The SEAL's Surprise Son (The Admiral's Seals, #1) - Leslie North Page 0,35

I remembered and got out.”

“Were you here, too?” Carolyn asked her mother.

“I was parked in the alley waiting for Charlotte,” her mother explained. “We were going to have dinner together.”

“All the merchandise is safe in the vault, but the store…” Charlotte trailed off. The store was a barely controlled inferno.

The upsides were that their inventory was safe in the fireproof vault and no one had been hurt. Carolyn needed to cling to those two positive facts, because it would be so easy to succumb to despair. Instinctively, she looked around for Zach, wondering when he’d left her side. He was talking to a man wearing a white fire helmet with Chief written across the back. When he caught her gaze, he returned to her.

“The chief says the fire’s almost contained,” he said.

“It is?” Carolyn asked. It didn’t look it.

“From what he says, they were able to hit the fire from the back and drive it out the front, so the damage, he thinks, is all in the display area.”

“I pulled the doors closed on the office and repair room as I exited,” Charlotte said, impressing Carolyn with her ability to think under pressure. “Hopefully, that minimized the destruction there.”

“The brick of the building also slowed the fire,” Zach said, putting his arm around Carolyn’s waist as they stood watching. She resisted the urge to rest her head on his shoulder.

Within minutes, the flames lessened, and the charred interior began to show under the powerful floodlights from the fire trucks. Carolyn felt a wave of sickness at the sight, but she forced herself to stand taller. She managed All That Sparkles, so her family and employees would look to her. She had to put up a good front.

The fire chief was correct from what she could see as she stepped closer. The interior was gutted, but the building seemed structurally sound. It wasn’t a total loss, as she’d feared, and it hadn’t spread to the businesses on either side of them on the street.

“We can rebuild,” she said to Charlotte and Faith. “This is why we have insurance.” Would her insurance pay if this was arson? Charlotte’s description of a crash and explosion made her question how the fire started. She didn’t want to bring up the possibility in front of her employees, but it was on her mind.

An hour later, she convinced Charlotte and Faith to go home. The flames were out, and firefighters picked through the debris looking for little flare-ups. The danger was past.

“We’ll leave two men on duty during the night,” the chief said when he came to speak to her. “They’ll make sure it doesn’t reignite—and stand guard.”

“Guard?” she questioned.

“To make sure nothing gets moved before the fire inspector arrives in the morning.”

“Can I go in?” She wanted to see how bad the damage was for herself.

“Not tonight, miss. We have to make sure the building is safe to enter. You can go closer, though, and look in.”

With Zach at her side, she approached the store and stood on the sidewalk. Mucky water still ran from the building, soaking her hiking shoes. Zach shone a flashlight into the building. Water dripped from the ceiling. The shiny chrome display cases were twisted wrecks. An upholstered chair near the cashier’s desk still smoldered. The screen that disguised the vault had been burnt away, exposing it. It was charred on the surface but appeared undamaged.

“We should go home. There’s nothing more you can do here tonight,” Zach said from next to her. “And you’ll need some sleep to face this in the morning.”

She nodded, knowing he was right, but it felt as though she were abandoning her responsibility by leaving. After another look, she let him lead her away.

Zach wasn’t surprised to see his brother Colin, as well as Alex, in Carolyn’s living room when they arrived back there. The three of them had always banded together during rough times, and this seemed to be one.

“Thanks, guys,” Carolyn said to them. “Was Austin okay for you?”

“We gave him beer and chips for dinner, and he passed right out,” Alex said, causing Colin to punch him lightly in the gut, but Carolyn gave them both a wan smile.

“He ate mac and cheese with applesauce,” Colin clarified.

“Good choice,” she said. “How’d you…?”

“I’ve had some recent experience with a kid that age,” Colin said. “We haven’t heard a peep.”

“I’ll look in on him and be back down,” she said.

“Go to bed,” Zach said. She was dead on her feet, although her exhaustion