"Here." Andrew handed her a folded bandanna from his back pocket. "It's clean."
She wiped her face and eyes, and suddenly her legs went out from under her, blood pounded in her ears, and her face felt hot and tingly. She swore even as Clate braced her with one arm, even as she knew she couldn't stay on her feet. Mortified, she felt herself being lowered onto the ground, the cool shade steadying her.
"Shove her head down," Andrew said.
"Don't you dare. I'll be fine. I just—" She stifled a surge of nausea. If she threw up, Andrew would be calling in the paramedics, getting her oxygen. "I need to catch my breath."
Clate squatted down beside her, his presence steady, unshakable. "You want anything?"
"A gun to shoot whoever set my house on fire."
"It was a chimney fire," Andrew said. "You're going to burn someone's house down, you don't set a damned chimney fire. You toss a Molotov cocktail through the window or pour on gasoline. Jesus, Piper. You're getting paranoid."
She glared at him. "I keep a clean chimney."
"Yeah, well, not clean enough."
He marched off to the fire fighters. Still squatting in front of her, Clate watched him go, then turned back to her with a small smile. "Worry makes him irritable."
Her teeth were chattering. She stiffened her muscles to control her shaking. "I hate this. I hate every minute. You should have left me on the roof. I almost had the fire out."
"If I'd left you on the roof, the fire fighters—most of whom seem to know you—would have cheerfully turned a fire hose on you. Piper, you can't always take on the world by yourself." He bit off a sigh. "You know, for someone so in to family and community, you sure as hell don't like taking their help. You'd rather do the giving than the receiving."
"Excuse me, but I don't need a lecture right now."
"No, you don't. You probably need a shot of sugar. You're white as a damned sheet under all that soot."
"At least I didn't pass out."
A glimmer of humor in his eyes. "God forbid."
She closed her lips around her teeth, as if that would help the chattering. She made herself glance back at her house. It wasn't engulfed in flames, at least. And the flames spilling out of the chimney had died down. But there was smoke, a lot of smoke, and the fire fighters were still inside, and who knew about water damage, smoke damage.
"Hannah's shoebox." A jolt of adrenaline launched her to her feet. "I have to get her letters. I don't have that much I can't replace, most of the family stuff is at my father's house, but Hannah's letters—"
She bolted out of the shade, Clate fast on her heels with a growl of frustration as he called after her. She didn't listen. The fire fighters wouldn't know an old shoebox contained valuable, even priceless, materials. They'd hose it down, let it burn, who knew what.
"Piper, hold up. They won't let you in."
"It's my house, damn it!"
Her father and Benjamin intercepted her before she reached her back door. She was tempted to make a scene. She held back tears of frustration, anger, grief. She muttered about her clean chimney, her little fire in the kitchen not being enough to get a raging chimney fire going, her promises to Hannah, who was counting on her.
But then Hannah was there, too. A fire fighter screamed at someone to get the old lady the hell out of the way, and she ignored him as she walked around the perimeter of the damage zone. "I heard the news from my neighbor," she said. "He's an old goat, but he has a scanner. Come, Piper. Let's sit in the shade."
Ernie, the police chief, had arrived and asked loudly if Piper needed a hypodermic to calm her down. She whipped around, planning to tell him where he could stick his hypodermic, but Andrew slid in between them and, exercising more patience than he ever had with his sister, thanked Ernie for showing up for a little old chimney fire. "Piper try to put it out herself?" Ernie asked.
Hannah's hand was cool on her wrist as she coaxed her niece to the picnic table. Benjamin and her father joined them, but Clate hung back. She glanced up at him, seeing better now that tears and Andrew's bandanna had helped clear some of the soot from her eyes. He cut such a lonely figure, she thought suddenly, unexpectedly. No one knew him well enough to yell at him.
"There, now," Hannah said. "This is much better. I noticed your wax beans are almost ripe enough to pick."
"Your hand," Piper sniffled, touching her aunt's frail, bony hand. "It's all sooty."
"No bother. I have a lovely oatmeal scrub that will take care of it."
Piper turned to her father and Benjamin, back to Hannah. "I'd invite you all in for iced tea, but my house is burning down." She blinked back fresh tears. "I can't believe it."
"It's not going to burn down," her father said. "We'll have to wait and see what kind of damage there is."