“How is she?” Wilder ground out.

“Oh, I haven’t been able to bear going in yet.” Trixie gripped Garret’s bicep as if to absorb his strength. “I get white-coat anxiety. Hospitals make me all kinds of scared.”

“You mean to tell us that you haven’t been back to check on Quinn?” Wilder stormed forward. “Is she . . .” He couldn’t bring himself to say the words flashing red in his brain. Hurt. Scared. Or worse.

She shot Wilder a suspicious look and scooted closer to Garret, practically crawling onto his lap. “The doctor came out about a half hour ago and said she’d be perfectly all right. They were just going to run a bunch of tests.”

Grandma Kane lowered her chin and steam was almost visible from her flaring nostrils. “Trixie Higsby, you get your milksop, pansy butt back there and tell us how our girl is doing.”

Trixie’s mouth opened and closed as if she was in charades and had been assigned the role of “goldfish.”

“I don’t give a fig about your white-coat whatchamacallit. There is a weakness in the Higsby line. Your people might be long-lived, fertile, and loyal, but Quinn is the first one of you that’s shown any real spine or gumption.”

“Now see here, Mrs. Kane.” Trixie pulled a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed her nose. “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh? Oh!” The young woman looked triumphant. “You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“She doesn’t know,” she repeated to Garret. “It’s hard to see what’s right in front of you sometimes, isn’t it?”

“You fool of a Higsby, spit it out.”

“He’s got some nerve showing up here.”

Wilder glanced around before realizing Trixie’s finger was pointed directly at him.

“Me?”

“Lucky the sheriff is here because this freak should be arrested.”

“On what charges?” Sawyer approached, a muscle twitching in his temple.

“Arson.” Garret stood up, his hands balled into two big fists. “You almost killed an innocent woman tonight, you fucking animal.”

Chapter Eighteen

“CAN I PLEASE go home now? It’s almost three a.m.,” Quinn said to the nurse. “My biggest problem is that I’m exhausted and you’ve sucked me dry with all those needles.”

“Do you have a place to go?”

“Yes. My friend’s house. Boyfriend actually.” When she got to the hospital, she asked Garret to notify Wilder of her whereabouts. He hadn’t been back to see her yet but the nurse had said visitations were restricted to family only.

“Boyfriend?” The nurse looked troubled.

“Wilder Kane.” Saying the words out loud felt a little strange, but it’s what he was for better or worse. In fact, he was a whole heck of a lot more. She wasn’t going steady. He wasn’t a crush. In his grumpy, quiet way he’d stolen her heart and she didn’t ever want it back.

The nurse’s eyes widened. “So you don’t know.”

The warmth ebbed from her chest. “Know what?”

“He was taken to the sheriff’s office. Didn’t anyone call you?”

“My phone was burned in the fire, no one can call me. What happened?”

“Oh my, there was almost a big fight in the emergency waiting room. Sheriff Kane took two men into custody. One was his own brother and the other was the guy who saved you, Garret King.” The nurse paused. “I thought he was your boyfriend, seeing as how you’re so pretty and he’s so handsome. The other one. He’s, well, he’s sort of scary with all those scars and that attitude. Wait, what are you doing? You can’t leave—”

“Says who?” Quinn yanked out her IV and slid from the bed, beelining to her clothes folded on a plastic chair in the corner.

“The doctor hasn’t discharged you.”

“I didn’t suffer a single burn. I might be deaf from the smoke alarm, but it saved my life. The house is the one in trouble.” And all her belongings. She pushed the thought from her mind. Who cared about stuff? Comic book collections and board games meant nothing when Wilder was at the sheriff’s office. What was Sawyer thinking? Obviously Wilder didn’t set the fire. He’d left her house to take his Grandma home after helping her clean up the dinner dishes. She’d taken a mug of rum cider to bed and was playing around on her phone waiting for him to return. Instead, she dozed off and woke to the high-pitched whine of the smoke alarm. When she got to the bedroom door, the knob was hot to the touch.

Rather than opening it and risking flames, she’d climbed out the window. It was one-story so while the snow was cold underfoot it wasn’t tricky. By the time she’d run to the front of the house, the first fire truck was pulling up. Garret King had leapt out, scooping her in his arms as if she were a ragdoll, ignoring her orders to be set down that instant.

While other volunteer firefighters fought the blaze he insisted on staying by her side, riding in the ambulance with her.

While she was grateful for the fire department’s fast response and the fact they did their best to salvage the house, Garret had continued to be too overbearing. As she was taken in to the ER, she’d asked him to get in touch with Wilder as soon as possible, and if he didn’t have his number to contact the sheriff.

She was whisked off before he could answer but she hadn’t expected him to ignore her wishes entirely.

“Miss Quinn.” The nurse sharpened her tone as Quinn yanked off her hospital gown. “I must insist you stay here.”

“There’s been a terrible mistake and I have to help put it right.” Quinn changed into her clothes at the speed of light.

“This isn’t how things are done,” the nurse continued. “If you won’t cooperate I’ll have to fetch the doctor.”

“Do whatever you need to do because I’ll be doing the same.” Quinn tore through the open door and jogged down the hall. What had Wilder and Garret done to get themselves in trouble? And how was she going to help? The hospital was a mile out of town, a long lonely stretch of highway at this time of night. How would she get all the way back to Main Street?

She burst through the emergency room double doors as cries of “Wait! Come back!” rang out behind her.

Edie and Grandma glanced, startled, from two plastic chairs in the corner.

“Told you she’d come,” Grandma said triumphantly, rising to her feet. “That girl has gumption.”

“You can’t leave,” the nurse repeated, coming into the waiting room.

“Do you have keys?” Quinn asked Edie.

“Yes to Archer’s truck. He left with the guys,” Edie replied.

The nurse cleared her throat. “I said—”

“You said your piece and last time I checked it was a free country,” Grandma snapped. “And I know you. You’re Dinah Kane’s little girl, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Mrs. Kane.” The women shrunk back. “Bonnie.”

“Well, Bonnie, I suspect you know that Dinah is in the Chicklits and the Lady’s Guild. It would be such a shame for her to be dishonorably discharged.”

Bonnie gasped. “Are you blackmailing me with my mama?”

“Blackmail? Oh. No. That’s got a harsh ring to it, don’t you think?” Grandma affected a sugary sweet tone. “I prefer to call it negotiating. We go now without a fuss and you don’t ruin your dear mama’s fun. She’s a nice lady, if a bit of an airhead.”

Bonnie gasped. “You’re straight from the mafia.”

“There are two things I care about in life.” Grandma held up her forefinger and middle finger. “My tomato patch and my grandsons.”

Quinn gave Bonnie a tight smile. “I’ll come back in tomorrow if I’m feeling out of sorts. Promise.”

Bonnie’s mouth gaped.

“Don’t let the flies in, dearie,” Grandma snapped, leading the charge to the front doors.

Edie grabbed Grandma’s handbag and flashed Quinn a look of quiet concern. “Are you really okay?”

“Course she’s not,” Grandma called over her shoulder. “Her house burned down and Wilder is in the slammer.”

“What happened?” Quinn trotted behind. For her bad hip, Grandma certainly moved fast tonight.