Chasing the Fire

CHAPTER 1

Olivia

April

MOM: Are you okay, sweetheart? You seemed a little sad today when we left the airport.

Adding a cup of flour to the bowl of dry ingredients on my kitchen island, I can almost see my mom nervously tucking her blond hair behind her ear while she waits for an answer to her text. She knows me better than anyone, but since I don’t want to talk about my self-proclaimed hot girl slump right now, I just take another big sip of my wine, right from the bottle, and lie.

ME: I’m fine, it was a great weekend. And so nice to see the whole family.

MOM: It really was, wasn’t it? Aunt Lena sent me the photos.

My phone pings repeatedly as, one by one, the photos come through: my cousin in her perfect wedding dress, with her perfectly handsome groom—who also happens to be a doctor—in the beautiful Florida sunshine where we spent the weekend.

Down the hatch goes another big swig.

DAD: Since we’re sending photos

His message is followed by a shot of my uncle Bobby passed out drunk in his piece of cake at the reception. I laugh as I continue sifting my ingredients. My dad is always trying to make me feel better. I know he could tell something was off with me, but he’s always been there to balance my mom. Everyone knows Lynn Sutton is a hopeless romantic, and even though she’s my adoptive mom we’re a lot alike, because I too am usually ga-ga for a good love story. Though not lately.

Yes, my cousin’s wedding was beautiful. Just like my best friend CeCe’s wedding was last year, and how I’m certain my other best friend Ginger’s will be in a few weeks.

Everyone I know is either already married, having babies, or both, while I’m still coming home alone, extra alone since the death of my fifteen-year-old orange tabby cat, Biscuit. My best furry friend went peacefully in his sleep almost two weeks ago. It feels crazy to have cried over a cat as much as I did, but I spent two days with swollen eyes and tissues after that chunky little ball of fluff left me. Now, I push the brimming tears down, just as a private message from my mom comes through.

MOM: Your Prince Charming is out there.

MOM: Remember, I didn’t meet your dad until I was thirty-two.

She might be a worrywart, but she’s bang on. I have been feeling like my time to meet my soulmate has passed, or like my biological clock is ticking, though I’m not even thirty yet. A flash of one of my favorite movies, 27 Dresses, runs through my head as I crack two eggs into a dish. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

I’m still envisioning my very own James Marsden showing up out of nowhere to sweep me off my feet as I mix my banana bread batter. Nine-thirty p.m. isn’t the time I’d normally bake, but when I’m sad I reach for wine, sweet treats, and a good rom-com. Which is exactly my plan for tonight.

Just as I go to turn up the volume of my country playlist, my phone starts ringing and my best friend Ginger’s pretty smiling face pops up on the screen.

She probably wants to talk about wedding plans and I know if I don’t answer now, she’ll just call again.

“Babe, you’re back?” she asks excitedly.

“Yep.” I look around my all-too-quiet space.

“Wedding conference! I can’t wait to tell you both what I found today.” She’s already adding our other best friend CeCe to the call before I can respond. Ginger is always energetic, but as a bride? She’s over-the-top giddy. The funny thing is, she’s already married, but you’d never know it as she plans her formal wedding to one of CeCe’s older brothers, Cole. They got married “accidentally” one drunken night in Vegas last summer and, somehow, that was what pushed them to realize they’ve been in love since they were teenagers.

A half hour later, most of my rosé is gone. I’m more than a little drunk, and still listening to the two of them chatter, while I line a pan with parchment paper, pour in the batter, and put my bread in the oven.

“. . . And we’re gonna have a photo booth and props,” Ginger continues.

I’ve barely said anything since she called. Taking what’s left of my rosé with me, I move outside into my dark and chilly backyard, my fuzzy sherpa sweater wrapped around my floral silk pajamas, my cow slippers snuggled on my feet.

“. . . And oh my God, we got that videographer we wanted too,” Ginger continues.

