Flames of Love

by Erin Wright

  “I eventually figured out what he was spending our money on, since we were living pretty much rent- and utility-free. Alcohol. I was raised by parents who’d never so much as had a glass of wine at supper, so I didn’t know what alcohol smelled like. I didn’t recognize the signs for a long time. I just thought he was tired sometimes, so that’s why he was slurring his words, and falling over. I was the most naïve person you would’ve ever met in your life at that point.

  “Our lives were okay – not great, but okay – up until his sister died. Have you met Wyatt Miller yet?”

  Startled by the change in topic, Jaxson shook his head, still just staring down at her unblinkingly, watching her every movement, listening to her every word.

  Sugar squirmed a little inside. She wasn’t sure if any guy had ever listened to her as intently as Jaxson did right now. It felt…weird. It made her feel a bit like a fraud – no one was as interesting as Jaxson was acting like Sugar was right now. What she had to say wasn’t worthy of this kind of attention. She was just…Sugar. Nobody of consequence.

  “Turn around,” she told him sharply, broking no arguments. His eyebrows hit his hairline, but he nodded and turned around, facing into the snowy forest, sunlight glinting off every surface.

  Sugar breathed a little easier. That felt better. Now she could just pretend that she was talking to a tree. A very tall, very good-smelling tree.

  He’d think she’d completely lost her mind if she told him that. Thank heavens he wasn’t a mind reader.

  “Wyatt Miller is the oldest of the Miller brothers here in town. He’s an ornery son-of-a-bitch, although I’ve heard he’s become a lot calmer – less prone to punching – after he married his second wife, Abby. She was his jailer after Wyatt got in trouble for beating Dick to a bloody pulp.”

  “Hold on, Wyatt married his jailer?!” The amusement was plain in Jaxson’s voice, and Sugar couldn’t help grinning – for just a moment – at it too.

  “You start to get desperate in a small town after a while,” she told him dryly. “Anyway, Wyatt was Dick’s brother-in-law.”

  “I think I’m gonna need a family tree for this one,” Jaxson grumbled.

  “Probably!” Sugar said cheerfully. “Dick had an older sister named Shelly. She married Wyatt and they had a little girl together, Sierra. The judge would invite everyone over for a family dinner, and there’s this hulking, handsome, rough-around-the-edges farmer at the table, scowling at everyone. Shelly told me that he was a lot nicer and friendlier at home, but the judge never cared for him, and Wyatt never cared to hide the fact that the feeling was mutual, so towards the end, Shelly and Sierra started coming over by themselves. Wyatt would always have some pressing chore to do. Everyone knew what was happening, but since it made dinners less stressful and painful, I will admit I didn’t mind too much.

  “And then…it happened. Shelly and Sierra died in a car wreck. Hit by a drunk driver going to Franklin to get milk one night. The judge never did forgive Wyatt for killing them.”

  “Wyatt was drunk and ran into them?” Jaxson asked, incredulously.

  “No, but you’d think so, the way the judge reacted. He felt like it was Wyatt’s job to get the milk – he shouldn’t have had his precious daughter out on the roads after dark like that.”

  “But how was Wyatt supposed to know? And what, women are never supposed to drive after dark?!”

  “The judge is a sexist pig,” Sugar said bluntly. “Start there. And start with the fact that the judge would’ve been happy to have Wyatt die that night on the road, but to have his Shelly taken away from him – the judge would never forgive Wyatt for letting her die. As if Wyatt had a choice.”

  Sugar snorted with disbelief. Wyatt may’ve been standoffish and curt at the suppers they’d shared together, but you couldn’t question the love he felt towards his wife and daughter. She wasn’t entirely sure Wyatt would live through their deaths, and when he found love again with Abby last year, she’d been glad for it. He deserved love.

  “If Wyatt took Shelly and Sierra’s death hard, you should’ve seen the judge and Dick,” Sugar said to the tree. She noticed a bit of hair sticking out at an odd angle on the back of his head, and smoothed it down with her hand. He sucked in his breath in surprise and she quickly dropped her hand again.

