Page 87 of The Firefighter's Fate

“You’re not coming in?” she asks me as she undoes her seatbelt.

“No, I don’t want anything. I’ll wait in the car.”

“Come, Connor.”

“No.”

“I want to talk to you about something in there.”

“In The Oak?”

“Yes.”

I sigh.

“Okay.”

And I hop out of my pickup truck and follow Ember onto the sidewalk.

“What do you want to talk about?” I ask her before we even reach the door of the coffee shop.

“I’ll tell you inside,” she says before she pushes open the door.

It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim room, but then I can see.

And I see Father.

He’s standing by the counter, waiting. There’s no one else in the room.

It barely takes me a second to register what’s going on here, and why my father might even be in here in the first place.

Oh. I’ve walked into an ambush...

43

EMBER

Connor just stares at his father in the empty coffee shop for a hell of a long time, and it’s starting to freak me out a little.

I wonder who’s willing to break the tension between the two men first. Well, it’s certainly not going to be me.

Turns out, it’s his father who bites the bullet.

“Hello, Connor.”

Waylen Penmayne is smooth and quiet - a confident man in his nice suit and moisturized tan.

I hope all this was a good idea...

Connor doesn’t reply immediately. His eyes slowly scan the room. He takes it all in before he finally rests his eyes on me.

“Did you plan this?” he questions me in a deep, bitter voice, completely blanking his father.

“Please talk to Waylen, Connor,” I reply. “Not me.”

But the firefighter is unfazed.

“Answer me this one question... did you plan this, Ember?” he asks again.

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