Page 8 of Outlaw Ridge: Griff
That was the difference.
The road curved ahead, the trees thinning as Griff eased the truck around the bend. He knew the shape of her place well enough by now. Low roofline, weathered siding, a porch light she never remembered to replace. But tonight, the silhouette was all wrong.
Too much light.
Too much movement.
Then, they saw it.
Flames licked up from the side of the house, orange and wild against the black sky. Fire was already eating through the porch, climbing fast toward the roof. Smoke poured up in thick waves, glowing in the headlights.
Griff slammed the brakes. Lily’s breath caught beside him, sharp and full of disbelief.
Her house was burning.
And someone had made damn sure she’d see it happen.
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Chapter Three
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The fire lit up the night like a nightmare she couldn’t wake from.
Lily stood frozen at the edge of the gravel drive, boots rooted to the ground, staring at the flames tearing through her house. Her lungs burned with smoke and disbelief. The heat hit her in waves, wild and crackling, and she couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
Her house—her damn house—was going up in flames.
She didn’t remember opening the truck door. One second she’d been sitting beside Griff, the next she was standing in the cold with her fingers clenched into fists and her heart pounding in her throat.
Griff was on his phone, already calling it in, voice low and clipped. Professional. Controlled.
She felt anything but.
The shock was there first, hot and sharp, the kind that made her stomach drop and her brain freeze. But it didn’t last long. Anger pushed through the haze. And fury settled hard in her chest, solid and steady and burning hotter than the flames.
Someone had done this. Someone had stood in the dark and watched her house burn.
She whipped around, scanning the shadows, heart racing. The road. The tree line. The empty space between her property and the next.
She wasn’t the only one looking.
Griff stepped up beside her, eyes sweeping the darkness with that same sharp focus she’d seen in interrogation rooms and crime scenes. “Back in the truck,” he said, voice low but firm.
“Griff—”
“We don’t know if they’re still out here,” he interrupted.
She didn’t want to turn away. Didn’t want to leave the sight of her home, her things, the pieces of her life being devoured by fire. But she knew he was right.
Gritting her teeth, she backed up slowly, the heat licking at her face, her throat tight with rage. She got into the truck. And promised herself that whoever did this would regret it.
The flames chewed through the house with terrifying speed. Each second dragged, but the fire moved like it had a purpose, as if it knew exactly how to destroy what little she had.
Lily sat stiff in Griff’s truck, her hands balled in her lap. She couldn’t take her eyes off the blaze. Couldn’t blink.
It gutted her, not because she’d lost anything expensive or irreplaceable. Heck, most of her furniture was secondhand, and her clothes certainly didn’t have designer labels on them.
