survivable fire. She couldn’t wait too long, either, or her targets might smell the gas and have the brains to get out of the house without investigating.
Fortunately, timing was something else she had perfected over years of practice. She’d gotten it wrong at her former lover Anthony’s house. She’d thrown the switch too soon. The concentration had been too low. The sparks had amounted to nothing. She’d had to wait until the gas had overcome him and his wife before slipping back inside to retrieve the device. Dangerous, that. But she’d done it, and no one had been the wiser. They’d both died in their beds. A gas leak had been blamed. She hadn’t used a hacksaw on their pipes but had loosened a joint. It had looked accidental. No one knew, and Anthony had paid for choosing his wife over her.
But it hadn’t been anything like a fire. It had been anticlimactic. She’d almost wanted to place an anonymous 911 call and save them, so she could do the job right later on.
But she hadn’t. She knew when to cut her losses and move on.
She had to do it often, with men. Cut her losses and move on. So often that she took precautions now in new relationships. She used a false name and a disposable prepaid phone, and never told the truth about what she did or where she lived.
Someday she would find the man who would recognize her for the prize she was. Someday she would find one worthy of her. A heroic, handsome, selfless man who would fall head over heels in love, and put her ahead of everything and everyone else in his life.
She would find him.
Peter Rouse had not been the one. Like Anthony and so many since—like her own parents, so long ago—Peter had chosen others over her. His wife. And his kids. They’d already left him by then, to move into the two-story house half a block from where she now sat in a borrowed car. But he was determined to get them back.
She got out of the car, walked to the house in the darkness. It was a quiet neighborhood. No one noticed her. She angled into the backyard and moved to the casement window, crouching low.
Through binoculars, she’d watched as Rebecca had tucked her two kids—Jeffrey, who was eight years old and had his father’s eyes, and Rose, who was three—into their beds and walked back downstairs for a little quiet time. The whole neighborhood was in that quiet-before-bed phase of the evening. Watching their TV shows, reading their novels. No one paid attention to her. Not even a dog barked.
She picked up her small digital meter and pulled the dangling sensor out through a tiny hole she’d cut in the windowpane, then quickly smoothed a piece of duct tape over the opening. Then she checked the readout. The gas-to-air ratio in the basement had reached a beautiful 8:1. Oh, this was going to be something.
Dropping the device into a pocket, she walked quickly back to the car. Then she started the engine and put the car into Drive but kept her foot on the brake as she pressed the button on the remote.
There was a delicious moment between cause and effect, a moment lush with anticipation of the delight to come. The release. The birth. The precipice of a full-body orgasm.
And then it came, a newborn spark followed by the instant ignition of all that lovely gas. The baby gobbled it all up and grew so fast it exploded into a fireball. The roar reverberated way down deep in her belly, and the glow of it burned in the night like the flaming sword of an avenging angel.
And that’s what it was, in truth.
Shuddering in gut-deep pleasure, she released the brake and drove away.
So if the bullshit I wrote was true, then why the hell didn’t I practice what I made so much money preaching? You know, that whole “live in the moment” and “milk the joy out of every second of your life” bit.
I should. I knew I should. It was just a hell of a lot easier to tell other people what to do than to do it myself. Because, seriously, if I were giving advice to me—and I was, because my inner bitch never shuts the hell up—the conversation would go something like this:
Inner Bitch: “Say it back.”
Me: “I can’t say it back.”
IB: “Why the hell can’t you? He said it. He laid it right out there for you. He said, I love you. And what did you say back to him?”
Me, flooded with shame: “I said, ‘You’re shitting me.’”
IB: “Yeah. Real romantic.”
Me: “I was fucking surprised. Shocked. I wasn’t ready.”
IB: “No one’s ever ready, dumb-ass. You still have to say it back.”
Me: “It’s too late now. I let the moment pass.”
IB: “He’s waiting for you to say it back.”
Me: “Or maybe he’s changed his mind. He hasn’t said it again, after all.”
IB: “Why would he say it again? That would be like sticking his finger into a socket for the second time, hoping for a different result. Say it. Or you’re gonna lose him.”
Me: “I’m not gonna lose him.”
I glanced across the car at my favorite cop and silenced the imaginary conversation in my head. Actually, it wasn’t all that imaginary. My inner bitch and I had been having it over and over again since that night by the campfire a couple of weeks ago when I’d absolutely blown the chance to move this relationship up to the next level.
And I was sure there was no getting that moment back.
I was also sure that things had been a little awkward between Mason and me since then. My fault, I knew. I hadn’t responded the way I wished I had. But dammit, I was scared shitless to think of changing anything about this thing between the two of us. It was good. It was more than good. It was freakin’ amazing. It was bliss. Why fix what isn’t broken? Why move things to another place when the place they’re in is so damned wonderful? Why risk screwing it up? Why?
He looked at me, caught me staring. “What? Have I got fettuccine on my face?”
“No. You have gorgeous on your face. It’s all over you, in fact. Damn irritating.”
He smiled, flashing the dimple of doom. “Thanks.”
“De nada.”
Say it. Tell him. Just tell him. You can’t leave him hanging another minute.
I hated to admit it, but Inner Bitch was kinda right.
“So,” I said, as we rounded a corner, “Mason, um, I’ve been meaning to, uh, you know talk to you about—”
“Holy shit!” He hit the brakes so hard that my seat belt hurt me. Then he jerked the wheel, gunned the car to get us out of the road and hit the brakes again. I saw the flames, then the people standing around outside—one filming everything on his damn smartphone—and then Mason was getting out of the car and shouting at me to call 911 as he ran toward the chaos.
“Mason, wait, where the hell are you—” I jumped out of the car, too, phone to my ear, running after him. “Mason!”
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“Um, house fire. Big one. Right off State Route 26 near Glenn Aubry.”
“Yes, help is on the way, ma’am.”
I clicked off and shoved the phone into my pocket, running now, despite my killer heels, because Mason hadn’t slowed down. Someone was screaming that there were kids trapped inside, and I wanted to punch them in the face, because there would be no stopping him now. Mason and kids was like me and...bulldogs.
Somehow I caught up to him and grabbed his arm from behind. Smoke stung my eyes and throat, and the heat was like a living