Standing Outside the Fire

by Jillian Neal

  Jamie’s response was unplanned, without any kind of calculation. It was automatic and came directly from his heart instead of his mind getting to voice an opinion. “I’ll quit,” he vowed. “As soon as we get back, I’ll quit.”

  “No. You can’t. You love your job. The whole county depends on you. I would never want you to quit something you love for me. I have to learn how to let her go…maybe.”

  “No.” He absolutely would never allow that. “I will not be a person who takes anything else from you. You’ve lost enough for two lifetimes already. But if you ever want to talk about her, I want to listen. I want to know her the way you remember her.” He was trying so damn hard to stop covering his words with his practiced shield of bravado and bravery. And he kinda felt like a pussy for it, but he had to get over it because the broken smile through her tears was like a damn rainbow after a hurricane.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Charlie tried to think of a time when she’d ever discussed her mother with someone who hadn’t known her prior to her death. It made her father so sad, if either she or Becca said anything about their mom, that he forbade them from discussing her or remembering her out loud at all.

  That made Charlie internalize every single memory. The first scrapbooks she’d made with childish hands and sloppy cursive were all about her mother. Every photograph they’d had in the home had been turned to ash, so Charlie would try, to the best of her ability, to draw her memories. When that didn’t fully capture what was in her mind’s eye, she would write and write every single thing, cherishing every single detail. She and Becca would sit up late at night and Charlie would tell her baby sister everything she could remember. She wanted Becca to know their mom as well as she had, even though she was only five at the time of the fire.

  She wished she had some of those books with her now to show Jamie. Instead, she decided to tell him a few of her most favorite memories. “My mom wasn’t the normal kind of preacher’s wife.” A grin found her lips. “She scandalized my dad’s church with things like wanting to hold a raffle to raise money for the children’s home or suggesting that we not have services one Sunday a month so we could work in the soup kitchen instead.” She even chuckled over that memory. “This one time, she told a local Jazzercise class that they could use our gym for classes before she’d gotten it approved by some certain committee. Dad almost got fired over that. Oh,” Charlie was beaming now, “one time, the wife of one of the church’s largest donors saw my mom coming out of a liquor store, because she used to make this whiskey cream sauce that’s amazing. I keep trying to remember her recipe, but I can’t ever get it quite as good as I remember it being when I was little. All of the whiskey cooks out, of course, but that lady saw her leaving with a bottle of Jack and called her husband. He was kinda like your dad or your uncles in the church. Definitely not people you want to upset, and he was a teetotaler. It was a disaster. They wanted my mom to come in front of the church and ask forgiveness for drinking. It was all insane. I felt so bad for both of my parents. My mom refused to ask for anything from anyone. My dad kept begging her just to do it to save his ministry, but she said the church needed to try her sauce before they accused her of being a lush.”

  Jamie shook his head. “Just hearing you tell it makes me want a drink,” he teased. A wistful glimmer lit the sparkle in his eyes, almost like he loved watching her remember. Maybe he did.

  It was such a rush of relief to be able to talk about her that Charlie talked faster. “So, the church bazaar was the next week and my mom baked these cheesecake bars that were amazing and sold them for a dollar a bar. She wasn’t allowed to be up there to run her booth, so she sent me and Becca to do it. We made over two hundred dollars before announcing to everyone in attendance that there was Jack in the bars.” It felt so good to laugh. “She’d used basically the same recipe she used for the sauce only added more cornstarch to thicken it. The church finally decided maybe they’d judged too harshly. But my dad never really got mad at her. That’s how my mom was, you know? Just one of those people who you could tell had the best of intentions and was so kind and so logical that you couldn’t be mad because they’re almost always right.”

  “Sounds just like you,” Jamie winked at her.

  She shook her head. She would never be as wonderful as her mother had been. That was an impossibility. Her mother had been perfect, at least in Charlie’s eyes. “I wish I was more confident like she was, but I’m not. I do think some of the appeal of marrying Ed was that I’d get to be in the same role my mom had. Maybe it made me feel like I’d be closer to her if I was also a preacher’s wife.” She cringed. “That sounds so stupid saying it out loud.”

  “It’s not stupid. It makes good sense, honestly. Makes me feel better, that’s for damn sure.” His head angled slightly like he was considering his words before speaking them, which was not what Jamie normally did.

  “What?” Charlie prompted.

  “I was just curious if you get to talk about her with your dad or Becca? Seems to me talking about people we miss is kinda healing.”

  “I do with Becca sometimes, but she was so little she doesn’t remember things the way I do. Dad won’t ever talk about her. I know it makes him sad, so I don’t bring her up ever.”

  “I want to know every single thing you remember about her. I want to help you remember, baby.”

  Life’s breath rushed into Charlie’s lungs. Elation filled her soul so thoroughly the boulder in her throat lost a few of its rough edges. “Really?”

  “Really. But it doesn’t all have to be right now. Whenever you want to talk about her, I’m here to listen, like I said.”

  “There’s so much I remember that I don’t get to tell people. I have all these scrapbooks full of things I recalled when I was little.”

