Page 48 of Falling for the Grumpy Stranger

“Ella.”

“Right.” She released a condescending sigh. “Well, Ella, I won. Rhett has made his decision. He called me a few hours ago and begged me to come back in his life.” A simpering smile followed. I wanted to smack it off her face. “You didn’t actually think that a man like Rhett Lockwood would have anything to do with someone like you?”

“You’re lying. He hates you.” It was the best I could do. Everything about the moment had me unnerved.

She shrugged. “You can ask him yourself. He’s out in the carriage house.”

“No, he’s not. His truck isn’t in the driveway.”

She walked around the couch and sat down. “Nice fire. Well done, pioneer girl. His truck wouldn’t start. He rolled it into the carriage house to look under the hood.”

I was now looking at the back of her head. I rolled a fist and badly wanted to smack her from behind. I marched out. It seemed I’d been duped badly. Tears rolled down my cheeks. If all this was true, then boy, did I have some sharp words for Rhett Lockwood.

I swept from the house, a woman on a mission and a woman determined never to fall for a man again. The small door on the side of the carriage house was slightly ajar, and there was a flickering light inside. My heart sank. Just like Christine said. Rhett was inside.

I pulled the door open and stomped into the building. A breeze came in with me extinguishing the candle that had been standing inside. Darkness closed in around me. It was a big space, and there were shadows I didn’t recognize, but none of them resembled a truck … or a man.

“Rhett?” my voice got lost in the cold darkness. “Are you here?” The door snapped shut behind me. The sound of a latch swinging shut followed. I raced to the door and pushed on it. It didn’t budge.

“Oops, guess you’re even stupider than you look,” Christine sneered through the crack on the door.

I pounded on the door. “And you are even crazier than I thought.” I reached frantically for my phone, and my heart nearly pitched out of my chest. The phone was in my coat pocket.

My eyes started to adjust to the darkness. I walked in a few small circles to calm myself and avoid a full-on panic attack. “Rhett will be home soon,” I told myself. I just had to keep warm, and when I saw his truck headlights, I’d start screaming. I walked more circles and rubbed my arms for heat.

I was still scared to death, knowing that a madwoman was out there waiting for an unsuspecting Rhett to pull up to the house. What did she have in store for him? She was truly a whack job. I’d managed to talk myself off the ledge, and the panic attack had taken a back seat to the gears spinning in my mind about how this whole thing would end. There were too many wild scenarios, but there was one ending that hadn’t crossed my mind until I started smelling smoke. I knew she was nuts, but it seemed she was also a murderer.

Smoke began to seep through the thin cracks in the carriage house walls. They were the same cracks that just seconds ago had ushered icy air into the building. Now they were carrying in smoke. The first flames poked through, and I raced to the big sliding doors. I pulled on the handle, but they were locked. The carriage house was basically a gabled building of parched, weathered wood. It wouldn’t take long to burn to the ground—with me in it.

I raced to the small door and yanked on the handle. “All right, you’re right. You win. Let me out, and I’ll walk away for good! You can’t do this. It’s murder.” Smoke was no longer seeping in—it was pouring into the cavernous building. The beams of the sharply pitched ceiling were already invisible behind the thick haze. A first cough was followed by two more. Flames had started reaching their long fingers through the cracks. The tips of the flames lapped at some of the crossbeams and then the worst happened. One of the beams caught fire. The flames trotted across to a ledge that used to be the hayloft. The building lit up like daylight as leftover straw burst into flames.I raced to the sliding doors and pushed my mouth close to the thickest crack to breathe fresh air.

After a few good breaths, I used the light of the fire to look around the carriage house for something, anything that I might use to protect myself or as a battering ram to push through the door. Part of a stout beam, one that had fallen from the ceiling above, leaned against the wall. I grabbed it. I doubled over in a coughing fit and tried to catch my breath. Then I hurried to the middle of the room, dragging the beam. The heat from the fire made my skin and eyes burn. I wrapped my arms securely around the beam and held it tightly as I ran straight toward the door with the beam. I hit the door and bounced backward, landing on my back. The wind swept out of me, and as I tried to recover from it, I sucked in bitter smoke. I turned on my side and collapsed into a coughing fit.

“Rhett, where are you?” I couldn’t hear myself over the loud crackling fire.

Chapter Thirty-Six

RHETT

Isaw the smoke before the flames. I slammed the gas pedal down and tore up the gravel drive. The carriage house was on fire. I pulled out my phone to call the fire department. Thankfully, Ella’s car wasn’t in the driveway. I wondered if a burning ember had somehow floated out of the chimney on the main house and settled somewhere in the old rafters of the carriage house. I hadn’t had a fire in the hearth since early morning, but that didn’t make my theory any less plausible. I’d heard stories of houses catching fire hours after a wildfire swept through because an ember had gotten through a vent. Either way, the carriage house would not be a big loss. I planned to tear it down anyway. It was a good distance from the house.

I called in the emergency and tried to figure out what to do next. I was no stranger to fire, and after my experience with it, I had no intention of getting too close to it or standing bravely with a garden hose trying to keep the embers and flames from the house. Most of the landscape on the property had been recently soaked with rain, so it seemed I might get lucky. The fire might be contained to just the carriage house.

I plucked the groceries out of the car and carried them inside. I froze in the entry at the scent of familiar perfume. My musclestensed. “Christine,” I called. “I know you’re here. I can smell that perfume that always turns my stomach.”

I put the groceries down and followed the scent along with the earthy smell of a fire. Flames were roaring inside the hearth. I hadn’t seen the chimney smoke through the cloud of black smoke covering the property. Christine looked over the back of the couch. “Hope you don’t mind I started a fire.”

“Did you start both of them?”

She sat up with big blue eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“The carriage house is on fire.”

Her hand flew to her chest. “I didn’t realize. I did think this fire smelled awfully strong. Hope you don’t mind that I let myself in. The door was unlocked.”

“I see and you took that as an invite? And yes, I do mind.” I could hear sirens in the distance. Whisper Cove didn’t have their own department, which meant the trucks had to come from the next town. It would take them a few minutes to get here. By that time, the building would be burned to the ground.

“Wait, were you here when—did you see?—”

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