Chapter 2
Leaning against her kitchen counter, Bonnie took a sip of coffee and grimaced as she tasted bitter coffee grounds. Her coffeemaker was ancient, way overdue to be replaced. One of these days she was actually going to do it.
“Mom.” Noah materialized beside her in his pajamas, a spiral notebook in his hand and a pencil behind his ear. “Can fire burn in space?”
“Good morning, to you, too,” she responded wryly.
He continued, “Can you have fire inside a space station?”
“Brush your teeth.”
“But—”
“Teeth. Then breakfast. Then questions.”
He went, but muttering about how teeth were not as important as science.
Cassidy appeared behind Bonnie, already dressed. She had her own spiral notebook tucked under her arm, and she was uncapping a pen with the brisk air of someone who had a productive morning planned.
“He's making a list,” her daughter reported. “Questions for the fire guy. He's got like ten already.”
Cassidy headed for the refrigerator and pulled out yogurt and a container of blueberries because she didn't wait for others to do anything she could do herself. “He's going to corner that poor man the next time we go to the diner.”
“I'm aware.”
“I'll try to keep him from being too much.”
“I appreciate that, Sweetie.”
“But I make no promises,” Cassidy added direly, pulling granola out of the pantry.
Bonnie hid her smile by turning back to the counter to make sandwiches for the kids’ lunches.
She got Noah fed and walked both kids to the bus stop by seven-thirty. The air held a softness that said the Chinooks were coming. She relished the coming of spring more than usual this year. It had been a hard winter that came early and extra cold.
Noah boarded the bus without looking back, but Cassidy paused on the step.
“Mom.” Cassidy fixed her with a look of profound maternal exasperation. “A cup of coffee is not breakfast.”
“I’ll throw a granola bar in to my purse.”
“Also not breakfast.” Cassidy pointed a bossy finger at her. “Real food. Today, Young Lady.”
“Yes ma'am,” Bonnie retorted dryly. Sheesh. When did her nine-year-old decide she was in charge of the world?
Cassidy shot her a dire look that said she was not above enforcing her order and disappeared into the bus.
It takes raising a strong, independent girl to get a strong, independent woman. But that didn’t make Cassidy’s bossy streak any easier to swallow when her child called her out like that . . . and was right.
She retraced her steps to the house, grabbed a granola bar and a banana because Cassidy would interrogate her this afternoon, and drove to work.
The mayor's office was on the second floor of the municipal building. She unlocked it promptly at eight, turned on the lights, and checked for voicemails on the Cobbler Cove complaint hotline.
A new pothole on the lake road. A permit renewal request from the county. A message from the mayor's doctor confirming an appointment Lucas hadn't told her about, which meant he was being secretive about his health again.
She sighed. She'd tried over the years to get him to take better care of himself, but to no avail. He drank too much whiskey, smoked too many cigars, ate rich food, refused to exercise, and was generally terrible to his body.
His choices were apparently coming home to roost. That was probably why he'd been so cranky since his heart attack.
She updated the mayor’s calendar and debated whether or not to say anything to him about not telling her about the appointment. She decided against it. The man was already too stressed out for his own good.
Not to mention, she would always be grateful to Lucas. He'd thrown her a lifeline when she was drowning. Everything she'd rebuilt since—a life, the routine, her composure, the woman the town saw as capable and dependable—had started when he gave her this job.
The mayor straggled in around nine-thirty. He looked gray under his perpetual ruddy tan, obtained in the tanning booth in his basement. He moved as if he was in pain. That, and the slightest exertion made him out of breath.
To her critical eye, he seemed to be getting weaker instead of stronger.
He was worse in other ways too. He was increasingly cussed, even more short-tempered than usual. He’d even snapped at several loyal campaign donors who’d stopped by last week to check on his health.
One thing she knew about Lucas for sure: he was a politician to the core of his being. He never, ever intentionally antagonized anyone who gave him campaign money. At least, not until now.
Had he decided not to run for re-election this fall? Was that why he'd been so out of sorts?
Except that explanation didn't ring true to her. He was carrying something dark inside him. She could see it lurking behind his eyes. The only word she could think of to describe it was haunted.
“Morning, Bonnie,” Lucas growled.
“Good morning. Your ten o’clock canceled.”
