Chapter 38
COOPER
The radio crackled to life at seven-thirty in the morning, jolting me from a restless sleep that had been plagued by dreams of Lynn’s shark smile and Joy’s unanswered text message.
Lynn was the stuff of nightmares. I used to think that was just me being dramatic but no, she really was a witch.
She jinxed me. She fucked me up just by showing up.
I needed to burn sage or something. I had to get that woman out of my system.
Not that I wanted her—not even a little.
I just felt like she was some kind of voodoo priestess.
She fucked with me by simply being near me.
“Let’s go!” Matt shouted and pounded on the wall.
“Engine 12, respond to 428 Maple Street for a rescue situation. Citizen trapped in…” There was a brief pause. “In a globe?”
I stared at the ceiling where the speaker was hidden. For a moment, I wondered if I had heard correctly. Trapped in a globe?
What the fuck was that?
The holiday season was serving up another ridiculous emergency call. I was already on the move, pulling on my jacket as I ran to the garage. This wasn’t a call I needed to put on my turnout gear for. Elijah was already in the seat. Matt hopped in just as I got in the jump seat.
Five minutes later, I found myself standing in someone’s front yard, looking up at what could only be described as the world’s largest inflatable snow globe.
The thing had to be twelve feet tall and probably cost at least a thousand dollars.
Inside the clear plastic dome, a middle-aged man was gesticulating frantically while fake snow swirled around him in an endless, mesmerizing dance.
His children—three kids ranging from maybe eight to fifteen—stood outside the snow globe with their phones out, filming their father’s predicament and laughing like this was the best entertainment they’d had all year.
“How long has he been in there?” I asked the oldest kid, a teenage girl who was clearly the ringleader of this particular circus.
“About an hour,” she replied, still giggling. “Dad thought it would be fun to get inside for a family photo, but the zipper got stuck from the inside.”
I circled the inflatable globe, looking for the entry point.
Sure enough, there was a zipper that ran about three feet up the side, and it was clearly jammed.
The man inside—who I assumed was the father—was starting to look a little claustrophobic, his movements becoming more agitated as the fake snow continued to swirl around him.
“Sir, can you hear me?” I called, tapping on the plastic.
He nodded vigorously and pointed to the zipper, mouthing words I couldn’t make out through the dome and the noise of the snow-swirling mechanism.
This was exactly the kind of call that would normally have me gritting my teeth and muttering about people’s poor decision-making during the holiday season. A grown man stuck in a yard decoration because he thought it would make a cute photo op.
It was ridiculous, preventable, and exactly the sort of thing that gave emergency responders headaches.
What if his kids had been stuck in there with him? I wasn’t sure how much oxygen the damn thing had, but that could have been pretty bad. My first thought was to pull out my pocket knife and solve the problem the easy way.
To my surprise, I wasn’t annoyed. I wasn’t rolling my eyes or making sarcastic comments under my breath. Instead, I found myself thinking about Joy.
She would be laughing her ass off if she saw this. If I wasn’t the professional I claimed to be, I might have taken a picture. But I was so I would just have to be satisfied with telling her about it.
But thinking about Joy reminded me of stupid Lynn.
Her words echoed in my mind like a broken record.
Joy hated this place more than anyone. There’s no way she’ll settle down with you and be happy.
You know Joy better than anyone. Do you honestly believe she’s going to choose Calton Hill over whatever opportunities are waiting for her in the big city?
“What do you think?” Matt asked.
We both stared at the contraption.
“Could cut it,” I said.
He winced. “Do we have to?”
“Alright, fine. Elijah, grab the bolt cutters.”
The young guy jogged back to the truck.
Matt looked at me. “What’s your plan?”
“I’m not entirely sure. Believe it or not, this is my first time dealing with this.”
He laughed. “Fair enough.”
Elijah returned and gave me the bolt cutters.
I worked methodically to free the trapped man, using the bolt cutters to carefully cut through the stuck zipper without damaging the inflatable structure.
The man tumbled out with obvious relief, brushing fake snow off his shirt and thanking me profusely while his children continued to document the entire rescue on their phones.
“You okay?” I asked him as he caught his breath.
“Fine, fine,” he panted. “Just felt a little… tight in there. Like being trapped in a fishbowl.”
The metaphor resonated with me. Being trapped in a fishbowl. Or a snow globe, where everything looked pretty and peaceful from the outside, but inside you were just going in circles while someone else controlled the environment.