  He was just a tree and she was just talking to it. Trees didn’t need their hair fixed.

  “Every meal after that was all about how Wyatt had caused them to die, and he deserved to die, and—”

  “The judge and Dick were gonna kill Wyatt?” Jaxson broke in with disbelief.

  “No, I don’t think they’d have ever done it. They just liked to talk about how it should happen. Not plans or anything concrete. Just that it should happen to him someday soon. But in my world, I went from having a sister-in-law and niece who I could talk to and hang out with at family meals, to them dying and leaving me alone with a husband and father-in-law who were quickly descending into lunacy. I’m not trying to make this all about me, of course,” she said quickly, before he could point out how selfish she was being. “It just made things more—”

  Jaxson turned around and put his hands on her shoulders in one swift move, staring down at her intently. “Sugar, you don’t need to apologize,” he said. “Of course it would affect you. You’re telling me your story, and what happened to you. It’s okay to be affected by all of this shit.”

  “Right. Yeah. Of course.” She squirmed a little at the thought, though. It just seemed so selfish. “Turn around,” she said, giving him a scowl. With a sigh, he turned back around. “So Dick’s drinking…it got way worse after that. Way worse. It got to the point that if he was sober, that was unusual. I got better about dodging his fists because he was too drunk to have good aim, so…bonus points for that?” She tried to laugh as if it was no big deal, but the laugh came out choking again.

  Dammit. She really needed to work on putting up a better front. Never show your soft underbelly. She was practically rolling over and begging Jaxson to stab her. She felt panic well up inside of her at the thought, but she ruthlessly pushed it down. It was okay to talk to a tree. It couldn’t hurt her.

  “Then, after losing…losing my baby, things got even worse. Hard to believe, I know. Emma, always the practical one, told me to go to Gage and ask for a job.

  “You have to know that the Dyer kids didn’t grow up here; their grandparents lived here, running the bakery, but as soon as their father, Tim Dyer, graduated from high school, he joined the Marines and started traveling the world. He and his wife, Donelle, have their three kids, and they bring them back to Long Valley during the summers to visit their grandparents, but it wasn’t until the dad hit his 20 years in the Marines that he retired. Well, it just so happened that Gage graduated from high school the day before his dad retired, so instead of moving back to Long Valley with the rest of the family, he went off to college.

  “So it was weird, because I became besties with Emma and of course knew Chris, but I didn’t really know Gage until he finished his schooling and came back to take over the bakery from his grandparents. They required that he get his degree before they’d let him take over the business, so he’d been pretty focused on getting that done and hadn’t been home a whole lot.

  “Anyway, Emma kept pushing me to go to Gage – almost a complete stranger to me – and get a job working the front counter at the bakery. Apparently, he needed help and Emma came up with a pretty brilliant plan: Gage could pay me with two paychecks. One I could take home and show Dick, and let him spend, and one I could cash and stuff under the mattress. That way, I could finally save up to leave him. I hated to be a bother to Gage like that, but Emma kept telling me that it’d be okay, and I could trust him. She was right, of course, but I was still terrified at first that Gage would rat me out to Dick. That thought used to keep me up at night. Trusting someone else like that was…hard. But in the end, he saved me. I’ll always be grateful to him for that, even if I’m not in love with him.”


  She laughed a little at the thought of loving Gage – a genuine laugh this time – and Jaxson admitted ruefully, “I apologized to him for that, by the way. I just didn’t know back then, how Sawyer worked.”

  Sugar shrugged, and then realized that Jaxson couldn’t see her. “It’s okay,” she said aloud. “I probably would’ve thought the same thing in your shoes. Plenty of people have made that mistake.”

  She took a deep breath. Finally, a conclusion in sight to this godawful story.

  “Dick’s pride and joy was his Jeep, this horrid hunter-orange color. That’s pretty much his saving grace, or at least the town’s saving grace. Everyone around here has figured out that if they see this Jeep heading towards them on the road, it’s better to just dive into the borrow pit to get out of the way, rather than risk dying in a head-on collision with him. The irony of Dick killing someone in a drunk driving accident would be too rich for words.

