strength to keep her safe. She was stunned into silence, her green eyes wide and startled on his face.
And then he felt something sigh within her and knew she felt it, too. That somehow she belonged here, in his arms.
He juggled her to get the back door open, then hurtled down the back steps and into the yard. With reluctance, he let her slide from his arms and find her own feet.
“Is the house on fire?” she asked. “Should I call 911?”
“I want you to make note of the technique. First, you get to a safe place, then you call 911.”
“But the phone’s in there.”
“I have one,” he tapped his pocket. “But don’t worry. The fire’s out. I just didn’t want you breathing that black guck into your lungs.”
“My hero,” she said drily. “Rescuing me from the fire you started.”
“It wasn’t exactly a fire,” he said.
She lifted an eyebrow at him.
“A smolder. Prefire at best.”
“Ah.”
“The sander must be flawed. Sheesh. We could sue them. I’m going to call them right now and let them know the danger they have put us in.” He called the rental company. He started to blast them, but then stopped and listened.
He hung up the phone and hung his head.
“What?”
Kade did not want to admit this, but he choked it out. “My fault. You need to check the finish that was on the floor before you start sanding. Some of the finishes become highly flammable if you add friction.”
She was smiling at him as if it didn’t matter one bit. “You’ve always been like that,” she said. “Just charge ahead, to hell with the instructions.”
“And I’m often left cleaning up messes of my own making,” he said. “I’m going to go back into the house. You stay out here. Toxins.”
“It’s not as if I’m pregnant,” she said, and he heard the faint bitterness and the utter defeat in those words.
And there it was, the ultrasensitive topic between them. There was nothing to say. He had already said everything he knew how to say. If it was meant to be, it would be. Maybe if they relaxed. It didn’t change how he felt about her. He didn’t care about a baby. He cared about her.
So he had said everything he could say on that topic, most if it wrong.
And so now he said nothing at all. He just laid his hand on her cheek, and held it there for a moment, hoping she could feel what he had never been able to say.
JESSICA DID SEEM to be able to feel all those things he had never been able to say, because instead of slapping his hand away, she leaned into it, and then covered it with her own, and closed her eyes. She sighed, and then opened her eyes, and it seemed to him it was with reluctance she put his hand away from her.
And so they went into the house together and paused in the doorway.
“Wow, does that stink,” Jessica said. She went and grabbed a couple of dish towels off the oven handle. “We need these over our faces, not that I can tie them.”
Kade took the towels from her and tied one over the bottom half of her face and one over his.
“Is mine manly?” he asked. “Or did I get the one with the flowers on it?”
He saw her eyes smile from under her mask. Now Jessica was in an ugly dress and had her face covered up. But the laughter still twinkled around the edges of her eyes, and it made her so beautiful it threatened to take his breath away far more than the toxic cloud of odor in the room.
Firmly, Kade made himself turn from her, and aware he looked ridiculous, like an old-time bandito, surveyed the damage to the living room.
All that was left of the sander bag was ribbons of charred fabric. They were still smoking, so he went over and picked up the sander and threw it out the front door, possibly with a little more force than was necessary. It hit the concrete walkway and pieces shot off it and scattered.
“That gave me a manly sense of satisfaction,” Kade said, his voice muffled from under the dish towel. He turned back into the room.
The smile deepened around her eyes. How was this that they had narrowly averted disaster, and yet it felt good to be with her? It was as if a wall that had been erected between them was showing signs of stress, a brick or two falling out of it.
There was a large scorch mark on the floor where the sander had been, and a black ugly film shining with some oily substance coated the floor where he had thrown the water. The smoke had belched up and stained the ceiling.
“I think the worst damage is the smell,” Kade said. “It’s awful, like a potent chemical soup. I don’t think you’re going to be able to stay here until it airs out a bit.”
“It’s okay. I’ll get a hotel.”
“You’re probably going to have to call your insurance company. The smell is probably through the whole house. Your clothes have probably absorbed it.”
“Oh, boy,” she said, “two claims in one week. What do you suppose that will do to my premiums?” And then she giggled. “It’s a good thing the furniture is on the lawn. It won’t have this smell in it. Do you think I’m going to have to repaint?”
“You don’t have to go to a hotel,” he said. “I’ve got lots of room.”
Son, I say, son, what are you doing?
She hesitated. There was a knock at the door.
“Pizza,” they said together.
* * *
Jessica contemplated what she was feeling as Kade looked after the pizza delivery. He cocked his head slightly at her, a signal to look at the delivery boy, who was oblivious, earbuds in, head bobbing. He didn’t seem to even notice that he was stepping over a smoldering piece of machinery on the front walkway to get to the door. If he noticed the smell rolling out of the house, it did not affect his rhythm in any way.
As they watched the pizza boy depart, she felt like laughing again. That was impossible! She’d had two disasters in one week. She should be crying, not feeling as if an effervescent bubble of joy was rising in her.
Shock, she told herself. She was reacting to the pure shock of life delivering the unexpected. Wasn’t there something just a little bit delightful about being surprised?
“Of course I can’t stay with you, Kade,” she said, coming to her senses, despite the shock of being surprised. “I’ll get a hotel room. Or I can stay with friends.”
“Why
