Something Sparked-nook (20 page)

“Why was Scott at Jeannette’s house?” Tyson repeated her question. Which was a good thing. Jeannette’s voice had deserted her.

“He heard about you dating those two firefighters. He didn’t like it.”

Tyson scowled. “Tough shit. It’s none of his business who my cousin dates.”

Billy threw his hands up in a sign of surrender. “I know that. I’m not saying it was right. It’s just…Scott has some issues with alcohol.”

Tyson nodded. “Yeah. I’ve heard.”

“He’s not a bad guy when he’s sober.”

Jeannette heard the earnestness in Billy’s voice, and she recalled him saying similar things when they were in high school. Scott would get in trouble for bullying or fighting and Billy would hop to his brother’s defense.

Billy looked weary, and though he was the same age as her, he looked closer to her Uncle TJ’s age. Time hadn’t been kind to him.

“Is Scott setting the fires, Billy?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

Billy shrugged. “I don’t know that for sure.” Then he rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Yeah, I think he is.”

Tyson stood. “I need to call Evan. Need to tell him.” Within seconds, Tyson had his cell phone in hand as he walked back to the kitchen in search of a quiet place to break the news.

Jeannette started to slide out of the booth, anxious to put some distance between her and Billy, but he grabbed her hand.

She jerked it out of his grip. “Don’t touch me.”

He reared back. “I’m sorry.”

She turned to stand, but his words stopped her.

“I’m sorry for everything.”

Jeannette looked at Billy and recognized true regret on his face.

“I’m sorry for that night,” he added, when she didn’t respond.

She didn’t move. She couldn’t. The restaurant was full of people—relatives, friends, tourists. The noise level had risen and yet, in that moment, everything had gone silent. The only thing she could hear was Billy’s voice.

She didn’t reply, but now that he’d started, Billy didn’t seem able to stop.

“I know what I did to you. I know I hurt you.”

Jeannette looked around the dining room slowly. Uncle TJ was sitting at the counter with Macie. Gia and Paige were flitting around, waiting tables. Sydney was standing just outside the kitchen door, talking to her boyfriend Chas.

It seemed surreal to be sitting here, in the midst of her loved ones, while facing down the man who had made her life a living hell.

“Okay,” she whispered. It wasn’t okay. Not by a long shot. She wanted to rage, to scream, to tear out his fucking eyes. The sudden onslaught of emotions after so many years of nothing was physically painful.

“You wanted me to stop and I didn’t. I’ve replayed that night about a million times, wishing I had.”

She forced herself to look at him, forced herself to truly see him. “Why didn’t you?”

He shrugged. “You were the first girlfriend I’d ever had. Shit, you were my first friend. We moved all the time and a lot of the guys my mom hooked up with weren’t very nice, so it wasn’t like I could invite people over to our house. I was afraid I’d never… I was sixteen. Sex was pretty much an obsession.”

She didn’t reply. Didn’t know how.

Billy shook his head. “I’m sorry. It sounds like I’m making excuses. I don’t have any excuse. I was wrong. I hurt you. I’m going to carry the guilt of that with me until the day I die.”

While the anger still raged inside her, it was now coupled with other emotions—pity, sadness.

“I’m selling Uncle Roy’s farm.”

She frowned. “What?”

“He’s dying. Cancer. Hospice has been called in and they’re saying he probably won’t last the week.”

“I’m sorry.”

Billy shrugged. “I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dying, but he’s not a very nice guy. Anyway, I came back here to take care of him and to try to get some of his affairs in order. After he’s gone, I’m selling the land and moving back to Oklahoma. I know you can’t forgive me for what I did and you sure as hell don’t need a constant reminder of it.”

So he was selling the farm in an attempt to be a decent guy. She could almost respect him for that. Until…

“I just shouldn’t have made my brother come with me. I forced Scott to come here because…”

He clearly wasn’t going to finish that statement, but Jeannette wouldn’t let him get away with that. He owed her the rest. “Because?”

“He’d been getting into trouble with the law in Oklahoma. Vandalism, petty theft.”

“Arson?”

Billy shook his head. “No. I swear to God, he never started a fire. At least not that I knew of.”

