Hearts on Fire

by Julia Gabriel

  His mother stretched her bony fingers in front of her and wiggled them weakly. “I donated my stash to the shop.”

  “You mean the entire contents of the guest room.”

  She laughed quietly. “Yes, there’s finally room in the guest room for a guest.” His mother had used the spare bedroom as a sewing room since Jack was a child. Her stash was the ever-growing supply of fabric she collected. “It was a Thousand Pyramids quilt this year, so all my scraps came in handy.”

  “What does that look like?” He thought of the stack of quilts upstairs in the Trevors’ shop. Not that he could mention being in there to his mother.

  “A lot of triangles sewn together.”

  He couldn’t remember seeing one like that. “And were there a thousand pyramids in it?”

  “More like fifteen hundred.” She waved her empty mug at Jack and he got up to refill it. “Dad said Becca was sleeping at the shop.”

  “Yup. She said she didn’t have a key to the house.”

  “That’s odd,” his mother sipped from the fresh cup. “I’m certain Michelle said Becca wasn’t coming to the anniversary party.”

  “I guess she changed her mind.”

  “I guess so. Well, Michelle and Dan will be happy that she’s here.”

  Despite the friendship between their parents, Jack and Becca had not been similarly close. Not even friends, really. They had always been in the same grade but Jack Wolfe and Becca Trevor were about as different as two people could be. A veritable tornado of trouble versus the straight A student.

  “How did she look?” his mother asked.

  “Becca? Good, I guess. I didn’t spend much time with her. Moved her car for her. That was about it.” She had looked normal is what he wanted to say, but his mother wouldn’t countenance such snark. Becca hadn’t been like her sisters in high school, that was for sure. She’d been one of those kids who wore all black, dyed her hair black then blonde, played at being one of the tough kids. It wasn’t like she was getting suspended for smoking behind the maintenance facility or defacing public property or anything … he thought for a moment. Well yeah, actually she had done those things. It was almost as if she was always trying to make sure everyone knew that she was adopted, that she was a little different from the rest of her family.

  But she had looked normal last night, as much as he could remember. A little plain, probably. It was dark and he’d had other things on his mind. His own problems.

  Like the fact that his mother was dying from ovarian cancer. Like the fact that she and everyone else believed he had finished law school and was working in the legal department of a tech company in Berkeley. Like the fact that she believed he was her one son who didn’t feel compelled to rush into burning buildings to save life and property.

  Of those three facts, only the first was true. His mother was losing a valiant battle against one of the deadliest cancers there was. But he had dropped out of Berkeley Law after two years. And while he was employed by a tech startup, it was as a security guard—not an attorney. Then there was his service as a volunteer firefighter in California.

  In other words, basically nothing anyone believed about him was true.

  “Michelle worries about her,” his mother said.

  And my mother doesn’t. Because I lie to her so she won’t.

  Becca’s heart sunk as she looked around the main room of her mother’s shop. Quilt Therapy was her mother’s life. And what the fire hadn’t destroyed, the water and smoke had. She took in the rows of fabric bolts, hundreds of them in every hue and print. All ruined. The sharp odor of smoke would never come out of the fabric.

  Her father was alternately taking pictures with his phone and making calls to the insurance agent. When he hung up for the last time, he stood next to her and pulled her into his chest.

  “I’m sorry, dad.”

  “Sweetheart, it wasn’t your fault. It was probably the wiring that caused it. Chief Wolfe is coming by later to take a look. This house is old. I’ve been telling your mom for the past year that she should look for a new location. She’s always complaining that she needs more space.”

  “I’m sure she didn’t want to be forced into it like this.”

  “I’m sure she didn’t. But it is what it is. This is why we have insurance.”

  They both turned when the front door opened behind them. It was Jack Wolfe, dressed in long athletic shorts and a tee shirt.

  “Hey, Jackie.” Her father walked over and pumped the younger man’s hand. “Good to see you again. How’s your mother?”

  Jack shrugged. “She’s back home now. Her spirits were up this morning.”

