Chapter Twenty-One
Drew
Firebrook Valley
I went to Firebrook Valley believing I could end it.
Not the town, and not the winter, and certainly not the fact that my father insisted on treating a few square miles of New Hampshire like holy ground. I meant the feud—the stupid, tired, decades-long nonsense that had been hanging over the Burkes and the Hollistons like a permanent storm cloud.
I’d been telling myself for two days that the only thing standing between me and peace was one honest conversation, one firm boundary, and one final this ends now. I wanted to settle it so I could finally be free to figure out what the hell was going on with Bella.
I hadn’t heard from her since I told her she should be with me. Not a text, not an apology, not even an accidental emoji she could pretend wasn’t loaded with meaning. Nothing.
I told myself she needed time, and I was fine with that, but I was also checking my phone every time it buzzed. I was half-expecting a single word from her to feel like a lifeline and half-dreading that the silence would stretch into something permanent.
As I drove past the familiar turnoff for Firebrook Valley, my thoughts slid to Nora.
She’d gone to rescue Brady Holliston like she was a damn volunteer firefighter, and I didn’t know whether I should shake her or hug her.
It was likely both. The whole thing could’ve gone sideways in a hundred different ways.
A fight with frat boys? Likely drunk ones?
Bile rose in my throat at the thought of any of them touching her.
Alethea had said she’d handle them, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew I needed to ensure it would never happen again.
Of course Nora had gotten involved. That was her lately, ever since our mother had died.
She was overcompensating, smiling too brightly, and trying too hard to make sure everyone else was okay.
I understood it; we all felt guilty about Mom.
But Nora had safer options than the one she’d chosen.
I needed to talk to her and tell her she couldn’t take risks like that without coming to me first.
I couldn’t lose her too.
The closer I got to town, the more I felt that familiar tightening in my shoulders.
It was the sensation of walking into a place where nothing stayed calm for long because everyone had known everyone for far too long.
Everyone in my family was different in Firebrook Valley, and in my opinion, not in a good way.
The town wasn’t big enough for the Burkes and the Hollistons to share, or maybe it was simply too good for us.
Those who chose to stay or relocate there were hardworking, family-centric people who didn’t want the version of the world they saw in the news.
Acceptance into the community was more about sharing that vision and working together to survive the harsh winters than about where someone had come from.
It probably didn’t help our relationship with the locals that both the Burkes and the Hollistons only came for the summers.
My mother had gone back and forth with us when Nora and I were young, but the older we’d gotten, the more time she spent there.
By the time Nora was in high school, it felt like our parents were seasonally divorced, even though they hadn’t actually separated.
The memory hit me harder than usual—Mom laughing in the barn with Laurent, her hair loose for once, the horses nickering like they understood her better than we did. She’d looked lighter here, freer. I wondered if she’d ever felt the same weight I did now.
I turned onto Main Street and saw the sheriff’s cruiser parked outside the station. I could have continued past it to the long road that led to our family’s home, but then I saw the second cruiser.
Then I saw the third.
I slowed instinctively. In Firebrook Valley, three cruisers outside the town’s police station meant one of two things: a bear had wandered into town, or someone had done something so stupid the entire department had gathered to witness it.
Firebrook Valley was too small to support a full-time police force, and those cars were usually parked in backyards, waiting for the unlikely event that they were needed.
Why did the town even have its own police?
A grant from the Hollistons had built the building.
A donation from the Burkes had purchased the vehicles.
Politicians from local towns supplied the funding.
Every year, something in the town was spit-shined or allocated a grant for rehab from one of the families, only to be outdone by the other.
Firebrook was the best-maintained, poorest town in all of New England.
What did the locals think of us? I’m sure it was as complicated as my own feelings toward them. They didn’t ask us for anything, but they didn’t consider us one of them either. Except for Nora. Everyone loved her. And my mother.
I had a feeling my mother had been happier in Firebrook Valley when all she and my father could afford was a small slice of land, a tiny house, and a lean-to for her horse.
