“Where is Ethan?” I ask, and she looks over at me, putting a hand to her chest.
“Jesus, you scared the crap out of me,” she says. “He’s in bed.” She comes to me now. “Are you okay?”
Holding up my hand, I walk over to my whiskey and pour two fingers in a glass. Then I take it down in two huge gulps, and it burns all the way down to my stomach. “It was him,” I say the three words that I never thought I would say. Maybe I was naïve about it, or maybe I was just hopeful that he would be a decent human. I don’t know what it was but admitting it just … I pour another two fingers and look over at her.
She stands there, and I take her in. She put on one of my sweaters that is way too big for her. Tears roll down her cheeks as she clutches at her stomach. Her whole body shakes, and I rush to catch her right before she falls. I put one hand around her waist and another on the back of her head. She clings to me, her hands gripping my shirt while her tears soak through to my skin.
“He’s not going to hurt you,” I whisper to her. “I promise you that he will not hurt you.” She just sobs in my arms. “I got you, baby,” I say.
“I have to leave,” she says. The four words I never want to hear. “It’s not safe for Ethan or for you.”
“You aren’t going anywhere,” I say. “Not now, not ever. This is your home.”
“I can build another home,” she says, looking up at me, and my hand goes to her cheek. “I can buy another bar.” Her voice goes lower now. “But I can’t buy another you.”
“I told them I was going to marry you,” I say, omitting the nasty things my father said. “Tomorrow, we have to go get you a ring.”
“You really are going to go through with this?” she asks, confused. “This is a mess, and you don’t need this. You just got elected mayor.”
“We,” I say, rubbing my thumb across her cheek. “We are going to go through with this.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she says, and all I can do is pull her to me and hold her. I hold her in the family room for as long as she lets me.
“How about we talk about it in the morning?” she suggests, and I just nod. “I’m going to go to bed.”
“I’ll be right up,” I say. “I’m going to lock up down here.” She walks out of the room, and I turn off the lights after I put the glass in the sink. When I walk upstairs and peek in on her, she is already asleep. I take another shower, trying to let the tension go, but when I slide into bed, all I can do is look up at the ceiling.
The phone on the side table buzzes, and I reach for it, seeing it’s Jacob. I sit up now, knowing that nothing good is going to come at two a.m. in the morning. “Hello?”
“Is Savannah with you?” he shouts, and I get up now.
“She’s sleeping,” I say and hear shouting in the background, then a car door slam. “Where are you?”
“I’m on my way to the bar,” he says, and I wait for the other shoe to drop. “Someone just set fire to Savannah’s bar.”
Chapter Twenty
Savannah
I hear the buzzing coming from somewhere, but I think it’s a dream until it starts again. This time, my eyes fly open, and I jump up, seeing the unknown number on the screen. “Hello?” I grumble.
“You need to get gone, bitch.” The sound of the male voice is muffled.
“Who is this?” I ask, but the phone beeps, letting you know the person has disconnected. I’m about to put the phone down when I hear Beau’s voice. “She’s sleeping.” I slip out of bed, walking in the hallway. After he walked out of the house to go to his parents’ house, I ran to the bathroom and threw up whatever was in my stomach. Ethan came down to find me over the toilet bowl. The worry in his face made me feel even worse than I did before. I got up and rinsed off my face, assuring him that I was okay. “What do you mean, it’s on fire?”
My whole body feels the dread, my body preparing for the worst, yet not really believing that it could be coming. “Fuck,” he hisses. “Where is she now?”
I stand here in the doorway to his bedroom, and he sits on the side of his bed. He’s in white basketball shorts and no shirt with his head down as he listens to whoever is on the phone. “Okay, I’ll get her up.” He tosses the phone to the side and rubs his face.