Harlequin Special Edition July 2020--Box Set 1 of 2 by Christine Rimmer

Author:Christine Rimmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

“I don’t understand,” Susannah said in bewilderment. “I thought your parents died when a water heater exploded and the house collapsed in on them. That you and your siblings weren’t home at the time.”

He never talked about this. But maybe she did need to understand the depth of his remorse. “Not at that moment, no, but we were all in the house that night when the thunderstorm hit and our roof got struck by lightning and caught on fire.”

The color drained from Susannah’s face. “Oh my God. Gabe,” she whispered, aghast, “that must have been so terrifying.”

It had been. The fear he had felt then came pouring back in a rush of adrenaline. “My parents got all eight of us kids out safely and across the street to the neighbors.”

Her brow furrowed. “Then I don’t understand what happened.”

He took her hand and led her over to the sofa. Sat down next to her. “While we were waiting for the fire department to arrive, the pouring rain put out the flames. Or so we thought.”

Susannah’s hand mimicked the ice in his gut.

“My mother was worried about the stuff in the safe in the den, and she wanted to go back to retrieve it,” Gabe recited numbly. “My dad wouldn’t let her go alone, so he went with her. They thought it was okay, and maybe it would have been if the sparks from the fire hadn’t ignited the gas water heater, which was located in the attic. But it did, and there was an explosion, and the house went up in a giant fireball,” he said, ignoring Susannah’s gasp of horror, “while we all watched, and then the house collapsed in on itself.

“If there is any blessing in it, it’s that my parents were killed instantly. The fire marshal told us they never knew what hit them.”

Susannah wrapped her arms around him and hugged him, hard. Then drew back, her eyes shimmering with tears. “Oh Gabe…” she whispered, “I am so sorry.”

“Yeah, well that’s not the worst part.” He began to tear up. Having gone this far, he figured she might as well know the worst. “The worst part is that my brothers Cade and Travis saw what I didn’t.”

Susannah sat back, listening.

Gabe forced himself to go on. “They instinctively knew it was a bad idea and tried to stop my folks from going back across the street. But I had such complete faith in my parents,” he recollected bitterly, “that they knew what they were doing and were invincible, that I intervened. Played the oldest sibling card and told them to let Mom and Dad do what they had to do. And I held them both back when they would have physically stopped them.”

She jerked in a ragged breath. “How old were you?” she asked empathetically.

Gabe rubbed the knee of his jeans. “Twelve. Cade was ten, Travis eleven.”

Susannah shook her head and covered his hand with her own, stilling its restless motion. “Everyone must have been so devastated.”

An understatement. “They were.

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