LITMIR.BIZ

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wasn’t enough.

      She reached down and pulled on the bodice of the dress, feeling more satisfaction as she heard the popping of threads, but still that wasn’t enough for her. The damn thing needed to be completely destroyed, all of its bad energy gone for good. She spotted a metal garbage can on the side of the house and a lonely bottle of lighter fluid meant for a charcoal grill. An idea took shape in her head.

      She wondered how long it would take to barbeque a wedding dress.

      * * *

      Derek watched Ava from his window, completely in awe. He had gotten home from a planning meeting just a few minutes ago and was preparing to head into his workshop when he heard a strangled scream. He rushed to his window to see Ava jumping up and down on a massive pile of white fabric. He stood transfixed, unable to move, even though he knew it was wrong to watch such an intensely private moment. The Ava Bradley he had known, the incredibly put-together, icily beautiful woman, had disappeared. He was left looking at a woman so full of raw hurt and anger that even he felt the depths of it in his bones.

      She was destroying her wedding dress. Her hands pulled furiously at the fabric, ripping it to shreds, little angry grunts escaping with every hard tug.

      She must have had so much riding on this marriage. An entire life.

      A memory of his mother flashed in his head.

      Derek had been a kid, not even ten years old yet. He’d been crouched on the floor in his bedroom, staring through a crack in his door as his father told his mother that he never wanted to see her again.

      You need to get it through your head. I’m never leaving her for you.

      His father had a wife. His mother was his mistress. And that was one of the million times Derek wished he could have been born to normal parents.

      But of course that wish was just too much to ask for. He watched rage take over his beautiful mother.

      I planned my life around you. I’ve done everything to be with you.

      And she had. Derek’s father was the most important person in her world. Way more than Derek could ever hope to be.

      She had hurled a vase at his father’s head as he had turned to leave, letting out a guttural, primal scream as she did. Derek would never forget that sound. He would never forget how his father looked when he felt the glass shards bounce off the wall and hit his back.

      You got pregnant, forced a child on me like it was going to magically make us a family. Your plan failed. I’ll take care of him, but don’t ever think that he’s going to turn out to be anything like my other children with you for a mother.

      His mother destroyed the house that day. Throwing lamps and chairs, ripping up photographs, stomping on keepsakes.

      Derek had called his uncle Hal because he was scared and didn’t know what to do, and he heard his aunt Clara’s voice in the background, ordering Hal to go get him and his belongings. That was the first time he’d lived with his aunt and uncle for an extended amount of time. Over the years he had stayed with them more times than he could count.

      His mind snapped back to the present when he saw Ava, dressed in a flimsy nightgown, drag the metal garbage can from the side of the house to the front yard. She hauled the dress off the ground and dumped it into the garbage can before walking away. For a moment Derek thought that that might be it, but she came back with a can of lighter fluid and a box of matches. He watched motionlessly as she squirted the entire bottle into the can.

      Something inside of Derek screamed at him to move.

      He sprinted from his house and made it to Ava just as she lit a match. He caught her hand, blew it out and took the box away from her.

      “Are you insane?” he shouted.

      She looked up at him with shocked, angry eyes, and even though she looked crazy as hell, he still found her insanely attractive. “Are you trying to burn down the whole damn neighborhood?”

      “Mind your business, Mr. Holier-Than-Thou. This doesn’t concern you.”

      “Yes, it does! Anyone who attempts to burn down my island becomes my concern.”

      “Get over yourself. I’m just lighting the dress on fire. It’s in a metal garbage can. It’s not like I sprayed lighter fluid on your house.”

      “But it’s windy, and you put enough fluid on there to have thirty-five cookouts. My house is full of wood and varnish and every other kind of flammable thing. There was a terrible fire on the island a few years ago that destroyed many homes. Just because you’re pissed that your scumbag fiancé turned out to be an even bigger scumbag than you thought, doesn’t mean you can put my house or anyone else’s in jeopardy.”

      “The last thing I need is a lecture from you. Isn’t there a dolphin you could be rescuing or a citizen you could be lecturing about their civic duty?”

      “I don’t lecture people. I’m just trying to stop you from being a pyromaniac lunatic!”

      “All you do is lecture. It must be exhausting needing to be right every single moment of your life. Tell me, do you get nosebleeds from sticking your nose so high up in the air?”

      He had never heard her speak like this; in fact, he rarely heard her speak at all, and when she did, it was in a quiet measured way. She always seemed to ooze class and elegance, and frankly she seemed like a snob to him. But today she was full of fire.

      Literally and figuratively.

      “Why did you choose to rent a house next to mine? There have to be dozens of rentals on this island.”

      “Well, excuse me, Mr. Mayor. I don’t care enough to keep tabs on which house is yours, but if I had known that I would be living next door to such an insufferable jackass, I wouldn’t have rented here. In fact, I would have rented a house on the other side of the island.”

      “Why don’t you do us all a favor and go back to where you came from? This way, I won’t have to worry about anything going up in flames.”

      “You want me to move?” Her eyes went wide as she pointed to herself. “Well, that’s too damn bad, because I’m going to stay all spring and summer and possibly into fall. I’m going to throw raging keggers and hold a wet T-shirt contest and have a parade of unsavory, big-resort-building ruffians stomping through my house at all hours of the night just to piss you off. And there isn’t a thing you can do about it.”

      “I could call the police and make a noise complaint.”

      She threw her head back and laughed. “You would do that, wouldn’t you? I bet you were that kid in school who ratted out all the other kids. I can see the headline on the local paper now. ‘Annoyed Mayor Calls Cops on Heartbroken Bride.’ I’m sure your citizens will love you for it, too. Once they find out that you’re living next door to the ex-fiancée of the man who tried to ruin their island, I’m sure they’ll be over here with flaming pitchforks.” He saw more hurt flash in her eyes. It was clearer and sharper than the anger that was radiating from her body, and it made his own anger diminish. He wasn’t sure what happened between her and Vermeulen, but he knew it must have ended terribly. He almost felt bad for her.

      “I wouldn’t call the cops. I like to handle disputes myself.”

      “There won’t be any more disputes—just give me back the matches. Let me have this. I need to do this.”

      “I’m sorry. I just can’t let you risk your safety or any of the homes on this island.”

      “Then go to hell.”

      She stomped away from him then and he was left feeling...he couldn’t describe it, but he knew he had never had an interaction with a woman like that before. And as he watched Ava’s retreating form, he was pretty sure this wasn’t going to be the last time they would be shouting at each other.

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