Chapter 23
Landon
By the time the plow crawls past the shop for the second time, the town is half-awake again—salt dusting the blacktop like frost, people testing brakes at intersections, the hardware store’s bell clanging open and shut.
I park close to the bay doors at the shop, kill the engine, and sit there a beat. Marcy’s hand is warm in mine on the middle console, glove pressed against glove. She stares out at the garage like she’s bracing for impact and pretending she isn’t.
“Ready?” I ask.
“No,” she admits, a small smile barely there. “But yeah.”
We climb out into air that carries that clean, snow-after-snow smell, the sun bright enough to make everything feel a little unreal.
While I grab the container of cookies she made for the guys, she tips her face up to the apartment windows.
The blinds hang half-open. No movement. Just the glint of the silly cat ornament she set on the windowsill.
Inside, the lobby holds the kind of cold that lives in concrete. The lemon cleaner my sister swears by mingles with motor oil, along with the steady tick of the heater. Joon slips through the side door right then, cheeks red, snow melting in his hair.
“Power held,” he reports, tapping the thermostat up. “Pipes are fine. I ran the taps earlier.”
“Thanks,” I say.
Becket already beat us here. Figures. He’s kneeling by the front door, tucking a wire into the trim with a flathead and the kind of focus that makes people confess things without meaning to. A small black keypad sits on the wall now where the crooked coat hook used to hang.
He nods at me, then at Marcy. “Alarm’s live.”
I scan the lobby with new eyes. There’s a dome in the corner near the ceiling, the camera barely bigger than a thumb.
Another hovers above the bay entrance, angling to catch the lot.
Subtle ones dot the outside too—on the stairwell that leads up to her door, the back alley, the office, the register. Not a fortress. Just enough.
My chest loosens in a way that’s equal parts relief and guilt.
“Walk me through it?” I ask.
Becket passes me his phone. “This is the app you need to download to view the cameras. Joon synced the accounts. Motion zones are tight, so you won’t get pinged every time a squirrel looks at us funny.”
Joon shrugs like it was nothing and pulls a steaming thermos from his bag, setting it by the credit card terminal.
Marcy hangs back near the counter, listening. I want to put myself between her and the door—old habit—even though the door isn’t the problem. I force myself to stay put.
“Keypad code?” I ask.
Becket rattles off a temporary one. “Change it later. There’s a chime now—front door, bay door, and back door, plus one on the apartment door upstairs.
” He looks at Marcy. “You can turn it off if it gets annoying.” He nods toward the ceiling where Marcy’s apartment sits.
“Added a second deadbolt up there. And a wedge bar for the door. New locks on the windows too.”
Marcy’s eyes go wide. “Becket, you did all this…?” She swallows hard and shakes her head. “I don’t know what to say.”
Becket just shrugs. “Joon helped. It’s not a big deal.”
“It is,” I say. “Thank you.” Though the words don’t feel big enough for what this is.
He shrugs like we’re discussing a tire rotation. “Don’t hover, but don’t guess either,” he tells me under his breath as he stands—which is Becket’s version of poetry. Then, louder, to Marcy: “Want me to carry anything up?”
“I’ve got it,” she says. She hesitates, then rushes forward and throws her arms around Becket. He stiffens, his wide eyes flashing to me before he finally hugs her back. She whispers something to him, and he smiles.
“We’ve got you,” he murmurs back before letting her go. He turns and heads back to work like nothing happened.
I take Marcy’s hand and lead her outside.
We head up to the apartment, and the door opens like it remembers her.
The heater kicks on with a long sigh; the window over the lot shows a slice of white field and gray road.
I set her bakery box on the counter, and suddenly the place smells like flour and vanilla again—at least in my head.
She stands in the doorway, taking in the bed she barely used and the hastily assembled toothbrush in the cup. For a second, she looks so small.
“New lock,” I say, pointing to the deadbolt, because practical feels easier than protective. “And—here.” I crouch at the closet and pull out the door wedge bar Becket left. “You hook it like this if you want it at night. It’s a pain to kick in even if the lock fails.”
She nods. “Okay.”
“Alarm’s on a delay,” I add, holding out my phone so she can see the screen. “If you arm it when you’re up here, you’ll have thirty seconds to reach the door before it triggers. If you’re nervous, don’t arm the bay—just up here.” I catch myself, aware I’m talking too much. “Sorry. I—”
“No,” she says. “It helps.”
Her voice is soft but certain. The tight line in my shoulders eases a notch.
“You want me to stay tonight?” The question slips out before I can stop it. “Couch. Or I can be downstairs. Whatever makes you feel—”
She exhales. “I want to try spending the night on my own. Here.” A beat. “But… can I text you if I change my mind?”