  He grinned at that. “Of course you do. I love the way you remember things. It’s so cool, all the details you keep in your head. Most people aren’t able to do that.”

  “I just don’t ever want to forget anything good.” She turned and looked at him. She wished she could adequately express what this conversation meant to her. “Thank you for letting me talk about her. It means more than you’ll ever know.” She let her bottom lip slip between her teeth, and then went on with what felt natural. “I want to tell you everything I remember about her, but right now, could we go inside and talk about us?”

  “Of course.” He seemed surprised she’d asked that, but with the agility and assuredness she’d come to associate with Jamie, he was out of the truck and opening her door for her a second later.

  Jamie took two Dr. Peppers out of the fridge and guided Charlie to the couch. He’d talk until all the cows on Camden Ranch showed up at the front door with beer if he had to. He was going to convince her that the two of them were meant to be.

  “I want to know what Dec said,” was her opening statement. Girl sure as hell didn’t beat around the bush about much.

  Swallowing down a sip mostly to buy himself a few more seconds, he nodded. “I told him that I couldn’t talk about the two of us without your permission.” For some stupid reason, he wanted credit for the effort even if he’d divulged more than he’d intended.

  “But you did talk to him about us.”

  “Yeah, I know. I just wanted you to know that I get how badly I fucked up, but I did start out with good intentions.” That got him two nods but nothing more. “He said that, for girls, orgasm is about a lot of things and for guys it’s, honest to god, really about feeling incredible for a few minutes.”

  Her lips pursed and she narrowed her eyes. “So, you’re actually admitting to the whole you want to have sex and then have me make you a sandwich thing? That’s all it means to you? To feel good.”

  “Hell no,” he scoffed. “First of all, if you can still walk after you’ve been in my bed, I haven’t done my job. But it means everything to me on top of that.”

  She was so damn pretty even with water-stained eyes and red-blotched face from her tears
. “Could we get back to what Dec said?”

  “Right. Okay. Uh, he said that female orgasm is affected by what your religious views are, what your parents taught you about sex, and then what the world tells you is sexy.”

  Charlie shook her head. “That can’t possibly be true because I’m pretty sure there are women who do have orgasms and if all of that plays into it no one ever would.”

  Chuckling at that, he took her hand and laced their fingers together. “Not everyone grew up as a preacher’s daughter, sugar. But all that info is apparently in some lecture he gives at his job or something. About you specifically, he said that if I can prove myself to you, prove that you can trust me, then you might tell me about your fantasies. Or maybe about what you think of when you’re able to have an orgasm on your own. He said fantasies are a way to heal from trauma.”

  “Why does he think I’ve been through trauma?” She sounded offended.

  Jamie let that question hang in the air between them. Surely, surely she recognized that her life had been far from perfect. He prayed she wasn’t going to actually require him to say it out loud. Another blink. Another sip of his soda.

  Finally she rolled her eyes. “I hate pity. I don’t want people to think I’m not okay. Do you have any idea what it’s like to always have to be the poor girl whose house burned to the ground and then they had nothing? It’s awful. Everywhere we went in Oklahoma City people whispered like we couldn’t actively see them talking about us. It’s not that much better in Holder County. We’re still the poor pitiful Tilson family who lost everything.”

  Now they were getting somewhere. “People can be assholes. I’ll give you that. But did you ever think maybe they’re saying stuff because they’re in awe of how far you’ve come under the rough circumstances? Plus, I’ve never treated you like you were an outsider. I don’t think anyone in my family has either, but if they ever have you let me know and I’ll put a stop to it.”

  “I know you haven’t. That’s one of the many reasons you’re my best friend. I just don’t want the Camdens to think I’m not able to cope or whatever.”

  “Honey, anyone who interacts with you for a half second sees how strong you are and how capable too. Give the Camdens some credit. Everyone’s been through bad stuff before. Them included. Dec told me he’s an addict, and I got the impression he was addicted to some hard shit. You wouldn’t judge him for that.”

  “Of course I wouldn’t. That’s not something he can control.”

  “And your family’s home burning down isn’t something you can control either.”

  “Touché,” she shrugged. “So, what else did he say about fantasy?”

  “My basic understanding of it all is that I need to prove to you that you can trust me with anything, and if I can do that you’ll let me in a little deeper. Then maybe kind of let me grant you some fantasy wishes so to speak.” He’d been trying to break this down into small, bite-sized pieces since he had no idea what she was going to say to all of this. Jamie also didn’t know what to make of the look on her face now. Her all-telling eyes were suddenly clouded with what looked like pain. “Babe, you okay?”

  She shook herself slightly. “Wishes, huh?”

  “For lack of a better term,” he pressed from his lips.

  She smoothed her right hand over the fabric of the couch like she could somehow align all of the woven fibers correctly. “Want to hear another thing about my mom?”

  “Of course.” Jamie scooted closer to her instinctively.

  “Every single time one of us had a birthday, my mom would take all of the candles from our cake,” she choked on that word and he couldn’t stand it anymore. Setting his drink on the table, he gathered her up in his arms and settled her in his lap.

