Page 49 of Midnight Valentine
She also looks completely freaked out.
She bursts through the open French doors and engulfs me in a hug. “I just heard about the fire! Thank God you’re okay!”
“Word travels fast,” I mutter, wondering if everyone in town has a special gossip line on
their phone that rings when there’s juicy news.
She pulls away, holds me at arm’s length, and looks me up and down, as if searching for damage. When she doesn’t find any, she pulls me into another hug, this one tighter.
“Suzanne, I’m fine,” I say after a moment, touched but also irritated by her concern. I’ve never been one who enjoys people making a fuss over me.
When she pulls away this time, she’s on the verge of tears.
“I should’ve made you stay in a rental until this place was fixed up.” She draws a hitching breath. “Jesus, Megan, if anything had happened to you, it would’ve been my fault.”
“Don’t be silly,” I say firmly. “Accidents happen all the time. These kinds of things are nobody’s fault.”
She looks up at the house with her brows pulled together, as if she’s afraid of it. “I don’t know, sweetie, my mother always says an accident is just fate’s way of making sure you know you’re not the one in control.”
I blow air through my lips, a derogatory sound that coordinates well with my eye roll. “There’s no such thing as fate, Suzanne, or destiny, or an old man in white robes in the sky who watches over us and expects us to spend an hour each week sitting on hard wooden benches in a building with ugly stained glass windows praying to a statue of a dude nailed to a cross. We’re alone in the universe. Everything that happens is simply chance.”
I have to ignore the nagging voice in the back of my head that’s asking about the bear claw in my hand. And the computer renderings of the Buttercup. And the lightning strike. And a man who just happened to be out for a midnight stroll on the beach in front of my house the moment I needed his help.
And half a dozen other things scratching restlessly at my subconscious.
Suzanne says flatly, “That was depressing. Remind me not to invite you over for Christmas dinner. You’ll give the baby Jesus a migraine.”
“Sorry. Is it too early in the morning for nihilism?”
She wrinkles her nose. “No time of day is good for negativity, hon.”
“It’s not negativity. It’s…practicality. It’s realism.”
“It’s bullshit is what it is,” pronounces Suzanne with finality, giving me a small shake. “Don’t let life rob you of hope just because it’s kicked you in the balls a few times.” She pauses. “Metaphorically speaking, of course. I wasn’t insinuating I think you have testicles.”
“Oh, but I do,” I say with a straight face. “Big steel testicles that clang when I walk.”
“I was wondering what that noise was,” Suzanne shoots back. “I thought maybe you had the Liberty Bell stuffed up your vag.”
Then we’re laughing. It feels good after all the tension and confusion of the past few days.
She asks, “All kidding aside, how are you? Really?”
I sigh, glancing back at the house. “I’m fine. A little weirded out about Theo, but that’s nothing new.”
Suzanne arches her brows. “Don’t tell me he glared at you again. Coop let me in and said everything was going great.”
I meet her gaze, relieved to have someone to talk to about the subject of Mr. Mysterious. “Theo showed up before the firemen did last night. He got here when I was still on the line with 9-1-1. He had to be, like, right outside the house.”
She does a slow blink that’s almost comical in its exaggeration. “In the middle of the night?”
“I know, it’s weird, right?
Her expression turns horrified. “You’re not saying you think he’s responsible, are you?”
“Oh, no, not at all,” I reassure her, because she looks like she might pass out at the thought. “The outlet where the fire started has been making strange noises since I moved in, and all the lights in the house flicker. I knew the wiring was shot. And Theo had to break through a wall with a sledgehammer to get to where the flames were. There’s no way he could’ve started anything.”
Suzanne looks confused. “Break through a wall?”
