Blaze (The Firefighters of Darling Bay Book 1) by Rachael Herron Page A

kitchen. He could hear her moving around, opening cupboards, turning on the faucet. Putting his hands behind his head to alleviate some of the pressure on his neck, he leaned back and looked around. 
    It was just like her in here. If a plane had dropped him anywhere in the world, he would have been able to tell that he was near Grace Rowe. It smelled like her, sweet, with a hint of spice, as if she tucked packets of cinnamon and cloves in the furniture. A faint scent of something sexy and earthy, maybe incense. That wouldn’t have surprised him. 
    The furniture was comfortable. Nothing fancy. Things like this red sofa, and the two oversized green chairs, things that called out to be sunk into, rested upon. There was no art, as he would have called it, on the walls. Instead, things hung from nails and hooks. A large drum with a fringe of feathers and beads hung on one wall. Next to the brick fireplace was a collection of what looked like painted gourds. 
    Hippie stuff. The kind of furnishings he would have mocked only days ago. In here, though, it looked good, like he was sitting inside some Western decorating magazine. 
    There was something hung above a low blue bookcase that looked like a round box made of metal. A tiny dollhouse? He stood and moved to get closer to it. Not a dollhouse, it was an aluminum open case that held a picture of a saint that had been painted with…glitter? 
    “My tin nicho ,” Grace said from behind him. In her hands she held two orange mugs of tea. She’d taken off her canvas beach shoes and her bare feet surprised him, somehow. They looked so vulnerable. 
    “Pink toenails,” he said rather stupidly. 
    She laughed. Such a pretty sound that was. It was like the sound of dancing. She touched the round box on the wall. “It’s my own little, um…do you know what a hope chest is?” 
    “Not really.” 
    “It’s something a girl had in the old days. She filled it with the things she made to take with her into marriage. Her hopes.” 
    Tox felt his eyebrows shoot upward. “This is your marriage box?” 
    “ No. Only the hopes for my life.” 
    “That looks like a saint or something.” He pointed at a picture glued inside. “Is that you?” 
    She nudged his shoulder with her own, only she was so much shorter than he was, she really just touched his elbow. His arm ached, suddenly, to go around her, but he held himself back. 
    “Of course not. That’s just a generic saint I cut out of a magazine.” 
    “Isn’t that blasphemous to someone? Somewhere?” 
    “Nah,” she said easily. “I just think there’s something good and amazing and strong and wonderful in all of us, and part of our job here is to find out what that is.” 
    Did she really believe that? That people were inherently good? “Well, you haven’t seen the dregs of humanity, then.” 
    She touched her lips. He wanted to do that. Badly.
    “Maybe,” she said. “But I’ve seen more than I would have liked to have seen. My first acupuncture job was in an alcoholic rehab center.” 
    “Okay.” He paused. “Maybe you’ve seen a little bit, then. What’s with the saint, then?” 
    She said, sounding a bit abashed, “She kind of looks like me. A little bit, I mean. Around the nose, maybe.” 
    Heck, she was right. Now that she said it, he could see it. It was as if they’d modeled the whole image on her. The same long toffee-colored hair that curled at the ends—always looking like it had just been caught in a windstorm. And the same big, brown eyes, as light as her hair. Almost clear, really. As expressive as the sun setting at twilight. 
    “My sister actually pointed it out to me in the magazine. I thought she was full of it, but I was…I was in a low place, then. Relationship-wise. Later, I dug the magazine out of the recycling and cut it out. Look, even the same dimple.” 
    Tox longed to touch that dimple with the very tip of his finger. Instead, he shoved his hand in his pocket and