  “Keep going,” he soothed.

  She gave him another distant half smile, fractured in places he wished he knew how to find and suture. “She’d take all of the candles and wrap them up in the paper from one of our gifts. She’d tie some of the ribbon around it and give it to us. She always told me to save up all of those wishes and use them on the thing I wanted most.” Her shoulders lifted as if they were trying to push off some of the weight stacked upon them. “I saved all of mine in my desk drawer. We never had much money at all, but there wasn’t ever anything I really wanted except for my family to be happy and we had that.” She pierced him with a fervent gaze. “When I was finally with it enough to really think about everything that had been in the house that we no longer had, I remembered all of my wishes. I remember lying in the hospital bed and knowing that I’d lost every single wish because I never made one. I hurt so bad I just remember thinking that I wouldn’t get any more wishes because I wasn’t going to survive.”

  “Baby, my god,” he soothed as he tucked her head against his shoulder. “It kills me that you were by yourself for all of that.”

  “I was kind of okay with it, because I knew I’d get to see my mom again, but I was scared. And then every day I got better, and it didn’t make any sense to me. I didn’t know how to be better. I’d never expected it. I told my OT that I wished that I’d used all of those wishes to wish that my family would always be safe, but I’d wasted them and I couldn’t get them back. She told me that wishes aren’t ever wasted and that they don’t even require candles, but I didn’t believe her until I got to that first day of school in Holder County.

  “While all of the counselors were talking to my dad about all of the things I could do and couldn’t do because I still had to wear the compression garments, I wished for one friend. Just one. Someone who would talk to me about things that weren’t the fire or my injuries.” Tears began to stream down her face. “So, see, you’ve always been my wish. The one that came true and that’s why I didn’t tell you much about what happened to me because I didn’t want you to be a part of that. You were this all-new person who didn’t have to know what had happened to me. Plus, I didn’t really think I got to wish for more than just being your friend.”

  He wrapped his arms around her tight enough to hopefully hold them both together. “Well, that makes perfect sense to me because I never believed in birthday wishes until the prettiest girl in the entire world walked into my classroom on my birthday. Hey,” he randomly recalled something he’d seen that morning while he was looking for the notepad, “come with me.” He set her on her feet and guided her to the kitchen. Carefully cutting a large piece of the coffeecake that Jessie Camden had dropped off the day before, he pulled the box of birthday candles from the drawer along with a lighter. Sticking one candle in the piece of cake, he lit the string and held the plate between them. “Wish for more,” he urged.

  She stared at the flame for a heartbeat and then looked up at him. “Are you sure?”

  “Never been more sure of anything in my life.”

  Smiling at that, she whispered. “Then you wish with me.” Together they blew out the candle.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  She knew it was reckless and even a little desperate, but she refused to not take this chance on the two of them. She’d figure out some way to be okay with his job. She refused to ask him to give up anything for her. Besides, it was her pain to deal with. If he could really help her keep all of her memories intact, then maybe she could learn to be okay with the times the scent of smoke robbed her mother’s perfume from her.

  Her heart thundered out an SOS as she accepted the blown-out candle from Jamie. The wax was still pliable from the warmth. He winked at her. “If I had paper and ribbon, I swear I’d wrap it up for you, but I don’t. So, how ‘bout I just promise to try to always make your wishes come true.”

  “You always have,” she assured him. “Can I show you something?”

  “Sure.” He followed her into the bedroom and watched as she dug deep in her toiletry kit. She’d figured if she was going to get to really enjoy any of her honeymoon at all she’d be sneaking into the bathroom to take care of herself on her own. That’s how her life worked. But just then, with that cand
le still burning in her mind and all those wasted wishes in her past, she wanted to give this to him if she was able. Wishes required work. She knew that now.

  She retrieved a small silk drawstring bag. His brow furrowed as she eased the top of the bag apart and produced a jet-black butterfly clit massager. When Jamie Holder cocked his left eyebrow upwards and produced that sexy smirk that she was growing rather addicted to, it only bolstered her further. “It’s my favorite,” she explained. He produced a rumbled sound of male approval which made her giggle. “It always works for me, so…” if her heart would’ve just settled on some location between her throat and her reproductive organs that would’ve been extremely helpful, “I thought maybe we could try it together.”

  Jamie swiped the toy from her hand and set it on the dresser. Then, he crushed his lips to hers. His arms formed a sanctuary of protection around her. He’d told her twice that he had to prove himself to her which was crazy. Until that day, he’d never let her down and even then he was trying to do right by her. It was her who had to prove herself to him. Now, it was her turn to make some sacrifices in the relationship. She had to give him some control, maybe all of the control. And the most confusing part of this was how much the idea of that turned her on.

  She drank his passion and his intensity, getting drunk on the way his tongue possessed her mouth. She didn’t fully understand how she aroused him the way she seemed to, but for the moment she was just going to enjoy his fervency.

  When his right hand gripped her ass with force, she shuddered against him. Instinctively her hips sought his. He ground her body against the steel ridge pressing against his zipper line. Her body rolled from the sensation and the movement broke the kiss.