Page 130 of Wish You Were Mine

SUMMER

With the cold metal of the gun pressed to the side of my head, I could hardly remember how to breathe. A chill had permeated my body, starting at that tiny point of pressure and radiating outward. Even though it was cold outside, the coolness inside had nothing to do with that.

It was all fear.

The guy had grabbed me as soon as I ran out of the cabin. I hadn’t had a chance to see much about him other than the fact he was older than me and had dark hair. Beyond that, he could be anyone.

I drew in a shaky breath, and the chemical scent of gasoline burned my nose hairs. I struggled to remain still as the horrifying realization set in that he’d most likely caused the fire by dousing the end wall with gas and lighting it up. The same way Asher’s front porch had been soaked with accelerant and set alight.

A fuzzy, crackling sound came from Asher, or perhaps I was imagining it. Spots danced in front of my eyes, and the pounding of blood in my head was as loud as the ragged breathing of the man behind me.

His free hand—the one not holding the gun—was wrapped around my arm. I was desperate to yank the limb away from him and run for cover, but I couldn’t see that ending well.

His grip firmed, and my gut clenched with disgust. I wanted to wash myself until I forgot that he’d ever touched me. Despite the fact he hadn’t groped me, I felt violated. He was threatening my life while I was nearly naked. That added insult to injury.

I met Asher’s eyes. He looked as scared as me, but there was something other than fear in those brown depths too.

Recognition.

Whoever the man behind me was, Asher knew him.

“What are you doing, Robert?” Asher asked.

The crackling sound happened again, but this time, a few seconds of someone talking burst through. The only word I could make out was “smoke”. The noise must be coming from the radio clasped in Asher’s hand.

“What I have to.” The man—Robert’s—voice trembled.

In fact, every part of him seemed to vibrate with barely leashed tension. From my position, I couldn’t tell if he was angry, scared, or something else.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Asher said, oddly calm considering the burning building only a few yards from his back. “Just let her go. You don’t have any problem with her. Your problem is with me.”

But Robert’s grip on the gun didn’t waver.

“You…” He broke off, sucked in a breath and started again. “You didn’t even try to save Susan. Because of you, I had to live through my worst nightmare. I want you to feel the same pain that I did.”

He jammed the gun harder against my temple.

“I want you to be just as scared as I was, trapped in the car, not able to help her. And then when help did arrive—when you arrived—you didn’t even use the defibrillator on her. You didn’t do CPR. You just let her die.”

My chest strained, and I forced myself to inhale slowly and evenly. It wouldn’t do Asher any good if I fainted. But the pieces of this puzzle were beginning to fit together, and even though my heart ached for what Robert had gone through, fury also burned through my veins because he was wrong to blame Asher.

“I didn’t let her die,” Asher said levelly. “She was already dead.”

“You should have tried!”

I flinched, the shout way too loud this close to my ears.

“People can be brought back,” Robert insisted.

Asher shook his head. “Not when they’ve lost that much blood, or when their brain has been without oxygen for that long.”

“You didn’t try,” Robert repeated, increasingly agitated.

“We had to prioritize. Your wife was gone. You weren’t.”

“If you’d asked me to choose between us, I’d have chosen her!” He sounded bereft. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him.

“It wouldn’t have mattered. You’d already lost her. If we’d focused on her, we might have lost you too.”

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