Was that what my life was? A pretty little snow globe that looked charming from the outside but would eventually feel suffocating to someone like Joy?
“You good?” Matt asked.
I blinked. “Yep.”
“Sure? You look a little green.”
“I’m fine. Let’s roll.”
Lynn’s poisonous words churned in my mind.
Would Joy really stay in Calton Hill long term?
And if she did, would she ever be truly happy here, or would she eventually feel stifled by the pace and the limitations of small-town life?
Would she grow to resent me for keeping her here, for not being ambitious enough or successful enough to give her the life she deserved somewhere else?
That was what happened with Lynn. She said as much. I was the bad guy holding her back. Why did I keep finding myself attracted to women who wanted more than I could offer?
Was I the problem? Did I give women false hope? Did they think they would somehow convince me to leave home? Was I wrong because I didn’t want to leave? Was I holding myself back because I was a chickenshit that didn’t want to stretch my wings and fly?
Was I afraid to take a leap?
The questions followed me through the rest of my shift, through equipment checks and paperwork and the mundane tasks that usually provided a welcome distraction from personal problems. But today, nothing seemed to quiet the doubts.
Lynn had planted the seeds, and my insecurities did the rest.
Maybe I wasn’t ready to date again. Maybe jumping into things with Joy had been a mistake.
Was it a rebound relationship disguised as something real?
She was the first woman I dated since Lynn.
I supposed that technically made her the rebound.
But wasn’t there some kind of rule about time?
How much time needed to pass between getting dumped and starting with someone new before it wasn’t considered a rebound?
Maybe I needed more time to heal from Lynn’s betrayal before I could trust my judgment about love again.
The thought of stepping back from Joy made my chest ache, but what if it was the right thing to do? What if I was being selfish, trying to hold on to something beautiful without considering whether it was fair to her?
By the time I finished my shift, I had made a decision.
I would take things at Joy’s pace, follow her lead.
If she wanted space, I’d give it to her.
If she wanted to slow down whatever was building between us, I wouldn’t push.
And if she ultimately decided that Calton Hill wasn’t where she wanted to build her future, I wouldn’t try to convince her otherwise.
The resolution should have made me feel better. Instead, it felt like giving up before the fight had even really begun.
I drove to the town square that afternoon, ostensibly to check on the final preparations for the Christmas market opening that evening.
The vendors were setting up their booths, stringing lights, and arranging merchandise with the kind of excited energy that came with a new venture.
The ice tree I’d created stood proudly in its corner, catching the afternoon light and casting rainbow patterns across the snow.
There was a little melting, but not much. It would hold if the weather report was accurate.
Everything looked perfect. Magical, even. Exactly the kind of winter wonderland that would bring families together and create lasting memories.
I should have felt proud of what we’d accomplished. Should have been looking forward to seeing Joy’s vision come to life in all its holiday glory.
Instead, I felt like I was looking at everything through glass, separate and disconnected from the joy and anticipation around me.
That was when I saw her.
Joy stood near Santa’s workshop, clipboard in hand, checking something off her ever-present list. Even from a distance, I could see the tension in her shoulders, the way she held herself like she was bracing for something unpleasant.
Our eyes met across the market grounds, and for a moment, the world seemed to pause. I raised my hand in greeting, taking a step in her direction.
Damn, she made my heart jump just looking at her.
But Joy looked away, turning toward one of the vendors. It was deliberate. She was avoiding me. She didn’t acknowledge my presence, didn’t return my greeting. She just… turned away.
The rejection hit me hard. Yesterday, she would have smiled and waved back, would have crossed the space between us to talk about the preparations or share some small triumph from her day. Yesterday, she would have been happy to see me.
Today, she was avoiding me like I was carrying something contagious. That was why she wasn’t returning my texts. It wasn’t that she was busy.
I stood there for a long time, watching her move from booth to booth, never once looking in my direction. The message was clear: whatever had been building between us, she was putting on the brakes.
Maybe Lynn had been right after all. Maybe Joy was already pulling away, already preparing for her inevitable departure. Maybe the unanswered text had been her way of letting me know that things between us were changing.
Like thanks for the good sex but gotta go.
I would do my job and make sure everyone stayed safe. I would do my job professionally and efficiently, just like always.
But I wouldn’t seek Joy out. I wouldn’t push for conversations or try to recapture whatever magic we’d shared over the past few weeks. If she wanted distance, I’d respect that.
Even if it killed me.