Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
“Rhodes? Rhodes?” I shake him to see if he’ll respond, but nothing. I slap him, but he doesn’t budge. Shit, I can’t carry him. Glancing down at the bottom of the chair, the legs come into view. I can do what Paige did and slide him along the kitchen floor and outside. Kneeling down, I grab the wooden legs, digging my nails in and jerking Rhodes and the chair. We slide about a foot and I have to stop for a breath, my head painfully pounding with every move. Taking one more breath, I tug with all my might, and we move more than before. I pull him, take a break, and then tug some more. Almost to the door, the sound of sirens makes me nearly fall to my knees in relief. We’re going to be saved; someone is coming to help. The next five minutes, everything happens in slow motion. Men in yellow rush the house, I’m pulled away from Rhodes, and he’s instantly circled by four firemen. I’m taken outside to one of the trucks, as men spray water at my house, trying to put out the fire, and someone asks me my name. In a daze, I stare at the house that is stamped with death, flames rushing from the windows. The roof looks like something straight out of hell. The place where lies are masked by love.
I’m placed on a stretcher and shoved into the back of an ambulance, the light so bright I have to close my eyes. My body is jostled, causing me to reopen my eyes, and Rhodes is slid in next to me, someone squeezing a pump that’s attached to his face to help him breathe.
The top of our hands touch, the skin warm and layered with soot. The sirens blare as we careen around corners, and the stretchers shake back and forth. Suddenly, my hand is grasped by someone. Peeking one eye open, I find Rhodes holding it. He’s worried about me as I am him. Squeezing it back, I can’t help but wonder if the connection we feel bred from where love lies. Two hurt individuals who were molded into different people because of the deceit they were fooled into loving. Coming together as two broken souls, I can’t help but think we might have a shot at being together.
THE END
Epilogue
Two Months Later
Sitting on the stained wooden porch of Rhodes’ house, I chew on my nail and stare at the house I lived in just two months ago. It’s now a charred disaster; everything eaten from the fire, nothing to be saved. Except my mother’s ashes, the urn withstood the heat. After we lost the place and had nowhere to go but a hotel, Rhodes told us to come stay at his place until we found somewhere else to live. I want to stay around here, so I’m waiting for another place to open up close by.
“There you are, I thought you were outback messing with the flowers,” Rhodes says, walking out the front door, shirtless in only low-slung jeans. Sitting next to me, he hands me a cup of iced tea and stares at the place where he almost died. His wounds are still healing and are a constant reminder what could have happened that night.
“I wish they would clear the lot already,” I mumble, tired of looking at it and remembering.
“They had to investigate, which took longer after they found Cam’s body in the crawl space,” he reminds me and I cringe. I can still hear the Fire Chief hollering they found another body. The shock and trauma constantly ringing in my ears. The firefighters couldn’t pull Heston from the fire; he was basically melted to the living room floor, so when the structure was finally declared safe, they let the investigators in to take his body. He never had a place in Charlotte, he lived with his mother. He never had a real estate career, he went to see his mother on days he supposedly worked. It was all one big lie. Looking at my old place I can’t help but think of the movie Carrie, where if I walk across the rubble, Heston’s hand will drive through the ground and grab me. Forcing myself to look away from it, I glance at Owen and Flynn’s house. They’ve been gone this week, visiting with a little girl looking to be adopted. I hope they get to bring her home; it’d be nice to have a little one running around. Owen claims he knew all along that Heston was pretending to be someone else. I love him.
After Cam’s funeral, Paige went into a deep depression, where I had no choice but to put her in therapy. She’s better now and I haven’t had any more incidents with her and Layla. I hope it stays that way.