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She felt something bite into her hand and looked down. Gray's cell phone.
She clutched it tighter and stared into the churning inferno.
Movement caught her eye. Over to the right.
From around the back of the house, a shadow lurched. No, it was a tall figure. Silhouetted against the shirting light of flames. A tall figure carrying something.
“Gray!” She leaped to her feet and ran without touch?ing the ground. “Gray!”
His knees gave out just as she reached him and he sank to the grass, heaving great breaths into his lungs while gently laying Grand-Em out flat. The elderly woman was dazed and so was he. They were both cov?ered in ash.
“Oh, Gray.” Joy kissed his face. “How did you get outÑ”
“Through the office. I broke the window andÑ” A coughing fit overcame him and he couldn't seem to catch his breath.
“Here!” she called out as the fire truck and ambulance pulled up. “Over here!”
Paramedics came jogging to them as the firemen started pulling out hoses. Oxygen masks were quickly put on both Gray and Grand-Em and then the two of them were moved farther from the fire. While they were being worked on, Joy hovered around the knot of medics, knees loose at the near miss.
When she was sure neither was injured seriously, she looked over her shoulder. The rear portion of the house was consumed by flames.
How could it possiblyÑ
A cold dread hit her. The stove. The burner. She'd left the burner on. But surely that wouldn't have caused such an explosion. Except what if after she'd fiddled with those dials, she'd left something else on?
Just as the thought occurred to her, Frankie's Honda came down the driveway.
“Frankie!” Joy called, a sob coming from her throat. “Oh, God...Frankie. Frankie!”
She rushed to her sister as Frankie slowly got out of the car. Nate came around from the passenger side with a similar shell-shocked expression.
Frankie's eyes were wide. “Joy... My God, are you all right?”
Joy was crying openly as she embraced her sister. “Yes, yes...Gray saved Grand-Em. But, oh Frankie, I think I did this. I think this is my faultÑ”
“Shh.” Frankie cradled her while focusing on the fire. “You're hysterical. Let me go talk to the firemen.”
The battle against the blaze was still ongoing when the paramedics decided Grand-Em had to be taken to the Burlington Medical Center for observation. Joy volun?teered to go along, but she didn't want to leave without talking to Gray and couldn't seem to find him in what was now a throng of people.
Two more fire trucks had come. Another ambulance. Two policemen. And all of the men seemed big and tall.
As Grand-Em was being loaded into the back of an ambulance, Joy frantically searched for Gray in the chaos.
“Ma'am? Excuse me, ma'am?” One of the paramed?ics put his face in front of her. “Ma'am, we have to go now. Are you coming?”
She tore her eyes away from the scene. “Yes,” she said hoarsely. “But I need toÑ¥”
Suddenly, Gray materialized at her side. His suit was ruined, his hair coated in ash, his face streaked with black. She wanted to throw her arms around him and nearly did. What stopped her was the faraway look in his eyes as he spoke to her.
“Your sister, Nate and Spike will be staying at my house. Do you know the number?”
“Yes.”
“And you'll stay there, too. For however long it takes to get White Caps back in livable shape. You're going with Emma to the hospital?” When she nodded, he asked, “How will you get home from Vermont?”
“Frankie will come get me tomorrow morning.”
He nodded and looked away. “Okay. Take care of yourself.”
“Is this goodbye?” she whispered.
“Ma'am, we've really got to go,” the paramedic inter?rupted. “Do you need help getting in?”
She gave Gray another moment to respond. When he said nothing, she took the other man's hand and stepped up into the ambulance.
The paramedic got in with her and paused before shut?ting the double doors. He looked at Gray. “Don't worry, sir, we'll take good care of your wife and her grandmother.”
As the doors were shut, Joy could have sworn she heard Gray say, “She's not my wife.”
The engine flared and the ambulance jerked and Joy blinked back fresh tears. Staring out of the back window, she watched as Gray stood in the driveway, hands in his pockets, face in shadow.
The next morning Joy spent an hour walking around the hospital grounds. The sunshine was bright, though not particularly warm, and the chilly fresh air was just what she needed. After a night spent upright in a chair in her grandmother's room, she felt like she was packed in cotton wool.
Or maybe she was still in shock.
The guilt of knowing that the fire was her fault ate her alive. She'd endangered people's lives. Gray's. Grand-Em's. The firemen's. She'd burned part of the family's house down. Ruined her sister's wedding. Destroyed countless personal effects and family heirlooms.
And that wasn't the half of it.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Gray racing into the burning kitchen and she relived what it felt like to think he was dead. Then she pictured him telling her to take care of herself as if he were saying goodbye.
God, she felt as if she'd been punched in the chest.
Trying not to get sucked into her own head again, Joy looked up at the sun, noting the shift in its angle.
Frankie should be here by now, she thought dully.
She scanned the cars in the parking lot, looking for the Accord.
“There you are.”
She wheeled around at the familiar, deep voice. “Gray?”
“I've been waiting in your grandmother's room and I just saw you from out of the window.”
