Chapter Thirteen
It was nearly midnight.
Kendall was lying flat on her back with the sheets tangled between her legs.
A faint glow of moonlight shone in through the curtains.
She could hear Sloane’s breathing. It was steady and calm, but a not yet asleep rhythm.
Kendall knew this because the night before she had been able to tell the exact moment Sloane had drifted off.
It was when a soft sigh was followed by her breath deepening, and then a faint whistle after that.
So far, there had been no soft sigh and no sign of a whistle.
Sloane was just as awake as Kendall was, unable to sleep after what had probably been one of the most interesting dinners she’d ever attended.
By the time they had left, both Sloane and Kendall had been begged to stay for the night, offered a queen bed in the upstairs bedroom, and promised a farm-style breakfast in the morning.
All of which Sloane had declined. That had puzzled Kendall, knowing Sloane hated the run-down cabin.
But she hadn’t fought the decision. She only let Sloane escort her home when the time had come.
And then there was Chief Natasha’s offer of a position at the fire station.
They needed a new lieutenant and Kendall had the experience to fill the role quite nicely.
But she had politely declined, even though the thought of it was both flattering and intriguing.
Living in a place like Crestline…well, she had never even considered leaving Los Angeles.
It hadn’t ever been on her radar, like one of those things her brain couldn’t comprehend, never thought to.
Kendall was curious to know what Sloane thought about it.
Actually, she was dying to ask her.
“Are you awake?” Kendall whispered. Her voice was so soft that if she had misjudged and Sloane was actually asleep, then at least the woman wouldn’t be disturbed.
Sloane wriggled in the bed, the mattress shifting, then she rolled onto her side and simply stared at Kendall with an expectant expression.
The moon was bright enough for Kendall to see just the silhouette of Sloane’s face, but not the details. There were just shadows that hinted at her familiar features.
Kendall gave her pillow a fluff, turned onto her side as well, and asked, “Do you think if you lived here in Crestline, you’d get bored?”
“Is that really what you want to ask me?” Sloane whispered, her face just a breath away. “Or is there something else on your mind?”
There were a lot of things on Kendall’s mind—the job opportunity, the idea of living in Crestline, why Sloane had brought up her dad, and why she’d turned down staying at the Stiles’ when that bed would’ve been decidedly more comfortable than this one.
And of course, why Sloane had initiated sex without thinking about how it would affect their professional relationship?
Instead, Kendall settled on a question that had only just popped into her head. “How long ago did you and Louise break up?”
“I really don’t want to talk about my ex-girlfriend,” Sloane said, flopping noisily onto her back. “I’d rather dive into the conspiracy theory that Russia was the first to land on the moon… which I don’t want to talk about either, because it’s boring.”
The woman was a tough nut to crack.
Kendall knew from experience that if you wanted someone to open up, to share, you first had to give them a little bit of yourself. Psychology 101.
“You know, I haven’t had one proper adult relationship,” Kendall said, offering up something that only Reese knew about her.
It was slightly mortifying. By the age of thirty, you were supposed to have been in at least one steady relationship.
Or so Love Her Senseless Magazine had said.
Kendall was clearly failing at life. Her love life, at least.
“Really?” Sloane said, bouncing back onto her side. This time, she had her head propped up on her outstretched wrist. “But you seem so emotionally mature.”
The sarcasm wasn’t lost on Kendall. She poked Sloane’s arm. “Ha. Ha.”
“Well,” Sloane exhaled slowly. “Relationships are overrated. You’ve probably dodged a few bullets.”
“I think it’s more an avoidance thing.” Kendall couldn’t exactly see Sloane’s eyes—they were like two glinting coals in the dark—but she could feel the intensity of them.
“My dad’s been married and divorced three times.
His last wife was just two years older than me.
He ended up cheating. So did she. Not exactly the best role model. ”
“I think I might’ve read that in a gossip magazine somewhere.”
“Probably,” Kendall sighed. “I won’t be surprised if it’s turned into a screenplay. Dad will be the hero, obviously. Cheating men always seem to be.”
Sloane swallowed hard. “Louise and I were together for three years. I was going to propose to her at some point. I just…” She stopped, seemed to hold her breath, and only when Kendall was beginning to wonder if the woman had lost consciousness, did she say, “I kept putting it off, you know. After the next documentary. After I got that award. After my bonus. I think she got over waiting.”
“It still doesn’t give her the right to cheat,” Kendall said. She had never suffered the sting of an affair and prayed she never would. At the rate she was going, she probably wouldn’t even get the chance.
“You know, I keyed her BMW,” Sloane said, shifting onto her back again. Even in the dark room, it was clear that she was staring up at the ceiling. “I wrote cheater across all the doors. She had to have them all replaced because I dug that key in deep.”
“You. Did. Not.” Kendall laughed loudly. Too loudly. It blew up in the silent room and bounced off the walls. Not that it was a bad thing, because it got Sloane laughing too.
