Shelter for Seaton (San Antonio First Responders #12)

Chapter 1

CADDO

The first time he saw her, she was moving into the house next door. The change itself was a surprise.

His neighbor had been an older gentleman who owned the house since it was constructed in the fifties. Mister Barber liked to say that he was there and they just built the house around him, as if he was saying that he was older than the neighborhood.

And maybe he was, Caddo had always seen the older man as a fixture, a linchpin of sorts.

But... he had been getting on in age and there had been a few Emergency Services calls to the house. Caddo had begun to check on the man during his time off-shift until Mister Barber had been moved to a care home by his doctor.

Since then the house had been empty.

No sign up for rent or sale.

In a way, Sam had expected the older man to come back.

That had been wishful thinking.

Yet, the woman who'd moved in one morning had been a dream.

She was tall.

Graceful.

And had a kind of wall around her that said, 'Don't look. Don't talk. Don't... anything.'

So he'd left her alone, silently watching.

Until the day she walked up to his front door with a covered plate and rung his bell.

He'd been working that day, but thanks to the RING cam, he'd been able to answer her.

"Hello?"

She'd leaned back from the door as if she expected the door to open and needed to put some distance between them.

But when the door didn't open, she'd frowned, the bridge of her nose behind her oversized glasses.

"Sorry," he cleared his throat as he felt his face heating, "I'm not at home, so I'm talking to you through the Ring Camera."

"Ah," she nodded and then frowned again, "that's probably something you shouldn't tell me."

It wasn't a criticism, or at least that's not how he heard it.

Sam felt like it was her own thoughts. Something she'd likely told herself and others because she worried.

She had a kind face.

A beautiful face, too. One that made him itch to touch it.

"But, you're a man, so maybe it's not something you worry about."

She didn't sound like she was complaining. Her tone was matter of fact.

That's one of the things that Sam hated about the world, the way that women had to guard against so many things on a daily basis.

"Everyone should be safe," he agreed. "Is there something I can help you with?"

She lifted up the covered plate in her hands. "Not unless you can reach through the app and take these."

He smiled even though she couldn't see him. "I could let you in if you want."

She frowned again and Sam wanted to reach through the camera to smooth the wrinkles she was making in the bridge of her nose. "You can do that?"

Sam opened up another app on his phone and unlocked the door.

The whirring mechanism and the heavy click of the lock startled her.

She stepped back and looked both ways before turning back to the camera box mounted beside the door frame. "Did you just unlock your door?"

"Yes." He nodded and silently sighed. She was skittish like a colt or a small animal sensing danger around them. "If you want to leave that inside, you're welcome to."

She hesitated, her head turning side to side. "Said the spider to the fly."

A smile touched his lips, but the sight of her worried expression changed his feelings.

"I'm sorry," he murmured the words. "You can tug the doorknob toward you and the door will lock on its own."

She relaxed at that. "I probably should have introduced myself first."

He smiled. "Oh, yeah. I should have done that, too." He saw her smile then. Maybe it was the soft groan or his self-depreciating tone. "I'm Sam Wister, Miss. I'm at work, here at Fire Station Seven."

Her eyes widened at that. "A firefighter?"

Sam nodded and realized that she wouldn't have seen that since there wasn't a screen on the other side.

He wished that there was so she could see his expression while they talked.

"Yeah. I'm a firefighter for San Antonio Fire Department. I'll be back in the morning after my shift is over."

He watched her nod slowly a few times as if she was processing the information.

"If you want to wait until then, I can talk to you face to face."

That seemed to shock her.

She took another step back and he moved the camera angle so he could see how much of his porch floor she had behind her.

He didn't want her to fall off his porch and get hurt.

"Uhh... Maybe I can just leave this inside. Is there a table in your foyer?"

He smiled at her words. "I have a table just to the left of the door, inside. "I usually drop my keys there-"

"You really should be more careful about who you share that kind of information with."

"I'm not worried about you, Miss..."

She shook her head rapidly back and forth, each movement probably no more than an inch. "That's not a good idea. You don't even know me, Mister Wister."

"Sam, please."

She let out a slow, shaky breath.

"Please call me Sam."

He watched while she considered his words and the play of subtle emotions across her face was fascinating.

She had a story to tell and he hoped that she might be willing to tell him someday.

She nodded and lifted her gaze back to the camera box beside his door. "Okay, Sam." Her lips curved up in a hint of a smile. "And I'm Seaton." She nodded. "Seaton Buchanan."

Seaton.

He didn't think he'd heard that name before, but he had heard the name-

"It's not Sutton," she clarified and they both laughed a moment later.

"I like it." He nodded. "It's a good name. Unique," he clarified.

She tipped her head to the side and sighed. "Yeah, I guess."

The sadness in her voice touched him.

He wanted to fix it, but-

The alarm went off in the firehouse and he bit back a curse.

"Uh... Sorry, Seaton. I have to go."

She sounded as flustered as he was. "Oh... Okay."

He was up and running. "Could you pull my door closed, please? I have to go out on a call."

"Uh... sure! Okay. Yeah. Uh... Be safe, okay?"

"Thanks, Seaton. You be safe, too."

He turned his phone off and stepped into his turnout gear, smiling the whole the time.

SEATON

She stood on the porch, stunned.

When she'd come over to bring her neighbor cookies, she hadn't expected to talk to him via a doorbell camera.

Her hopes had been to hand him the plate of cookies, introduce herself, and walk away.

