she thought.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Call came in, a 911 from Mrs. Samuelson.”
Irma Samuelson had lived next door to the Majeskys for years. “It’s impossible,” Jenny said. “I—how could my house be on fire?”
“Seat belt,” he said, and the moment she clicked the buckle, he peeled away from the curb.
“Are you sure there’s no mistake?” she asked. “Maybe it’s someone else’s house.”
“There’s no mistake. I checked. God, I thought—God damn—”
Was his voice shaking? “Oh, no,” she said. “Rourke, you thought I was in the house.”
“It’s a safe assumption at this hour of the morning.”
So that was why he’d grabbed her. It was relief, pure and simple. As they sped toward Maple Street, she became aware of a peculiar smell. “It reeks of smoke in here.”
“You’re welcome to roll down the window if you don’t mind freezing.”
“Where did the smoke smell come—Oh, God. You went into the house, didn’t you?” She could just picture him, pushing past firefighters to battle his way into the burning house. “You went inside to find me.”
He didn’t reply. He didn’t have to. Rourke McKnight was always rescuing people. It was a compulsion with him.
“Did you leave the stove on?” he asked her. “Maybe an appliance …?”
“Of course not,” she snapped. The questions ticked her off because they scared her. Because it was possible she had been careless. She lived alone now, and maybe she was turning strange. Sometimes she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was doomed to live the life of a loner, an outcast with nobody to turn off the coffeemaker if she left it on. She could end up like that old cat lady she and her friends used to make up stories about when they were kids—alone, eccentric, with nothing but a smelly house full of cats for company.
“… zoning out on me, are you?” Rourke’s voice broke in on her thoughts.
“What?” she said, giving herself a mental shake.
“Are you all right?”
“You just said my house is burning down. I don’t think I’m supposed to be all right about this.”
“I mean—”
“I know what you mean. Do I seem anxious to you?”
He flicked a glance at her. “You’re cool, under the circumstances. We’re not there yet, though. Do you know what it means when the fire department says the structure is fully involved?” he asked.
“No, I—” She choked on the rest of the sentence when he turned the corner and she caught a glimpse of her street. Her heart tripped into overdrive. “My God.”
The street was barricaded at both ends and jammed with emergency vehicles, workers and equipment. Amber lights on tripods blazed from the shadows. Neighbors in winter coats thrown over their pajamas were clustered in their front yards or on porches, their heads tilted skyward, their expressions openmouthed with wonder, as though they were watching a Fourth of July fireworks display. Except no one was smiling, oohing or aahing.
Firefighters in full turnout gear surrounded the house, battling flames that lit up the entire two-story height of the building. Rourke stopped the car and they got out. A row of upper-story windows had been blown out as if someone had shot them, one after the other.
Those windows lined the upstairs hallway, which had been hung with family photos—an old-fashioned wedding portrait of her grandparents, a few of Jenny’s mother, Mariska, who was eternally twenty-three and beautiful, frozen at the age she was the year she went away. There was also an abundant, fast-changing array of Jenny’s school portraits through the years.
As a little girl, she used to run up and down the hall, making noise until Gram told her to simmer down. Jenny always loved that expression: simmer down. She would stand with her hands on her head, making a hissing sound, a simmering pot.
She liked to make up stories about the people in the pictures. Her grandparents, who faced the camera lens with the grave stiffness typical of immigrants freshly minted from Ellis Island, became Broadway stars. Her mother, whose large eyes seemed to hold a delicious secret, was a government spy, protecting the world while in hiding in a place so deep underground, she couldn’t even tell her family where she was.
Somebody—a firefighter—was yelling at everyone to get back, to stay a safe distance away. Other firefighters ran up the driveway with a thick, heavy hose on their shoulders. On a raised ladder that unfolded from the engine truck, a guy battled the flaming roof.
“Jenny, thank the Lord,” said Mrs. Samuelson, rushing to greet her. She wore a long camel-hair coat and snow boots she hadn’t bothered to buckle, and she cradled Nutley, her quivering Yorkshire terrier, in her arms. “When I first noticed the fire, I was terrified you were in the house.”
“I was at the bakery,” Jenny explained.
“Mrs. Samuelson, did someone get a statement from you?” Rourke asked.
“Why, yes, but I—”
“Excuse us, ma’am.” Rourke took Jenny’s hand and led her past the fire line to the rear of the engine. An older man was giving orders on a walkie-talkie, and another was rebroadcasting them with a bullhorn.
“Chief, this is Jenny Majesky,” Rourke said. He kept hold of her hand.
“Miss, I’m sorry about your house,” said the chief. “We had an eight-minute response time after the alarm came in, but this one had been going long before we got the call. These older homes—they tend to go fast. We’re doing our best.”
“I … um … thank you, I guess.” She had no idea what to say when her house was going up in smoke.
“Your neighbors said there were no household pets.”
“That’s right.” Just Gram’s African violets and potted herbs in the garden window. Just my whole world, everything I own, Jenny thought. She was shivering in the wintry night despite the layers of warm clothes and the roar of the flames. It was amazing how hard, how uncontrollably, she shook.
Something warm and heavy settled around her shoulders. It took a moment for her to realize it was a first-aid blanket. And Rourke McKnight’s arms. He stood behind her and pulled her against him, her back to his front, his arms encircling her from behind as though to shield her from harm.
With an odd sense of surrender, she leaned against him, as though her own weight was too much for her. She shut her eyes briefly, hiding from the glare and the sting of the smoke. The fire was warm against her face. But the acrid smell nauseated her, made her picture everything in the house feeding the flames. She opened her eyes and watched.
“It’s ruined,” she said, turning her head and looking up at Rourke. “Everything’s gone.”
A guy with a camera,
