33. Luke
THIRTY-THREE
LUKE
I picked up the shred of white fabric off Maggie’s living room floor, the same remnant Ellie sniffed at before sprinting out the back door.
The texture was unmistakable—tulle.
Fuck.
Today was supposed to be Maggie’s wedding day. Violet pulled me aside during breakfast earlier, asking me to keep an eye on her sister. She didn’t buy that Maggie was fine. But what did I do? Went to the damn store and left her home alone without even her dog.
I wasn’t planning to be gone long.
I thought she just needed a moment to catch her breath after the delightful chaos that was the last twenty-four hours.
She seemed fine.
But the woman dragging a beat-to-hell wedding dress through a yard blanketed in leaves looked anything but fine. When I spotted the neon-green candle lighter in her hand, real panic hit.
“Maggie, wait!”
I raced down the deck stairs.
“Don’t try to talk me out of it.”
Her eyes were puffy and red, as though she’d been not just crying, but sobbing. Fuck, why did I leave her alone? Even the strongest people fell apart from time to time. I, more than anyone, should’ve understood that today would get to her sooner or later.
“You can’t burn that,” I said gently.
She chucked the dress onto the pile of ash from last night, flashing me a murderous glare. “Yes, I can.”
I reached for her wrist, catching her hand before she ignited the flame. “It’s illegal.”
“You going to arrest me, Chief?”
“If you light that dress on fire, it’ll pour thick black smoke into the air.
Half the town will call the fire department before the beads even start popping.
After the drought we just had a few weeks ago, they’ll be here in minutes.
Your dress won’t have fully burned, and you’ll get stuck with a massive fine for burning prohibited materials.
” Seeing the rage still burning in her eyes, I added, “I’ll get one, too, for the record. ”
Her shoulders fell, and her eyes went shiny. “So, that’s it, then?”
I should say yes. That’s what the responsible Chief Mason would tell anyone else in this scenario. But the anguish on Maggie’s face made me want to fly to Washington and hunt down the jackass who’d been stupid enough to break her heart. I wanted nothing more than to take away her pain.
“You really want to burn the dress?”
“Yes.”
I held out my hand for the lighter. “Do you trust me?”
She stared at my open palm for several beats before she finally pressed the lighter into it.
“Do you think Walter would watch Ellie for a few hours?”
Maggie’s eyebrows drew in confusion. “Where are we going?”
“It’s less incriminating for you if you don’t know.”
A ghost of a smile ever so slightly lifted her lips, gratitude glimmering in her eyes.
She reached for my arm, gripping it as she stepped closer.
She lifted up on tiptoes, pressing a kiss to my cheek.
I stared after her as she hurried up the stairs.
The sensation of her lips lingered several seconds after she disappeared inside to collect Ellie’s things.
I wadded up the dress and waited at the side of the duplex until Walter invited Maggie and Ellie inside.
I stashed the wedding dress in the bed of my truck, unrolling the tonneau cover to both keep the gown from flying out during our drive and to keep it out of sight.
The less Maggie had to look at it, the better.
I shot one text to Connor, verifying the lot of them were still in Denver on Opal’s birthday trip, and another text to the fire chief to let him know there’d be a controlled burn at the family farm within the hour in case anyone called it in.
Burning the dress was illegal, but Dad taught me a few tricks about fires that might just save my ass.
Otherwise, the mayor might decide my next mandatory leave was a suspension.
But if this was what Maggie truly needed, I’d risk it.
Of course I would.
I was already breaking every other rule I had. What was one more?
“Walter’s going to watch Ellie,” Maggie said as she met me at my truck.
“Good.” I held open the passenger door and waited for her to get in. “We better get going.” I looked up at the overcast sky, praying the rain would hold off until the dress was nothing more than a pile of ash.
“Where are we?” Maggie asked when I turned off the highway and onto the familiar gravel road.
“The Farm.”
“Who’s farm?”
“My grandparents live over there,” I said, pointing to the main two-story log house at the back of the property.
Flower baskets with orange and maroon flowers hung from the eaves of the covered porch, and a display of pumpkins was arranged on the steps.
“And Connor lives there.” I indicated the smaller house, with the enclosed chicken coop tucked off in its own corner of the property.
