4. Haven
Chapter Four
Haven
“Cole!” I called as I stepped through the doorway into the main resort.
With my hands full, I lightly kicked the door shut with my boot. “Up here!” my brother called in return.
The sound of footsteps running echoed. “Hey, Dad!” Tommy said as he skidded into the kitchen.
My son’s hair stuck straight up, his purple mohawk mussed. He reached for the grocery bags looped in my hands, scooping them up and setting them on the counter. He immediately began digging through them. “Did you get the granola bars?”
“Of course,” I replied, reaching over to ruffle his hair.
He found the box of granola bars and tore one open while I began putting the groceries away.
“What’s Cole doing?” I asked.
“Finishing some work in the bathrooms upstairs.”
I paused, looking around the kitchen. Sometimes it was hard to believe how much work we had done. We hadn’t done it all ourselves. It was too big of a job for me and my five brothers. We weren’t even all here yet. After the fire, we’d scattered like tumbleweeds in the wind for a little while.
So far, it was Cole, Jude, Grady, and me. Asher had plans to return within the next month. Lincoln was vague as all hell, but I hoped he’d be back sometime. For now, he was traveling all over, fighting fires wherever needed.
Our family’s resort, Heartfire Falls, had once been…
well, something else. We were Alaska’s version of wilderness guides, doing everything from hiking, fishing, hunting, backcountry skiing, and mountain climbing with visitors.
It had all fallen apart—literally burned to the ground—when a wildfire blasted through the area so fast it couldn’t be contained just over eleven years ago.
My eyes landed on Tommy. He was the marker of before and after.
Our only sister, Bree, had almost died in the fire and eventually succumbed to the infection from her severe burns.
Tommy was her son. Tommy’s father had skipped town once he found out she was pregnant.
When we had an attorney track him down after she passed away, he didn’t even hesitate to sign away his rights.
To this day, that smarted a little for me because Tommy was a gem of a kid.
But then, his loss was our gain. As the oldest, I adopted him.
I’d never even contemplated any other option.
Our father had passed away a few years before the fire from a heart attack.
The losses felt painfully close and compounded each other.
Out of those ashes of that fire came Tommy, and the rest of us were trying to come together to rebuild what we lost.
“Where’s your grandma?” I asked, mentally kicking my thoughts back to the present.
Tommy glanced up after he finished the last bite of his granola bar. He inhaled food faster than he breathed. “In the garden.”
With the insurance money after the fire, we scrambled to repair the old barn on the property and lived in the upstairs.
It was crowded, but it was home. We took the rest of the money and planned carefully as all hell to gradually rebuild the entire resort over the past few years.
It was a massive project, but we were almost done.
I wanted it to be better than it had been. We all did. Except maybe Lincoln, but he was complicated. Then again, we were all complicated.
The situation had been what most would call a tragedy. I hated thinking about it like that and tried to downplay it in my mind. I gave myself another mental shake. This was high on the list of things I didn’t need to dwell on.
Tommy helped me finish putting the groceries away before he started to bolt out of the kitchen again.
“Homework status?” I called after him.
He stopped at the doorway, practically vibrating in place. He had so much energy, and he was constantly on the move. “Done.”
I grinned. “Excellent.”
“I’ll go check on the goats.”
“Figured that’s where you were headed,” I teased lightly. “Good call.”
After the fire, my mom started renting out another barn and part of the property to a nearby animal rescue.
Their main building, closer to town, was where they took in regular rescues—cats, dogs, and small animals—but they needed space for the larger animals.
With over five hundred acres to call our own, we had more than enough of that.
Tommy loved helping with the rescue, and they paid him. I watched through the window as he ran across the yard toward the rescue barn in the distance, carefully closing the gate to the pasture area behind him.
This afternoon was chilly even though it was late summer.
The crisp autumn air would chase away summer soon enough.
Out in the garden, I spotted my mom trimming her beloved flowers.
Turning away from the window, I cut through the kitchen, down the hallway, and pushed through the door connected to the main resort.
