Page 20 of Burnin' For You

He didn’t hear her the first time—the chorus muffling her cries.

But he definitely heard her when she slammed her fist into his chest. “Reuben. Let. Me.Go!”

The music still played, but with her near shout, hands came down, lifted her away from him.

Rescuing her from his embrace.

He scooted back, trying to free her.

And then, he was just sitting alone on the floor. She had scrambled to her feet and now stared down at him.

He expected embarrassment, maybe anger.

Not the wide-eyed horror, the almost terrified expression that flushed her face.

Nor the sense that she wasn’t staring at him, butthroughhim, to a fixed point of pain that he’d managed to stir to the surface.

“Gilly—”

She turned and fled.

His only saving grace was that the music covered his sharp epitaph of frustration, freshly lit, a live coal in his chest.

Chapter 3

Gilly needed a fire to put out, and pronto.

And not the kind issuing from the industrial stainless steel oven in the Hot Cakes commercial kitchen, smoke a fine acrid wisp curling out as she tugged open the door.

“Are you kidding me?” Juliet nudged the back door closed with her hip, dropped her empty delivery tray on the stainless steel counter, and rushed over to survey the crispy, blackened chocolate-fudge-and-peanut-butter cupcakes. “Please tell me you haven’t burned the shop to the ground!”

Gilly had grabbed a couple of industrial oven mitts and pulled the sizzling cakes from their tomb, searching for a place to set the sacrificial offering.

“Here—” Juliet made room on the counter, pushing aside a bowl of banana-nut muffin mix, another of lemon poppy seed.

Gilly set the muffin tin on the counter, shook off the gloves, and stepped back, fighting the very present urge to flee.

“What happened? I leave you for five minutes—”

“Fifteen. You were gone forfifteenat least, and—”

“Didn’t you set the timer?”

Hmm. Maybe not. Gilly made a face at her sister. “I was reading weather reports...”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Juliet shook her head. “Okay, I get that you don’t want to help out today—”

“That’s not it. I’m glad to help. Sweep. Do dishes. Even deliver. I just don’t cook.”

“Bake. This isbaking.And all you had to do was put the batter in the tins, set the buzzer, and wait.”

“There’s a fire in Idaho and they’ve pulled in the Lolo and Sawtooth teams—”

“Stop talking!” Juliet held up her hand. “Listen—Belle will be back from setting up the cake in a couple hours, and then I don’t care what you do. But I really needed you this morning. We don’t have weddings very often, but with all the teams in town waiting for the next big flare-up, we can be sold out of muffins by nine.”

Juliet walked over to the charred muffins, grabbed a hot pad, and dumped the lot into the garbage.

Sighed.