At First Spark (Coral Bell Cove #4)

Chapter One – Holt

My alarm goes off at five thirty, and every muscle in my body locks before my eyes even open.

That’s new. I’ve always been good at waking fast. Farm life trains that into you early.

So does growing up in a house where privacy is mostly theoretical, and someone is always stomping down the hallway, slamming a cabinet, or yelling for a missing shoe before sunrise.

But this isn’t a habit. This is my body already aware of the day before my mind fully catches up.

I reach across the nightstand, silence the alarm, and lie there for a few seconds, staring at the ceiling.

The room is still mostly dark. A thin wash of gray presses at the windows, outlining the dresser, the chair in the corner, and the half-open closet door.

The fan turns overhead with a low, steady hum.

The house around me sits quiet, which somehow makes the noise in my head feel louder.

Today matters. That’s the whole problem.

I sit up and push the covers back. The hardwood floor is cold under my feet.

It grounds me fast. I stand, drag a hand over my face, and cross the room without turning on the light.

I know every inch of this place well enough to move through it half asleep—the board near the hallway that creaks if I step too hard, the bathroom door that sticks for half a second before it gives, the kitchen tile that always feels colder than it should.

I lean over the sink, turn the faucet all the way to cold, and splash water over my face until I stop feeling half in a dream. Then I brace my palms on the counter and look up.

Same face. Same eyes. Maybe a little more tired around them than I want to admit.

I stay there for a second. A part of me expects to see something different staring back. A bigger shift. Some visible sign that yesterday’s version of me and today’s version of me aren’t exactly the same man.

Nothing dramatic waits in the mirror. Just Holt Wright.

Same dark hair doing whatever it wants. Same jaw my mom, Claire, insists comes from her side of the family and my dad, Mason, insists comes from hard work and stubbornness.

Same shoulders that got me called “such a big, strong boy” by every woman over sixty in this town for most of my life.

Still me. Still the brother most likely to say the wrong thing at dinner and make my niece, Evelyn, laugh hard enough to snort milk through her nose.

Still the guy my best friend, Beckett, swears has “golden retriever chaos energy,” which I reject on principle because it sounds like something a woman on the internet says about a man who wears flannel and forgets to pay his water bill.

Still the son who left a plate in the sink last night because I stood in this same bathroom, thinking about the station, until even rinsing one dish felt like too much.

And now also—I straighten slowly—firefighter.

The word settles strangely inside me. Heavy in some moments. Too light in others. It still feels like something I’m carrying and reaching toward at the same time.

I shut off the faucet and walk into the kitchen. The room holds on to the cool from the night. I go straight to the coffee maker, fill the reservoir, measure the grounds by instinct, and start it. While it sputters to life, I move to the window over the sink.

The field stretches out behind the house in muted shades of gray and silver. Dew clings to the grass. The fence line cuts across the property in one hard, familiar line. The trees beyond it stand dark and still, holding the last of the night.

The farm is peaceful at this hour. Usually that settles me. This morning, it mostly gives me too much room to think.

The coffee finishes. I pour a mug, black, and take the first sip standing there in sock feet, staring out at land that has seen every version of me.

My phone buzzes against the counter.

I glance down and see my twin’s name flash on the screen.

Hadley: you awake???

I snort under my breath and type back.

Me: no

Her response comes instantly.

Hadley: rude

Hadley: also Mom says she dropped something off and if you don’t eat it she’ll cry and I’ll record it.

I close my eyes for a second.

Of course.

I leave the mug on the counter and walk into the living room. I’ve already spotted the Tupperware from the kitchen. It sits in the middle of the coffee table like it owns the place. There’s a folded note taped to the lid in Mom’s neat, impossible-to-misread handwriting.

I pick it up.

Holt—

Eat TWO. You’ll need it.

Love you.

Don’t argue with me.

My gaze drifts to the front door. Locked. That means she used the spare key. I don’t even have to ask where she found it.

My phone buzzes again.

Hadley: before you ask, yes, she used the fake rock, and yes, it’s obvious.

I type back before I can stop myself.

Me: it’s not fake. it’s decorative.

Hadley: it’s plastic.

I shake my head, open the container, and find six blueberry muffins still warm enough that the kitchen starts smelling sweet the second the lid comes off.

Mom bakes when she worries. Pies if someone’s grieving.

