Theo grabs his fork, tears a gash into the side of the omelet with it, and stuffs a huge chunk into his mouth. He chews exactly twice, swallows the whole mouthful in one go, then stabs into the omelet again, as violently as if it’s the belly of his worst enemy, his fork clattering against the plate. He wolfs down that bite too.

The waitress decides Theo seems satisfied with his food, sends me a relieved smile, then clears out as fast as she can.

“I know the Heimlich maneuver if all that angry chewing makes a hunk of ham lodge in your throat.”

Theo stops chewing long enough to glare at me, but he should know by now that I don’t back down when he’s making his trademark serial killer face.

“So this is interesting,” I say calmly. “I think I’ve discovered the root cause of your mysterious problem with me.”

He falls so still, it appears he’s not even breathing.

I point at his plate. “Denver omelet with extra bacon on the side, and key lime pie. It’s what I ordered the first night I got to town, when you were sitting in the booth behind me at the diner. You remember?”

His face drains of color.

I cannot for the life of me understand what is wrong with this man.

“You were mad because I copied your order, right?”

Looking startled, Theo blinks. I can’t tell if I’ve caught him off guard because I’m right, or my statement is so far out of left field, he’s still trying to process what the hell I’m talking about. So of course I commence Verbal Diarrhea Mode, which never in the history of ever has solved anything, but we’re all stuck with our stupid personality traits.

“I mean, if this is what you always get here, it’s probably what you always get every time you go out to eat. It makes sense. I do the same thing. Hell, I love Denver omelets and key lime pie! Strangely enough, they’re my two favorite foods! So you overheard me ordering what you’d ordered, and you…I don’t know, maybe you thought I was mocking you?”

His expression is a study in confusion.

“You’re right, that can’t be it. You didn’t have a plate in front of you when I arrived, so I couldn’t have known what you had. Hmm. So maybe you just can’t stand it that someone else in the world likes the same two foods you like? Considering your general aversion for the human race, that is. Or maybe strange coincidences make you as nutty as they make me because you know there’s no such thing as causal connections between anything, but the dumb part of you refuses to believe it?”

I run out of breath, and theories.

Theo stares at me for a long time, his gaze searching my face, his body still as a statue’s. Then he carefully sets his fork down, picks up his phone, and starts typing. He doesn’t even bother to send it, he just holds up his phone so I can see what he’s written.

I send him my sweetest smile, which could cause cavities, it’s so saccharine. “And you, Sunshine, don’t have a future as a clown. So here we are, two people not doing jobs they’d suck at, eating omelets together on a Monday morning and irritating the shit out of each other, though only one of them knows why. Ain’t life grand?”

I pick up my fork and proceed to dig into my breakfast.

After a moment, Theo types into his phone and holds it out for me to see.

I look at him. He lifts a shoulder, like, Just sayin’. Then I start to laugh, because it’s either that or start crying.

“You’re seriously killing me here, you know that? I’ve encountered hyperbolic geometry problems less incomprehensible than you.”

With a roll of my eyes, I push his phone away from my face. “Sunshine, my brain is so big, it’s almost the size of your bad attitude.”

Then a miracle occurs: we smile at each other.

“Everything okay with the food?”

The waitress has appeared at our table side once again. From the kitchen door on the other side of the restaurant, three kitchen staff in white stare at us, whispering behind their hands.

When I cock an eyebrow at them, they disappear back into the kitchen in a flash of starched aprons.

Theo makes the OK sign at the waitress. Coming from anyone else, that gesture would be friendly, but he manages to make it look hostile. Terrified, the waitress leaves without a peep.

Watching her go, I sigh. “God. You could make a nun want to commit murder. You ever think about, I don’t know, being pleasant every once in a while? Or would that clash with the whole Mr. Tall, Dark, and Broody thing you’ve got going on?”

He turns and looks at me, his eyes shining, the corners of his lips curved up. Batting his long lashes, he makes an innocent face and points at his chest.

“Yes, you.” I turn back to my omelet with a shake of my head, surprised to find myself smiling again. Am I beginning to enjoy his whiplash-causing mood changes? Now that would be a plot twist.

We eat. I wonder if he’s as aware of me as I am of him. Every little movement he makes registers in my brain, like a Richter scale tracking the magnitude of an earthquake. I’ve never met someone so contradictory. In my experience, men are generally much simpler creatures than women, but this particular man is more complex than a Rubik’s cube.

Or maybe he’s just nuts.

“I want to talk to you about something you emailed me,” I say casually to my plate.

Theo takes that as his cue to pull his statue impersonation again, but I was anticipating that reaction and don’t let it rattle me.