  “Good to hear. Anything you guys need, you know you can call me or Michelle.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Trevor.”

  Becca remembered her mother saying that Angela Wolfe’s cancer had spread, and that it wasn’t looking good.

  Jack’s gaze skipped over to Becca briefly before returning to her father. Please let him not remember. They had both been drinking that night. They’d been kids. Dumbest mistake of her life, and that was saying something. She had at least a zillion dumb mistakes under her belt.

  “I, uh, just stopped by to see if the fire quilt was in here. Or if perhaps Mrs. Trevor had taken it home?”

  Dan Trevor looked around the shop. “I know the ladies finished it.”

  “What kind of quilt was it?” Becca asked.

  “A Thousand Pyramids? Lots of triangles, mom said?”

  Becca nodded and held her breath as she turned to look around the shop. Every year, her mother’s customers spent months making a fundraising quilt that got raffled off at the fire department’s annual summer carnival. Dozens of people chipped in to piece and quilt it by hand. She walked over to where the big quilting frame lay in charred pieces on the floor. There was no evidence that a quilt had still been on it when the fire began.

  “Is this it, maybe?”

  She turned toward the sound of her father’s voice. He was holding up a blackened and burned wet quilt.

  “That’s the right pattern,” she said quietly. Hundreds of hours of work, down the drain. Add that to the list, too. Destroying the fundraising quilt mom’s customers—and her dying friend—spent months making. “When does the carnival start?” Maybe there would be time to make a new one. A Thousand Pyramids quilt was easy to piece.

  “Tonight,” Jack and her father said simultaneously.

  Well, there went that idea. She was a good quilter, but she couldn’t piece and quilt one by then. She bit the inside of her cheek to stem the tears that threatened, and wished Jack Wolfe would stop looking at her. Even setting aside the night of the graduation party seven years ago, he thought she was an idiot. Of course he would. He was the golden child of the Wolfe family—smart and ambitious. Ivy League. Law school. Working in California at some hip technology company, according to her mother. Everyone looked like an idiot next to Jack Wolfe.

  He was also gorgeous. Had he been that handsome in high school? Becca’s recollection was that he was skinnier than he looked now, and with a worse haircut. That had been the only consolation with Jack—he might have been perfect in every other way but his brother, Matt, was better looking. Maybe not anymore, though. She hadn’t seen Matt in years either but Jack was … damn. His hair was blonder—from all that California sun, she imagined—and cut short. His face, too, was more sharply defined than she remembered it. No way he had that chiseled jaw in high school.

  And his body? Double damn. Either he’d been working out or he was lifting some seriously heavy law books all the time.

  Finally, he looked away from her and back to her father. “Oh well, Mom was curious, that’s all,” he said.

  “Tell her we’re sorry. We’ll see you at the carnival tonight.”

  We will? Becca had loved the annual fireman’s carnival when she was a kid. The carnival and the fourth of July fireworks over the bay were always the high points of the summer for her. But it was the last place she
wanted to go now. Everyone would be there, and she was sure there wasn’t a soul left in St. Caroline who hadn’t heard that she’d been sleeping in the shop when it caught fire. To say that Quilt Therapy had a loyal following would be understating the matter. A rabid following was more like it. And it was almost July. The peak summer season was bearing down on them. With the shop closed, her mother would lose a lot of money.

  And the idea of seeing Jack Wolfe again? Not at all appealing. Even if he was double damn good looking now. In fact, if she had known he was in St. Caroline she wouldn’t have come back.

  Her father and Jack were trying to wring the water from the burned quilt. She turned away. Their efforts were pointless. The quilt was ruined. That was Becca, always leaving a path of ruination behind her. That’s why she left St. Caroline seven years ago—so she wouldn’t ruin Jackie Wolfe’s life. Angela and Tim Wolfe would have pressured him to marry her. Then he would have gotten stuck in St. Caroline, ended up taking classes at nearby Talbot College, and probably gone to work for his dad at the fire department—which everyone knew his mother was dead set against.