Muffins if someone’s nervous. Full casseroles if she thinks two people are fighting and too stubborn to fix it themselves.

Food is how she loves. How she prays. How she reminds us we still belong to something bigger than whatever’s got us wound tight that day.

I take one of the muffins and break it in half before biting into it. Butter. Blueberries. Enough sugar to feel like emotional blackmail. I eat it anyway.

My phone buzzes again.

This time, it’s my eldest sister, Lila.

Lila: Evelyn wants to know if firefighters are allowed to eat muffins for breakfast

A laugh slips out before I can stop it. I type back with my mouth still full.

Me: yes. it’s in the handbook.

Three dots appear. Disappear. Return.

Lila: Dean says that is absolutely not in the handbook

Me: Dean isn’t a firefighter.

Lila: Dean says he’ll still ground you.

I smile despite myself.

I can picture the whole scene without trying.

Evelyn at the table in pajamas with one sock on and the other missing.

Her brother, Oliver, sitting straighter than any five-year-old should know how to sit, listening more than speaking.

Lila’s husband, Dean, half awake but already in full adult mode.

My sister, warm and amused, loving all of them with her whole chest.

The image settles something in me.

Then another text comes through.

Lila: Oliver says to tell Uncle Holt not to forget his helmet

That one lands deeper, and I stare at it for a second longer than I need to.

Then I type back.

Me: tell him I won’t.

Another buzz.

Rowan. My grumpy eldest brother. It seems my family has come out of the woodwork this morning.

Rowan: Don’t screw this up.

Rowan: Proud of you.

I huff out a breath through my nose.

That’s exactly the kind of encouragement I expect from my brother. One line to keep me humble. One line to keep me steady.

I eat the second muffin because Mom put it in writing, and I’m not dumb enough to tempt whatever maternal force runs this universe. Then I carry my coffee back to the bedroom and pull on the uniform.

Navy shirt first. The department patch sits over my chest, the stitching still new enough that the edges feel stiff. Then pants. Belt. Socks. Boots, laced tight. I tug once on each knot and stand.

The man in the mirror looks exactly the same as he did twenty minutes ago. But the uniform changes the frame around him. Sharpens things. Makes the morning feel less theoretical.

I think about all the hours that led here.

Town meetings. Paperwork. Fundraisers. Training in neighboring counties.

Long conversations about response times and insurance and equipment and whether this whole thing would actually become real or stay one more good idea everybody talked about and no one built.

People talk about emergency response like it comes built into a place. For years, if something happened in Coral Bell Cove, you waited. You called county and prayed the roads were clear, the bridge wasn’t backed up, and whoever you loved had enough time left in whatever crisis they’d fallen into.

Today, we’re the call.

My phone rings just as I’m grabbing my keys. Mom. I answer on the first ring. “Hey.”

“Hi, baby.” Her voice comes warm and steady through the line. There’s noise behind her—cabinet doors, the low murmur of a television, maybe Mason already pretending he isn’t listening. “Did you eat the muffins?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

I glance toward the empty container. “All of them.”

“That’s my boy.”

I smile despite myself and step onto the porch. Morning has brightened while I’m dressing. Sunlight spills gold over the edge of the field, burning off the chill one slow degree at a time.

“You nervous?” Mom asks, softer now.

I lean one shoulder against the porch post. “A little.”

“That’s alright.”

I look toward the truck parked at the end of the driveway. Beyond it sits the town and the station and the first real shift of something we built from almost nothing.

“It feels stupid,” I admit. “I’ve done the work.”

“Being nervous doesn’t mean you’re unprepared,” she says. “It means you care.”

I let that sit.

Then she adds, more firmly, “You don’t have to prove anything today, Holt.”

My fingers tighten around the porch rail. “It feels like I do.”

“No.” Her tone sharpens into certainty. “You don’t. You just have to come home.”

That one settles deep. It doesn’t erase the nerves. It changes them. Takes some of the performance out of them.

“Okay,” I say.

“And for the record,” she adds, her voice brightening with suspicious speed, “if Beckett tries to name the engine again, I will come down there myself.”

I laugh. “He already did.”

“Of course, he did.”

“He wants to call it Bertha.”

A pause. “Absolutely not.”

“I’ll handle him.”

“I know you will.” I can hear her smiling now. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.”