by Nora Roberts
“No.” Seth shook his head. “That’s done.” He held out his hand as Aubrey walked to them.
“We’re okay.” She squeezed his fingers. “That’s what counts.” But the tears on her cheeks weren’t all from smoke.
“Hell of a mess,” Phillip said as he walked up. His face was smeared with soot, his clothes filthy with it. “But it’s out. Those kids who called nine-one-one saved our asses. Fire department responded in minutes.”
“You got their names?” Cam asked him.
“Yeah.” He let out a breath. “Ethan’s over talking with the fire marshal. He’ll let us know when we’re clear to go in. It’s gonna be a while with the arson investigation on top of it.”
“Which one of us is going to talk the women into taking the kids home?”
Phillip stuck his hand in his pocket, pulled out a coin. “Flip you for it. Heads it’s your headache, tails it’s mine.”
“Deal. But I flip. Your fingers are a little too sticky to suit me.”
“You saying I’d cheat?”
“Over this? Damn right.”
“That’s cold,” Phillip complained, but handed over the coin.
“Damn it.” Cam hissed through his teeth when he flipped heads.
“Don’t even think about saying two out of three.”
Scowling, Cam tossed Phillip the coin, then stalked over to argue with the women.
“Well.” Phillip folded his arms and studied the building. “We could say screw it, move to Tahiti and open a tiki bar. Spend our days fishing until we’re brown as monkeys and our nights having jungle sex with our women.”
“Nah. Live on an island, you end up drinking rum. Never had a taste for it.”
Phillip slapped a hand on Seth’s shoulder. “Then I guess we stick. Want to break it to Ethan?” He nodded toward his brother as Ethan crossed the muddy lawn.
“He’ll be okay. He doesn’t like rum either.” But the optimism Seth was fighting to hold on to wavered when he saw Ethan’s face.
“They picked her up.” Ethan swiped a forearm over his sweaty brow. “Sitting in a bar not five miles out of town. You all right with that?” he asked Seth.
“I’m fine with that.”
“Okay then. Maybe you ought to go talk your girl into going on home. It’s going to be a long night here.”
IT was a long night, and a long day after. It would be, Seth thought, some long weeks before Boats by Quinn was back in full operation.
He’d tromped through the wreckage and the stink of the building, mourned with his brothers and Aubrey the loss of the pretty, half-built hull of a skiff that was now no more than scraps of blackened teak.
He grieved over the sketches he’d drawn from childhood on, which were nothing but ashes. He could, and would, reproduce them. But he couldn’t replace them, nor the joy each one had given him.
When there was no more to do, he went home, cleaned up and slept until he could do more.
It was nearly dusk the next evening when he drove to Dru’s. He was tired down to the bone, but as clearheaded as he’d been in his life. He hauled the porch swing he’d bought out of the bed of the truck he’d borrowed from Cam, got his tools.
When she stepped out, he was drilling in the first hook.
“You said you wanted one. This seemed like the place for it.”
“It’s the perfect place.” She walked over, touched his shoulder. “Talk to me.”
“I will. That’s why I’m here. Sorry I didn’t get in touch today.”
“I know you’ve been busy. Half the town’s been in and out of my shop, just like half the town was there at the fire last night.”
“We got more help than we could handle. Fire didn’t spread to the second level.”
She knew. Word spread every bit as quickly as flame. But she let him talk.
“Main level’s a wreck. Between the fire, the smoke, the water, we’ll have to gut it. Lost most of the tools, toasted a hull. Insurance adjuster was out today. We’ll be okay.”
“Yes, you’ll be okay.”
He stepped over to drill for the second hook. “They arrested Gloria. Kids made her car, and the kid who sold her the gas ID’d her. Plus she left her fingerprints all over the gas can she dumped outside the building. When they picked her up for questioning, she was still wearing one shoe. Losing shoes seems to be going around.”
“I’m so sorry, Seth.”
“Me too. I’m not taking it on,” he added. “I know it’s not my fault. All she managed to do was mess up a building. She didn’t hurt us. She can’t. We’ve built something she can’t touch.”
He looped the chain, hooked a link. Tugged to test it. “Not that she’ll stop trying.”
He walked around, looped the other chain. “She’ll go to jail.” He spoke conversationally, and she wondered if he thought she couldn’t see the fatigue on his face. “But she won’t change. She won’t change because she can’t see herself. And when she gets out, it’s a pretty sure bet she’ll come back this way, sooner or later, make another play for money. She’s in my life, and I can deal with that.”
He gave the swing a little nudge, sent it swaying. “It’s a lot to ask someone else to take on.”
“Yes, it is. I plan on having a long heart-to-heart with my parents. But I don’t think it’ll change anything. They’re overly possessive, discontent people who will, most likely, continue to use me as a weapon against each other, or an excuse not to face their own marriage on its own terms. They’re in my life, and I can deal with that.”
She paused, tilted her head. “It’s a lot to ask someone else to take on.”
“Guess it is. Want to try this out?”
“I do.”
They sat, swung gently as dusk thickened and the water lapped the shore. “Does it work for you?” he asked her.
“It certainly does. This is exactly where I would’ve hung it.”
“Dru?”
“Hmmm?”
“Are you going to marry me?”
Her lips tipped up at the corners. “That’s my plan.”
“It’s a good plan.” He took her hand, lifted it to his lips. “Are you going to have children with me?”
Her eyes stung, but she kept them closed and continued to swing gently. “Yes. That’s the second stage of the plan. You know how I feel about stages.”
He turned her hand over, kissed her palm. “Grow old with me, here, in the house by the water.”
She opened her eyes now, let the first tear spill down her cheek. “You knew that would make me cry.”
“But just a little. Here.” He drew a ring out of his pocket, a simple gold band with a small round ruby. “It’s pretty plain, but it was Stella’s—it was my grandmother’s.” Slipped it on her finger. “The guys thought she’d like me to have it.”
“Oh-oh.”
“What?”
Her fingers tightened on his as she pulled his hand to her cheek. “It may not be just a little after all. It’s the most beautiful thing you could have given me.”
He laid his lips on hers, drawing her in as she wrapped her arms around him. “Somebody really smart told me you’ve got to look ahead. You can’t forget what’s behind you, but you got to move forward. It starts now. For us, it starts now.”
“Right now.”
She laid her head on his shoulder, held his hand tight in hers. They rocked on the swing in the heavy night air while the water turned dark with night, and the fireflies began to dance.