Chapter 38
I broke the rules; I didn’t go straight to Tanner’s place. But only because I couldn’t show up empty-handed. That was rude.
My mama raised me better than to show up at a man’s door, empty-handed, demanding to be fucked.
I chuckled to myself even as the thought ran through my head. I was seriously messed up, but I didn’t even care.
I locked my car and ran into the grocery store intending to grab a few ingredients to make dinner with after I gave Tanner his dessert first.
There was no way I was going to be able to wait for dinner to be ready before I got off again. Rhea had started a fire in my belly that was far from being put out now that it raged with need and desire.
Pushing the cart through the store, I grabbed a few items that I needed, keeping my head down so people would leave me the hell alone so I could be quick. Normally, I was always down for a yap session with friends at the grocery store.
Right now was just not the time.
I stopped at the meat counter, eyeing up the cuts of steaks they had on hand, trying to figure out which one to fuel Tanner up with when a hushed whisper tickled my ear from behind me.
You know the kind. The one with a tone to it that instantly sparked off tingles in your gut because it was the kind of whisper you weren’t supposed to overhear, but the people speaking it wanted to be heard.
The kind of whisper that never had any good news on the other end of it.
“I don’t know about you,” the voice said as I glanced over my shoulder to where two women stood at the seafood counter, shoulders close, voices hushed. “But it seems far too convenient for me to just go along with.”
“No way,” the second lady said with a quick shake of her head as she stood up straighter like she didn’t want to be part of it. “She’s too honest for that. Too good. There’s no way.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up as if someone had rubbed a balloon across it, as the steaks in front of me no longer mattered, even as I stared at them.
I didn’t know who they were talking about, but it was the kind of small-town gossip that ruined people.
“Think about it for a second,” The first woman said, pulling lady number two back down to whisper with. “She’s not from here. She showed up a few years ago, and then, bam! Weird stuff started happening.”
Oh, my god.
Me.
They were talking about me.
Cedar Bluff didn’t get many fresh faces; there was no way they weren’t talking about me.
But what the hell were they talking about. Weird stuff?
“The bakery was just a cover, I know it.” The first lady hissed. “To make people look in any direction but hers. There’s no way she would sabotage something so close to her heart, at least that’s what she wants people to think.”
Holy fuck.
A cold sweat broke out over my body as the numbers on the steak packages blurred in my vision. They thought I faked the flood at the bakery.
Why would I do that?
“What about the fire at Miller's?” The second woman said, “That seems like a way bigger trick. Fires are dangerous. And that one almost burned down the entire block!”
“Hush,” The first woman said, lowering her voice a little, and I leaned backward, trying to hear what she said in response to that.
There was no way anyone thought I could set fire to a hardware store. Right? I mean, I wouldn’t even know how to do something like that without killing myself in the process! Surely people knew I wasn’t that methodical.
Or crazy!
“I don’t know why Miller’s was her next target, but the ice rink proves my point perfectly.
She was desperate to make it stick, so she hit the town where it hurt the most. And she stood up there in front of the whole town, begging for people to believe her and her weird little orgy partners about the big corporate scandal.
The whole time she was the one ruining this town! ”
What the fuck!
I felt like I was going to pass out as I turned to walk away from the steaks. Forget about dinner. I had to get out of the store before I lost my mind.
“I mean,” the second woman kind of shrugged, drawing my attention to her as she seemed to give in to her friend’s gossip. “I guess I can see that.”
I took a step, my knees almost giving out as I walked away. Just as I stepped behind them, the first woman let out a satisfied grunt, proud of herself.
“Exactly, and then she nearly killed that poor other firefighter in the process. Convenient timing for a photo op at the end of it all, coming out like a hero.”
Wait.
What?
The second lady sighed, “It’s a shame, too.
A firefighter we all trust to save us and protect us from things like this, is the one who is literally burning the town to the ground in some weird power trip for fame.
And really, if you think about it, Rhea Dalton has all the knowledge in the world to get away with it, too. She knows how not to get caught.”
They both turned as I stood there, frozen in place, shockwaves rocking my entire body as they saw me and froze themselves.
“Oh, Goldie.” The first lady said, with a fake ass smile on her face, as if she hoped I hadn’t just heard the heinous things coming from her mouth. “How are you, sweetie?”
“What did you just say?” I let out a rush of air, as anger filled my chest in ways I’d never felt before.
The first lady, a woman I recognized now as the secretary at the high school. Marsha or something like that was her name. Her husband was a dairy farm owner, and they had kids who played sports for the town.
Marsha waved a hand dismissively as her partner in crime, a hairdresser named Cindy, paled to an unnatural shade of white, clutching her hands together aggressively in front of her. “Oh, we were just chatting about nothing important. How’s the bakery coming? How has it been since the reopening?”
“Cut the shit, Marsha!” I snapped, vaguely aware of the crowd of people who froze all around us as I let my outburst fly across the aisle.
“Don’t lie to my face. If you’re brave enough to stand there and whisper heinous things with your cohort like an immature teenager, at least have the backbone to repeat it when you get caught! ”
“I—” She scoffed, shaking her head, “It doesn’t matter, it wasn’t important.” She looked around at the people around us as if she were hoping one of them would stand up for her.
And why wouldn’t they?
She had lived in Cedar Bluff her entire life. And I was just an outsider who had moved here recently.
A member of a weird little orgy relationship everyone made fun of, apparently.
“It does matter!” I almost yelled. “You just accused someone of arson! Of trying to destroy this town! Someone who has never done anything but help this town, risking her life for others every single day!” I gave in to the urge to yell, drawing a bigger crowd as I lost the hold on my emotions.
“You don’t get to just act like a coward with your stupid petty gossip and not be held accountable for the harm you cause with those vile accusations! I won’t allow it.”
“Goldie.” A cautious voice said from my side, and I whipped my head toward it, recoiling from the rough, calloused hand on my arm.
Instinctively, I ripped my arm out of his touch and took a step away, ready to lash out at whoever was trying to silence me.
But the blue eyes staring down at me with a power of authority in them were familiar. “Easy now.”
The man standing over me looked like Tanner, with his calm strength and familiar mannerisms, but it wasn’t him. Not quite.
I needed him in that very second, though.
I needed Tanner.
The man holding his hand up as if he were trying to calm a wild animal was his brother, the oldest one I think, but I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t met them all, but I knew he was a Brooks brother, and he was telling me to calm down.
To stop making a scene.
To be small.
To be quiet.
Fuck that.
I turned back to the two women standing in the center of the aisle, Marsha looking like she swelled up with the support of Tanner’s brother while Cindy sunk even smaller in on herself. “Shame on you!” I threw out. “That’s disgusting behavior, and you’re far too old to know better!”
I whipped myself around and sidestepped Tanner’s brother, grabbing my forgotten purse from the basket of my cart and left toward the front of the store with my head held high and my spine on fire from how stiff it was as anger flooded through me like an inferno of poison.
It burned everything inside of me, disintegrating all the joy and love I usually carried with me. The very things that I spread into every interaction, like fresh flowers and warmth.
But no one in that damn store stood up for me.
No one stood up for Rhea.
They all just watched.
They all just stayed silent.
And that hurt more than I ever imagined.