Beautiful Sacrifice Chapter 23: Love Interest Is Feared Dead In A Fire (Again)

Previously, Taylor’s one-night stand from when he and Falyn were/weren’t on a break showed up to offer him her unborn child. Somehow the story only gets more buck wild today, if you haven’t inferred from “Love Interest Is Feared Dead In A Fire (Again)”.

Beautiful Sacrifice: Chapter 23

The weekend passes, and on Monday Taylor and his friends show up at the diner but apparently Falyn is completely ignoring him now? I don’t remember finding this surprising when I read the chapter, but now that I’m writing the summary, I have no idea how they got here since last chapter. I’m just this used to the ups and downs of Falyn+Taylor’s relationship existing in a perpetual state of quantum uncertainty.

If I looked unsure in my decision to end things or showed even a second of weakness, Taylor would be relentless until I gave in.

Oh, are we at the part of a Maddox Brothers novel where we romanticize stalking and suggest that true love means never giving a former romantic partner an opportunity for escape?

If his post-island actions were any indication, he would never give me a moment of peace.

We are!

Taylor shows up for lunch every day, and the staff always seats him in a different section away from Falyn, and Falyn ignores him, and he just creepily waits for her to break the silence.

That went on for days, and each day he came in, I would tell myself it would get easier to see him. But it didn’t.

Or, you know, doesn’t.

I passed by their table, and Taylor reached out for me. “Falyn. For the love of Christ.”

The staff’s reaction to this is basically “oh no there’s nothing we can do about this oh nooooooo”, and the answer to the question you’re thinking right now is “no, at no point does this not feel like total bullshit”.

“I told him he can still come in, but only if he promises not to cause a scene. He’s agreed not to bother you.”

How does the last quote I used before this one not count as causing a scene?

“Should I tell him not to come back?” Phaedra asked. “I hate to be mean to the poor kid. He looks like a lost kitten.”
“I don’t think he would take that well.”

THE “POOR KID” WHO IS STALKING ONE OF YOUR EMPLOYEES WHO IS EXPRESSING CONCERN ABOUT WHAT HIS REACTION MIGHT BE IF HE WERE TOLD NO? On top of being a shitty boss, isn’t she supposed to be a mother figure for Falyn? It’s not like she’s the worst mom in this book since Falyn’s mom is basically a cartoon villain, but it’s almost like Phaedra’s trying to not be able to clear that low, low bar.

May ended, and June began. […] By mid-July, Chuck and Phaedra were considering banning Taylor from the restaurant, but no one could justify it.

IDK HAVE A LITTLE IMAGINATION. I’M SURE YOU CAN THINK OF SOMETHING.

Phaedra asks Falyn if she’s sure they “can’t try to work it out”. Fuck off, Phaedra.

Meanwhile, foreshadowing.

The wildfires in our area were at a peak, the firefighters and hotshot crews seeing more occurrences than they had in a decade.

This is the point where I realized the ending to this novel should have been obvious the whole time and got irrationally angry with myself.

The rest of the diner staff without Netflix continues to have terrible opinions about Falyn’s love life.

“You can’t ban him for loving Falyn,” Kirby said, disgusted

Kirby pouted. “You’re being cruel.”
“Kirby,” Phaedra warned.
“I have always been honest with him. I want nothing to do with adoption,” I said.
“But this is his child!” Kirby screeched.
“You don’t understand,” I snapped.
“No, you’re right. I don’t,” she said. “But that’s because it makes no sense.”

I like when a conversation in a book for this blog features a character shouting that their conversation makes no sense, and all I get to do is sit back and be like, well, that sure cuts out the middleman.

“I’m not willing to lose another child.”
[Kirby] paused. “What do you mean… another child?”
I covered my face.
Phaedra put her hands on my shoulders. “Falyn had a baby just after high school. She gave her daughter up.”
Kirby stared at me for a long time. “I’m so sorry.” Once the shock wore off, her expression twisted into revulsion. “I’m sorry. I really am. But he was willing to forgo a family for you, and you won’t even entertain the idea of a family for him?” she asked. “You think you’re saving him or whatever, but you’re covering your own ass. You’re scared.”

This is the part of the book where I wonder how differently the story would have gone if the main character didn’t have shitty friends. Why the fuck is Kirby so angry with Falyn for deciding she doesn’t want anything to do with her ex and his child he fathered with a woman he cheated on her with? Why is this story framing this as a responsibility she’s foregoing? And let’s not forget that Kirby’s entire subplot was thinking her boyfriend was cheating on her because he wasn’t answering her texts fast enough, so this speech is pretty rich coming from that character.

