Page 60 of Melting for the Firefighter
I hear enough.
“We need to talk.”
Lance shakes his head.
She steps closer.
He steps back.
Relief loosens something in my chest.
Then Vanessa turns and looks directly at me.
She knew where I was the entire time.
“You must be Cora Larsen,” she says as she crosses the street. “I heard about your shop. I’m so sorry.”
Tessa straightens beside me.
“Thank you.”
Vanessa stops in front of the booth.
Her gaze travels over my floral dress and pauses briefly on my curves.
The judgment lasts less than a second, but I have spent years learning to recognize it.
Lance reaches us and takes his place beside me.
“You need to leave,” he tells her.
“I came all this way to apologize.”
“Apology heard.”
“You haven’t let me give it.”
Vanessa’s smile trembles at the edges.
“Cole and I are over,” she says. “We have been for months.”
Lance’s face reveals nothing.
“That has nothing to do with me.”
“It has everything to do with you. I made the worst mistake of my life.”
Conversations quiet around us.
Whispering Pines can smell history happening.
Vanessa lowers her voice, though everyone within ten feet can still hear her.
“We had eleven years, Ren. We planned a family. A home. You cannot tell me all of that disappeared.”
The nickname strikes somewhere tender.
Lance does not look at me.