“You said you weren’t stable. Which, honestly, is obvious. I won’t pry into your personal life, but on one hand, you’re telling me to hire you, and on the other hand, you’re telling me you hear voices and see ghosts and have a history with drugs, legal and otherwise. Can you see how that would be problematic from a prospective client’s point of view?”

I wasn’t expecting an answer, so when I don’t get one, I keep right on talking.

“I like Coop, a lot. I hear great things about your company, your work ethic, and your talent. That book you brought with the computer images was incredible. And your competition is quickly eliminating itself. But you, Mr. Valentine, are worrisome. To be completely honest, I don’t know what to make of you. I don’t think I can trust you. And if we were to work together, trust is a nonnegotiable. You said we can never be friends, and I can accept that…but I won’t accept uncertainty about your ability to do your job. I have to know you’re going to be there, be professional, and be absolutely rock solid, regardless of whatever your personal issues are.”

I lift my head and look at him. He gazes back at me with a pained expression, his face pale.

“That house is more than just a house to me,” I tell him, my voice low but strong. “It’s a lifeline. It’s a kept promise. It’s probably the only thing I’ll ever love again. Do you understand?”

He stares deep into my eyes, long past the point of politeness. Then he sends me a text.

I blow out a hard breath, because hello, enigmatic statement, sit right down and join the conversation. I get another text right on the heels of the first.

I look up from my phone and into his eyes. My heart thumping, I demand, “Tell me why.”

He sits there beside me, breathing unevenly, wild-eyed and tense.

“Theo. You’re not getting the job unless you explain yourself. I’m done with this cloak-and-dagger routine.”

He looks down at the demolished remains of his omelet, as if for help. Then he briefly closes his eyes, thinks for a moment, and picks up his phone.

“Okay,” I say, irritated because I thought I was close to getting to the bottom of this incomprehensible situation. I toss my phone onto the table, where it lands with a clatter. “Good to know you think this is such a joke. It’s been interesting knowing you. Have a nice life.”

I push my chair back, ready to barge past him or climb over him if he won’t move, but he reaches out and touches the back of my hand with his fingertip.

Static electricity crackles over my skin, hot and sharp as a knife. I yank my hand away, suck in a startled breath, and stare at him, blinking in surprise.

His lips part, and I swear, I swear he’s about to speak. But then he exhales a sharp breath, angrily shakes his head, and reaches into his wallet. He throws money down on the table, leaps from his chair, and leaves me sitting alone, gaping after his retreating back as he strides off through the restaurant.

Several minutes later, another text comes through on my phone.

When the waitress arrives with two plates of key lime pie, I’m sitting right where Theo left me, reading his text for the hundredth time.

* * *

The long walk home in the cold doesn’t clear my head or settle my nerves, and I’m still rattled when I open the front door of the house. I spend a few hours on the internet researching more contractors until I have a small list of new prospects. Feeling dejected when I can’t get through to the first two I try to call, I decide I’ll leave it until tomorrow.

I pass the rest of the afternoon in a funk, paying bills, doing laundry and other distracting busywork chores, until it’s time for bed. I get undressed and climb under the covers to the sound of my stomach growling. After the Strangest Breakfast Ever, I wasn’t in the mood to eat.

I make his broken parts bleed? What on earth am I supposed to do with that?

Nothing, answers my pragmatic side. Forget it. The man is a lost cause.

The problem with lost causes is that they’re so seductive to those who know what it is to be lost.

Around midnight, I’m staring at the ceiling in the dark, thinking about Mr. Mysterious, when I smell something burning.

My heart slams into my throat. I jolt upright, throw off the covers, and turn on the lights. Everything in the bedroom looks normal, but that acrid scent is unmistakable. I run downstairs, fighting panic, and follow my nose through the house, hitting every light switch I pass until the house is lit up like a Christmas tree.

I find what I’m looking for in the parlor.

Black fingers of smoke billow from an electrical outlet near the window. It’s the same outlet I’ve heard crackling on several occasions. A thin gray cloud hangs on the ceiling above, moving outward in slow, widening waves, like ripples on water after a stone has been tossed in.

Cursing, I run over to the window and throw it open in an effort to clear the smoke from the room. Cold night air rushes in, and smoke starts to rush out. I run back upstairs to get my cell phone, dialing 9-1-1 on my way back downstairs. A woman’s brisk voice answers.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

“My house is on fire!”

“Tell me your address and call-back number, ma’am.”

I do, she repeats it back to me, I confirm, then she asks me to tell her exactly what’s happening.

“There’s an electrical fire inside the wall on the first floor, west side of the building, facing the beach. I don’t know how large it is yet, but there’s a lot of smoke.” I manage to sound rational, though my hands are shaking and I can’t catch my breath.

