Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
TUCKER
I was slouched at the island in Kiera’s kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee like it had personally betrayed me.
The handle dug into my palm, grounding me in the moment even as my thoughts kept trying to escape.
I hadn’t eaten. I hadn’t slept. And clearly I looked like shit, because everyone kept sliding me concerned looks.
Which I ignored.
Kiera’s monthly family summit had always been a little chaotic—part therapy session, part tactical command. She lured us here with food, of course, then ambushed us with childcare calendars, birthday assignments, and emotional check-ins disguised as dessert.
Tonight was no exception. Abi and Alex weren’t just her responsibility. They were ours too. Her pain was ours. Her joy, ours. Same for the meltdowns. Same for the schedule.
Abi and Alex were currently upstairs sleeping, their sippy cups in formation on the drying rack. The oven smelled like sugar and chocolate. Also, Kiera’s kitchen needed to be repainted. These were the inane things I noticed in the silence after we’d finished with business.
It was the kind of silence that thickened like fog—dead still and suffocating. The kind of silence that came when everyone in the room knew you were spiraling and was just waiting for you to bleed out.
My ribs squeezed tighter with every breath.
“Okay,” Ryder said into the silence. “I’m just gonna say it—you look like hell.”
“Aw, thanks.” I added a sarcastic thumbs-up.
“No, I agree,” Caleb said, coming around the counter with Kiera’s brownies stacked high, all of it so gooey and chocolatey, it probably had a felony record. “You’ve got that I’m fine, but my Google search history says otherwise energy.”
I gave him a withering look. “You make that up just for me?”
Caleb opened his mouth, no doubt to say something stupid, but Kiera stepped in front of him, snatched the plate, and pushed it toward me. “Take one. I call them Suck It Up, Buttercup Bars. With double fudge and passive aggression.”
“She’s got your number,” Ryder said, cracking open a soda.
“I’ve got all your numbers,” Kiera said sweetly. “And keep it down. Wake the kids, you buy ’em.”
Knowing she wasn’t kidding, I split one of the bars and gave half to Hank, who sat beside me, munching happily, ignoring the emotional triage around him.
“You ever going to tell us what’s going on?” Caleb asked, leaning against the fridge.
“Nope.”
“Cool,” Ryder said. “Do it anyway.”
“He and Hazel got in a…disagreement,” Kiera said.
I gave her a sharp look, but this did not shut her up.
She did grimace. “I accidentally spilled one of my secrets. So I made her give me one back.” Her voice went quiet. “I didn’t mean to then spill her secret, but Tucker showed up and overheard me.”
“Overheard what?” Ryder asked.
“She was offered a job in Seattle,” I said tightly.
Kiera nodded. “And I wanted her to stay so bad, I didn’t stop to think that she needed space to work things out. Or the implications of me telling Tucker before she did.”
All three of us stared at her.
“What?” she demanded.
Ryder shook his head. “You’re fucking terrifying.”
“You’re just now noticing?” Kiera sighed. “Look, do I like being bossy and territorial about the people I love? No.” She actually looked guilty for a beat. “I’m not proud that I outed Hazel’s secret, even if it was accidental. It was a shitty thing for me to do.”
I agreed—silently, because I wasn’t stupid. Also, because she was already beating herself up.
“So this disagreement,” Caleb said to me. “Big one?”
Kiera held her hands so far apart, it was like she was describing a shark that ate other sharks for breakfast.
“So just another Tuesday then,” Ryder said dryly.
I shot him a glare. “This was different.”
“Ah, the old heart-on-the-table, dead-silence-in-return combo. Classic.”
That landed way too close to home. The breath I took didn’t go all the way in.
Over this, I pushed away the plate, shoved Caleb clear of the fridge, and opened it.
Pulled out the bottle of vodka Kiera kept on the top shelf way in the back for emergencies.
This seemed to qualify. I took a swig—and choked. “It’s water.”
“No shit,” Kiera said. “You drank all my good stuff last time. I upgraded my deterrent system.”
Caleb and Ryder swapped one of their patented Colburn glances—silent, smug, and full of shit.
Caleb said, “You’re not going to like this.”
“That’s literally never stopped you.”
He jerked his chin at me. “You and Hazel have been circling each other forever. It’s like watching two magnets trying to hump.”
“Romantic,” Kiera muttered.
“I’m just saying, you’re both carrying around enough emotional crap to sink a cruise ship.”
Ryder nodded. “And you”—he pointed his brownie at me—“act like showing vulnerability is gonna revoke your man card.”
“I do not. And we aren’t talking about this.”
Too late. He was committed. He leaned in, more serious now. “You never let anyone carry your weight, man. You’re the strong one, we get that, but even Atlas had to take a damn knee sometimes.”
