Chapter 3
Levi
Inside the firehouse, the fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as Jude and I shrugged off our turnout coats, boots thudding onto the rubber mats by our lockers.
My shirt clung to my back, damp and smelling of sweat and old fire, and I peeled it away with a tired groan.
Jude tossed his helmet onto the top shelf, his hair sticking up in every direction.
Locker doors banged shut up and down the row as the rest of the shift filed past, offering tired nods and a few wisecracks.
After quick showers and the familiar sting of hot water on tired muscles, we pulled on soft, worn t-shirts and jeans and ran hands through damp hair.
By the time I laced my boots and tugged on clean socks, I felt almost like myself again—more brother than firefighter, just another Barrett kid heading home for a meal.
We grabbed our keys and headed out to Jude’s battered pickup, sliding into the seats with the ease of habit.
The engine grumbled awake, and we rolled down the windows to let in the cool air, the world outside painted in the flat grey light of a rain-washed afternoon.
Familiar streets passed in a blur—the bakery, the hardware store, the sprawl of Sweetbriar’s Christmas tree farms—until we turned onto the long brick driveway that Dad had laid himself, one crooked brick at a time.
The family house sat at the end of it, the kind of house that had never been planned so much as accumulated.
What had started as a modest two-bedroom ranch had grown with every new Barrett baby—a sunroom here, a dormer there, a whole extra wing tacked on one summer when Dad got ambitious.
The place rambled in every direction, more patchwork than blueprint, with porches that didn’t quite match and a roofline that looked like it had been sketched by a committee that couldn’t agree on a theme.
But it sat proud on several acres of pines and pasture, big enough for family barbecues, football games, and all the noise that came with eight kids growing up under one roof.
Dad had filled it with his sweat and stubbornness when he wasn’t wearing the badge.
He’d been Sweetbriar’s police chief for decades before finally retiring.
Now my older brother Cade held the title, though Dad still carried himself like he had the final say on everything from town politics to the best way to stack firewood.
Mom made her mark in quieter ways. Dahlia Lake—she’d kept her maiden name for her work as a romance novelist and claimed she worked best at the kitchen table with a pencil in her hair and coffee rings on her manuscript pages.
Half her books had been written while raising us kids, helping with homework, listening to us stomp through the halls.
Now she had her own writing retreat at the back of the property, and she could often be found at a reserved corner table at Violet’s.
The hallway leading to the kitchen was lined with mismatched frames, each photo a piece of our story.
Asher, with his twins, both trying to escape the frame in opposite directions.
Violet, behind her café counter, looking like she’d been born there, which in some ways she had.
Cade on his first day as chief, Charlotte beside him, both pretending they weren’t terrified.
Rose and Trevor with the kids, making faces at the camera.
Lily and Luke in matching sweaters that had definitely been her idea.
Jude and I on our first day at the station, trying to look like men.
Holly and Liam on her apothecary shop’s opening day, Holly laughing at something off-camera.
Eight kids. One wall. Crooked and cluttered and perfect, just like us.
“You’re almost late for dinner,” Dad said from behind his newspaper, but there was a twinkle in his eye.
“Kitchen fire on Pine and Fourth,” Jude said, sliding into a chair. “Got into the walls. Took a while.”
Mom turned from the stove, spatula in hand. “Everyone out safely?”
“Everyone out,” I confirmed, dropping into my usual seat. “Including the dog. Sparky owes me a beer.”
“Good.” She turned back to the stove, satisfied, the way she always was when the answer was everyone out. She’d been getting that answer for years, and it never seemed to get old for her. “And did you two eat anything today? Real food, not whatever you grabbed from the station vending machine.”
“We survived,” I said.
“Barely,” Jude added.
Before Mom could follow up on that, the back door banged open, and Gram shuffled in from her apartment over the garage, wearing a bright pink sweatshirt bedazzled with rhinestones that spelled Hot Stuff. She leaned on her cane like it was more for effect than necessity.
“Well, look who dragged in smelling like smoke,” she announced. “Two firefighting heroes who can’t boil water without supervision.”
Jude got up and kissed her cheek on his way to the coffee pot. “Hey, Gram.”
She settled into her chair and fixed her sharp eyes on me. “Did you see Aggie this week, Levi? She called me last night, said she caught you skulking around the campground again.”
Heat crept up my neck. “I wasn’t skulking.”
“She says Becca looks tired.” Her eyes were hawk-sharp, missing nothing.
“Said you should bring her some groceries or she’s gonna waste away.
And for heaven’s sake, Levi, stop pretending you don’t care.
You’ve got Aggie and me both rooting for you, so you might as well give in and ask her out now that Dipshit Travis is finally out of the picture for good. ”
Jude nearly choked on his coffee.
“Eat and stop trying to rile Levi up,” Mom cut in, sliding a plate of lasagna in front of Jude. But I caught her small smile as she turned back to the stove.
Gram wagged a finger at me across the table. “I think it’s nice you still watch out for her. You’re a good boy, Levi.”