  Unlike Becca, Jack Wolfe had prospects and she hadn’t wanted to take those away from him. So she packed up her car and drove until she got to Ohio, where her biological parents had lived before they died and where she had been born. She worked her way through a series of temporary jobs while she was pregnant, and made arrangements for the adoption to a woman in her forties who struck Becca as perfect in every way. Stable, professional, kind. Shari Weber had held Becca’s hand in the hospital. A friend of Shari’s claimed paternity so that Jack wouldn’t have to be notified. Becca assumed money was involved in it. Or maybe Shari just had really good friends. Becca knew better than to ask questions she didn’t want the answers to—or to throw people into situations they didn’t want to be in. She didn’t throw Jack Wolfe into marriage, fatherhood, and a life in St. Caroline cobbling together a full-time income from part-time jobs. And wondering how much better his life would be if he hadn’t made the stupid mistake of hooking up with her.

  Behind her, a phone rang and she turned. Her father was rummaging in his shirt pocket as Jack waved a hand in goodbye. Becca watched him leave. Maybe he didn’t remember the night of the graduation party, or didn’t remember it clearly enough to remember her. They had both been a little drunk. Otherwise, neither of them would have ended up in the back seat of a car together.

  Becca’s own memories of the night were fuzzy. That was what gave her hope in regards to his. Nonetheless, it was a night she would never forget. She thought about it every time she looked at her body in the shower. Heaven knows, Brandon never let her forget about it, though she had intentionally kept him short on the details. Every time they had sex he would run his finger along the silvery stretch marks on her lower abdomen, and the pale scar.

  How many times had she rued the awful choice she made at that party? Why did she do it? If she had said no, Jack would have slunk away, embarrassed by her rejection. His friends might have made fun of him for striking out. But no big deal. He would have left St. Caroline as planned and never given her another thought. She could have stayed in St. Caroline, worked with her mom and sisters, taken classes at the college, maybe even had Jack’s mother for a professor. It was hard to see a way that her life wouldn’t have turned out immeasurably better if she had been able to stay here.

  “Hi, love,” her father answered his phone.

  She watched as his face softened right before her eyes. Even after thirty years of marriage, her parents were crazy in love with each other. The pediatrician and the quilter, high school sweethearts, parents to four beautiful daughters and … Becca. The adopted child, the child they took in out of the goodness of their hearts after Becca’s mother died. Michelle and Dan Trevor had hired an investigator to track down her father, who’d never had anything to do with Becca as a baby anyway. He was only too happy to sign over his parental rights to the Trevors.

  She walked toward the long cutting table that ran the length of the fabric section, the years of nicks and scores from the rotary cutters now filled in with ash and water from the fire hoses. She plucked a fat quarter bundle from one of the wicker baskets on the table and squeezed it, wringing the water from the layers of fabric. As a little girl, she used to think that the fat quarter baskets looked like bouquets. The colorful bundles of fabric tied ‘round with shiny satin ribbons were flowers blooming around the shop, each one begging to be picked.

  Now every basket was filled with soggy, wilted flowers.

  Becca couldn’t even begin to fathom how much money had been lost here. Twenty-four hours ago, Quilt Therapy was intact and her entire family was in Chicago, attending a giant quilting trade show. And then she blew into town like a hurricane.

  She tried not to eavesdrop on her parents’ conversation, but it was impossible not to overhear.

  “Yes, it looks bad,” her father was saying. “No, I wouldn’t bother renovating this place. This would be the perfect time to move to a better location … I know, sweetheart, but you’d get better traffic during the summer if you were closer to downtown. And if you’re going to do quilting retreats at the inn, it’d be easier for those folks to come shop with you afterward.” Her father listened patiently for several minutes, then spoke again. “I already spoke to the insurance agent. Yeah, the deductible is ten thousand … I know, baby, but we have that in the bank … that’s not a problem … yes, love, we’ll see you guys on Thursday.”