“And you think that’s why she didn’t tell me?”
“Maybe she didn’t think she could.”
I swallowed hard.
Then Kiera chimed in: “Maybe she didn’t think she had the room.”
All three of us turned to her.
“She didn’t tell you about the job offer in Seattle because she was scared. Not of you—of losing something good. Someone good.” She paused and met my gaze. “She’s used to being the one who’s left. Sometimes she leaves first to avoid it happening to her.”
My chest tightened. “She believes she isn’t worth staying for.” Saying it out loud gutted me.
“So maybe this isn’t about who’s right,” Ryder said. “Maybe it’s about who’s willing to fight for the future instead of the past.”
That hit me like a goddamn freight train, and I scrubbed a hand over my face. “I don’t know how to fix this.”
“Because it’s not yours to fix,” Kiera said. “But you can show up. You can fight for her. Fight like you’re the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s ark and it just started raining.”
I huffed a dry laugh.
“You love her,” my sister said. “We all know it. But do you show her? Like really show her? You’re a natural take-charge kind of guy, but not everything needs managing or fixing. Sometimes people just want to be heard.”
I was horrified. “I’m not trying to fix or manage her—”
Ryder snorted. “Man, you’ve been managing since you could talk.”
“He’s not wrong,” Caleb said. “One time when you were two, you lined up all our stuffed animals and assigned them chores.”
I looked at Hank, who was busy licking chocolate off his fingers, oblivious to the weight pressing down on my chest. Then I looked back at my brothers.
Ryder shrugged. “You risk your life for a living. So why not risk it for love? Or stay the guy who plays it safe.”
“I don’t play it safe.”
“You do with her,” he said. “Why not try something new and prove that what you two have is worth staying for?”
In the silence, my phone buzzed loud and urgent. I looked at the message.
“Structure fire. Ridgetop Lane,” I read out loud.
My heart stopped. That was the Sonoma project’s address. And I had no idea why, but I knew Hazel was there. I called her cell and went straight to voicemail.
I headed to the door. “I think Hazel’s there.”
Caleb went white. “Go. We’ll follow.”
I didn’t waste my breath answering.
I arrived in hell.
The smoke hit me before I even turned the last bend. Station comms confirmed units were already on the scene. My gear would be there.
Flames clawed at the night sky, swallowing the second floor. Smoke billowed thick and fast, choking out the stars and painting the night in hues of orange and terror. I could already smell it: burning wood, scorched wiring, insulation curling into toxic clouds.
Hazel’s van was out front.
So was Bill’s truck.
My stomach bottomed out as I ran toward the units already here. “What do we know about who’s inside?” I barked at Jayden and yanked on the gear he threw at me.
“Just got here. We saw a female running from the van into the building.”
Hazel. Fuck. Of course she’d gone back in. She always ran toward the fire, even when she was the one burning.
“There are at least two inside,” I said tightly. “Hazel and Bill Pierce.”
Cap rounded the side of the truck. “Colburn, you’re not on duty.”
“Am now.”
Jayden backed me up. “This is one of Colburn Restorations’ projects. Tucker knows the layout better than anyone here.”
Cap, looking like he didn’t have time to argue but really wanted to, chose to ignore us. I chose to take that as consent.
“Tessa, Marcus,” Cap barked. “Cover the exterior and attic crawl space. Shontz, Harlow—get hoses to the east side. Jayden and Colburn, stay perimeter and prep backup lines.”
That was a stall order. I didn’t have time for stalls. Once we were clear of Cap, I turned to Jayden. “I’m not waiting on hose backup.”
“You’re going to get your ass fired.”
“I’m going to get her out.” I double-checked my SCBA seal, checked Jayden’s, and clipped on a second lifeline. “We go in fast but smart.”
Jayden gave a grim nod. “Copy that.”
We busted through the back door. The heat hit us like a sucker punch. Dry. Choking. Brutal. Visibility was garbage, smoke curling all around us like a living thing, wrapping fingers around our necks, daring us to breathe.
When we hit the stairwell, the building groaned overhead like it was in pain. We used handheld thermal cams and flashlights, their beams cutting through smoke like lightsabers in a burning galaxy.
We didn’t find Hazel or Bill on the first floor.
I shoved past a half-collapsed beam. At my back, Jayden reported in, and the radio crackled in my ear as the others did as well, buying me time.
“Upstairs,” I yelled. “Probably third floor.”
Jayden looked up the smoke-filled shaft. “You sure?”
On a normal day, I would’ve found Hazel on the first floor at the back kitchen, where she’d been finishing up the floorboards. She wasn’t there, which meant she was most likely with Bill—who’d be on the third floor inspecting the open beams he’d been so intent on busting Hazel’s ass over.