Over time, he’d built her an estate with a barn so fancy that equine magazines begged to photograph it.
It was odd how the more my father gave her, the less time she spent with him, or in that big house.
If you were looking for my mother, she was either in the barn or in the mountains.
My father’s G-Wagon was parked crookedly in the police station lot, ignoring the painted lines even though they’d carefully been cleared of snow.
Like anyone, I enjoyed the smoothness of a good vehicle, but driving a Mercedes-Benz G 63 AMG in Firebrook Valley wasn’t the flex my father thought it was.
With a sticker price higher than ninety-five percent of the homes in a hundred-mile radius, it didn’t win him any popularity points.
It was perhaps because of my father’s need to constantly prove he was successful that I chose function over fashion.
I chose results over presentation. When I’d first met Dominic and had seen the lavish way he lived, I’d asked him about it, and he seemed to respect me for my bluntness.
Most people went out of their way to appease him, but what he appreciated most was authenticity and loyalty.
He’d told me a story about how he’d experienced what it was like to feel powerless, helpless, and unworthy. He’d shrugged and added, “I surround myself with concrete proof that I am not and never will be that person again.”
My father had come from poverty. He’d gone to college solely on merit scholarships. Was that why he needed to drive an outrageously priced vehicle around a small town? To prove to himself that he was better than they were?
I pulled in, shut off the engine of my modest rental sedan, and sat for a moment staring at the police station, gathering my calm. There was a chance my father was inside for a reason that wouldn’t raise my blood pressure. Maybe he was receiving an award for rescuing a kitten from a tree.
I coughed on a pained laugh.
The fact that he hadn’t answered any of my phone calls told me he was up to something he knew I wouldn’t approve of.
Shit.
I got out of my car and walked into the station.
It smelled like a plug in air freshener and the faint scent of damp wool.
Boots were lined up near the door. The woman behind the counter looked up from a computer with the tired eyes of someone who’d seen everything and still wasn’t impressed.
Her hair was curled to perfection because when she wasn’t at the station, she worked in the local hair salon.
She stared at me for half a second, then her face shifted. “Drew.”
“Hi, Marlene.”
Tapping one of her long red nails on the landline phone beside her, she said, “I was told to not contact you, but I’m glad someone did.”
That didn’t sound good. I nodded.
She pointed a pen toward the back hallway. “Interview room one.”
I walked down the hall and stopped outside the door.
Through the small window, I could see my father sitting at the table, arms crossed and jaw tight, his whole body vibrating with contained rage.
Chief Halvorsen sat across from him, leaning back in his chair, looking like he’d been there long enough to start daydreaming of being somewhere warmer.
His gaze flicked to the window, and he rose to his feet.
We met just outside the door. He closed it behind him but held on to the knob, as if doing so somehow kept the situation inside contained.
His voice dropped. “I know your father’s been struggling since your mother.
I do. And we’re all trying to help him, Drew. ”
“Thank you.” I held his gaze for a beat, then nodded toward the room. “What did he do?”
“I’ll let him tell you. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”
With that, Halvorsen turned and motioned for me to follow him inside. My father looked up, seemingly irritated by my arrival. “I’ve got everything under control here, Drew.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “I can see that.”
“I asked for my lawyer, and Tim over here told me I needed to calm down first.”
“That’s Chief Halvorsen, sir,” the chief said with more patience than I probably would have had. “And what I suggested was that you contact your son before you call your lawyer.”
My father snapped. “Do you see what I’m dealing with? He’s lucky I’ve known him since he was in diapers or I’d make sure—”
“Stop,” I said firmly. “You aren’t helping yourself or the situation.”
My father started to rise, but the officer behind him placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back into the seat. There was a quick look exchanged between the officer and the chief before Halvorsen looked at me and grimaced.
If we were anywhere else I would have demanded a lawyer before speaking to anyone, but I knew Tim well enough to know he wasn’t trying to get information out of my father . . . he was trying to squash this situation before it had a paper trail.