Chase pulled into the driveway and killed the engine. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel in time with the pounding of his pulse in his ears. It sounded like a rock band on triple espressos. What in the world was I thinking? “Well, we’re here.”
“Yes, we’re here.”
Just act cool. You’ll get through this. “Should we go inside?”
“Probably.”
Might help if she’d use more than three syllables per answer. “Maddie, are you worried about me being here? Because if you want to do something different—”
She spoke over him. “No, it’s not that. I like being with you. I just wish…” She paused and ran a trembling hand through her hair. “I blame myself for this whole thing.”
He frowned. So much for his worries. “But you shouldn’t.”
****
Maddie didn’t argue. He couldn’t possibly understand, because he didn’t know everything she’d done. She’d left Grandma for more than just church. Heat rushed to her cheeks as she thought about the night spent with Alasdair. To cover her embarrassment, she climbed from the truck. He did the same and grabbed his bags while Maddie carried the basket of food inside.
The fire had gone out. Devoid of its earlier warmth, the entrance was cold and uninviting. Fighting an ugly sense of foreboding, she directed him upstairs to a spare bedroom and then carried the food to the kitchen.
Yummy aromas wafted to her nose and her belly growled. She unpacked the basket, found a chicken breast, pinched off a piece of the juicy meat, and popped it into her mouth. She smacked her lips as flavor struck her tongue. Pure heaven with a crispy crust. Next she ate half a flaky biscuit. She removed the gravy lid and raised the other half of the biscuit aloft.
“So this is what you’ve been up to.” Chase leaned casually against the door facing, his arms crossed over his defined chest.
She smiled and covered her puffed jaws with both hands, one still holding the biscuit’s second, doomed half. But she didn’t stop chewing. Strange how the promise of a good meal made the situation lighter and calmed her guilty nerves.
“I thought you were following me and when I turned around you weren’t there. I called but you never answered. Now I know why.” He pointed an accusing finger at the food-laden table.
She swallowed. “I was hungry.”
He laughed. “Then by all means, eat.”
She offered him a biscuit. “Do you want some?”
“Yes, I believe I do. Do we need plates?”
“Sure.” She put the biscuit on a paper towel and opened a nearby cabinet. The plates were on the top shelf and she tiptoed to reach them.
Chase came up behind her. His chest grazed her back as he reached over her head and grabbed the plates. She turned and was engulfed in his arms, the plates somewhere behind her head. He laid them on the counter.
Shyness overwhelmed her. “I don’t know why the plates are so high up. There’s no way Grandma Draoi could reach them. She’s shorter than I am.” Am I babbling? I am. I have to be. Dork dork dork.
His blue eyes lingered on her face, looking longingly at her lips. A kiss… would be as good as the biscuit. But they played a dangerous game. Alone in the house and physically attracted to one another could get them in big trouble. And suddenly Maddie knew without a shadow of doubt that she wasn’t ready to go there.
Without warning, he swooped down and stroked his lips on top of hers, taking her breath away. Whatever she’d been thinking vanished. She snaked her arms around his neck and pulled him close. Like a buoy in a storm, like a lifeboat, a lifeline, he became the only sane thing in her world.
Finally they pulled apart, breathing heavily. His hands splayed along her waistline. She played with the hair that caressed his collar, thankful that he wasn’t insistent or demanding. A dork could get used to this.
“I’ve wanted to do that all day,” he said.
“Hmm… it was nice.”
He laughed loudly. “Nice? I was hoping for amazing, spectacular, earth-shattering…”
She pursed her lips. “Did I say nice? I meant exhilarating, titillating, passionate…”
“Hmm, I like your adjectives much better than mine.”
“You do?”
“I believe I do.”
He moved as if to kiss her again, but when their lips hovered mere inches apart, her stomach rumbled. Without releasing her, he pulled back. “Have you eaten anything today?”
“A little piece of chicken and half a biscuit.”
“Maddie! You need to take better care of yourself.”
“Um, Chase, I haven’t exactly had time.”
“Yeah. I guess I just don’t want anything to happen to you.” He ran a shaky hand through his hair.
She studied the buttons on his shirt to hide her curiosity. “Does it ever seem odd that you feel so strongly about someone you just met?”
“Sometimes.”
“Me, too. I’ve never met anyone like you.” Suddenly she felt so close to him, closer than any two near-strangers had any right to be. Words she hadn’t intended to say tumbled from her. “Besides my parents, you’re the only one who’s ever expressed any feeling for me.”
He straightened, blinking twice, three times. “Surely that’s not—”
“True? Yes, it is.”
“What about your grandma?”
“Yes, she loves me. But that’s not what I meant.” She should be blushing from the unintended revelation. But she wasn’t. Speaking with Chase, being with him, made everything all right.
“What did you mean?”
“I don’t know.” And suddenly the day just seemed like too much. The kitchen spun around her. She closed her eyes and her legs weakened.
Chase guided her to the table. “Come, sit, and I’ll fix you a plate.”
She settled in a chair and palmed her chin, letting him fuss with the food. “When I was younger, I loved to visit my grandma. She would tell me the most fascinating stories about our family and she made me feel so safe and happy. But as I grew older, she would sit and stare at me with a distant, absent look. I talked to my mom about it. I thought maybe I was dying or something and they didn’t want me to know, but my mom said she thought Grandma was just sad because she was growing older.”
He placed a loaded plate before her and she shot him a grateful look, picked up a chicken breast, and enjoyed a succulent bite. She smacked her lips and he laughed at her enthusiasm.
