and smoke. A knot wedged in her throat that was so fucking big she couldn’t breathe.
Her fingers fumbled around the valve.
Come on. Come on.
She couldn’t see. Couldn’t think. Her father’s voice echoed in her head. “Steady hands, Frankie-girl. You’ve got this.”
“Let me do it!” Stone barked, yanking her away, and as he dropped to his knees, another flaming board crashed down, just missing her head by inches.
Frankie stumbled back, choking on smoke and sobs. As she tried to steady herself against a support beam, the hot metal singed her fingers. She staggered sideways, and through stinging eyes, she peered around Stone’s broad shoulders as he attacked the tank’s fittings with brutal strength.
Flames licked the underside of the house like a hungry beast, and the air shimmered with blistering heat.
Stone finally got the valve shut and yanked the tank free with a metallic clank that echoed like a gunshot.
“Let’s go!” he barked, hauling the tank under one arm like a football.
He turned just in time to dodge a collapsing beam. Blazing wood shattered beside him, sending sparks flying. A wave of flames shot up the side of her workbench like it was grabbing her tools.
“Frankie! Move!” He charged toward her, clutched her arm, and with her lungs screaming, they raced away from the blaze, dodging around her mangled metal sculptures.
The house groaned behind them in a long, agonizing moan that ripped out her heart. She turned to glance over her shoulder as another section of the roof imploded, sending flames roaring skyward and sparks raining down over the mud.
At the edge of the clearing, Stone dropped the tank onto the weeds.
With his hand on her lower back, he leveled his gaze on her. “You okay?”
She nodded, but her throat closed around the lie. Her hands shook so badly she couldn’t control them. Her palms were raw and her fingers were scorched, and her entire body trembled with adrenaline and grief.
Her glassy eyes made him blurry as a tear spilled down her cheek. “I was too slow. I could’ve stopped it. I should’ve—”
Another section of the roof collapsed, driving a fresh wave of heat over them.
“There was nothing you could do.” Stone pulled her farther back, shielding her body with his own as sparks showered around them.
She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood. “It’s all gone. Every fucking thing.”
She wrestled against him, but her attempt was feeble.
Running his hand over her hair, he said, “Nothing in there is worth your life.”
He was too close, and yet she also felt like he wasn’t close enough.
Frankie went slack in his grip, the fight draining from her as reality crashed down harder than the falling timbers.
I have nothing left.
Stone didn’t speak. He didn’t try to say ‘it was okay’. She would have punched him if he did. Because it wasn’t okay. Nothing was. And somehow, he knew what she needed . . . just him, holding her.
The mud between them and the house was littered with random items. A large cooking pot. A large metal spoon she’d made herself. Her metal artwork. The legs on her great blue heron sculpture were bent and twisted, but that wasn’t caused by hitting the mud, those fuckers had done that.
To her right, her snapping turtle sculpture was on its back, legs stuck in the air. He was a solid bugger, not even a ten-foot fall could ruin him.
At least one sculpture had survived the fire.
Another sob spilled from her lips, and Stone pulled her to his chest in a way that was surprisingly gentle for such a hard man.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, yet his simple words carried so much weight.
They stood in silence, watching the destruction, watching her life crackle and burn. Her body trembled, not with cold but with loss so profound she felt it in the pit of her belly. Stone’s arms around her were some kind of anchor, grounding her.
As her tears subsided, anger took hold, shuddering through her like a fever. “I’ve lost every single thing in my life.”
“What about insurance?”