Page 15 of Slow Burn
“Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.” - Cormac McCarthy
Frank Leone’s reaction to Jocelyn had been as visceral as it was surprising. He’d called herBonnieat first—just like Chief Ward had—as if the name clung to her face the way grief clung to his eyes. For a moment, she’d felt the old ache of being her mother’s mirror, a truth she could forget in the years away from anyone who had actually known Bonnie Murphy.
Nan was the only one who’d ever said so, and even then, only rarely. When she did, it came with the weight of loss, her weathered hands somehow so silky soft against Jocelyn’s cheek like she was stroking memory itself rather than the girl in front of her.
When Frank whispered Bonnie’s name, pale and stricken, Jocelyn couldn’t help but wonder if he truly sawheror the ghost of the woman he’d once loved. Either way, his rebuff made more sense.
Maybe she shouldn’t have cornered him in public. Twenty years seemed long enough to wear down grief to somethingsmoother, easier to carry. One would think. But devotion left sharp edges long after the world expected otherwise—and Frank had been her mother’s boyfriend for two years before the fire took her.
Jocelyn would leave him to his ghosts for now and soothed her bruised pride with the plate Cole had offered on the house.
As she picked at the last of her food, sulking, Cole’s arm crossed into her vision, the tanned skin corded with muscle and veins like a road map that pulled her eyes upward against her will. He didn’t look at her as he collected Frank’s half-drunk beer, though the slight frown at his mouth betrayed his thoughts.
“Did he pay for that?” she asked.
Cole’s gaze flicked to hers, sharp and brief. “No.”
“Let me cover it. I’m the one who chased him away.”
His mouth curved—not quite a smile, more like the idea of one—and he leaned forward, forearms braced on the bar in a way that crowded the space between them. “Frank comes in here regular enough. I’ll catch him next time. Or I’ll eat the cost. Don’t worry about it.”
Then he took her empty plate, too, disappearing toward the kitchen. The casual kindness scraped at her. She didn’t want to owe him anything. With a stubborn pang, she slapped a twenty on the bar before leaving.
Cole’s gaze followed her out. She felt the weight and the warmth of it even before she turned and caught him. He didn’t look away.
Outside, she drew in a deep breath, though it wasn’t enough to quiet the thrum beneath her ribs. Cole Hauser carried an intensity that made her chest tight, and she wanted no part of it. Women in her family had a disastrous instinct for men. Bad taste, bad timing, bad luck—it didn’t matter which. The result was the same.
Her father, Daniel Abbott, was proof enough. Not a deadbeat exactly, but worse in some ways—willfully oblivious. He hadn’t even known she existed until kindergarten, by which point he already had a wife, a daughter, a whole separate life that had continued to move without Bonnie or Jocelyn in it.
Nan hadn’t fared better. Her own father had been a cruel drunk, and her husband—if you could call that five-minute relationship a marriage—had high-tailed it as soon as Bonnie was born. Generations of Murphy women repeating cycles like a song no one knew how to stop humming.
Wisdom said distance from Cole was safest. Wisdom said to focus on the fire, on the truth. Wisdom was the only thing that ever saved her from her own emotions.
And yet.
Later, in her hotel room, her thoughts circled Frank again, his ghost-struck expression gnawing at her, until sleep pulled her under and into the fire’s red maw. She woke choking, heart thrashing, and for a moment she was nine again—smoke curling under her door, angry flames clawing between the wood and the floor like a beast looking to devour.
She managed to breathe through it, but the fear still pressed down, an echo that hadn’t dulled with time. That night, as a child, she’d called for her mama through toxic air, until John Hauser broke through her window, glass raining like stars, and carried her out. Even now she could feel the rough strength of his arms, the sheer miracle of breath returning.
When the nightmare refused to fade, Jocelyn got up and pulled her battered notebook close. She retraced her notes and timelines like a ritual, pressing facts and memories into place. But each line reminded her of absence and grief.
The day her childhood ended, she hadn’t even been with her mother. Nan had picked her up instead, an apology fallingfrom her lips as soon as Jocelyn had climbed into her beat-up minivan.
“Last-minute change, Honeybee,” Nan had said. “You’re coming home with me.”
Jocelyn had accepted it, content to spend the evening in Nan’s cramped apartment. That was as much a comfort as her own space.
When she’d gone home, her mama had been alone. And sad. Jocelyn remembered asking about Frank. Mama’d brushed the question away too quickly before offering her a piece of fresh-made lemon pound cake. Jocelyn had let it go then—child that she was.
She’d had cake, and Mama had sipped her wine.
And then she was gone.
As an adult, she saw the cracks. The distance. Something had happened, and Frank Leone was the thread she needed to tug.
Cole had said he was a regular at The Hammered Nail, but that was likely an evening ritual. She’d have to bide her time until he showed up again, even if it meant she’d haunt the place every evening until he did.
Part of her wanted to hide in her hotel room forever. She hadn’t missed the looks and the whispers of the locals whenever she went out, but those things couldn’t be a deterrent if she wanted what she came for, no matter how they stung.