“Anytime,” I say. It comes out too fast, too sure. I slow down. “Seriously, anytime. Even if you don’t change your mind, text me.”
Downstairs, life starts back up. The bell rings; Wes barrels in with two paper bags and triumph written across his face.
“Civilization!” he crows. “The Bean is open. I brought bribes.”
He drops a box of donuts and a tray of coffees on the counter like we’ve never seen either before.
He notices the keypad, the small camera, the way Marcy’s standing a little closer to me than she used to, and his grin softens.
He glances at the cookie box, then catches my eye when he thinks Marcy’s not watching and mouths, You good?
I nod. He doesn’t push.
By noon, the new normal starts settling around us.
Phones ring. The printer churns out invoices.
Marcy slides behind the counter like she never left, pulling the ledger closer and cracking open a fresh stack of intake forms. Every time the door chimes, my muscles tense, then ease when it’s a neighbor, a farmer, somebody’s cousin—nobody whose smile masks darker intentions.
Marcy picks up exactly where she left off before the storm, color-coding the parts orders; rewriting a messy estimate with neat boxes and totals that don’t make my head throb; answering the phone with “Five Brothers Garage, this is Marcy,” like she’s been saying it for years.
Joon and Becket disappear into bay two, wrestling with a puzzle of bolts and brake lines.
Wes tries fixing the radio antenna and nearly impales himself with the screwdriver before surrendering and calling the static “rustic ambiance.” I handle the ordinary small repairs that always feel like breathing—rotations, bulbs, belts—while my attention keeps drifting back to the front.
I remind myself to trust the systems: the locks, alarms, my people.
At lunch, a steady rush hits—three walk-ins and two appointments stacking up at once.
The lobby fills with shuffling boots and winter coats.
Marcy’s pen never stops moving. She keeps her voice steady with a man who missed his appointment and is clearly annoyed.
It takes me a full thirty seconds to realize I’m halfway to the doorway, ready to stand there like a wall.
I force myself back to the Tacoma on the lift, jaw relaxing when I hear her say, calm as anything, “…and the earliest slot for the alignment is Friday. If that works, I’ll put you on the list now. ”
When the crowd thins, Becket emerges with a part number scribbled on his glove and pauses at the counter. He takes in the neat stack of “Paid” slips and the way Marcy’s shoulders remain loose despite the rush.
“Good system,” he says.
“Thanks,” she grins.
The afternoon settles into near quiet. Light through the front windows turns blue and thin, the snowplow passing again like a tired shark.
Every few minutes, my phone buzzes with a motion ping from the lot—mostly a bird skidding on the railing, a drifting shadow, a neighbor’s dog.
The one time a sedan idles too long by the curb, Becket glances at the camera feed and names the driver before I can cross the floor.
“Post Office kid. His wipers are trash.” He sets a new pair on the counter without comment, hands precise.
The dread in my ribs loosens by degrees.
At one point, Marcy catches me watching.
“What?” she asks, something like humor curving the corner of her mouth.
“Just… watching you run circles around us,” I say.
Color rises in her cheeks. “Don’t say that. I’m still learning.”
“We all are.” I lean on the counter’s edge, close enough to see the faint lines on her forehead that appear when she’s trying not to smile.
We lock the bay door at five-thirty—earlier than usual while the roads settle. We close out the drawers and shut off the fluorescents in the bays. The lobby hums under weak lamps.
I walk Marcy to the stairwell and stop at the bottom so it doesn’t feel like an escort. The new deadbolt catches the streetlight when she fits her key. She glances back once. I give her the smallest nod. She disappears inside; the chime sings softly in the night.
Back in the shop, Becket slides the last of the day’s tickets into their manila homes. He hands me a slip of paper—the camera admin code in his neat block letters, taking up as little room as possible.
“Change it later,” he says.
“I will.”
He pauses like he might say something else, then just flicks a look toward the ceiling. “She’s tough.”
“I know,” I say.
Becket slips into the cold without another word, the door clicking shut behind him. The lobby dims now, only the desk lamp casting a small circle of light across the counter. I stand there a moment longer, listening to the heater’s steady tick and the faint shuffle of Marcy’s steps above me.
She’s tough.
But toughness doesn’t mean she has to face this alone.
I pocket the code slip and switch off the last light.
The shadows settle around me, heavy but familiar.
Tomorrow will bring what it brings—customers, phone calls, maybe more questions than I’ll have answers for.
But tonight, she’s upstairs. The locks are new, the alarm hums to life, and she asked if she could text me.
That’s enough.