Page 4 of Julian

An entire level devoted solely to the primary suite.

The elevator slows and comes to a seamless stop. The doors part quietly, revealing the private floor beyond—a corridor lined with soft lighting and handwoven runner carpets leading toward the double doors of the bedroom.

Behind us, somewhere below, Percy secures the house for the evening.

Ahead of us, the fire waits.

Chapter 2

Harper

The smoke alarm starts screaming before I even realize the chicken’s gone from golden to combusting.

“Are you kidding me?” I cough, waving a dish towel beneath the shrieking white circle on the ceiling as if that will somehow shame it into silence.

At the same time, my cell phone vibrates across the counter, skittering dangerously close to the edge. The screen lights up with an incoming call I can’t see because—

Ding-dong. Ding-dong…

DING-DONG!

Whoever is at the door has apparently mistaken the bell for a stress ball.

“Hold on!” I yell, though no one can possibly hear me over the smoke alarm’s high-pitched death cry and the increasingly frantic barking of Beau, my seventy-pound golden retriever. He’s decided this is either a home invasion or the most exciting event of his life. He’s leaping in tight circles between the front door and the kitchen, nails skidding against the hardwood, tail whipping like a metronome set to chaos.

“Beau! Sit!” I shout.

He doesn’t sit.

The phone keeps ringing. The doorbell keeps donging. The smoke alarm keeps screaming. The chicken, meanwhile, is absolutely done for.

Whoever’s on the phone is just going to have to leave a message because I only have so much bandwidth. I sprint to the front door, nearly tripping over Beau, and yank it open. A delivery guy stands there, holding a small rectangular package and wearing a bored expression on his face.

“Signature,” he says flatly, shoving the electronic pad and stylus toward me.

“I’m so sorry,” I breathe, pushing hair out of my face. “The oven—”

He doesn’t care about the oven as evidenced by his yawn.

I scrawl what somewhat resembles my name across the screen while Beau wedges his snout past my hip, attempting to greet the man, because in Beau’s world, everyone should love him unconditionally.

“Is that a golden?” the guy asks, finally cracking a hint of interest. Beau’s butt waggles furiously now that the man’s made eye contact with him.

“Yes,” I mutter, trying to muscle the dog back with my hip. “And currently unhelpful.”

He hands me the package, already stepping backward. “Have a good one.”

“You too. Sorry about the—” I gesture vaguely behind me, where the smoke alarm is still wailing like we’re in a five-alarm blaze, but the courier is already bounding down the stairs without a backward glance. Beau chuffs his dismay and looks at me with forlorn eyes.

“Sorry, buddy,” I say as I shut the door with my foot and pivot toward the kitchen.

Smoke curls in a ghostlike haze upward from the oven as I fling it open. The chicken breasts inside no longer look edible. They’re blackened around the edges (well, maybe more than just the edges), a crime scene of poor timing and divided attention.

“Great,” I mutter, grabbing the oven mitts and sliding the pan out. “Just great.”

The alarm continues its relentless beeping, my blood pressure spiking in cadence with it.

I glance up at it, then at the counter before dragging a chair over. I climb onto it, balancing, while considering how much of adulthood includes scaling kitchen surfaces to silence household devices. I reach up, twist the smoke detector loose, and yank the battery free.