Admit One (35 page)

Rather than going all the way down to River Street, Mason and Allie descended the single flight of stairs that would take them to the lobby and the hotel’s main entrance on Bay Street.

A couple of guests were gathered near the front desk, talking to the clerk, who seemed to be reassuring them that everything was under control.

But Mason pulled on Allie’s hand and so she followed him out into the smoky night air.

From their vantage point they could see gathering crowds of onlookers just down the street, and the cops that were keeping the overly curious back.

Someone came up next to her – another person caught up in the spectacle, she guessed – and when she glanced around she recognized the uniform marking him as a bell hop from their hotel.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Do you know what type of business that is that’s caught fire? I hope it isn’t another hotel.”

“Nah,” he said, pitching his voice so that she could hear him over the growing noise. “It’s some kind of furniture store or something on the two bottom floors. I think those upper floors are mostly storage.”

“Oh. Thank goodness. And thank you,” she told him.

“No problem.” He gave her a distracted nod before moving off closer to the action.

Mason squeezed her hand. “At this time of night, one would hope that a retail establishment would be unoccupied.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “One of Bran’s exes is a firefighter here,” she told him. “I know it makes their job much more difficult when they have to worry about pulling people out while they’re simultaneously trying to fight the fire.” 

Across the street, patrons started to pour out of a late night bar, music spilling out behind them. 

Behind them, a toddler started crying, having fallen down as his mother, purse and diaper bag slung haphazardly over her shoulder, pulled him with one hand while clutching his infant sister in the other, all of them dressed in pajamas and staring toward the burning building in horror. Figuring she, like Mason and Allie, had decided to play it safe, Allie raced over to help the little boy up, Mason right behind her.

“There’s a big chap,” Mason said, while Allie dusted off the little boy’s knees and his mother thanked them. 

The boy continued to cry, rubbing at his eyes. “It burns, mama.”

The smoke had grown thicker, billowing up into the air in twisting columns. Allie glanced over her shoulder, saw that the fire now crackled and snapped with greedy jaws, like a terrible, living thing, in the third story windows. Allie’s own eyes began to water.

“Mason…” she began.

“Yes. Let’s back off a bit, shall we? Would you like some assistance, madam?”

“Oh.” The woman looked dazed. “Oh,” she repeated. “I’m not sure where to go.”

“Just out of the way of the smoke, perhaps.”

“Yes.” She visibly pulled herself together. “I’m sorry. My daughter is teething, and I’m afraid I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. Thank you.” She allowed Mason to take the cumbersome diaper bag from her.

“Give it to me,” Allie said. He was already carrying both of their bags.

“That’s not necessary.”

“Mason. Please. I’m not helpless.”

Mason looked like he wanted to protest again, but when she looked at him from under her brows he handed her the diaper bag. She stared at it, her heart clutching for a second, but then she slung it over her shoulder. She looked up, saw Mason watching her, and realized that he hadn’t wanted to risk bringing up any more painful memories for her.

Her heart clutched again, but for different reasons.

“I’m fine,” she told him.

He nodded, and then offered a smile to the little boy. “Then let’s have a walk down the street, shall we?”

They walked, the five of them, until they were far enough away that the smoke wasn’t quite so pungent. Finding an unoccupied bench, Mason gestured for the young mother to have a seat.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling up at him. And it only seemed to hit her just then how extraordinarily gorgeous Mason was. Allie watched her do a double take, and then she shot a guilty glance at Allie.  

Allie smiled, sitting the diaper bag down at her feet. “How old is your baby?” she asked.

“Four months,” the woman told her, stroking her little girl’s peach fuzz. “And sure, she decides to sleep
now.”
She shook her head with rueful amusement. “That one,” she nodded toward her son, who was perched on the bench, watching the scene with fascination “didn’t get a tooth in his head until he was almost a year old. Probably should have just stayed in the room.” She too looked toward the fire. “But I didn’t want to risk their safety.” 

“Will you be okay here?” Mason asked.

“Yes, yes.” She waved her free hand. “Don’t worry about me. And thank you for your help.”

Mason took Allie’s hand, moving away from the little family, and then he found another bench, pulling Allie down beside him. They didn’t speak, just watched the activity with that odd sort of detachment that comes after what Allie thought of as near-misses. They were safe, and as the adrenaline began to wear off, she laid her head against Mason’s shoulder.

He put his arm around her.

The firefighters worked together as efficiently as a colony of ants, battling the blaze into submission.

“It looks like they’ve about got it under control,” she said. There were plenty of people still milling about, but a number of them were beginning to leave, heading toward cars or hotels. Allie didn’t have her watch on, but she figured it had to be close to two a.m.

Mason glanced down at her. “Would you like to go back to the room, or should I call Captain Joe?”

“I think the room will be fine, don’t you? The smoke isn’t nearly as bad as it…” Allie stopped, her attention caught by one of the people walking toward them, away from the fire.

“What is it?” Mason looked around. Then, seeing where she was looking, he muttered something unflattering under his breath. “What do you think she’s doing here?”

“Feeding on the blood of the living?” Allie suggested.

Mason gave a little snort.

But as the woman got closer, Allie could see that her complexion was chalk white. And she wasn’t really walking. More like… stumbling in a kind of mental fog.

Mason slowly stood, clearly having noticed it too.

When she saw them, she stopped, her face a mask of shock.

“Victoria?” Allie said.