Instead he'd shocked her by unlocking his door for her and then running off to... to what?

To fight a fire? To save someone from a car accident? Attend an emergency medical call?

She had no idea, but he'd left the call asking her to close his door and secure his house?

She shook her head feeling like she was a little crazy.

Seaton looked down at the plate in her hands and sighed. "He did say I could put this inside."

A breeze stirred the edge of the cloth that she'd covered the plate with, reminding her that it would be a beacon to anything in the house that was hungry and had a nose.

Her lips pursed together and she took a half step back, looking over at her house. It was close.

"Hmmm."

Close enough.

Seaton was glad she was wearing her comfortable shoes. She dashed back home, well as fast as she could dash with cookies on a plate.

She'd left her own door unlocked because she was just going next door and hadn't planned to go inside.

She'd just come back from the store earlier that morning and had washed the pack of containers on her counter. Lifting one from the drying rack, she turned it over and placed the cookies into the container and closed it. Hustling back to Sam's house.

Sam.

She smiled as she moved across the sidewalk and back up to the house.

She stopped before she pushed the door open and looked into the camera box.

"I'm not sure if you'll be able to see this if you're not looking at your phone." She chuckled a little. "I don't know how this works beyond those videos on Youtube about crimes being caught on Ring Cam, but I just want to let you know..."

She held up the container up by her face and smiled, feeling silly.

"I'm putting this inside where you said I could."

She pushed the door open and saw the table just inside the door.

His house, at a glance, looked like hers, but opposite. Likely a product of the era when they were constructed. It was clean, too.

That was all him.

Smiling, she leaned in, keeping her feet outside, and put the container down on the table.

Done with that, she leaned back out and closed the door behind her.

She heard the click and a whir. Before she was satisfied that it was locked she took hold of the doorknob and found that it was locked.

Nodding, she looked back at the little box beside the door. "Okay. Again, not sure you can see this but it'll make me feel better. That's kind of silly, right? Anyway. The door is locked. I tried to open it again and it wouldn't open."

She nodded and turned to leave, but stopped and turned back, lifting her hand.

Seaton waved. "I hope your call ended well."

She frowned. "That sounds... silly. Well,... Um... Bye?"

Seaton managed to turn around before she rolled her eyes at herself.

"Way to go, girl." She walked down the steps from the porch and walked back toward her house, telling herself the whole way that she'd made an utter fool of herself.

"Yoohoo!"

She stopped short of the walkway to her door and turned around to look across the street.

There was a kind, older woman who she'd bumped into earlier that day at the store.

Surprised, Seaton smiled at the older woman. "Hello, Missus March!"

Looking both ways first, Seaton crossed the street and saw that the older woman had groceries in the trunk of her little car. "Can I help you?"

Missus March lifted an elegant silver brow which had once been dark. "Can you?"

Seaton's lips pressed together in a barely suppressed grin. "May I?"

Missus March's expression was full of youthful humor. "Yes," she nodded as if she was a sage on a mountain top, "you may."

She reached for a brown paper bag and as soon as she lifted it from the trunk, the bottom of the bag disintegrated. "Whoa!"

The groceries inside hit the ground and Seaton dropped down to pick them up, worried that she'd damaged something.

"Oh, dear girl."

She could feel Missus March's hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry. You can't hurt them."

It took Seaton a moment to calm her anxiety.

Her ex-husband and her mother were masters of passive aggressive behaviors.

If the groceries had belonged to either of them, they would have laid into her.

Missus March didn't do that. She stood there beside her, gently rubbing her back. "It's really okay, Seaton. It's just some cans. Nothing to worry over."

It took an embarrassingly long time for her to relax and pick up the cans that had hit the ground.

Seaton kept her gaze on the ground as she retrieved the cans and stacked them in the trunk. "Here I am," she sighed, "trying to help and I made a huge mess of it."

Missus March's voice softened. "Seaton, sweetheart..."

"I'm okay." Seaton squeezed her eyes shut, but tears leaked out at the corners of her eyes. "I'm okay."

Turning her head away, she wiped her forearm over her eyes and then the heel of her hand.

When she believed she'd wiped away her tears, she stood and gathered the cans into her arms. Turning, she tried to avoid the older woman's eyes. "So, where can I put these?"

Seaton knew that her voice wasn't as easy as it should be. Her face must hold at least a hint of strain.

But Missus March helped her pretend that it didn't exist. "Come," she grinned, "I'll open the door and if you don't have anywhere to head off to at the moment, maybe you'll let me cook you lunch. It'll be nice to catch up with you."

Seaton's instinct was to excuse herself and head back across the street, but she knew how silent her house would be now that she was on her own.

Yes, there were times when silence was golden.

And then there were times, like this, where silence... silence made her home feel empty.

"Okay," Seaton nodded. "I'll stay for dinner, if you let me help you with things around the house."

Missus March brightened at the idea. "Wonderful!"

The elderly woman walked at her side up to the porch and deftly opened the lock on her front door before swinging it open and standing aside for Seaton to pass by.

"There are things on upper shelves that give me a conniption every time I think about getting them down."

Sutton scuffed the bottoms of her shoes on the mat before the door before stepping in. "Happy to help."

And she was, because there were people who welcomed her into their lives.

Those people she was happy to help.

Just to feel their smiles like sunlight, she would gladly help them.

Her life had been pretty dark for a long time and she wanted to lean into that light.