She searched his face, reassuring herself that he was well. And that he wasn't a figment of her imagination. “What are you doing here?”
“Your brother was released this morning ahead of schedule. Frankie had to go down to Albany and pick him up, and Nate had to start the fun and games with your in?surance carrier. I volunteered to pick you up.”
“Oh. That was awfully kind.”
“How are you?” His eyes were shrewd. He knew, she suspected, that she was falling apart inside.
“I'm...”
The word she was searching for was me, Joy told her?self. She just needed to be strong and say it.
I'm fine, Gray. Thank you kindly for asking. I'm not a basket case who's going to come undone just because she torched her family's house and put her grandmother in a hospital bed and made the man she loved risk his life running into an inferno. Really, I'm just fine.
Fine.
“I'm...” She put her hand to her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. She felt him reach for her, but pride and a fear of losing it completely made her step back. She was too raw not to rely on him for strength and unsure whether he'd honestly welcome the burden of her tears.
“No, no, I'm okay. Truly. I don't want you thinking I'm some kind ofÑ”
“No offense, but shut up, Joy,” he murmured, taking her into his arms.
She resisted him for, oh, maybe half a second. And then she collapsed into his body, wrapping her arms around his waist, holding on tight. He felt so good. So strong.
But she told herself she shouldn't read anything into the hug, that he was just offering compassion. He'd made his position clear right before the fire had broken out. No tragedy, no drama, was miraculously going to solve their problems. She forced herself to let go of him.
“So we, uh, we should probably go. But I'd like to say goodbye to Grand-Em.” She turned and headed for the front doors.
His voice stopped her. “Frankie told me you think you started the fire. But you should know the firemen be?lieve the stove was faulty and that the gas connection in the back ruptured. It was probably a manufacturer's de?fect and the explosion was triggered by the pilot in the oven, not the burner you'd been using on the stovetop.”
She could only stare over her shoulder at him, pictur?ing her hands twisting all those knobs. God only knew what she had turned on.
“Listen to me,” he repeated. “It wasn't your fault.”
“I guess it just feels that way.”
And it was hard not to believe that their problems weren't because of her, too. If she were only a little more sophisticated, maybe they could have kept going. En?joyed an exciting affair like a couple of grown-ups. Parted later, down the road, with affection.
She made herself get going and Gray followed her in?side the hospital. After kissing her grandmother on her cheek, Joy and Gray walked out together. He led the way over to a nondescript rental sedan.
As they pulled away from the complex, she said, “You know, it just dawned on me. I don't know if I thanked you for what you did last night. You saved Grand-Em's life. At the risk of your own.”
He shrugged. “There was no way I was going to let your grandmother die while you watched. Not when there was some way I could get to her.”
They were silent until they reached the ferry that would take them back to New York State.
“I thought you had to return to the city,” she said as they drove onto the boat's flat deck.
“I do. I'm heading down as soon as I drop you off at my house.”
“Oh.” She knitted her fingers together in her lap. “It was generous of you to let my family stay with you last night. I promise we'll find somewhere else to live as soon as we can.”
“The hell you will. And don't start. I've already had this argument with your sister. She didn't win it and neither will you. The house is empty and Libby loves taking care of people. You and your family will stay for however long it takes. Through the spring. I don't care.”
As the ferry trudged across Lake Champlain, Joy looked out the car window at the water. The waves were dark and choppy, reflecting the fast-moving clouds overhead.
“Gray?” She glanced across at him. He was staring out the front windshield, at the opposite shore. His brows were together, his eyes unblinking.
“Yeah?”
“Am I ever going to see you again?” The question was out before she could stop it.
“Do you honestly want to?” he said softly.
Good question, she thought. And probably one she shouldn't answer, at least not out loud. Because what had really changed between them?
She opened her mouth anyway. “After I saw you go into that fire last night, and the second explosion hit, I was con?vinced you were dead. I couldn't breathe I hurt so much.”
When he didn't answer, when his expression didn't change, she turned away.
There was a long pause and then she heard him shift?ing in his seat. “Here. Take this.”
She looked back over to him. He was holding out a thin card. “What is it?”
“The key to my suite at the Waldorf. I talked with Cas?sandra this morning. She's leaving for a couple of weeks so you won't be able to stay with her when you come down to the city. I want you to use my place. I'm going to be in Washington for most of the next month.”
It was a logistical response, addressing nothing of what she'd been getting at, so she could only assume things really were over.
“That's very kind of you,” she said stiffly, thinking there was no way in hell she was going to take him up on the offer. “But I can findÑ”
“You will stay with me when you're in the city. It's safer.”
She frowned at his dictatorial tone. “Gray, I'm not your responsibility.”
“I want to take care of you.”
“Why? I'm operating under the assumption that we ended things last night.”
He ignored the statement. 'Two weeks from today I'm throwing a party in your honor at the Congress Club. Cass is contacting the fashion editors of Women's Wear Daily, Vogue and the Times. They'll all be coming. And she's going to try and get back to the city in time for it, as well."