And to her own shock, her ex-sister-in-law burst into tears.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ALLIE
let out a sigh as Mason stopped the car in her driveway. She was bone tired, but she still hated to see their date come to an end. “This must be how Cinderella felt when her coach turned back into a pumpkin.”

“If it’s any consolation, I promise not to try to fit a glass slipper onto any of your brothers’ feet.”

She rolled her head to the side to smile at him. “Why didn’t the slipper break when the stepsisters tried to cram their big feet into it is what I want to know.”

“Hmm. I’ve often wondered about that entire story, actually. Exactly how wasted do you suppose that prince had to be that night that he couldn’t even recognize the woman he’d fallen in love with, and had to take visual cues based on the size of her foot? It sounds more like a bad case of beer goggles than a fairy tale. If I were Cinderella, I would have stayed hidden with the singing mice and let the stepsisters have him.”

The late afternoon sun shone through the window, turning his tawny hair – windblown from standing on deck on the return trip from Savannah – into a mass of sexily tangled gold.

His whiskey eyes, though shadowed slightly with fatigue, made her feel as intoxicated as his version of Prince Charming.

Except that Allie wouldn’t need a stray shoe to remember him. She’d know his face anywhere.

She stretched out her arm, brushed her fingertips over his cheek. “I had a wonderful time.”

Mason kissed her fingers. “You could stay with me tonight. I’ll see that you have a wonderful time again.”

Certain parts of her anatomy were totally on board with that idea even as her eyelids drooped with fatigue. “I would love to,” she told him. “Believe me. But not only do I have to be at work very early tomorrow, but I also need to check on my dad. We hired a home health aide, but I feel like I should be with him as much as I can. It might not mean anything to him, but…”

“But it means something to you.”

Allie shrugged. “I know it probably sounds silly.”

“No. It doesn’t sound silly at all.” Mason looked through the windshield toward the house. “I wish I could have met him before… well, before. When my eldest sister got engaged to a very good man, my father informed me that it weighs heavily on the minds of fathers to know that their daughters are cared for.”

He turned back toward her, his voice a caress. “You’re cared for, Allison. Very much.”

“Mason.” Allie’s heart had begun to beat almost painfully against her chest. “I –”

The sound of a car horn caused her to jump.

“Bloody hell,” Mason said when they turned, saw the late model Mercedes rocking to a halt behind them.

“Victoria,” Allie said, recognizing the car. “What’s she doing here?”

The last time Allie had seen her was in Savannah, right after she’d burst into tears. She’d gotten one look at Allie and Mason and had basically run off the opposite direction. Allie had no idea what that had been about.

“Maybe she’s gone mad,” Mason suggested.

From the look on her face as she climbed out of her vehicle, that seemed entirely possible.

Mason frowned, clearly picking up on the
one banana short of a bunch
vibe she had going. “I’ll deal with her.”

“If you think I’m letting you
deal with her
while I sit here twiddling my thumbs, you’re the one who’s crazy.”

She heard Mason sigh but she was already opening her door. The sight of Victoria on the property she’d almost caused Allie’s family to lose was about as welcome as a norovirus. She only hoped that Harlan wasn’t home.

Victoria, her eyes red and a little wild, had come around the front of her car, though her door was still hanging open. She’d obviously left the keys in the ignition, because the car was issuing a repeating mechanical
ding
as a warning
.

“What do you want?” Allie said, not even striving for the pretense of politeness.

Victoria stopped walking, her attention focusing in on Allie like a viper spotting a stray mouse.
“You,”
she said, the word dripping venom. “What were you doing there last night? Did you come to gloat?”

Upon closer inspection, it appeared that Torie was wearing the same clothes from the evening before. They even smelled a little smoky. And her hair was far from its usual immaculate coiffure.

“Gloat?” What the hell was she even talking about?

“Don’t play innocent with me, you little goody two shoes. Everybody thinks you’re so damn
pure,
but we
both
know that’s a crock of shit. You were probably humping the pretty boy here behind a dumpster in the alley while you were watching the spectacle.”

Allie’s brows snapped together, and Mason came to stand behind her, laying a hand on her shoulder in support. She could feel him practically vibrating with animosity, but appreciated the fact that he was holding his tongue.

“Are you drunk?” she asked Torie.

Victoria laughed, and the sound was ugly. “What would you know about it? Or is the whole teetotaler thing a lie, too?”

“Victoria,” Allie said slowly, because it seemed clear to her that her ex-sister-in-law was seriously disturbed. Possibly intoxicated. And definitely very angry. But what kept Allie from lashing out was that she also seemed to be in some sort of emotional pain. “I’m not sure why you think Mason and I were somehow watching for you last night, but we weren’t aware you were even in Savannah. Why should we have been? Whatever… upset you, it had nothing to do with us.” 

“Nothing to do with you. Nothing to do with you?” The sound she made this time was more growl than laugh. “Your brother starts digging around in my business – and
he
was the one who probably stole that key to begin with – makes sneaky little trips to Savannah so that he could lay the groundwork for
ruining my life,
and you expect me to believe that you just happened to be there?”

She thought Harlan was ruining her life? Hello pot, meet kettle.

“Look, I don’t know what you think Harlan has done, but –”

“Not Harlan, you little idiot. I’m talking about
Will.
Willis!” she yelled in the direction of the house. “You come out here, you bastard! I want to
talk
to you. That’s all he knows how to do, anyway,” Torie said as an aside. “Talk. He’s probably gay, too.”

Allie saw red. “Get off my property,” she said.