Chapter 36

Sam was probably watching his phone, waiting to hear from her. But there were some things that should be talked about in person.

She headed for his office.

During the tourist season, the consortium stayed open later Friday nights.

When she got there, she found a smiling Keval sitting at the bar with—Jordan Hasselbeck.

She allowed herself a brief moment of satisfaction. But there would be time to congratulate herself later.

She waved to Keval on her way back to Sam’s office, as if she weren’t falling apart inside.

“He’s not back there,” called Keval.

She stopped dead in her tracks. “Where is he?”

Keval shook his head. “He tore out of here about an hour ago. I asked him what his hurry was, and he said there was something he had to do.”

Red got back in her car and headed west.

Now she knew what Sam meant about being a mess even before he’d joined the Army. That’s why he felt like he had to protect everyone around him. No wonder he considered it his solemn duty to protect what he loved best. His country, his consortium members, and now, her. At a crucial age in his development, he hadn’t been able to protect the only creature who loved him unconditionally: Riggley.

She got back in her car.

As she drove, she saw again in her mind’s eye the images she had clung to for so long: the sweet bungalows with their distinctive windows, the colonials with their colorful front doors, the ornate Victorians, and last but not least, the saltbox. All this time she’d believed that the only way she’d ever be whole was to one day own one of them. But this time when she thought of them, she felt nothing. As usual, Grandma was right. It wasn’t the house that was important. Humble trailer or grand estate, what mattered most in a home was who you shared it with.

A mile before she got to the house she saw the faint orange glow. As she navigated the rutted road, it grew brighter and brighter.

There was Sam’s bike, parked safely back on the road.

And there was the saltbox—once, her dream house—engulfed in flames.

She parked and ran as close as she dared to where sparks danced in the billowing smoke, frantically scanning the grassy area lit up by the blaze.

“Sam!” she screamed.

But she couldn’t see him through the smoke.

She ran around to the back of the house, oblivious to the thorns on a clump of bushes scratching her legs.

“Sam!”

She thought she saw movement up on the small hill. Blinking in the acrid smoke, she scrambled up it, stopping to peel off her sandals until she found him lying on his stomach on the rough ground.

“Get out of here!” Sam cried with a sweeping motion when he saw her coming.

He still had the Winchester pointed toward the house.

“I know everything.”

“This is none of your business. Now get out of here! I don’t want you anywhere near this place if the cops show up. Can’t have you involved, do you hear me?”

At a loud pop and a flash from the depths of the house, Red cringed.

Sam leaped up, leaving his gun lying in the grass, and grabbed her by the arm. Standing before her wide-legged he thumped his chest and yelled, “My life. My house. My call. Now get out!” He pointed, straight-armed, toward the driveway.

Nothing in Red’s training could have prepared her for this. She acted straight from the heart.

“I’m not going anywhere. I know about Riggley,” she said, coughing. “Your dad told me.”

“Riggley trusted me with his life, and what did I do? Destroyed him.”

“It wasn’t your fault! You were a child. A little kid! Your father made you do what you did.”

His face distorted in agony. He covered his eyes with his hand and turned away.

“The only way I could erase that, become the kind of person who doesn’t destroy his loved ones, was by destroying the place where it happened.”

“Sam. Your father is so proud of you. He always was. He just didn’t know how to show it. He doesn’t have the skill set. To this very day, if anyone told him he had done wrong by you, he would deny it. He was raised the same way he raised you—perpetuating a vicious cycle of bad parenting. It happens all the time. It happened to me.”

Red clutched his arm, turning him around, refusing to let him go through this alone.

He yanked away from her. “Why don’t I see you burning down your past?”

“There was a time I would have said because I talked about it. But the truth is, I don’t know. There are some things we just can’t know. Not even us shrinks.”

She reached for him again.

This time, he gave in, relaxing into her with a wail of pain.

She held him close, absorbing his heaving sobs into her body, making them her own. Shushing his cries on her shoulder, she gazed out at the inferno, watching the roof on her one-time dream house collapse, taking with it any remnants of attachment she’d once had for it.

Sam leaned on her with all the weight of his six foot, hundred sixty pound frame. She braced herself to keep from buckling, appreciating her strong body as never before, holding him tight as together, they watched his past go up in smoke.