  “A while back, he went on a three-day bender, which was pretty bad, even for him. He ran out of beer, and went down to Mr. Petrol’s to buy more. I guess Wyatt was there and saw how drunk he was, and because of how Shelly died…well, Wyatt lost it on him. Beat the living shit outta him, actually. Dick ended up in the hospital for a couple of weeks – busted ribs, reconstructive surgery on his face…I imagine Wyatt saw red, like you did the night you found Kendra in bed with Ivan, because no sane person would beat someone else up like that. He pert near killed Dick.

  “In the ensuing chaos, I realized I had my chance. I had my little stash that I’d put away, and I had a comatose husband in the ER who couldn’t stop me. I made a run for it. I mattered so little to Dick or his dad, no one even bothered to wonder where the hell I was at – why I wasn’t fawning at my husband’s bedside over his injuries – until it was time to come home, and they wanted me to play nursemaid to him. Dick has informed me since then that I was a downright awful wife, for leaving him in a lurch like that. Except maybe not such nice phrasing. He wasn’t exactly happy with my run for the border.” She chuckled a little.

  “I filed for divorce and had my lawyer get the case moved to Ada County, instead of it being heard locally. I knew Judge Schmidt would fight it every step of the way – not because he liked having me as his daughter-in-law or something, but because Dick would want him to, and Dick always got what he wanted. I was divorced from him before the bruises all even faded away. I’m still not sure if he knew exactly what hit him.

  “He wouldn’t leave me alone, though, so I got Hamlet – the biggest dog I could find. A breeder over in Copperton sold him to me for cheap because apparently his tail isn’t the right shape or some such shit, and he wouldn’t be able to be shown as a show dog, which is what she raises dogs for. So I got him for a steal, considering he’s a purebred. One visit to my house after that, and I haven’t seen Dick again. He can’t breathe while in my vicinity because of the dog hair, and I figure that’s revenge enough.”

  Jaxson let out a deep laugh as he turned around and pulled Sugar into his arms. She stiffened up for a moment, not sure that she was okay with him hugging her, but after he didn’t push or grab or hurt her, she relaxed. He was just holding her in his arms, and it felt…nice.

  Better than nice, actually.

  “That was a pretty brilliant solution to your problem,” Jaxson said admiringly. “I’m proud of you for thinking to do that.”

  She grinned against his chest. “Thanks. I’m kinda proud of myself for that one, too.”

  They stood there in the clearing, holding each other and saying nothing, and Sugar realized that she was okay. She’d told Jaxson her worst secrets – losing her baby and being glad for it, being trapped into marrying Dick instead of standing up to people and telling them no…

  She’d told him everything, and he didn’t tell her that she deserved it all. He’d said he was proud of her. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone was proud of her. Even Emma was disappointed in Sugar’s lack of drive to take on the world like she had. Just accepting her for her was…

  Not a thing. Not in Sugar’s world.

  She felt a little bit of panic creep into the oasis of calm.

  “You’re not disappointed in me?” she blurted out. She kept her head snuggled against his chest. She couldn’t work up the courage to look him in the eye.

  “Disappointed?” Jaxson repeated, incredulously. "Damn, woman, I don’t know how I could be. You’ve been handed more piles of shit than a zookeeper, and instead of just letting it all happen to you, you’ve fought back the best way you knew how, without any family support, and very little money. I couldn’t be more impressed with your ingenuity, or your willingness to do the hard work needed to get out of that situation. I don’t know that I’ve ever met someone like you before. This world needs more Sugars in it, that’s for damn sure.”

  Sugar gulped. That sounded way too impressive. He must not have understood everything that she’d said. Later, he’d get angry with her for misleading him, and maybe have to smack her around for being a liar or something. It was better to set the record straight now.

  “I could’ve said no to Dick wanting me to drink at the party, or no to getting married to him, or no to turning over my paychecks at the gas station to him, or—”

  “Sugar, you were barely 18,” Jaxson interrupted, clearly not believing her view of the world. “You were as naïve as a newborn babe, and he saw you coming from a mile off. He knew that your sweet nature – no pun intended – meant he could manipulate you, and he did, for a while. That’s on him, not on you. The fact that he was willing to do that says a lot about him, and none of it’s good. You shouldn’t have to be a cynical person, questioning every move someone makes, just to protect yourself from a person like him. If you do, he’s not someone you want to be around anyway. Which I think you’ve well proven at this point.

