Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Ember
By the time the insurance investigator pulls up, Copper Mountain has already decided I’m getting paid.
The bakery put out a tray of Fire the air shifts, temperature rising a single dangerous degree.
He’s in his station boots and a clean gray tee that makes his shoulders criminal, jaw dark with the kind of stubble that suggests he shaved badly on purpose.
He steps from the hallway with a manila folder, eyes flat calm, mouth unreadable.
“Morning,” he says to Wilton, professional smooth. To me, it’s softer. “Ready?”
I unclench, just a fraction. “Let’s dance.”
Wilton blinks at the folder in Clay’s hands. “And you are…?”
“Clay Walker,” he says, every inch of him suddenly regulation. “Copper Mountain Fire. Incident commander on Studio One-Seven’s call. Ms. Quinn’s fiancé.”
It shouldn’t curl low in me, that last word. It does.
“Right.” Wilton clears his throat like he swallowed a pebble. “Of course. Thank you for…being here.”
He doesn’t thank Clay for saving me.
We sit. Clay takes the chair beside me, not across, and sets the folder near my elbow. When my fingers brush the edge, his hand finds my lower back like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Warm. Possessive. A little warning, too—I’ve got you. Breathe.
Mr. Wilton clicks his pen. “Let’s begin with the electrical panel at the studio.”
I talk. I talk like it’s a job. I tell him about the flicker last week, the weird hum, the way I turned off my wheel and kiln early the night before the fire because something felt wrong in the walls.
I tell him about calling a handyman who never showed, about the list I made that morning—oil brushes, dry mugs, pull test tiles, call electrician—and how the list survived while the test tiles didn’t.
He asks about everything. My landlord’s maintenance habits.
My outlets. My extension cords (none). My space heater (unplugged).
He inquires if I’m planning on ordering a new kiln and supplies, I inform him that I already have and am just waiting for them to arrive.
He even asks how often I clean my kiln glass, and I don’t roll my eyes because adults are present but my left brow goes rogue.
Every time my voice hitch-hikes toward panic, Clay’s thumb draws one slow circle between my ribs and my spine and I remember how to pull air.
“Receipts?” Wilton asks.
I slide over what survived and what didn’t.
The photos help—my friend Bella is an obsessive archivist; she has shots of every bowl that ever left my hands and half the pieces that didn’t.
Clay has the incident report, the times, the temperature at dispatch, the exact minute he radioed for the second engine.
“You were first on scene?” Wilton asks him.
Clay nods. “We cleared the structure. No occupants. Power cut at the pole.”
I don’t look at him. If I do, I’ll remember last night and ruin this meeting by kissing my fake fiancé in front of an insurance man.
“And after the fire?” Wilton asks, pen poised. “Where have you been staying?”
“My rental here,” I say. “Two blocks down.”
“With Mr. Walker?” He asks it blankly, like it’s another box to check. My skin heat-spikes anyway.
Clay doesn’t miss a beat. “I’m the owner of this cabin but we’re not living together. We’re going day to day,” he says. “Studio loss knocked a lot loose.”
We’re not lying. Not exactly.
“And your… engagement?” Wilton tries to keep it neutral and fails; curiosity leaks like a draft.
“New,” I say. I feel Clay’s hand press once—an anchor—then resume its lazy, lethal circles. “Unexpected. But the good things usually are.”
Something flickers in Clay’s face—gone before I can read it. Wilton just nods and writes NEW like it’s a diagnosis.
He stands after an hour and a half of questions and photographs of nothing. He glances around my little table like it might confess. “All right,” he says. “We’ll be in touch. It’s a substantial claim, Ms. Quinn. I’m sure you understand our diligence.”
“I do.” I fold my hands so he won’t see that they’re trembling. “Thank you for coming.”
He leaves with polite speed, rolling his case down the walk like he’s escaping a crime scene he didn’t commit. When the door shuts, I stay still and listen to the house breathe through the vents Clay coaxed back to life, the kettle clicking as it cools, my pulse a drum line under my skin.
His hand is still there. Warm. Steady. Mine.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“No,” I say. “Yes.” I turn to him. He’s close—close enough that I can see the flecks in his eyes that aren’t brown at all. “Both.”
He doesn’t move his hand. He ups the pressure a fraction, thumb finding that same slow circle. “He did his job.”
“So did you.” I swallow. “And me.”
“Yeah.” His gaze drops to my mouth and back like it can help itself. “You did.”
We’re not touching anywhere else. We don’t have to. Everything between us is leaning.
“You’re getting good at this,” I say. My voice goes breathy and I hate that I can’t pull it back.
His mouth tilts. “At paperwork?”
“At…all of it.” I press my palm to his chest like I can steady the words before they spill. His heartbeat kicks under my hand, big and brutal. “Good at wanting me.”
Air goes tight. Then tighter.
He steps back—not far, just enough to cut the electricity before it arcs. His jaw locks. “That’s not pretending,” he says, and his voice is low, gravel dragged over a warning.
The room in me that’s been empty for days goes incandescent. My mouth opens. Something bold and stupid and absolutely us rushes my tongue.
“Then stop running from it,” I whisper.
He flinches like I touched a bruise. The briefest flicker. Then he shutters it. “Don’t push, Ember.”
“Or what.”
“Or I stop being polite about the lines.”
He means well. He’s protecting me. He’s protecting him. I know all his reasons. I want none of them.
“Polite is boring,” I murmur.
“Yeah.” His eyes drag over my mouth again, hotter this time, and I swear the paint peels a little off the doorframe. “I noticed.”
A car glides by outside, tires on grit. Somewhere a dog complains. In here, we stand too close for too long.
“Do you need to get back to the station?” I ask, because my hands are shaking and if they move they’ll climb him.
“In an hour.” He scrubs a hand over his jaw, gaze still snagged on me. “You good if I check your breaker panel before I go?”
“Yes.” The word drops hollow between us. “Do that.”
He does. He moves through my little rental like he owns it, careful with my mugs and careless with my resolve.
He fixes a loose plate on an outlet, frowns at the janky porch latch, tightens three cabinet screws that never did anything to deserve his hands.
And when he’s done, he stands in my doorway and looks at me like I am a house he’s not ready to enter and also one he’s been building his whole life.
“Text me if the heat blinks,” he says gruffly.
“It won’t,” I say. “But I will.”
He nods. Hesitates. Steps in again, hand finding my waist like he forgot to put it down, mouth threatening every rule we made and broke and pretended to keep. Then he exhales, shakes his head once, and presses his forehead to mine for a single, devastating second.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he rasps.
“Like what,” I whisper.
“Like you’d forgive me for wanting you.” He steps back before I can reply, opens the door, and leaves me with a room full of heat and no instructions.
The town keeps calling us cute. That afternoon, Winter drags me to the general store and “accidentally” buys a bridal magazine at the register.
A group of teenagers see me in the canned goods aisle and whisper, that’s her, like I’m a folklore creature.
A little boy points at me from his mom’s cart and says, “Fire lady!” and I nearly cry into the baked beans.
I make it home on halfway-stable legs. I try to throw myself into something that isn’t Clay: I pull out the tote of unbroken bisque I salvaged, run my fingertips over the chalky rims, and tell myself they’re not ghosts.
I sketch glaze ideas. I drink tea. I don’t text him. I absolutely do not text him.
When twilight spills over the ridge and paints the living room blue, I light two candles and let their small stubborn flames make the night less empty.