Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
GIDEON
Sadie’s ring waited for me on the bedside table at the cottage. She was gone.
After filling the home—and my life—with love and laughter and light, she’d taken everything and left. Just like I knew she would.
Well, not everything. When I pulled open the closet, I found a garment bag hanging on its own. With a tug, I unzipped it and let her wedding dress spill out over my fingers. A sound stuck halfway between a grunt and a whine escaped my throat as pain slashed across my chest.
It was as if she’d wanted to leave all the evidence of our marriage behind. Pretend it had never happened.
What had I expected? I slid the mirrored closet door closed and was confronted with my reflection.
Ugly, scarred, disfigured reflection. It was just like Ivan Popov had said: It made no sense for someone like me to end up with someone like her.
The old man had simply been saying the quiet part out loud.
Disgusted, I turned away, grateful when my phone chimed. I needed any distraction I could get.
But it was her. Sadie’s name illuminated my screen, her text message saying she wanted to talk. What the hell did we have to talk about? Why couldn’t she just leave? We’d both be better off when she was gone. I could focus on my company, and Sadie could find someone else. Someone better.
I stalked back out of the bedroom, ignoring the message.
Anger was a helpful buffer against the pain of my heartbreak. I used it as I grabbed the throw pillows she’d made and tossed them in the trash.
My phone rang, and I ignored it. I kept prowling around the cottage, remembering the way Sadie had looked when she sat and sewed, or how she’d laughed at one of my jokes when she lay on the couch just there, or how I’d kissed her in the kitchen against that cabinet, or how she’d moaned when I’d made her come in the shower and the vanity and the bed.
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 her gone?
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 from before 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 was mine.
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.
I choked 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 miles away.
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.
“I know where she is!” Cash yelled, and I whirled.
There must have been death in my eyes—there was certainly murder in my heart—because Cash scrambled to his feet and lifted his palms.
“She’s not in there,” Cash told me.
I didn’t believe him. Why the hell would Cash care? Was this a trick? Did he want her to die in there?
“She’s not in there,” Cash repeated, calm and certain. It sounded like the truth, but I couldn’t think straight.
“Where. Is. My. Wife.” My voice was inhuman. I didn’t recognize it. I felt like I was going to burst out of my skin at any second.
“Some asshole with a gun hauled her into a car and drove off. I’ve got two guys on her tail.” Cash looked at the motorcycle that had tumbled to the ground when I’d pulled him off it. Cash gestured to the bike and said, “What the hell, man.”
I grabbed the lapels of the leather jacket again. “If you don’t tell me where my wife is in the next three seconds, you won’t live to see the fourth.”
Cash lifted his gaze to meet my eyes. His smile was cold and calculating, and he said, “I’ll take you right to her,” he promised. “As long as you do something for me first.”
“What do you want?”
“How about part with something you care about?” Cash gestured to the signet ring on my right hand.
The ring my father had worn every day of my life.
The ring that made me feel close to my father, that reminded me that I’d promised to take care of everyone but myself.
Giving it to Cash was giving up a part of my past. It was opening a door for Cash to exploit me if I ever wanted it back.
The last piece of my father I had for myself.
I didn’t even need to think about it for a second. “Fine,” I said, tugging the ring off and slapping it into Cash’s palm. “Let’s go.”
Cash’s smile was a slash of white in his dark stubble. His eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, but I knew they were gleaming with satisfied greed.
“You’re a bastard, Bridges.”
“I know,” Cash replied easily. “It runs in the family.”
I got in my car and followed the motorcycle into the forest.