I can’t tell Ginger how much I envy her finding Mr. Right. I also can’t tell CeCe I feel light-years behind her, watching her baby bump grow while she and her husband Nash prepare for the arrival of their daughter.

I can’t tell either of them how lonely I feel every time I glance at Biscuit’s cat bed in the corner. He’d been my companion since I was fourteen, right around the time I started feeling the loss of my birth parents. That’s when I started asking more questions. What did I get from each of them? What were their personalities like? What were their dreams, their aspirations? Questions that will go forever unanswered. My adoptive mom was my birth mother’s second cousin and her closest living relative. Some old newspaper articles about their car crash and a few photos my mom saved from my family’s home are all I have left of them.

Since I can’t bring all that baggage to my two friends right now, who are experiencing the best time of their lives, I simply gush with them and say all the right things from my end of the phone, like the dutiful bridesmaid I am.

•

After we say goodbye, I wrap my sweater tighter around my body, my head swirling. It’s still cool, although spring is almost here and the sugar maples in my yard are starting to bloom. They frame the outdoor space and remind me why I’ve loved this house since the moment I viewed it with my parents after college. It’s historic to this part of Laurel Creek, and it was cheap, because it needed a lot of cosmetic work. Which I loved. Design is my passion, clothing, interior, landscape, even baking fancy desserts. You name it, when it comes to being creative, I’m in.

I turn on my country playlist as I wait for my bread to bake and a sappy love song by Kacey Musgraves fills the silence as I pull up the photos of my cousin’s wedding. I scroll through them quickly before making the mistake of moving back into my own camera roll. Photos of me, CeCe, and Ginger a few years ago, just after CeCe moved home from living in Seattle. We were almost always together back then, and seeing our smiling faces fuels a sense of nostalgia.

What I fail to notice during my drunken stroll down memory lane is the smoke filling my kitchen. It isn’t until I hear the smoke alarm that I jerk up and bolt into the house. The moment I see flames through my oven door, I scream and run through fire safety 101 in my head. Hastily ripping flowers out of a vase on my island and tossing them to the floor, I make it to the oven armed with a little water and yank the door open.

Big mistake.

The flames escape as I toss the vase water onto the burning bread. I’m not accurate, so half of it lands on the floor as the towel hanging beside the stove lights up. I try to grab it and toss it into my sink with another scream, but it lands on my counter instead and I watch in horror as my kitchen curtains catch fire. It feels like I’m having an out-of-body experience as the flames start to move—to my well-lacquered wooden range hood, the stack of bills on my counter, my cookbooks. The fuel is abundant in my small kitchen. It’s been mere moments but this is well beyond my drunken realm of management.

Pulling my phone, which is ironically blaring “Burning House” by Cam, from my sweater pocket, I call for the fire department.

“Nine-one-one, state your emergency,” the voice answers as I back out of the kitchen and into my living room.

“Everything is on fire! Oh my God! . . .” I stammer, the heat following me. I give the woman on the end of the line my address, trying to explain what happened in a tipsy sort of word vomit.

“Ma’am, you need to go outside,” she says calmly, though I’m already pulling open the front door. “Don’t stop to take anything with you, understand?”

“Yes. I—” I start coughing.

“Okay, ma’am. Are you outside?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, good, stay there. LCFD are already on their way. I’m going to stay on the line. Don’t go back into the house.”

I cough again as I do what she says, shifting from one slipper-clad foot to the other on my front lawn, shivering and sobbing as I wait for the fire department to arrive. Fresh panic falls over me as I watch the flames continue to blaze in my kitchen.

Finally, flashing red lights round the corner of my street. A cruiser truck hurtles toward me, followed by a full-sized firetruck.

My throat is hoarse and I’m shaking as I move toward the truck, which pulls up in front of my house. The moment the door opens I freeze, because the last man on earth I’d choose to see me like this exits the truck. He’s dressed in fire gear, pulling his helmet low over his intense gray eyes, wearing an annoyed furrow in his dark brows. Our mysterious and dangerously hot fire chief, Asher f***ing Reed.