Page 45 of The Perfect Heart

I giggled, flipped the pancakes onto the plates, and poured out the last batter of the batter into a few more rounds. “You can start eating if you want.”

Nash grinned around the pancake he had nicked, chewing while taking his eggs, adding a few more pancakes, and sat at the table. I joined him a few minutes later, and we dug in, our legs touching as we ate and talked.

“I’ll drop you off at work so you can open, then run home, change, and give Jonas his truck back,” Nash said around a mouthful of egg.

“When are you getting your car?” I asked.

“Hopefully today?” Nash didn’t sound certain because Doc didn’t work in certainties. The car would be done when it was done. At least we lived in a small town that was walkable in all but the worst weather.

We ate, and I hurried to get dressed—we had stayed in bed maybe a little too long. But leaving it had taken a monumental effort. Or rather, nature’s needs.

Nash held my hand on the way to the bar as he described about what I needed to do to open—something I hadn’t done before—and talked less pointedly about the fact that we were keeping this to ourselves right now. And I was completely okay with that. It was too new, too special, and I wanted to keep it just to us at first, remain in our little happy bubble for as long as possible if it lasted that long without any external interference.

Things were perfect as they were right now.

But a disturbance caught my attention as we turned onto the main street. Flashing lights resolved into firetrucks. My heart started pounding even before I realized which building they surrounded—the Tipsy Tiki. From the way the truck sped up, Nash knew it, too.

He had barely pulled up the emergency brake before he was jumping out of the cab and running across the snow toward the building. I was after him in a flash, searching for the telltale signs of thick, black smoke. But even though the smell hung in the air, I saw nothing.

Nash snagged the arm of a passing firefighter. “What happened?” he demanded.

The guy, his face sweaty beneath his helmet, looked Nash up and down, eyebrows beetling at the sharp question.

“I’m the owner of the bar,” Nash belatedly explained, and the firefighter’s face cleared.

“Oh. Hold up.” He waved, snagging the attention of another firefighter. “This is the owner of the bar,” he called over the din of the truck engines.

The new firefighter frowned as he stopped by us. “We’ve been trying to get a hold of you.”

“My phone is dead.” Nash dismissed the guy’s displeasure. “Can you tell me what happened? Is my bar okay?”

Mouth still twisted into a frown, the firefighter gestured toward the alley behind the Tipsy Tiki. “Someone tried to start a fire in one of the dumpsters behind the building this morning. Fortunately, someone opening one of the other places noticed the fire and called us. We put it out before it reached the building.”

Nash’s shoulders sagged, and he ran an agitated hand over his hair. “That’s great to hear. Do you know what could have started the fire?”

But I didn’t hear the answer. Instead, it felt like the world was tipping, blood rushing in my ears, drowning out the sounds around me.

The call from that morning was suddenly all I could think about.

That couldn’t have been Jack. Right? There was no way he could have found me. I had been so careful not to leave a paper trail when I left.

A phone call from no one had seemed innocuous this morning. But now, someone had tried to burn down Nash’s bar. And someone had torn apart my apartment. The feeling the other night that someone was watching me before I’d found that bottle on the bar neither Joseph nor I had placed there.

There was no way.

My heart pounding, my throat closing, my gaze swept the area around the bar, looking for a familiar face. Was Jack here? Was he behind all of this, or was this just a bunch of coincidences? If he was here, why hadn’t he approached me? Already tried to drag me home?

Or was he playing some sick game with me? And if so, how far would he take things? Making a prank call was very different than breaking in or setting my place of work on fire.

Did he know where I lived? Where I worked? Did he know about Nash? Had he been watching us last night?

The possibilities were too frightening, especially knowing Jack as I did. Was this his move, or did he have more in mind? It was a real possibility that he hadn’t revealed himself to me yet because he was building toward something even more sinister.

The thought was terrifying.

Chapter 22

Nash