Anyway, none of this matters because the climax of the novel is here.

Kirby [turned up] the volume [on the tv]. The rest of us watched in horror as a female reporter stood in front of tall grass and burning trees not two hundred yards behind her while the words ALPINE HOTSHOT CREW FEARED MISSING scrolled across the bottom of the screen. […]
In the same moment, everything I swore to forget came back to me

Suddenly, Falyn has a shift in perspective as she realizes that she really, truly loves Taylor now that he’s feared dead in a fiiiiiiiire… wait a fucking second…

Wait.

A fucking.

Second.

So… this is the fourth book in the Maddox Brothers series. The first one, Beautiful Disaster, told the tale of the contentious on-again-off-again romance of Travis and Abby, which climaxed when a fire broke out, Travis and Abby feared for each others’ lives, and then they got engaged. The second, Beautiful Oblivion, told the tale of the contentious on-again-off-again romance of Trenton and Cami, where in the penultimate chapter a fire broke out and Cami feared Trenton dead.

YOU SEE WHAT I’M GETTING AT, RIGHT?

How come three of the four books we’ve read so far end feature climactic moments where the characters have epiphanies after nearly dying in fires? The only example so far where this doesn’t happen is Beautiful Redemption, and the characters in that book got shot. Guys, is Jamie McGuire ok?

Falyn runs to her car and rushes to Taylor’s hotel, where she crosses paths with Ellison, who tries to strike up a totally batshit conversation given that they’re all waiting to find out if someone has died:

“I heard about the baby. First Maddox grandbaby. Jim’s ecstatic.”
My face fell.
“Oh God. Oh, no. Did you… are you not pregnant anymore?”
I stared at her, utterly confused and horrified. She mirrored my expression.
“You’re right,” she said. “This isn’t the time.”

Beautiful Sacrifice tries to remind us that Trex is supposed to be a very interesting character.

“Trex is getting updates every half an hour from his people.”
“His people?”
Ellison shrugged. “I don’t know. He just said his people.”

Readers: “Wait, who?”
Beautiful Sacrifice: “ThE mYsTeRiOuS tReX”

Falyn thinks that Taylor walks into the hotel, but it’s actually Tyler, showing up in his third ever appearance which is our second identical twin fakeout. Remember how Taylor and Tyler are identical twins yet somehow that dynamic hasn’t been used at all to make one of these brothers even a little bit different than all the others? It’s just bros and maybe dying in fires over and over again with these damn books.

Taylor updates them that the fire got too bad and the rescue team was pulled out. A heartbroken, up-all-night Falyn returns to the diner in the morning. Phaedra and Chuck try to tell her to go lie down and take the day off, but Falyn begs them to let her work because she needs a distraction. It’s all very sad and tense until Taylor inevitably walks in the door.

I froze when I recognized the man standing by the hostess station as Taylor. Covered in thick mud, he was still wearing all his gear, including his pack and hard hat. […] “They said you waited all night at the hotel.” […]
As soon as I nodded, my legs gave way, and I fell to my knees, my hand still cupped over my trembling lips.
Taylor rushed to the floor, falling onto his knees, too. […] He wrapped his arms around me, and everyone in the Bucksaw let out a collective sigh of relief and sentiment. […] although the circumstances hadn’t changed, everything was different.

So, of course, the next words out of Taylor’s mouth are a borderline emotionally abusive joke about all this.

When I finally let him go, his eyes sparked. “Christ, woman. If I’d known I’d have to have a near-death experience to get your attention, I would have jumped into a fire months ago.”

The real beautiful sacrifice was anybody in this book growing as a person. Why have that when you can just throw everybody into a fire?

They go upstairs to Falyn’s apartment and start having a conversation about how the fuck they’re gonna end this novel in fourteen pages.

“We’ve got a baby on the way,” he said.
“You have a baby on the way.”
“No, this is our baby.”

The real beautiful sacrifice was anybody in this book growing as a person. I don’t care that I already wrote this joke before. McGuire already wrote this fire climax before.

“You have said from the beginning that this was all happening exactly the way it was supposed to. You can’t pick and choose. It’s either fate, or it’s not.”

Falyn either decides that’s convincing enough or she also really wants this book to be over.

“You’re in? Which part?”
“Estes Park, the baby—all of it.”
A cautious small smile touched his lips. “When?”
“When you go back, I’ll go with you.” […]
“I have a condition. […] Marry me.”

“It’s not hard. Just say yes. Say you’ll marry me.”
I swallowed hard. “I can’t.”

I mean, this is 100% the right thing to do because Taylor is a manipulative piece of shit, but also we were so close to being done with this.