Dad lowered his newspaper just enough to look over the top of it. He had the look he always had—steady, sharp-eyed, the retired police chief who liked everyone to think he was just reading the paper. “Developers are sniffing around town again,” he said. “Especially the river areas.”
Mom turned from the stove. “The river? What on earth would they want with that?”
“Same thing they always want. Views and profit.” His gaze moved to me, then Jude. “Riverside Pines would be prime real estate if anyone ever got to Aggie. She owns the whole parcel. Without her, there’s nothing to develop.”
Gram snorted. “Over my dead body. Aggie built that place into something after Harold died, and I will not watch some developer in a nice suit take it from her. Those folks have carved out their homes down there, and nobody is running them off.”
Dad grunted. “Mayor Whitaker’s been pushing this revitalization talk for years. Never could stand the man. Slick smile, shadier handshake. Didn’t trust him when I wore the badge, don’t trust him now.”
I stiffened, because I knew exactly whose trailer sat closest to the riverbank.
Becca’s.
She was out there alone. That was the thought that sat in my chest, the one that had been there since morning and wasn’t going anywhere—alone in a trailer that leaked when it rained hard, and it had been raining hard for three days.
Alone after Travis, after the job, after all of it.
Starting over from scratch in a place with thin walls and a temperamental water heater.
I knew she could handle herself. Had always been able to handle herself.
But knowing that and being fine with it were two entirely different things.
She hadn’t asked for anyone’s help. She wouldn’t. That was so specifically Becca that it almost made me want to put my fist through something.
Jude must’ve noticed, because he gave me a look over his coffee mug.
The rhinestones on Gram’s sweatshirt flashed as she waved a hand in the air. “Whitaker’s got more grease on him than the fry basket at Holloway’s. Man couldn’t tell a Douglas fir from a Noble if we bashed him in the head with them.” Her eyes shifted to me. “Maybe we should.”
Jude snorted into his coffee.
But Gram wasn’t done. She wagged her finger at Dad, then turned back to me with the pivot of someone who had never once lost the thread.
“Aggie and I were talking last night—don’t roll your eyes, Levi, you know I’m right—we said if Whitaker thinks he’s going to shove people out of Riverside Pines, he’s got another thing coming.
Aggie’s already organizing half the knitting circle to go to the next town meeting.
You try moving those ladies and see what happens. ”
Mom sighed fondly as she set a plate of lasagna in front of me.
“Heaven help anyone who crosses Aggie,” she said. “Or you.”
“Damn straight,” Gram huffed. Then, without pausing for breath: “But back to the topic at hand. Becca is single. What are you going to do about it?”
I nearly choked on my coffee. I glanced at Mom, hoping for a rescue, but she just pressed her lips together, fighting a smile. Jude’s grin widened. Dad raised his eyebrows and waited.
“Gram,” I said carefully. “It’s not that simple. Becca’s got her own life, and I don’t think she’s looking for anyone to wade into it.”
My voice came out weaker than I’d hoped. Gram studied my face with the expression of someone who had been reading Barretts for eighty-odd years and found me entirely transparent.
“Well, whatever,” she said, in the tone that meant she had already decided.
“Stop thinking and just listen. Your mama made way too much lasagna. Take some to Aggie and Becca and tell Aggie I’ll see her at the next knit night—I can’t make it to this one.
Boom. There you go.” She sat back. “We’ll have coffee tomorrow morning and figure out what to do next. ”
“What?”
She pointed one rhinestone-adjacent finger at me. “No thinking. Just listening. Chill out and do what I say. You’ll be with Becca before you know what hit you. Meant to be, the two of you. I’ve always said it.”
Jude leaned back in his chair, thoroughly entertained. “Yeah, chill out and listen to Gram, Levi.”
“Whatever,” I mumbled and picked up my mug.
But I didn’t chill out. I didn’t stop thinking. And I definitely didn’t listen in the way Gram meant. Because the second she mentioned Aggie and Becca, something tightened in my chest. Lasagna. Groceries. An excuse to see her wrapped in aluminum foil.
I knew what this was. We all knew what this was. My father definitely knew what this was, judging by the expression on his face as he shoveled another forkful of lasagna into his mouth.
“You’re smiling,” I accused him.
“I’m eating,” he said innocently. “Also smiling. Your grandma is the one attempting to meddle. Your mother is almost ready to wade in, too.”
Mom swatted his arm with a dish towel. “Go get the containers from the fridge, Levi. And take the good ones. Not the cracked lids.” She beamed at Gram. “This is a great idea.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, because old habits died hard in the Barrett house.
I packed up the lasagna while Mom hovered, adding garlic bread and a bag of salad just in case, until the paper sack was heavy in my hands.
It felt ridiculous to be nervous about dropping off leftovers.
I’d run into burning buildings without blinking.
I’d carried strangers out of smoke-filled rooms. I’d faced down worse than a potentially awkward conversation.
But Becca Hartford had always been different.
The thing about Sweetbriar was that errands were never just errands. They were opportunities. Intersections where past and present collided, whether you were ready or not.
“Don’t overthink it,” Mom called after me.
I paused, hand on the knob, the paper bag warm against my arm.
Too late.