Tuesday Teasers

This Tuesday Teaser is from my back list. Shall we play GUESS THE BOOK?

Okay! Try to guess the title of the Z.A. Maxfield book this teaser comes from get an ebook copy of the book in question or any other book from my backlist. Make your guesses by replying to me in an email, zamaxfield (at) zamaxfield (dot) com, because if I can’t find your guess, I can’t reward you! Be sure to leave a valid email address so I know where to send your ebook. The sixth person to email me with the correct title, WINS!

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“We were called to a single-family home containing a cache of illegal fireworks. Kids had found and lit them in an enclosed space, and things got out of control before they could stop it. The rest of the house went up in just minutes. Four boys. Two brothers and two neighborhood kids. The house was fully involved when we got there. ** transported one of them.”

Oh… that meant…

“Some days I can’t do my job worth a fucking damn.” He sat up and discreetly wiped his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

I had to open my mouth to breathe without making a noise, but maybe even that was a kind of embarrassed sob.

“******?” he glanced up at me. How wrong was that? To be so glad to hear him say my name when his heart was breaking.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think kids die for a reason? Like…does God really need them for something?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“What reason could there be for three kids losing their lives like that? It can’t be a lesson. That’s too cruel. But it can’t be random.”

“Ah, ***. Please don’t. Don’t do this to yourself.”

Why was I even there? What could I say to help ***, with whom I normally lived in a state of friendly détente and unrequited lust? I had followed my feet and my instincts, but now he needed something, and I was absolutely out of my depth.

I leaned over and wrapped my arms around his neck, and it was like grabbing on to a bull. Muscles rippled as his arms slipped under mine and banded tight around me, crushing me. He held on to me as though I was the only solid thing left on earth. He pressed his face into my neck, and I felt the wetness of tears there.

“It’s going to be all right,” I said stupidly.

He shook his head. He was openly crying, and I was acutely aware that there were probably ten people, most of whom were only meters away, who understood what he was going through better than I ever could. I felt his grief like a hot wind all along the place I stuff my inconvenient emotions, and it blew away anything trivial I had ever stored there.

 

Tuesday Teasers