Weaving a little unsteadily, she looked back at the kitchen that had been her life for so long, and her heart lurched.
Her entire life…
Behind her, something crashed, startling her. Whipping around, she saw Jack straighten from where he'd kicked down the door. He started toward her, his expression filled with horror and fear.
All that strength, she thought fuzzily. She'd definitely had different plans for those muscles tonight.
He grabbed her, pulled her hard to him, lifting her face to his. 'Sam-'
'The brownies burned.' She felt a sob rise. 'All of them.'
He started to say something, but she couldn't hear over the shattering of another window behind her. Jack shielded her body with his while glass rained down, mingling with the falling ash and thick smoke. 'Out,' he yelled. 'Now.'
The next thing she knew they were standing in the parking lot, in the warm night, staring back at Wild Cherries as the entire building went up in flames and smoke.
She blinked up at him. Had he carried her, or had she walked? She looked down at her bare feet, streaked with dirt, and couldn't remember.
The fire lit up the night sky, the noise hurt her ears. Urgently, Jack put his hands on her arms. 'Are you hurt? Are you burned? Where?'
Her hands were fisted as she took in the sight of her life burning. She shook her head and felt the tears in her throat, which surprised her because she never cried, never even felt like crying, but another glance at the blazing building behind them reminded her she hadn't had a big loss in a while, either. At least nothing that had mattered.
This mattered. God, this really mattered. 'I probably should have grabbed some clothes.'
'Sam, look at me.' His voice was low, insistent and filled with fear, which brought her back.
Her palm stung, and she figured she'd cut it, but she kept her hands closed because the thing that hurt the most was her heart. 'I'm okay.'
'We're shaking. Let's sit.' He pulled her down on the curb.
'Here they come,' she said when sirens sounded from down the road.
'Yes.
'It's going to be too late, you know.'
'It's not too late, you're still breathing.' He hugged her tight. 'When I pulled up and saw the flames-' A breath stuttered through him.
'You were scared.'
'Try terrified.'
She stared at him, feeling like her entire heart sat in her mouth. 'How did this happen between us, Jack? It's too fast, we've only-'
'Shh.' He held her again, and this time she leaned her head on his shoulder. 'It's going to be okay.'
No. No, it wasn't. 'I had quite a night planned,' she murmured, gripping his shirt in her fists. 'I was going to seduce you in black lace and then I was going to do it again, just because.'
'I'll take a rain check.' He stroked a hand down her back and rubbed his cheek over her hair. 'But trust me, the black lace would have worked as many times as you had it in you.'
She let out a sobbing laugh and held on tight, closing her eyes to the sight of flames leaping into the night.
Two fire department engines roared into the parking lot, but the old building had already taken too much of a beating.
Face blank, Sam watched the fight, only her eyes reflecting her emotions, and Jack had never felt so helpless as he did right then watching her watch her life go up in smoke.
She'd suffered so many damn losses; this was just another in a long string of them, and he could hardly stand it. He wanted to shove his wallet at her, wanted to buy her the moon, if only to take away the hollow devastation etched so clearly in her green eyes. But that wouldn't work here. He couldn't fix this for her.
She'd had her fists clenched and he reached for one now, holding it between his hands. 'Sam-' He'd been about to try to get her to sit again, but frowning, he looked down at her sticky hand. It was dark but he could still see the even darker stain dribbling from her fingers.
His heart caught. 'Sam, open your hand.'
She did, then gasped in pain. Her palm had been sliced, probably on glass when she'd crawled out of the kitchen.
'Here.' Jack cradled her hand in his while he gently probed for slivers, her every sharp, pained breath stabbing into him. 'It's clean,' he said with some relief and pulled off his shirt, turning it inside out for the cleanest area, then pressing it to her hand to try to stanch the blood.
Around them, it seemed as if the firefighters had put out the fire nearly as fast as it'd started. And then the questions began. Sam told them everything she could in a flat voice and with an even expression that worried Jack to the bone.
Too calm, he thought. She was way too calm.
'Is it all gone then?' she asked them in a carefully neutral voice. 'Is there nothing to save?'
'Not sure what the cap'll say,' the firefighter told her. 'But it looks like you might have some of the base framing left.'
Eyes unreadable, she nodded.
And Jack's own burned for her.
The ambulance arrived. Sam turned to Jack, face streaked with dirt and ash, bathrobe torn and grubby, and said, 'I don't want to go to the hospital.'
'Sam-'
'I'm okay.'
She needed stitches, and one look at the paramedic's face verified that. 'I'll come with you,' he said. 'But you're going.'
Nine stitches later, Jack put Sam back into his SUV. He'd had plenty of stitches in his time and broken bones as well, not to mention three surgeries; but he'd never been on the holding-the-hand side of things. When they'd put a needle into Sam's wound, he'd actually seen stars, but hadn't allowed himself to look away.
'Breathe, Knight,' she'd said dryly, and he'd taken a shaky breath to keep from passing out.
Some hand-holder.
Now she sat in his car, wearing her now grungy robe, beneath which was the black lace lingerie he had a few glimpses of and was having a hard time keeping his mind off of, even now. Wearily, she set her head back on the seat. 'Stop worrying,' she said, eyes closed. 'I'm fine.'
'I'm not worrying,' he said. Much.
'I need to call Lorissa and Red. One of them will let me use a couch. It wouldn't be the first time.'
'No.'
Craning just her neck without moving another inch of her body, as if she were so exhausted she couldn't manage it, she looked at him.
'My house,' he said.
Giving in much easier than he expected, she nodded. 'Your house.'
She sounded defeated, which was so out of character, even given the events of the night, that he wondered how much pain she was in-she'd refused to take the meds offered her at the hospital. Figuring he'd bully her into taking them at home, he concentrated on the drive.
Twenty minutes later when he pulled up his driveway and turned off the engine, she hadn't said another word. For a moment, he just looked at her, lying so still against the seat, eyes closed, injured hand cradled in her good one.
'Sam.' He put his hand beneath hers. 'I'm so sorry.'