We had much of this section finished, so it wouldn’t be long before we could have guests. Jogging up the stairs, I found Cole adjusting a light fixture above one of the bathroom sinks in a guest room.
I glanced around. “Looking good.”
He finished tightening a screw and flashed a grin. “All done.”
“With this one?”
“All of them in this section. We can officially have the code guy come out.”
I approached, lifting a hand for a high five. He slapped his palm against mine. “Nice, man. Thank you.”
“We just have, you know, ten more rooms to take care of,” he replied with a wry grin.
I threw my head back with a laugh. “You know what? It’s a fucking miracle we’re almost there.”
“Damn straight,” Cole agreed.
He ran a hand through his dark hair, his eyes crinkling at the corners when his gaze met mine again. “What’s for dinner?”
I shrugged. “I picked up some groceries for the week. We could always think about ordering takeout, but we’d have to go get it.” We were far enough out of town that delivery wasn’t an option. “But I did get a roast chicken. And we’ve got plenty of frozen pizza,” I added.
“Let’s make frozen pizza. It’s the easiest thing.”
We walked together down the hallway, and I glanced around, a smile tugging at my lips. We really were almost there.
A few hours later, I leaned back in my chair, balling up my napkin and tossing it in the trash can.
“Nice shot,” Jude said with a grin.
Tommy glanced between Jude and me, his eyes twinkling. “Play for five?”
My mom laughed softly. “You’ll do anything for five bucks,” she teased him.
Tommy tipped his head to the side. “Honestly? I’d do it for free.”
She ruffled his hair. “You’re a good egg.”
“Speaking of eggs,” Tommy offered, “the chickens are going crazy. We had a dozen eggs today.”
“Did we now? I’ll make omelets for breakfast,” my mom said.
Maggie Silver was the heart of Heartfire Falls, even if it was just now returning to its glory.
I didn’t like to contemplate it too much, but the version of her for a few years after our dad passed, and the fire, had been faded, like those old photos where you couldn’t quite see what it might have been like in full color.
She’d lost her spark for a while, and it pained me.
This resort was her heritage. Her grandparents had been the first to come to Alaska. They’d built something small, which her parents then turned into more and made it an official business. She and my dad kept it going. Between losing our dad and then Bree, the fire had burned away so much.
Somehow though, what had sprouted in the aftermath was my mom in her full glory—bright, sarcastic, warm, and bossy as hell.
When we’d been trying to figure out what to do about Tommy after Bree died, I’d offered to formally adopt him.
There was never any question we would keep him, but she was worried she was too old.
We were all his family, and that would never change.
“You boys play napkin basketball. I’ll clean up,” she said, standing from the table.
“Mom, you don’t have to?—”
She glanced over. “I haven’t done a thing in the kitchen all day, Haven. Let me do this.” She gestured at the dishes. “It’s the extent of taking plates to the dishwasher and putting the pizza boxes in the trash bins.” Her eyes twinkled.
Cole, Jude, and Grady started with the trash talk once the napkin basketball began. Tommy was all focus.
“I’ve got this,” he announced after his third basket.
Jude got cocky and tried to do a bounce shot. Meanwhile, I just plain missed.
“You’re not gonna believe who I saw today,” I said after we paid Tommy his winnings.
Tommy piped up. “Oh, that’s right! There’s a lady next door.”
My mom hung the dish towel on the oven handle, turned to face me, and rested her hands on the counter. “Who?”
“Elsa Whitney,” I said.
My mom pressed her palm to her chest. “Elsa?” she breathed, eyes widening.
“Seriously?” Jude asked.
“Yeah. And she said she used to live there. But there’s just all that crumbled concrete.” Tommy shook his head, puzzled at this.
But then, he wasn’t born until after the fire. He had no idea how much had burned up in a single afternoon.
My mom’s voice softened. “Elsa Whitney… Good for her. It’s her property. I hope she makes something beautiful there. She was always a good girl.”