“Did you suspect he was setting these?”

Billy looked down at the table. He’d shredded the paper napkin in front of him to bits. “Not at first.”

“When did you figure it out?”

Billy didn’t look at her.

“When?” she pressed, her voice cracking with rage.

“After the fire at the shack.”

Jeannette struggled to breathe as an intense anger sent her blood boiling. When she spoke again, it was in a low, dangerous voice. “You knew and you didn’t say anything?”

Billy swallowed heavily, but the fucking coward still wouldn’t look at her. “He hadn’t hurt anyone.”

She exploded from the booth, slamming her hand down on the flat surface. “HE HURT
ME
!”

Conversation in the restaurant died instantly, the silence almost deafening. Despite that, Jeannette—the woman who had spent a lifetime being quiet and invisible—forged on. She was making one hell of a scene, but she didn’t give a shit.

“He burned down my fucking house!”

From her peripheral vision, she saw Tyson return from the kitchen and move closer, Uncle TJ and Macie right behind him. Her family was gathering around, clearly ready to do battle for her if she gave them the slightest inclination she needed them.

Billy stood slowly, looking very small, very pathetic. All these years, she’d imagined him as this strong, strapping young man. A man with enough power to hold down a frightened girl and rape her. But he was nothing more than a coward, a weak-willed man. “I know, Nettie. I’m—”

“My name is
Jeannette
.”

She took back her name; spoke it in such a way that she felt certain no one in Maris would ever call her Nervous Nettie again.

He looked at her and nodded. “I’m sorry.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah. So you keep saying. That doesn’t get my house back though, does it? Or my—” She stopped just short of saying “virginity”. She’d shared that burden with the only two people whom she wanted—needed—to know. So instead she said, “Dignity.” Billy would understand exactly what he’d taken from her.

His shoulders fell, his posture almost caving in on itself. And Jeannette realized she didn’t feel a single bit better. In fact, she felt worse.

All she was doing was kicking a dog who was down. She’d given Diego and Luc a big speech this morning about moving on, being the bigger person, but when faced with that same decision, she’d struck out. Hard.

“I forgive you.” The words came out on a whisper.

Billy’s gaze was filled with confusion and wariness. “What?”

She cleared her throat and forced the words to come out with more conviction. She’d felt some of her anger and pain disperse. Maybe she could get rid of the rest. “I forgive you. For all of it.”

Billy frowned. “You can’t.”

She snorted. “Of course I can. I can do whatever I want. And you can accept that forgiveness or not. It doesn’t impact me one way or the other.”

Billy didn’t respond to that. She watched the words soak in. Then, slowly, some of the tension in his shoulders eased and he stood up a bit straighter.

Finally, he said, “Thank you.”

She nodded, fighting hard not to cry.

Billy looked as though he were beating back some powerful emotions of his own. “I should leave.” Then he added a quiet “goodbye” and walked out of the restaurant.

Jeannette let the awkward silence in the dining room linger for a minute more. The locals were going to have a field day with this for weeks. She turned around, and then announced to no one in particular, “Who needs more coffee?”

With that question, the floodgates opened and the chatter resumed, this time reaching rock-concert levels. In addition to the fire, everyone was now hot to discuss what they’d just witnessed.

They were all welcome to try to put the pieces together, but Jeannette knew none of them would ever have the whole picture.

Then she glanced at Tyson and reconsidered. The permanent laugh lines by his eyes were gone, replaced by a scowl that spoke of concern and fury. She caught his gaze and gave him an infinitesimal shake of the head, warning him. She was finished talking about this.

He narrowed his eyes, his jaw set. Then he turned away.

She was wrong. She was only finished talking about it for now. He was giving her a reprieve, not a bye.

Macie, who had been talking on the phone, clicked off her cell and called her over.

“Was that Evan?” Jeannette asked.

Her cousin nodded. “Yeah. Apparently the fire was a false alarm.”

“What?”

“They couldn’t find anything burning. Not the cabin, not the woods. Nothing. Luc, Diego and Evan are heading back to town.”

For some reason she couldn’t understand, that information didn’t relieve her. “Why would someone call in a false alarm?”

