We Wish You a HappilyEver After (Ever After, #5) - Elena Aitken Page 0,1

He quickstepped it into the kitchen, spotted the flames inside the oven, and quickly flicked the dial on the controls to turn the heat off. The safest thing to do was to let the fire burn itself out inside the oven. Opening the door would only provide oxygen to fan the flames.

“Roy?” Jeremy turned away from the oven to scan the rest of the kitchen. The man was nowhere to be found. Which meant he was probably napping. One last look toward the oven, where the flames were almost out, and Jeremy assessed the situation safe enough to go in search of the man, whom he found in the living room, fast asleep on the couch. His hearing aids were on the table next to him.

Gently, so as not to startle him, Jeremy sat next to Roy and shook his shoulder until his eyelids fluttered open. “Roy. It’s Jeremy Davis.” He spoke in an excessively raised voice as he gestured to the table with the hearing aids. “I’m sorry to wake you, but I—”

“What is going on in here?”

A female voice behind him caused Jeremy to turn. The woman was silhouetted in the doorway with the low afternoon sun behind her. Jeremy couldn’t make out her face, but something about her was familiar. He moved to stand and greet the woman, but before he could, she dropped the bag she was holding to the ground and pushed past him.

“What is wrong with my grandfather?”

Grandfather?

Seeing Papa laying on the couch, the giant fireman towering over him, stopped Bella’s heart for a moment. The groceries that had been so important that she couldn’t wait until later to pick them up were forgotten as she dropped them to the ground and rushed to his side past the firefighter, who, from what she could tell, was only in the way and if anything, confusing her grandpa.

“Papa? Are you okay? What happened? Why do I smell smoke? Were you—”

“Bella?”

The firefighter said her name, which only annoyed her because she knew who she was. What she didn’t know was what had happened.

“Bella Hoffman?”

She spun around to look at the idiot man who wasn’t doing anything to help her. “I go by Burton actually. Is there someone in charge here?” she demanded as she looked past the imbecile in front of her, out the door where she’d seen another firefighter, a woman, speaking to Mrs. Arthur when she’d returned to the house. “Where is the other one?”

“The other…firefighter?”

“Yes.” She was quickly losing patience. “I need someone who is in charge to tell me what happened and what is wrong with my grandfather. When I left him, he was doing just fine and going to have a—” As her own words filled the room, she realized what she was saying. She turned back to her grandfather, who was now struggling to sit up and put his hearing aids in at the same time.

“A nap?” The annoying firefighter finished for her with a smugness to his voice that made her see red. “Were you having a nap, Roy?” He leaned in next to Bella, and the fresh, crisp scent of him filled her, causing her to momentarily forget that she was completely unimpressed by his presence.

She shook her head and refocused on the real issue. “Papa? Are you—”

“Having a nap,” he interrupted her with a chuckle. “At least I was.” Papa looked between her and the firefighter, whose nearness was starting to distract her on a cellular level that was increasingly frustrating. “What’s happening here?”

“Yes.” Bella spun to the other man, a move she instantly regretted because he was standing much closer than she thought. She came practically nose to nose with him but instead of bumping into him, she took a step back and hit her leg on the coffee table that had trapped her between the couch and the firefighter, who seemed to have grown in size in the last few seconds.

He grabbed her shoulder, preventing her from crashing hard on her bottom, and held her a moment longer than was necessary.

“Are you okay?”

She nodded, momentarily unable to speak, which was ridiculous because she was never at a loss for words, especially if it involved a man. And never in an emergency situation, which she had to assume they were still in.

“We had a call that there was a fire,” he said, still holding her shoulder.

She nodded as if it made sense, which it didn’t. The fact that there was a fire truck outside and a firefighter