Chapter 1 #2
My eyes squeeze shut at the sincerity in his voice. I must be hearing that wrong. He only did this because he had to as a firefighter.
“Holy shit. What happened here?”
I spin around, my heart leaping with gratitude for Jae as she gazes wide-eyed around the kitchen. I must not have locked the front door after coming in.
Leaving Sydney and Hailey to answer Jae’s questions, I push through the doors to the customer side of the bakery, taking in a lungful of air not tainted with extinguisher residue. I move to the front door, but don’t lock it quite yet, gripping the push bar.
Mom and Dad have only been gone one month out of their six-month world cruise and we’ve already set fire to the place? What else will we do by the time they get back? Flood it? Completely blow it up?
The doors to the back open, and I turn, expecting it to be Sydney making another declaration of innocence, but it’s Nick. The room instantly seems smaller.
He stops with a fair amount of distance between us, but it’s still too close. My skin itches from the inside.
“I’ll need to make a report,” he says, and I nod. That makes sense. I should contact our insurance agent to see if we need to file a claim, too.
Shit. Will our premiums increase because of this?
“Do you want help cleaning up?”
I blink, taken aback. “Aren’t you on the clock?”
“I could come back after my shift ends.”
“Why?”
The question slips out unbidden. Why would he want to hang around here? This place has to hold painful memories for him.
Does he… Could he still feel guilty about what happened? Is this penance?
One of his arms comes up to rub at the back of his neck, his tattoo on display again. It’s a Celtic band design, dark against his tanned skin. I shiver thinking how much it must have hurt to get that on the sensitive underside of his arm.
“Never mind.” There’s something almost like disappointment in his voice. “Have a good rest of your day.”
I move aside and he leaves, walking down the street toward the fire station a couple of blocks away.
It’s not until he’s out of sight that a thought occurs to me.
Shouldn’t he have come in the fire truck?
And dressed in full gear? And shouldn’t there be other firefighters here?
Sure, Aurora’s department is small, but I’d assume…
Actually, I don’t know much about the fire department.
I lock the door and put Nick out of my mind. I have more pressing matters.
The conversation goes silent when I return to the kitchen, and just as I’m about to ask Sydney and Hailey exactly what happened, Jae asks, “Who was the firefighter? I haven’t seen him around before.”
She’s looking at me, but I turn my gaze toward the fallen cupcakes. I hope the frosting doesn’t stain the tile grout.
“That’s Nick,” Hailey says cautiously when I don’t answer.
“He couldn’t take his eyes off you, Rachel,” Jae says, and I nearly snort. She was in the room with him for about three seconds.
“I’ve been telling her she needs to get back out there after all the shit Kyle pulled,” she says to my sisters. “How do we feel about Nick? Good guy? Bad guy?”
Sydney and Hailey exchange an uneasy look, then direct their attention to me, waiting for my cue.
“What am I missing?” Jae asks, picking up on the tension.
“Nothing,” I answer, but even I know I said it too quickly to be believable.
“Do you have history? You know I love hot goss.”
“There’s no history and let’s drop it.” She opens her mouth to retort, but I steer her out of the kitchen and back up front. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I need to clean this up.”
“I can help—”
“No, you go home and enjoy the rest of your weekend. I’ll catch up with you later.”
I unlock the front door and practically push her out.
“Rachel—”
“The bakery is my problem to deal with. I’ll call you tonight, okay?”
Her lips twist but she nods, probably recognizing how stubborn I’m being.
I lock up behind her and return to the kitchen, glad to see Hailey already using the wet/dry vacuum on the powdery mess and Sydney picking up the cupcakes.
Rolling my shoulders, I attempt to release some of the growing tension.
This entire place needs to be scrubbed top to bottom.
We’ll need to toss any exposed food or ingredients in case they’ve been compromised.
Depending on how much it is, I may need to put in an extra supply order this month.
There goes my day off.
I wet a clean rag and join Sydney, wiping up the globs of frosting on the floor.
“Tell me what happened,” I say once the vacuum turns off, doing my best to keep any anger or judgment out of my tone.
It takes Sydney so long to answer, I almost repeat myself before she asks in a small voice, “Are you mad?”
It’s so unlike her to care about my opinion, I nearly laugh until I catch myself. Sydney is bold and brash and doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks of her.
But fires don’t inspire normal reactions in the Blackwell family.
“No,” I tell her, finding it’s true when I say it aloud. “I’m glad you and Hailey are safe.”
Sydney sniffs, her gaze on the floor, and I’m about to tell her we can talk about it later when she nods and meets my gaze, expression clear now. Maybe I only imagined how vulnerable she seemed for a moment there.
“I was frosting the cupcakes for Mrs. Griffin’s baby shower and had the cake in the oven for Mr. DeCosta’s retirement party. It’d only been in there maybe ten minutes before I smelled something burning. I looked up and…” She falters, swallowing hard. “There were flames in the oven.”
I lay a hand on her shoulder, knowing exactly what she’s remembering.
The smoke rising from the bakery below into our apartment upstairs.
Grabbing everything we could in a blind panic to take with us.
Standing outside in the street, watching the crackling flames burn our family’s livelihood and home as the firefighters rushed in.
Behind her, Hailey’s face is twisted in a frown, maybe reliving her own memories.
“I should have called 911,” Sydney continues. “Obviously. Everything seems so obvious now.”
“You didn’t?” I ask. Then how did Nick show up?
“I… I panicked and ran out the door. I didn’t even realize where I was running until I got to the fire station.”
“You left Hailey alone with a burning oven?”
Sydney’s mouth drops, as if she hadn’t made that connection, and turns back to look at our youngest sister.
“It’s fine,” Hailey says, disinfecting one of the stainless steel islands in the center of the room. “I’m fine. Really.”
Sydney makes a noise like she wants to argue but Hailey cuts her off.
“Continue the story. You were only gone five minutes. Nothing bad happened.”
Sydney turns back to me, a mixture of shame and guilt on her face. “Anyway, Nick was there. I tried explaining but it was coming out so scattered. Once he understood, he asked if you were okay. He seemed so worried. And when I said yes, he ran out the door.”
He was worried about me? No, she must mean the bakery. “He didn’t bring the fire truck? Or, I don’t know, another firefighter?”
She shakes her head. “He dropped everything and came straight here. Didn’t even change his clothes.”
Hailey says, “He burst in the front door and asked where the fire extinguisher was. I didn’t even realize there was a fire.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Shouldn’t our smoke alarm have gone off?
“He put it out in about two seconds,” Hailey continues. “And then was trying to find the source of the fire when you came in.”
I nod, digesting all this information. “Come here.” I spread my arms wide and motion for them both to get closer, wrapping them in my embrace when they do. “We have the bakery and we have each other. That’s all I care about.”
“Me, too,” Hailey agrees.
“Same,” Sydney mumbles.
We keep the bakery closed for the day since it’s already two in the afternoon and we normally close at three, open all the windows to air the place out, and clean it to within an inch of its life, getting rid of all traces of the fire. Out of sight, out of mind.
Thankfully, we have two industrial ovens, so we can put the malfunctioning one out of commission until I figure out what’s wrong with it. I put a big X with duct tape over the doors for now.
When we’re done, Hailey goes back up front to count the register while I help Sydney remake the baby shower cupcakes that are scheduled for pickup first thing tomorrow.
As she’s piping flowers onto one, she asks, “Why didn’t you tell Jae about Nick?”
I shrug, not wanting to examine that too closely. “You know her. She’ll make a big thing out of it.”
“That he burned down our bakery?”
Yeah. That.