Her question was still hovering in the air when she heard a loud crash against the front window of the restaurant.

Jeannette recognized the sound and the flash of light in an instant.

It was the same thing she’d heard the night her house burned down.

The terror of that memory had only begun to resurface when she heard a woman yell, “Fire!”

Jeannette turned and watched as the Molotov cocktail burned on the sidewalk just outside. The flames flared high, smoke billowing and obscuring their view of the street.

Macie yelled for everyone to remain calm as patrons rose from their tables in a panic. She, Sydney and Chas started directing everyone through the kitchen door, so they could escape the building by the back.

Sheer panic kept Jeannette still. She couldn’t look away from the flames that continued to flicker. Luc and Diego were too far away.

The false alarm.

Suddenly she understood. Luc and Diego had been called away to ensure
this
fire burned. The fire station was only a couple blocks away. If the truck and the guys had been there, very little harm would have come from this.

“Jeannette!” Gia yelled from the kitchen door. “What are you doing? Come on!”

Before she could respond, Tyson was there, his arm around her waist, propelling her toward her sister.

And then—she heard it. A siren. It was closer than she would have thought possible.

Hope emerged.

Jeannette joined the crowd in the back alley, and then made her way around the building to the front street, many people following her. As soon as she turned the corner, she spotted the fire truck squealing to a halt in front of the restaurant.

She was surprised to realize the fire wasn’t as large as it had appeared from inside. It was running out of fuel fast. Whatever Scott had tossed this time, it hadn’t been strong enough to break through the front glass of the restaurant. It had exploded on the sidewalk instead.

Within minutes, the flames had been doused and, aside from a huge scorch mark on the pavement and a crack in Sparks Barbeque’s large window, there was nothing more to indicate what had just happened. Regardless, Jeannette appreciated exactly how bad things could have been if the firebomb had crashed through the window. The restaurant had been packed. People could have been seriously hurt. Killed even.

“Jeannette!”

She glanced around when she heard her name. She saw Diego searching for her in the crowd that had gathered, calling out.

She raised her hand. “Diego! I’m here.”

He plowed his way through the people, Luc hot on his heels. He was dressed in his heavy fire jacket when he picked her up and hugged her tightly.

“Thank God,” he murmured in her hair. “We heard there was a fire at Sparks and…”

“I’m okay,” she reassured him.

Diego gave her a quick, hard kiss, and then released her as Luc took his place, holding her, obviously relieved to find her safe.

Luc rested his forehead against hers. “I didn’t know that big-ass truck would go so fast. Pretty sure Diego had it on two wheels around a few corners.”

She kissed him, her fingers tugging at his hair to keep his lips on hers when it was apparent he intended to pull back.

When she finally did release him, he grinned. “A guy could get addicted to this aggressive side of you.”

She laughed lightly, though the kiss hadn’t begun to satisfy her. “Where’s Evan?”

Diego pointed to the police car. “Across the street. Apparently, Billy managed to tackle his brother in the alley over there just after he tossed that Molotov cocktail. He was pretty much beating the shit out of Scott when we rolled up. Evan saw them and headed over while we dealt with the fire.”

Evan had a bleeding Scott facedown on the hood of the car, his hands cuffed behind his back. A visibly shaken Billy was standing next to them, talking to Evan.

“They should both be in cuffs,” Luc murmured.

Jeannette shook her head. “No. They shouldn’t.”

Diego turned, intent on arguing, but Jeannette cut him off. “Later,” she promised. “Right now, I need to report a fire.”

Diego frowned. “Fire?”

“Yeah. I’ve got one raging inside me, most particularly between my legs. I need a couple of firefighters to help me put it out.”

Luc grinned. “Well, as luck would have it…” He held out his arms, displaying his heavy coat, red suspenders and boots. “We’re already dressed and ready to roll.”

She gave him a flirty wink. “I’d prefer you
undressed
and ready to roll.”

Diego groaned. “God, angel. You’re killing me. Every busybody in town is standing around here and now I’m sporting a boner.”

She giggled. “I think you and Luc have already established yourselves as bad boys.”

Luc shook his head. “Nope. Those days are over. From now on, we’re off the market. Spoken for. Respectable men.”