Chapter 11
Four weeks later
E ating dinner alone sucked, but it looked like Zoe would be doing it yet again tonight.
She shook the hot skillet to stir the chicken and veggies and prevent them from burning.
Checking the clock on the stove, she wondered where the heck her mother was.
She’d started cooking the second she’d gotten home from work so the food would be ready when her mom arrived and they could sit down to eat together for once. But so far, there was no sign of Nell.
She heard a vehicle out on the street, but it sounded like a big truck.
Definitely not her mom’s Lexus. At the slow squeal of powerful brakes right in front of their property, Zoe’s curiosity was piqued.
The kitchen was on the back of the house, so she went to the side window that overlooked the driveway to see if she could tell what was going on.
The tail end of a local fire truck was barely visible.
Her pulse kicked into overdrive. Was there a fire at one of their neighbors’ houses?
A quick glance at the Barvinskys’ house next door revealed nothing amiss, so she hurried into the living room for a better look at the rest of the neighborhood. And the truck.
Her alarm increased times one hundred when she realized two firefighters in full gear, helmets and all, were heading up the walk to her front door. Her stir-fry hadn’t even set off the smoke detector — she didn’t need the fire department’s help. She went to the door to tell them exactly that.
When she opened it, one of the men was already on the front steps, reaching toward the doorbell. The other stood several feet behind him. Perplexed, Zoe opened the screen door.
“Can I— Oh, my God.” Her hand shot to her mouth as her mind tried to make sense of what her eyes took in.
Cooper had removed his helmet and gazed down at her with an expression in those blue eyes that she couldn’t decipher. Zoe’s gaze darted to his turnout coat with its Boulder Fire Department emblem on the chest.
“Hi, Zoe,” he said with a measure of uncertainty.
“I don’t… There’s no… How did you get that coat?” she sputtered. She glanced behind him at the truck, which also proclaimed to be local. “What’s going on, Cooper?”
“Please don’t slam the door in my face,” he said with a tone of conspiracy. “The guys are already giving me ten shades of hell.”
“What are you doing here?” She looked from him to the man behind him, who she didn’t recognize, to a group of four more fully outfitted firefighters lined up along this side of the truck, watching them.
“I moved to Colorado, Zo. These are my new co-workers.” He gestured over his shoulder, then leaned forward to say, “They think I’m nuts.”
Zoe nearly missed the last because her brain was still tripped up on the first. “You … what ?” Was he kidding around?
That truck was real, though.
“You moved here?” she asked, not believing it but unable to come up with another explanation for the coat and the truck and the firefighters behind him.
“I got an apartment over on Crag View Road for now, short-term lease while I get my bearings. I’ve been with the department here for a week and a half.”
She was sure her mouth gaped to her chest. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m here because of you, Zoe. Not because you asked me to or I felt obligated to. I chose to make this change on my own. Because I want that future you mentioned. I want to wake up beside you every single day.”
He half turned and tossed his helmet the few feet to his closest ally. When he faced Zoe again, he rummaged around in the pocket of the large, thick coat, and then he went down on a knee, and Zoe’s heart exploded in her chest.
“Cooper?” She pressed both her hands to her mouth, and her eyes teared up.
He held out a little black velvet box in one hand and took her hand in the other, drawing her completely out of the house and letting the screen door slam shut. “Zoe, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”
It was like time stopped for a second, like she was in some kind of a bubble of non-reality as she took in everything Cooper was saying, had said since she’d opened the door.
His eyes, so full of love and tenderness.
His calloused hands that held … oh, holy hell, the most beautiful princess-cut diamond engagement ring in a platinum setting.
What finally yanked her out of her stupor was the realization that his hand shook.
She met his eyes again and recognized the fear. Insecurity. Question.
She needed to fix that. As soon as her brain caught up.
“Y-you live here now?”
He nodded once, his eyes never veering from hers.
“You work for them?” She gestured to the truck.
“With them. Yes.”
“What about your home? The island? Your condo?”
“I still have it. I’m going to rent it out to tourists when we’re not there visiting. Zo? You’re killing me.”
She wasn’t sure she understood the details, but she understood enough. He’d moved here. For her.
