Page 114 of The Fire

Diane laughed and smacked him lightly in the stomach. “I’m sure an opportunity will present itself soon enough, honey. Now, I’ve got pies to sell, and you promised to help me out.”

“She’s a slave driver,” Hen told no one in particular, but everyone laughed, which was probably what he’d intended, and the crowd dispersed with calls of congratulations and sincere offers of help, leaving Jamie and me alone for a second.

“You okay?” Jamie asked, rubbing my shoulder.

I turned to brace my hands on his waist and ground myself in his steady presence. “I’m having a moment,” I told him. “What the actual fuck just happened to us, Jameson?”

Jamie huffed out a laugh, but he was clearly as surprised as I was. “I think they call this…luck?”

“Pardon?” a high-pitched voice called. “Mr. Hoffstraeder?”

I turned, wiping my face a little against Jamie’s shirt as I did, and found a small man with beady eyes, wearing a full suit and tie.

“Dennis Rodman,” I gasped. “What doyouwant?”

The insurance investigator rolled his eyes and sighed.

“I just wanted to let you know your investigation is officially closed. There’s no evidence of arson.” He sounded almost disappointed, the way the weathermen sounded when a monster storm passed just to the south of us.

“As every single person in this town has been trying to tell you since December?” Jamie said heatedly. “Imagine my surprise.”

“I keep telling my wife, this job’s not worth it,” Dennis muttered in that same high voice. “Nobody’s ever happy to see me. People look at me like I’m the Grim Reaper.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Uh, sorry?” Then I frowned. “Wait, you have a wife?” He’d been in O’Leary for months, and I hadn’t seen her.

He nodded and said sourly, “She’s never happy to see me either.” He lifted a hand to slick his thinning hair to his head. “You’ll be hearing from our office on Monday,” he said as he walked away.

“This is… a little scary,” I told Jamie, turning to look at him with wide eyes. “I don’t know how to be this happy. What will I do with myself? What will keep me up at night?”

“There are still the plants,” Jamie said comfortingly. “Lucille’s gonna need to be repotted soon.”

I laughed and shook my head. “But I already even have apot,” I whined, throwing out a hand to the pot on the counter.

“If you really need something to keep you up at night,” Jamie said, drawing me into the circle of his arms again. “I’m sure I could find something.” His voice was a husky promise, and I let myself relax against him… only to have him slap my ass through my jeanshard. “But in the meantime, baby… don’t you have a Death Match to win?”

I laughed and glanced at the pot on the counter, then blinked and looked at the pot again. “Jame?” I said, pointing. “I think I have a better idea for the bar’s name than Jamie and Parker’s Amazing Chicken Emporium.”

Jamie looked at the pot too, and a slow, beautiful smile broke out across his face. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“The O’Leary Bar…”

“…and Grill,” Jamie finished. He shook his head and laughed. “It fits.”

“Yeah,” I agreed softly. “It really does. But this doesn’t mean I’m forfeiting the Death Match,” I warned. “We still have a debt of honor to settle at home later.”

“I wouldn’t dream of giving up on it, Parks. Not giving up on anything anymore.” He winked and gave me a quick kiss before going back to work.

I stood there for a minute, drinking everything in—the warmth of spring, the beauty of the town, and the knowledge that this one moment, this pure happiness wasmine.

I didn’t delude myself into thinking the rest of our life together was going to be idyllic, that bad things wouldn’t happen—hell, I was about to lose a Death Match, and I knew it—but I wasn’t scared of what the future had in store.

I’d spent years trying to figure out what was going to happen next in my life so I could plan for it. Brace for it. Mitigate it.

But the truth was, you couldn’t plan.And that was okay.

I couldn’t have planned for my bar to burn down. Or to lose my home.

But I also couldn’t have planned for Jamie to come back into my life in a fuckingblizzard. I could never, ever have planned for what had just happened at the Lilac Festival, of all places.

Sometimes bad shithadto happen to lead you to evenbetterthings farther down the road.

Sometimes you needed a fire to burn away whatwasto make room for whatever would come next.

And looking at Jamie in that moment, I knew whatever came next, good or bad, it was going to be beautiful.