She came awake slowly, stretching luxuriously and then stopping with a jerk halfway through the stretch. Hold on, what smelled so bad? Her eyes popped open and she took a tentative sniff of her armpit.

Oh Lord above, I stink!

She rolled out of bed and headed straight for the shower. She didn’t even look at herself in the mirror as she went, because she didn’t want to see what disaster was lurking in it. If she didn’t look, then it wasn’t real, and she didn’t have to face the fact that she’d sat in a booth down at Betty’s Diner, in public, looking like she’d just wandered in off the streets after surviving for years in the wilderness without running water or electricity.

No siree bob, she did not want to know what she looked like, thankyouverymuch.

She let the hot water pound down on her until she felt a little more like herself, scrubbing away at the dirt, watching it swirl down the drain. It was strangely satisfying to watch the dirt disappear and she was smiling to herself when it hit her all over again.

She sank to her knees at the base of the shower, panic and terror shooting through her, sobbing as the realization washed over her of just how close she’d come to dying in that damn fire. She let a cascade of tears wash down the drain along with the suds and the ash and the dirt.

She’d never, ever thought something like that could happen to her. With just the slightest change in the wind direction, Moose would’ve found a charred corpse instead of her and Sparky.

She was shaking uncontrollably at the thought.

I wanna call my mom…

It was amazing, in a way, how she could be 26 years old, but when it all boiled down to the basics, she still wanted her mother when things went sideways. There was something about a mom that just couldn’t be found elsewhere. Not in Tripp, not in Tenny, certainly not in her aunt or uncle, not even in Moose.

Not that she’d call Moose. The little interlude, where she got to pretend for a minute that it was she and Moose against the world, and it was okay for her to like how his eyes wrinkled in the corners when he laughed, and how his shoulders rippled with muscles when he did the simplest of tasks, and…

All of that was done now. Even though she now knew that Tennessee didn’t actually want to marry him, that didn’t change a damn thing. Her cousin wasn’t willing to stand up to her parents and tell them no, and Georgia couldn’t exactly do it for her. This was between Tenny and Moose (well, and her aunt and uncle and Moose’s parents) and they all got to decide what to do and how to do it. Georgia had no say in it, and never would.

The two sets of parents would never be okay with Georgia marrying Moose. She was the daughter of the poor Rowland brother; the one who’d inherited nothing at all. It was okay for Georgia to date and even marry Levi. It was okay for Georgia to run the credit union. It was okay for Georgia to care about who she married, and make the choice for herself…

As long as that choice wasn’t Moose. That wasn’t okay in any universe, alternate or otherwise.

Finally, all wrung out and cleaned up, she turned off the now-lukewarm water and toweled herself off, pushing herself up from the floor of the tub to stand on unsteady legs. Her desire to call her mom hadn’t diminished one bit, but her mother worked as a lunch lady and playground monitor during the school year to bring in a little extra cash, so she’d still be at the school, and Georgia wasn’t about to show up at the elementary school to sob into her mother’s hairnet.

And anyway, she was pretty well trapped at home. Moose had driven her back here instead of out to her car, which meant she had to convince someone to take her out there to retrieve her car. She enjoyed a good marathon as much as the next person, but she didn’t exactly feel up to a 20-miler today.

She took a quick look at her clock on her bathroom wall. Three o’clock in the afternoon?! She hadn’t realized it was so late, but not late enough, dammit. The bank wouldn’t close for another two and a half hours. She could wait for Tripp to get off and have him take her, but she was antsy, the desire to just do something roiling around in her.

After she got dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt, she looked around her spotless house, trying to find a project to occupy her time. She rinsed out the bowl and spoon in the sink from breakfast the day before, and put away the basket of laundry waiting in her laundry room.

And…she was now officially out of things to do. She looked at the clock again. Twenty-one minutes had passed.

She closed her eyes and groaned. Normally, she’d curl up with a book and while away the afternoon with Tessa Dare’s latest, but the thought just held no appeal today. She felt electricity shooting through her, an unsettled desire to do, to be, to move, keeping her from settling down.

She ignored the obvious thought pushing at the edges of her mind – that this was a sexual energy humming through her from being around Moose for two days straight – and decided instead to go for a walk. In fact, she could walk on down to the fire station which was only on the other side of town, and see if anyone there could drive her out to pick up her car.

Nobody in particular, of course, just…somebody.

Plus, then she could check up on Sparky. Maybe Troy needed help with her. Not that Troy would ask for help if his hair was on fire, but she could go check it out for herself just to make sure.

She curled her hair and put on some makeup before deciding to change out of her yoga pants and t-shirt. She shuffled through her closet, picking out one of her favorite blouses that did its best to emphasize her not-so-generous curves and a pair of tight jeans that showed off her best asset – her ass. She studied herself in the mirror, deciding that she looked good enough.

Of course you look good enough. You’re just going to go pick up your car. You don’t need to get dolled up to drive a car.

She pushed the thought away. After wandering through town looking like a runaway who hadn’t seen the inside of a shower in months, it was only right for her to look nicer now. She had an image to uphold as the credit union manager, after all.

Nothing more than that.

She slung her purse over her shoulder, grabbed her keys from the entryway table where Moose had thoughtfully left them, and headed out. She walked the two blocks up to Main Street and then took a left, heading towards Boise…that is, if she kept walking for another week. Which she obviously wasn’t going to do.

As she passed the Muffin Man Bakery, her stride slowed a little as she took in the carnage. From what she’d heard around town, Gage was still working on collecting the insurance money on it so he could start to rebuild.

Insurance companies…they were quick to collect their money, and slow to pay it out. If they didn’t get a move on it soon, he should probably hire a lawyer to push them along. It’d been a month today since the fire had started; that was more than enough time for an insurance company to cut a check.

Seeing the soot-blackened walls and front windows sent a shiver down her spine in the bright sunshiny day. Sugar and Gage almost died in this fire; Georgia almost died in the wildfire. What was up with Sawyerites and fires lately? She let out a light laugh to herself. It made for a more exciting world than Sawyer usually occupied, that was for damn sure.

And then the laughter was gone and she was back in it again. She felt panic well up inside of her as flashbacks from yesterday’s horror washed over her. Pinned between Sparky and the cliff wall, trying not to breathe in too deep, listening to the crackle and pop of the fire as it raged up the hill, just sure it would take her out too…

She stepped into a narrow alleyway and leaned up against the cool brick of the building, closing her eyes and breathing deeply, pushing the panic down, shoving it into oblivion, not allowing it to wreck her composure.

She couldn’t let the flashbacks affect her like this. She’d lived. She was fine. She had nothing to complain about. She could stop being a pansy-ass on the topic right-damn-now.

She pushed away from the brick wall and continued down the street, shoulders back, head held high as she walked.

She was fine. She was totally fine. It was about damn time she started acting like it.