  “But you can’t keep beating yourself up. You gotta move on; let it go. We can’t go back in time and change decisions; we can only make sure not to repeat the same dumb mistakes again and again.”

  “So don’t take Dick back?” Sugar asked dryly. Even as she deflected, using humor to shield herself, Jaxson’s words echoed in her mind. You shouldn’t have to be a cynical person, questioning every move someone makes, just to protect yourself from a person like him.

  “Well, I definitely vote no on that idea,” Jaxson said with a laugh. “But I might be biased on the topic.”

  She gave him a small smile, her mind not really focused on what he’d just said. It was stuck, like a needle skipping on a record, playing and replaying that sentence in her mind. Questioning every move…protect yourself…

  She had become a cynic. She hadn’t meant to. But she’d become wholeheartedly focused on protecting herself from harm, to the point that she wasn’t willing to let anyone else in. It was less scary if she didn’t. It was less painful.

  She felt a full-blown shiver shake through her body, and she realized that the story had taken so long, the sun was starting to set and the thermometer had started to drop. Realizing that they needed to head back before full darkness hit, Jaxson tipped her head back, gave her a soft kiss on the lips, and then jerked his head towards the snowmobiles. “We better get going,” he said softly. “We don’t want to be out here after dark.”

  He put the engine stop into her hand, and she headed to her borrowed machine numbly, her mind swirling as she went. Everything that had happened today…it was painful. Overwhelming. Like cleaning out a closet of bad memories. It was good to get it done, but exhausting all the same.

  As she swung her leg onto the snowmobile and put the stop back into its slot, she couldn’t help replaying the idea of Jaxson being a tree – a solid tree that she could rely on, and who wouldn’t hurt her. Not ever.

  It was a terrifyingly wonderful idea, if she was brave enough to truly believe it.

  Chapter 37

  Jaxson

  Jaxson looked around at the men, including Angus and Chris. In the past couple of months, a
fter Angus had started really enjoying learning about firefighting, he’d asked Jaxson if he could bring his best friend along. Thinking back to his conversation with Gage, Jaxson had said yes, figuring Chris could only improve in his life choices if he had something to do after school that didn’t include mind-altering substances. It’d only been a couple of months since he’d started working with the teens, and already, it seemed to his optimistic eye that they’d changed a little. Smiled a little more, anyway.

  Jaxson would take it.

  “All right, let’s go through donning your personal protective gear. Since this is a volunteer department, we’re already behind the eight ball when it comes to response times, so we’ve got to make up for it by being faster than anyone else when it comes to putting on our gear and getting to the scene of a fire. There’s a couple of tricks that make you faster if you think about how you put on your gear. Fast but scattered isn’t necessarily fast, if you know what I mean. Grab your—”

  Everyone’s radios squawked at once, the cacophony echoing in the cavernous fire station. “Calling all emergency personnel, there is a fire down at the Muffin Man; I repeat, calling the Sawyer Fire Department and EMT Department, there is a report of flames down at the bakery.” The radio crackled for a moment, and then, “Chief Anderson, Sugar is at work.”

  Even as panic like Jaxson had never felt before poured through him, he couldn’t help smiling a bit at that. Just a twinge of the lips – only in Sawyer would the dispatcher tack that on – and then it passed, leaving terror in its wake, freezing his body in place while also setting it on fire, a singularly awful feeling.

  The Muffin Man? Why? How?

  But he couldn’t freeze up. He had shit to do; people to save.

  Sugar to save.

  He looked at the men assembled in front of him, all staring at him, mouth agape. Not a sound was heard in the station. Everyone knew why the dispatcher mentioned Sugar. Here it was – his test to see if he was truly worthy to be a fire chief or not. Everyone was watching and waiting to see what he did. He would bomb this test, or pass it with flying colors.