“Yes, Cooper,” she finally said, the words spilling out on a stream of giddy laughter. “I’ll marry you. Yes!”
He rose in a flash and picked her up in a bear hug, spinning her around. “Thank God,” he mumbled. “You can’t imagine what it took to get these guys to go along with this.”
That was when she tuned in to the applause from the firefighters, the hoots and hollers and cheers, the calls of “way to go, Flannagan!”
Zoe, her feet still dangling above the ground, held on for dear life and breathed in the familiar smell of Cooper mixed with that of the stiff coat. She let it sink in that he was really here. In Colorado. With a ring.
“Let me see that thing,” she said, lowering herself to the ground as best she could with Cooper’s hold on her. “My ring. Please?”
Cooper laughed and steadied her, then took the ring out of the delicate box. He grasped her left hand and, his fingers still shaking, slid the ring onto her ring finger.
“I love it,” she said, blinking away the tears that nearly blinded her. “It’s perfect, Cooper.” She turned her attention to his face. “I love you.”
His laugh was a roar as he pulled her into his arms again. “I love you too, Zo Zo. I was going crazy without you.”
“Me too,” she said into his shoulder.
“If you’d said no, I would’ve never heard the end of it from my new colleagues. They think I’m batshit crazy as it is.”
Zoe laughed. “You kind of are. In a good way. A very good way.”
She opened her eyes finally, and that’s when she noticed the beginnings of a crowd, attracted, no doubt, to the firetruck and trying to figure out what was going on.
Her neighbors. The people she’d known for most of her life.
And they were laughing and cheering along with the firefighters.
She waved at them over Cooper’s shoulder.
“Way to go, Zoe!” Mr. Finlay from down the block hollered, making her laugh again.
The firefighters who’d been by the truck were making their way to the porch to congratulate them.
“Nice work, Flannagan,” the one who held Cooper’s helmet said as Cooper turned to face them all, pulling Zoe securely into his side.
“Told you she’s a keeper,” Cooper said as he shook their hands, one by one.
At that moment, an incessant beeping came from behind them, inside the house. Zoe recognized the sound in an instant.
“No! My dinner!” she said in alarm. She opened the door and could see a blanket of smoke near the ceiling, crawling its way into the living room from the kitchen. “I left my stir-fry cooking!”
She tried to run inside, but Cooper held on to her. “They’ve got it handled,” he said, laughing, as three of the firefighters rushed inside her house.
“I just need to turn it off,” she protested, slightly mortified that strangers had burst into her smoke-filled house.
“They’ve got it. You’re staying right here with me. I’m not done with you yet,” Cooper said with another gravelly laugh. She managed to forget about the alarm and the smoke as Cooper gazed into her eyes with so much love it just about knocked her over.
He pulled her close again and kissed her slowly, with such exquisite tenderness that she forgot where they were two seconds in.
And then she registered the applause and the whistles and remembered they were in front of her house with a not-so-small audience.
Laughing, she broke the contact of their lips and shook her head. “Enough. We’re putting on a show.”
Cooper laughed, too, and glanced over his shoulder at the gathering masses, who were coming closer.
She expected him to lead her down the single step and out into the yard to meet them in the middle.
Instead, he surprised her by spinning her into an old-fashioned dip and leaning over her to kiss her again.
Zoe let out what was embarrassingly close to a squeal at the suddenness of his big move and the fear that he might drop her. He held tightly though, and she gave in to the kiss for a few seconds.
“Okay,” she said, laughing, trying to straighten but losing the battle. “You have to let me up. My kitchen’s on fire, and my entire neighborhood is closing in on us.”
“Zoe, my love, I just got you back. I don’t care if the whole neighborhood burns down. I’m not letting you go.”
He did, however, help her straighten. He tightened his arm around her waist as they both turned to her beloved neighbors, who were wishing them well. As she and Cooper went down the step toward them, she said, so only he could hear, “Is that a promise?”
“Biggest and best promise I ever made.”
Thanks for reading Slow Burn ! I hope you loved Cooper and Zoe!
If you missed the North Brothers series, you can dive into book one, True North, for free! Find out what happens when Mr. Socially Awkward spontaneously volunteers to be his beautiful boss’s fake date.