He grunted. Which was his version of thank you lately. He stalked into his office and closed the door harder than necessary. She flinched at the loud bang.
At ten o'clock, the hallway door opened. She looked up, startled. The group from the Rotary Club hadn’t show up after all, had they?
Her heart stuttered at the tall, athletic silhouette in the doorway. Not too many men in these parts were built like that.
Gray walked in carrying a manila folder. He was wearing a white shirt starched within an inch of its life, a pair of pressed jeans that had creases down the legs, and nice cowboy boots.
A sterling silver belt buckle winked at his waist, and she thought it looked like some sort of championship buckle. She peered at the oval, trying to make out the image carved on it, maybe a cowboy riding a bucking horse—
It dawned on her abruptly that she was staring rather fixedly at his bellybutton. She jerked her gaze up to his face.
He looked different from the diner. Less an adorably rumpled nerd. More a purposeful and focused cowboy, today. Hoo baby, that was one good-looking man.
“Good morning,” she managed to get out in a nearly normal voice.
“Morning. I have a proposal for Mayor Shoemacher, if he's got a few minutes.”
“Actually, he’s had a cancellation this morning. May I tell him what it's about?”
“I worked up a plan to reopen the fire station.”
Reopen—
A chill chattered down her spine and shivered its way out to her fingertips. Every cell in her body rebelled at the idea, shouting warnings at her that it was dangerous. Someone would die. Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea . . .
She picked up the phone, buzzed the mayor, and relayed the request. She got back a grunt from the other end that she interpreted as assent. If she was wrong, the mayor could learn to use actual words with her.
She met Gray’s striking silver gaze and registered abrupt butterflies in her stomach. “Go on in.”
She shamelessly watched him walk into the mayor's office.
His shoulders were muscular under that crisp shirt, and his jeans clung to his athletic physique in all the right places.
Hubba hubba. She estimated he was six foot two.
Tall enough for her to wear heels and still look up at him while they danced—
Stop it. You haven't been on a date, let alone danced with a man, since Noah was born.
She turned on the intercom to listen in on the meeting.
Under normal circumstances, she would let the mayor tell her about it later. But Lucas was being such a grouch that she didn't trust him to share anything with her nor, frankly, to pay enough attention to get the details right later.
Gray’s presentation was clear, organized, and wasted no words.
Until the town could approve a budget to hire more firefighters, he would drive the ambulance for his brother Tucker's paramedic service already operating out of the fire station.
In the meantime, he would clean out the station and restore the fire engine.
Grayson laid out a timeline, cost estimates, and a plan for doing his own training with the Apple Pie Creek fire department, and later, taking over training new firefighters for a reconstituted Cobbler Cove fire department.
He even laid out an argument Lucas could use with the county commission to get it to help fund a full-time fire department on this side of the lake.
She was impressed. He’d done his homework.
And furthermore, the modest start-up cost he’d estimated was well within what Cobbler Cove could afford to pay.
She knew because she was the keeper of the town's budget and was its bookkeeper.
She was certain the county would pony up funds to help restart a fire station on this side of the lake.
The county commissioner had loudly lamented the loss of the Cobbler Cove Fire Department and about once a year brought up trying to restart it.
Grayson finished speaking and silence fell in Lucas's office.
She heard the mayor's leather desk chair squeak the way it did when he leaned forward to plant his elbows on his desk.
“Do it,” Lucas said.
Bonnie’s eyes opened wide. Really? Just like that, Lucas was agreeing to re-open the fire department? He never made snap decisions of this magnitude! Yet again, it crossed her mind to wonder what was up with him.
Gray stepped out of the mayor's office looking nearly as gobsmacked as she felt. “Thank you,” he said gravely. “For putting me through to see him.”
“That's my job.”
“Did you hear what the mayor and I discussed?”
She smiled a little and teased him lightly, saying, “Well, I heard you give your entire presentation and the mayor say, ‘Do it.’ I wouldn’t call that a discussion.”
He flashed his quick smile at her, and that was the end of coherent function in her brain for a few seconds.
“Do you know what happens next?” he asked.
She collected her wits hastily. “I'll need a copy of your proposal to send to the other members of the town council. They meet next week, and they'll vote to approve it.”
“Do I need to be at that meeting? You know, to answer questions or convince them to sign off on it?”