Page 113 of Red Hot Harmony

“Oh my God!” Cassy shifted uncomfortably and stared at the TV. “Is that 405?”

“Yep.” Dante nodded, holding his tea close to his chest.

Frank sat next to Cassy and stole a pastry from the plate, his eyes never leaving the screen.

We watched in silence for a few minutes, trying to simply absorb the information. The Paramount Ranch was on fire.

Parts of Calabasas had been ordered to evacuate.

Everything north of Westlake Village had been devoured by smoke.

Two more trailer parks had been damaged during the night.

People’s properties burned while we slept.

A fraction of me almost expected to hear that next the fire spread deeper into the city, swallowing up businesses and homes and heading for Woodland Hills, but I knew that that was logistically impossible. There was nothing to burn near the boutique except for a huge open space that served as the parking lot.

At some point, Dante’s hand covered mine and we continued to sit like this—both painfully aware of one another, aware of the hot touch of his palm on my knuckles. Aware, but unwilling to move, to close this bit of distance between our bodies.

“You can stay as long as you need,” Cassy finally spoke after a particularly gruesome set of images depicting a ruined ranch in the Thousand Oaks area flashed on the TV.

I didn’t know why I looked at Dante.

Then he scooted over. “There are more bedrooms in this house than in MGM Grand in Vegas, mama.”

I nodded at no one in particular, trying to come up with another phrase of gratitude, but movement across the room drew my attention away from Cassy and Frank.

It was Ally. “How did I get here?” She stared at us with wide, freaked-out eyes. “And where’s my phone?”

I hated that I had to do this at someone else’s house, but I was too wired to wait any longer. Besides, waiting never amounted to a good parenting tactic anyway.

Ally was showered and dressed into one of the T-shirts Cassy had supplied us with and sat on the bed, cross-legged, staring up at me as I paced the room we’d been occupying since last night.

“Are you just going to do that all day?” Ally finally asked, motioning in my direction.

I halted and spun to look at her, my hands on my hips.

During breakfast, Dante had given her a quick account of last night’s events, delicately avoiding some of the more unpleasant parts, although his busted knuckles told quite a story. So now she was up to speed about all her adventures she couldn’t remember. She had also lost her phone sometime yesterday and now I definitely needed to put my foot down, but sadly, I didn’t seem to have enough guts.

“Do you have any idea what you dragged me through yesterday?” I started.

Ally hitched one shoulder in a shrug.

“Are you really just going to sit there and pretend like nothing happened?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Mom.” She pinched the bedcovers with her fingers, her gaze effectively wandering off.

“I want you to say that you’re sorry, Ally.”

“So you want me to lie?”

My strategy obviously didn’t work. “No.” Though mad, I tried to keep my voice level. I didn’t need for others to hear us yelling. “I want you to think about what you did and I want you to think about it very carefully.”

“And then what?”

“You don’t understand, do you?” I whispered.

She continued to stare past me, out the window, where the patches of black had been slowly eating up the last blues of the sky.

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