Chapter 21 #2
The captain clasped his shoulder briefly in a gesture of brotherhood among fire fighters and then walked away. Gray stared after him for a moment, then leaned back against the engine and closed his eyes.
Bonnie moved over beside him. The wind felt like it was starting to die down a little. The smoke had shifted from black to gray to white, and the smell of it had changed from burning to burnt. The aftermath smell was reminiscent of ash and char and wet earth where the hoses had done their work.
He opened his eyes. They were bloodshot and exhausted and the most beautiful shade of silver she’d ever seen.
“You called a road grader,” he said tiredly.
“You coordinated a firefight.”
“We stopped it,” he sighed.
“We stopped it.”
They looked at each other. Around them, people were milling, chatting, leaning on shovels.
Someone broke out another round of sandwiches Rose had just brought.
Walter was holding court from the tailgate of his truck, coughing intermittently, describing the fire to anyone who would listen as if they hadn’t all just lived through it.
Tucker was checking on the last of his patients.
Jenna was leading a group of people back along the fire break, assessing the damage.
One rancher had lost a half-mile long stretch of fencing.
Bonnie heard the ranchers walking with Jenna already coordinating getting together next week to help rebuild it.
The long, shallow slope leading to Country Road 10 was black and smoking, a dark scar on the brown landscape. But the fire had stopped at the break. East of the road, the grass was unburnt. And beyond that, Cobbler Cove was unscathed.
“Bonnie?”
“Hmm?”
“I realized something today.”
“What’s that?” She turned her head to study Gray.
“I’m not just studying fire science because it’s interesting. And I’m not just restoring the station because the town needs one.” He pushed away from the truck and faced her, standing straight and tall.
“A while back, I told you I wouldn’t know if I wanted to be a firefighter until I fought one. Well, now I have, and now I know.”
“And?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.
“This is what I’m supposed to do. This is .
. .” He looked at the engine, the hoses, the fire break, the people.
“This is what I want. To build a real fire department. With trained volunteers to augment the full-time force. Equipment enough to handle the next grass fire. The next time this, or something worse, happens, this town won’t need help from across the lake. ”
She took his soot-blackened hand. “Then build it.”
“It’ll take years.”
“You’re not going anywhere. You’ve got time.”
He looked at their joined hands. His was filthy. Hers wasn’t much better. “You’re right,” he said quietly. “I’m not going anywhere, and I do have time.”
Noah appeared at their elbows, notebook in hand. “I wrote about the fire. Seven pages. Front and back. I drew pictures, too.”
“Good job,” Bonnie said sincerely.
“The fire triangle really works, Mom. They took away the fuel and the fire stopped. Tucker let me listen to his stethoscope, and Walter’s lungs sound like a cat purring.”
Bonnie frowned. “Walter’s lungs shouldn’t sound like that.”
“Tucker said the same thing. He used words I’m not allowed to say, though.”
Gray looked down at the boy—soot-smudged, granola-crumbed, vibrating with the excitement. He put his hand on Noah’s shoulder.
“Can I read your documentation later, Noah?”
“I’ll make you a copy.”
“That would be awesome. I’ll want to include it in my final report.”
Her son beamed.
Gray watched Noah walk back toward the ambulance, writing as he went, and she watched Gray watch him go.
The expression on Gray’s face was tender, knowing, as if he understood exactly what it meant to a child to be taken seriously by an adult.
As if he’d once been a child nobody took seriously enough to stay for.
He was staying here. For good. With her.
She’d known it before today. She’d known it since the parking lot, since the tailgate, since the star chart and the mud and the three thermoses.
But watching him stand on this burned hillside holding her hand, covered in soot and smiling at her son’s retreating form, she didn’t just know it.
She felt it deep down in the place where fear had lived inside her for four years and was, slowly but surely, being replaced by something better.
The WoWS had fought a fire today. The widows of the men who’d died in a burning barn had organized the town to stop another fire from taking anything else precious from any of them.
She didn’t know about the rest of the women but today had been cathartic for her.
When faced with another fire, she pitched in to help fight it in every way she knew how to, and the fire hadn’t won this time.
It hadn’t taken away anything or anyone precious to her.
The pinochle group was already retelling it. By tomorrow, Ruth would be spreading a version of events in which Gray had fought the fire single-handedly with a garden hose while simultaneously delivering a calf and proposing marriage.