“Where are you now, ma’am?”

“Looking at the outlet.”

“I need you to leave the house immediately, ma’am! Get to a safe spot and wait for the fire department to arrive. Do you understand?”

The dispatcher is aggravated with me. I can’t say I blame her, but I’m reluctant to leave.

“Ma’am!” she barks when I don’t respond.

“I’m going.” I spin on my heel and run toward the front door, but skid to a stop at the stairway. Inhaling a breath that feels as cold as snow, I look up toward the second floor.

The wedding album.

I sprint up the stairs to the master bedroom. The dispatcher must be able to hear my heavy breathing and the sound of my feet hitting the floor, because she asks, “Are you outside now?”

“Almost!” I answer breathlessly. “I have to get something. I can’t leave the house without it—”

She hollers, “Ma’am, I need you to exit the premises immediately!”

Now I’ve really pissed her off. She wants to reach through the phone and strangle me. I hurl myself into the closet, grab the white leather photo album from the shelf above the rack of clothes, tuck it under my arm, and head back downstairs, taking the stairs three at a time, panting and cursing under my breath, hysteria rising like a wave of freezing water in my blood. The dispatcher says something else I can’t hear over the roar of Please no, please no, please God no in my ears.

If the Buttercup burns to the ground and I lose the last thing tying me to Cass, if our dream literally goes up in flames, I’m not sure I’ll survive it.

I’m at the bottom step of the staircase when Theo kicks open the front door.

It slams against the wall with a tremendous boom. Splinters of wood fly everywhere. I rear back in shock, lose my balance, and drop the album and my phone, falling on my ass in the process. Moving with incredible speed, Theo runs down the hallway toward the kitchen. He throws open the basement door. I hear heavy boots pounding down stairs. A heartbeat passes, then the entire house is plunged into darkness.

Panicked and disoriented, I scream his name.

Off in the distance, the wail of a siren breaks the night.

Within seconds, the thud of Theo’s footsteps echoes hollowly on the wooden basement stairs. Then a blinding white beam of light slashes through the darkness. It moves toward me, bobbing in time to the heavy thump of footsteps growing closer. He sweeps past me on his way into the parlor, so focused, he doesn’t even acknowledge my presence.

Along with the flashlight, he carries a sledgehammer and a fire extinguisher.

“Hello? Are you there?”

The tinny squawk of the dispatcher’s voice comes through my cell phone, lying on the step beside me. Ignoring it, I gather the photo album in my arms and stumble after Theo into the parlor.

As I enter the room, he’s setting the flashlight on the floor. It’s pointed at the wall, illuminating the outlet the smoke rises from in a wedge of white light. Then he takes the sledgehammer in hand and swings it high overhead.

The sound of plaster smashing into pieces is so loud, I jump.

With long, smooth strokes, Theo swings the sledgehammer over and over until he’s broken a large hole into the wall above the socket. Smoke pours out. Exposed to a new surge of oxygen, small licks of orange flame jump and flare.

Theo drops the sledgehammer, grabs the fire extinguisher, and sprays white foam over the wall, the fire, and the smoking socket, until there’s nothing left in the canister and it sputters out.

The wail of the fire engine’s sirens grows closer.

Theo sees me standing in the doorway, clutching my wedding album in my arms, shaking so badly, my teeth are chattering. He’s breathing hard. All the cords are standing out in his neck. In the play of light and shadow over the bones in his face, he looks beautiful, otherworldly, and terrifying, like an avenging angel coming to settle a score.

I say hoarsely, “W-what…how…” My stammering is interrupted by a hacking cough, brought on by all the smoke in the room.

Theo points to me, then he jabs his finger toward the front door.

I know he’s telling me to get out, but I can’t move. I can only stare at him. Shock has frozen me in place.

He drops the fire extinguisher and crosses the room in a few long strides. Then, with a swift bend of his knees, he sweeps me off my feet and into his arms. He walks to the front door while I cling to him with one arm and my wedding album with the other, my heart jackhammering inside my chest.

I stare at his profile as he carries me out into the night and across the street. He sets me gently on my feet on the sidewalk, makes sure I’m steady, then turns back toward the house.

“Theo.”

He stops and looks at me.

In a shaking voice, I say, “How are you here?”

Engines roaring, the fire truck turns the corner and starts to barrel up the street. Theo whips out the small pad he carries in his pocket and begins to write. When he’s finished, he tears off the sheet of paper and hands it to me. I take it with trembling fingers, and he turns and strides back into the house.

When the fire engine slows to a stop in the middle of the street in front of me, I read his words by the red flashing lights, the smell of smoke stinging my nose, the sea breeze a cooling balm against my flushed skin.