“Good, is it?”
“Yep, reminds me of my mom’s.” Huh. She’d never before mentioned her mother without feeling sad.
Maybe the thought showed on her face, for he froze as if afraid to respond. But Maddie found she didn’t need to stop and recover any composure. Instead she took another bite, and another, and by then he’d finished fixing his own plate and sat across from her, the open containers between them and the entire kitchen smelling like a cold-chicken picnic.
“My mom was a fabulous cook and my dad never failed to tell her so. I remember this one time when she made a pineapple chicken dish. Dad ate it but he was kind of picking and choosing, and she said, ‘It’s not that good, is it?’ And he laughed and said, ‘No.’ He told me later it was terrible but he was determined to eat it just to keep from hurting her feelings. Turns out after he ate the entire thing, she admitted she didn’t like it much, either. He and I laughed about that for weeks.”
Chase fixed a chunk of chicken between two biscuit halves and dipped it in gravy. “That reminds me of the time my mom made biscuits and Dad picked one up and it was as hard as a rock. He tried to eat it but couldn’t get his teeth to bite through it. He put it on his plate, and when Mom saw it, she asked him why it was still there. He told her straight up that the biscuits were hard. She stood up, cleaned off the table, and dumped the food in the garbage. He was afraid she would never cook again.”
“Obviously she did and her biscuits got better.” She reached for another one.
He licked his lips, catching a trail of gravy obeying the law of gravity. “Yep, they sure did.”
They shared more laughter and finished eating. Everything cleaned and put away, they retired to the living room and took a seat on the couch.
“TV or talk?” Chase asked.
She didn’t hesitate. “Talk. That is, if you want to.”
“Of course I want to. I’d like to hear more about your family.”
Maddie studied the couch cushions. Grandma had been lying there just a few hours ago, her head resting on that very pillow. Sighing, she said, “There’s not much to tell. I’m an only child. My mom was a housewife. My dad worked at a local plant and we lived close to his job in a small town about two hours away from here. Until they died.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She’d spent hours with a therapist talking about it and nothing had changed. Why should she resurrect the incident? But then again, didn’t she want to share everything with Chase? The good and the bad? And maybe he’d do more for her than any therapist.
She swallowed. “We had just come home from visiting Grandma Draoi and it was late. We said our goodnights at the top of the stairs and I went to my room. I was so exhausted from the day I didn’t even change my clothes. I think I fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.
“The next thing I remember, the smoke alarms were going off. My room was all smoky and hot and I dropped to the floor and crawled to my door. I nearly grabbed the metal door knob but I remembered a fire safety class from school that said to touch the door with the back of your hand first. I did and it was blazing hot. I hadn’t shut it completely the night before so I pulled it open a crack.”
She twisted her hands in her lap and her throat burned from holding back tears. Telling the story always seemed too much like reliving it, like letting the horror take her over, and part of her wished she hadn’t started. “The hallway was engulfed in flames. The walls looked like they were rippling. The heat was so intense I could feel my arm hairs singeing.”
A tear slipped onto her cheek and she swiped it away. “My parents’ door was directly in front of me. Flames licked at it from floor to ceiling but I thought I could save them.”
A sad laugh refused to stay inside her. “I never made it to their door because someone grabbed me around the waist and hauled me back. Still not certain exactly what happened. One moment I was running across the hall. Next thing I knew, I was sitting on the pavement outside. Firefighters, police, paramedics were everywhere. They fought the fire for hours, but it was no use. The house was so hot they weren’t able to go in until it was little more than a pile of ashes.”
Maddie twisted the hem of her shirt. “Of course they investigated for over a month, but they never discovered what caused the fire. A faulty electric wire was the biggest suspect but one investigator said the fire was too hot. They couldn’t find any traces of gasoline or kerosene, though, nothing like that. So I guess I’ll never know for sure.”
Finally she glanced up, and the compassion in his eyes was too much to bear. They’d been having a fun evening and she’d spoiled everything. Dork. She pushed off the couch and crossed to the window. “On second thought, I don’t think I want to talk about it.” She hadn’t meant to be sarcastic but her tone came out that way. Dork dork dork.
Nothing would change what had happened. Her parents were gone and she remained.
A guilty glance over her shoulder showed Chase studying his hands as if he was at a loss for words. His expression hadn’t changed, and she knew she’d ruined the evening. She shouldn’t have dumped all that on him. It had been such a trying day; she had just blurted everything out without thinking.
He leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. “We should probably get ready for bed. It’ll be time for school before we know it.”
“Yeah. I’m going to call and check on my grandma first.”
He went upstairs. With a hollow feeling in her stomach despite the wonderful supper, she called the hospital. No news. She hung up the phone and dragged herself up the stairs.
He met her on the landing. “Any change?”
She shook her head. “They said I can visit tomorrow after school.”
“Okay.”
He leaned against the door jamb. His sleeveless T-shirt highlighted his bulging biceps. She pointed toward her bedroom door. “I really should go to bed.”
“Yeah.” But he didn’t move and his eyes followed her.
She felt their touch as she passed him. Then she closed the door and his spell was broken. Maddie laid her head back and drew in a deep breath. She wished she hadn’t said anything about her parents, but at least now he knew. He knew what happened to people who got close to her.
And she wouldn’t let him make that mistake. She hoped.
He hadn’t commented or given advice, for which she was grateful. Curling into a ball under the covers, she tried to free her mind. How would she sleep knowing Chase lay across the hall? Probably not very well.