The real story was better. The real story was a whole town that showed up.
And at the center of it, covered in soot and ash and the quiet, bone-deep satisfaction of a man who had finally found the place where his competence and his heart pointed in the same direction, stood Grayson Lawton, holding her hand. The man who didn’t leave. The man who stayed.
Want to find spend just a little more time with Gray, Bonnie, and the kids? Access an exclusive bonus scene featuring them in my letter to you at the end of this chapter.
…and now for a sneak peek at the next yummy hero in the Cobbler Cove series in
A FAMILY FOR DILLON …
Dillon Steele had a long list of ranch visits to make and a parvo case he was monitoring at the clinic, but instead, he was driving to a Golden Retriever breeder’s kennel because Grayson Lawton had asked him to.
He considered briefly that he was more inclined to answer favors than phone calls.
Which wasn’t a virtue, exactly, but it was what it was.
He met Gray on the rodeo circuit. Smart guy, a little awkward, a lot kind. They’d worked the calving disaster at the Foster Ranch together and Gray talked him into sticking around Cobbler Cove permanently.
Which was why he’d just bought a decrepit ranch house outside town. The realtor called it “distressed.” Dillon called it something to occupy his lonely evenings. He’d also leased a small clinic in town where folks could bring their pets. Told himself it was a six-month experiment.
The breeder’s kennel smelled like cedar shavings and warm milk. Nine Golden Retriever puppies tumbled around in a fenced pen like a slow-motion explosion of butter.
Gray was crouched beside the pen, grinning. Beside him stood a slim blonde with hazel eyes that went soft when she glanced at Gray. Bonnie Watson. Last week, he’d watched her run a town council meeting with twenty-six agenda items and never once consult a piece of paper.
Her kids were here, too. Cassidy was nine and had a small spiral notebook in her back pocket.
She studied him the way a police officer studied a suspect, measuring but withholding judgment.
The boy, Noah, was seven and vibrating like a tuning fork.
He started shooting questions at Dillon before he’d cleared the door.
“Are you the vet? Have you ever been bit by a horse? Have you ever amputated a leg? What’s the biggest animal you ever delivered?”
Dillon set his bag down. “Yes. Once. Several times. And a three-hundred-pound Charolais calf, which I’d rather not relive.”
The boy considered. Looked satisfied. Turned back to the puppies.
Gray’d asked him to help them pick out a good puppy today, and he was happy to oblige. Of course, the goal was to get the right puppy, a healthy one whose temperament matched his future family’s.
Dillon checked the puppies methodically, watching their gaits, dropping his keys on the floor, observing who startled and recovered, who startled and fled, and who didn’t startle at all.
Of course, he was also reading Bonnie and her kids, while he was at it.
Cassidy’s quiet inquisitiveness called for a curious but not anxious puppy.
Noah’s loudness required a puppy with a bold but not reactive personality.
Having to deal with both kids would necessitate a patient dog with a long fuse.
Bonnie kept stepping back to give the kids the floor—not from disinterest, but from a habit of letting her children have things she didn’t have herself.
He noted how Gray watched her watching them.
He picked up a chubby, cheerful pup and set him down between Cassidy and Noah. The puppy walked to Cassidy first and sat down in front of her to study her back. Then he trotted to Noah and pawed the boy’s leg.
Dillon nodded. “He’ll be steady with Cassidy and playful with Noah. He’s smart but patient. Confident but calm. He’s the one.”
Noah declared that they should name him Sparky on the grounds that it sounded like a fire dog, and Cassidy nodded in silent approval. “Sparky it is,” Bonnie declared. Gray grinned, looking pleased.
Dillon turned to put his clipboard back in his bag, and overheard Bonnie say quietly to Gray, “So. We’re getting a dog together.”
“You’ve been saying you wanted one for the kids.”
“This is a big commitment. Training. Vet bills. Boarding when we travel. He’ll be with us the rest of his life. Are you ready for all that?”
Gray’s voice was rough with emotion. “Honey, I’ve been ready. I’m just waiting for you to catch up.”
Bonnie leaned in to kiss Gray and Dillon studiously re-read a puppy care brochure he’d had memorized for years.
He scheduled a time with the breeder to give all the puppies their twelve week shots at the clinic the following week.