  Ten thousand dollars out of pocket before the insurance even kicked in. Becca’s heart sunk. I’ll repay them, every penny. Everything I touch ends in disaster. Even when she tried to do a good deed, things still blew up in her face. Trying to help a woman in the bar ... trying to get Brandon back on the straight and narrow ... even trying to help Jackie Wolfe lose his virginity.

  Chapter 4

  Jack closed his eyes for a moment and let himself disappear into the sounds swirling around him. Screams and shrieks from the rides. The periodic splash from the dunk booth. Tinny music from the carousel. Laughter and cheers as people won giant stuffed animals. And the smell of food … barbeque, funnel cakes, french fries, cotton candy. As a kid, the annual fireman’s carnival had marked the true start of summer for Jack—and been a rare chance to cut loose for an otherwise buttoned-up child.

  Jack’s mother used to give him and his brothers some “walking around money” and set them loose every evening. The freedom of it was intoxicating. Even today, Jack could remember that feeling, that sense of being off the grid, off your parents’ radar.

  He heard another splash and a loud cheer. He opened his eyes and strolled toward the dunk booth. Eventually, Oliver would do some time in the dunk booth; he did it every year. But Jack chuckled to see Ian Evers in there now. Ian had gone to Talbot College, studied business, and then opened his own landscaping company in St. Caroline. According to Matt, Ian was doing pretty well for himself. The wealthy summer residents were willing to pay someone else to take care of their lawns, and willing to pay well.

  Jack felt a little twinge of jealousy. Who would have thought Ian Evers would be established and successful before Jack Wolfe? Jack was supposed to be a lawyer by now. Instead, he had no career and no idea what he wanted to do.

  Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He knew what he wanted to do, but it would break his mother’s heart if he went down that path.

  He sidled up to the dunk booth and recognition lit up Ian’s dripping wet face.

  “Hey, it’s Jackie Wolfe! Esquire!”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Becca Trevor on the other side of the booth.

  “Got any tickets left, Jackie boy?” Ian was taunting him. “Not that it would matter. You can’t dunk me.”

  Jack resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The dunk booth was always set easy so even kids could successfully dunk their teachers, their dentist, their parents. But a slow ball glancing off the lever meant a slow motion style dunk. A line drive propelled by a
good arm dropped a person into the water before they had a chance to even hold their breath.

  Jack Wolfe had a good arm these days.

  He was suddenly annoyed with Ian. If it hadn’t been for Ian, he would never have slept with Becca Trevor at the graduation party. That was an idea he wouldn’t have come up with on his own, not back then anyway. And yes, she had been a willing participant, but he should have been the gentleman his parents had tried to raise him to be and said no.

  He pulled a strip of tickets from his pocket and made a show of counting off three. He handed them to the attendant, a high school kid Jack didn’t recognize. Becca was still watching. She was quite pretty, actually. He noticed that when he stopped by her mother’s quilt shop that morning. It was true, she didn’t look like Michelle and Dan’s biological daughters, who were all various shades of blonde and tan. Becca’s hair was … well, it wasn’t brown exactly, and it wasn’t red exactly either. It was sort of … cinnamon-colored. And where her sisters all looked healthy and athletic, Becca gave off an air of fragility.

  “Yo Jackie! I’m drying out up here!”

  Jack tore his attention away from his peripheral vision and Becca Trevor. He took the ball from the attendant and stepped up to the booth. He tossed the ball from hand to hand, looking Ian right in the eye. He’d taken advantage of the pretty cinnamon-haired girl, and it was a fact he wasn’t proud of. He cocked back his arm and in the instant before the ball left his fingertips, he saw the shock of surprise in Ian’s eyes.

  Jackie Wolfe wasn’t the skinny, scrawny giant he’d been in high school. At twenty-five, Jack was six feet five inches of well-coordinated muscle. And not afraid to use it. Ian Evers hit the water before he even had a chance to hold his breath.

  The guy running the ferris wheel was about to pull down the metal restraint bar when Jack Wolfe ran up, thrust some tickets at the guy, and slid into the car with Becca.