“I know,” Sloane said when they had both calmed down. “I never thought I’d be the kind of woman who would stoop that low. Be that immature. That psychotic.”
“You should’ve smashed her windows. Done a Carrie Underwood with a baseball bat.”
“Now that’s a song you can add to your playlist.” Sloane proceeded to sing the lyrics of Carrie’s Before He Cheats. When the song hit the end of the chorus, she gave up and turned just her head to face Kendall. “So, you’ve never actually been in a serious relationship?”
“I had a feeling you’d focus on that.”
Sloane chuckled. “I guess it surprises me.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. You just come across as the type of person whose aim is to be in a long-term relationship. Fall in love only once, you know. People like that usually find their person early on in life.”
“Did you get that off a fortune cookie?”
“Maybe.” Sloane laughed, then kicked a foot over the cover toward Kendall’s leg.
It was a surprise. A shock. Especially when her foot lingered pleasantly against Kendall’s skin …
and then it didn’t. Sloane jerked her leg back as if she’d only then noticed she had crossed some invisible line.
A line Kendall wanted to erase. “What I’m trying to say…
” Sloane cleared her throat awkwardly. “… Is that you’ll probably find someone one day, and they’ll be the one, you know? ”
“And you?” Kendall asked, far too aware of that spot on her leg. Would it be too obvious if she nudged her leg closer to Sloane’s? Would she come off as desperate and ruin whatever moment they were having?
“I think I’m beyond saving.”
“Very doom and gloom, Ms. Pierce. Save that for the documentary.”
Sloane snorted and then pulled the sheet up to her chin. “We should probably get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
“Do we have a plan yet?”
“We’ll figure it out in the morning.” Sloane yawned and then turned onto her side, away from Kendall. “Good night.”
~~
It was morning. Kendall, still groggy from sleep, walked into the living room, running her fingers through her hair, hoping to somehow fix the bird’s nest at the back of her head. She couldn’t.
“Morning,” she said, spotting Sloane sitting at the small dining table, wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt that made her silky legs look extremely long. They stole Kendall’s breath for a second… then two... then three.
If she didn’t divert her eyes immediately, Sloane would surely catch her staring.
Kendall forced herself into the kitchen, toward the coffee machine. The place was outdated, grimy, and awkwardly spaced, but at least it had a decent coffee machine. “Any fires nearby?”
Sloane looked up from her laptop screen.
There was the faintest splash of purple beneath her eyes.
Half-moon shadows were obvious, like she hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep.
Kendall, on the other hand, had fallen asleep almost immediately and had gotten her allotted seven hours. She felt sprightly. Ready for the day.
“There’s a fire out at Santa Clarita,” Sloane said, with no hint of that fun jokey tone from last night. She was all business. Back to her usual self. “It’s on the tail end, been going on for more than five days—”
“That long?” Kendall interrupted, stopping midway between the fridge and the kitchen cabinet. Outside, a black-capped chickadee was sitting on the windowsill, singing its little song. She gave the bird another look and when it flew off, she asked, “Why didn’t we know about it?”
“We did,” Sloane said. “Or at least I did. There wasn’t any rush.”
Kendall frowned. The entire documentary was about fire and its path of destruction, the people it affected, and the communities it destroyed. How could there be no rush? “I don’t understand.”
Sloane typed a few more words on the keyboard, sighed, and closed the laptop’s lid.
“Look, Kendall. Remember what I said about a documentary taking time? Weeks, even months. We can’t just run off to every fire breaking out somewhere.
There are different segments to consider.
First.” She held up a finger. “There’s the beginning when the fire starts and everything’s chaos.
” Sloane paused. “That was Idyllwild.” Holding up a second finger, she continued.
“Then there’s the resolution when we capture the aftermath.
That was here, in Crestline.” Sloane raised a third finger.
“And there’s all the in-between moments we still have to capture. ”
Dropping her hands to her lap, Sloane said, “Each part has its own narrative arc, its own legs to stand on. We’re gathering footage that reflects the journey, even if it means we get to a fire that’s nearly run its course.”
“So, what’s the ‘mission’, then?” She threw up air quotes, mostly because it reminded Kendall of being that awkward kid who used to speak in italics, who was constantly impatient with her father and always too scared to ask stupid questions.
Yet, she had done just that. She had asked a stupid question and so, naturally; she had gotten a sharp reply. But if Sloane was annoyed with Kendall’s obvious inexperience in the filmmaking process, she didn’t show it.
“We’re interviewing a firefighter who has been in a coma for the last three days,” Sloane said, standing up. “She woke up yesterday morning.”
“A coma?”
Sloane nodded. “She was struck by a falling power line—the pole, not the actual wire—and was put in a medically induced coma to keep her brain from bursting.”
“So why her?” Kendall wondered. “Why make the trip to Santa Clarita for a woman put in an induced coma?”
“Because it’s a miracle,” Sloane said. “People rarely survive a thirty-foot pole landing on their heads.”