“Why do you call it The Farm?” Maggie asked. “I don’t really see any farm things.”
“There’s a cow. Millie.”
“One cow?”
“She’s a rescue. There’s a barn near the burn pit. Plus, my brother has chickens.”
“Do you grow anything on this farm?”
“Oh, yeah. My grandparents have a massive garden. They’re in Denver this weekend with Connor and Opal, or I’d introduce you.
” I put the truck into park near the modest barn tucked behind a patch of trees.
It wasn’t much, but it held most of the gardening supplies, a small tractor, and with the attached overhang, gave the hay bales a place to stay dry.
“But for what we’re about to do, it’s better they’re not here. ”
“Why?”
“Because it’s illegal.”
I headed for the burn pit to assess the situation.
If I wanted to burn this dress with the least amount of evidence, I needed to build a structure around the dress with dry wood.
I searched the perimeter of the barn and found the pile of scrap wood I hoped Grandpa Dale hadn’t burned yet secured under a brown tarp.
I filled my arms and returned to the burn pit, only to discover Maggie sitting on a hay bale, the heap of a soot-stained dress in her lap.
She held my gaze long enough to offer me a weak smile of gratitude, and then I set to work raking out the pit.
I found dry kindling in a nearby barrel—pine needles, cedar shavings, and small twigs.
It was a game we played as kids. A competition really for who could collect the most kindling for the burn barrel before dinner was announced.
Kira always gave me a run for my money. Connor never won.
I considered sharing the story with Maggie, but she was hugging the dress and staring into the empty pit as though in another place entirely.
Respecting her need for silence, I took my time stacking the split firewood into a loose teepee formation, careful to leave gaps between the logs—Dad always said a fire needed room to breathe—and an opening in the front for the dress.
Maggie wasn’t ready to let go of it yet, and I wasn’t going to push her.
I added another layer of pine needles in the bottom, mostly to buy Maggie time. Then I turned toward her. “Ready?”
She looked down at the pile of fabric in her lap and simply nodded. She folded the dress as best she could and offered it to me.
“You don’t want to put it in there?” I asked.
“If you saw how much trouble I had just stuffing this in your closet, you’d know it’s better if you do it.”
I tried to wrestle the dress flatter, but there was only so much give.
Thankfully, it was compacted enough to wedge through the opening without having to restack the whole thing.
I placed a couple of pieces of dry wood over the opening and assessed my design.
If everything caught the way Dad taught me, the wood would burn hot enough to keep the dress from smoldering. The less smoldering, the less smoke.
Or so I hoped.
Because if I was wrong about that, there would be consequences.
I slipped the candle lighter from the pocket I stashed it in earlier and offered it to Maggie.
“You won’t get in trouble for this?” she asked, her fingers grazing mine.
“Nah,” I said, hoping it was true.
Maggie stepped closer to the fire, pressed the button to ignite the flame, and held it against the satin until it took.
She stepped back, allowing me to put my arm around her shoulders, and we watched as the edges of the white fabric turned black.
The ends shriveled as the fire traveled slowly and unevenly along the hems.
“I thought it would be more dramatic,” Maggie said.
“Give it time.”
“You’re probably wondering why I have this,” Maggie said, staring ahead at the fire.
“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
The pine needles beneath the fire caught next, and beads popped from the gown.
“You’re burning an illegal fire on my behalf. I think you’re owed a certain amount of explanation.”
She folded her arms over her chest, pressing against my side a little more. I held her there and waited as the flames licked the teepee of dry wood. The discolored dress, however, remained mostly intact.
“I called off my wedding two weeks ago. I was supposed to get married today—which I think my pregnant sister who currently has no working filter already told you.”
“She might have mentioned it.”
“I didn’t destroy the dress. I loved that dress.
And I almost married a man who didn’t want to marry me in it.
If I’m being honest with myself, I think he regretted the proposal the minute he got down on one knee.
We had a unique relationship that survived in a fantasy bubble, and that level of commitment tore right through that illusion. I just didn’t see it at first.”
At last, flames engulfed the interior, bright orange tongues reaching through the tulle as the wooden teepee I built burned through.
“Jason and I met while attending a destination wedding. Not even the same one, just same location with two weddings happening at the same time. We hooked up, thinking that’d be it.”
“Obviously it wasn’t.”