Page 138 of One Last Promise

An alarm blared, cutting through the house, and Moose threw off the comforter, pulled on a pair of shorts, and slammed out of his room.

The kitchen connected to the great room, and as he came out of the main-floor bedroom, he spotted Hazel at the stove, trying to put out flames from a pan with a towel. Except the towel had lit on fire, and Hazel started screaming, trying to shake out the flames. Which flew off the towel onto a rack of paper towels?—

“Get back!” Moose scooped her up with one arm, grabbed a pan lid, and slammed it over the flames. Then, still holding Hazel, he snatched the hose from the sink faucet and doused the paper-towel torch. He dropped the burning towel onto the tile floor and drenched that too.

About then the screaming from the alarm stopped, and he turned to find Oaken on a chair, pieces of the smoke alarm in his hand.

Boo had also emerged from a guest room, wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt.

Tillie stood at the open sliding-glass door, holding a cup of coffee, her eyes wide. “I was out by the pool—I didn’t even hear it until—Hazel, are you okay?”

He hadn’t realized he still held her.Now he put her down.

She looked up at him, then her mom, and her cute little face crumpled. “I wanted to make you breakfast.”

That’s when Moose spotted the broken eggshells in the sink, the empty carton on the counter. And bacon—aw, the grease had probably splashed out onto the gas stove.

“I always make my mom eggs at home,” she said to Moose as he knelt in front of her.

“It’s okay. Are you burned?” He looked at her arms, her hands, and she shook her head.

“She does,” Tillie said, coming in. “It’s okay, Hazel. These things happen.”

“I just want to go home.” Hazel turned to her mom, her arms around her, crying.

Moose stood up, wrapped a hand around his neck.

He trembled, the adrenaline still hot inside him. Maybe from the fire.

Maybe from the dream.

Surely from the what-ifs.

Axel had emerged from an upstairs bedroom. “So, that was fun.” He had wet hair, a T-shirt plastered to his body, a pair of faded jeans. He leaned over the railing. “If I jump, will you catch me?”

Moose had stood up and now scowled at him.

“Too soon?” Axel winked.

“Never too soon,” Tillie said. She released Hazel, then walked over and put her hand on Moose’s arm.

And in front of everyone, she rose on her toes and kissed him.

Oh.

She patted his chest. “Listen, Superman. You sit and let me get this cleaned up.”

She directed Hazel to a stool. But Boo and Oaken had already started the cleanup. Moose came over to sit next toher.

“You okay, kiddo?”

She nodded.Such a tough kid. “I couldn’t sleep, and Mom got up, so I did too.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep either,” Tillie said, now sitting beside them. “I just keep—” She sighed, then looked at Moose. “I’m still trying to sort it all out. How on earth did you . . .” She glanced at Hazel.

“I don’t know, really. When we saw the house explode—or at least what we thought was explosions—I just lost it. I knew you’d try to save Hazel?—”

“You knew?”

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