Chapter 2
KNOX
Holy shit.
Her voice hit me like a fist to the chest. Rich and warm and aching. The kind of voice that reached inside you and grabbed hold of something you didn’t even know was there. The room went quiet around me—the crying baby, the bickering truckers—all of it fading into nothing.
I set my phone down without thinking. For the first time in weeks, I didn’t care what my dad was saying in the family group chat or how my sister was responding or what fire I was supposed to be putting out.
I was here, in this moment, watching this woman sing her soul out for a room full of strangers.
She had her eyes closed, lost in the music, and I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t breathe. Something was happening to me—something I didn’t have a name for. Like I’d been walking through fog for years and suddenly the sun had burned through.
Her eyes opened, and she looked right at me.
The breath I’d been holding came out in a rush.
She kept singing, but her gaze held mine, and I felt it everywhere—in my chest, my gut, somewhere deeper that I didn’t want to examine too closely.
This woman. This stranger I’d merely catalogued as “hot” when she walked in.
Something about her felt like coming home.
My phone buzzed on the table. I saw the screen light up in my peripheral vision.
I didn’t look at it.
The song ended. The last note hung in the air, shimmering, and then the room erupted. People were clapping and smiling, the tension that had been building all day finally breaking. The little girl in the corner was bouncing on her toes, tugging at her mom’s sleeve.
But I only had eyes for the woman on stage.
She was still looking at me. A flush had spread across her cheeks, and her chest was rising and falling like she’d just run a marathon. She looked surprised. Maybe at the reaction. Maybe at me, sitting here like a damn fool with my mouth probably hanging open.
My phone buzzed again. And again.
I pressed the button to silence it and pushed back my chair. As I stood, I shoved my phone into my back pocket with plans to ignore any buzzing that happened in the next few minutes.
She watched me cross the room. I could feel her eyes on me with every step, and it made something hot and reckless surge through my blood. I didn’t know what I was going to say. Didn’t have a plan. I just knew I had to get to her.
I stopped at the edge of the stage, looking up at her. Up close, she was even more beautiful—big brown eyes, a dusting of freckles across her nose, lips that curved into a hesitant smile.
“That was incredible,” I said.
Smooth, Knox. Real smooth.
But her smile widened, and she ducked her head a little, like she wasn’t used to compliments. “Thanks. It’s been a while since I sang for anyone other than my shower head.”
“Your shower head is a lucky bastard.”
She laughed—a real laugh, warm and surprised—and my chest tightened like I’d taken a hit.
“I’m Knox,” I said.
“Teddie.” She set the microphone back in its stand and stepped down from the stage. Standing in front of me, she barely came up to my shoulder. “You’re one of the new firefighters, right? I’ve seen you around.”
“Yeah.” I wanted to say more—wanted to keep her talking so I could keep listening to her voice—but my brain had apparently decided to take a vacation. “You live here? In Wildwood Valley?”
“Born and raised.” She glanced around the room, where people were settling back into their conversations, the mood noticeably lighter than before. “My roommate works here too. She was house-sitting up the mountain when the storm hit, so I’ve had the cabin to myself for a couple of days.”
“Wolfe’s up there with her,” I said, putting it together. “Meghan, right?”
“You know about that?”
“Hard not to. He took off in the middle of the storm to get to her. The guys have been giving him shit over the radio all night.”
Teddie’s expression softened. “That sounds like Meghan. She has that effect on people.”
“Must be contagious in your circle.”
The words were out before I could stop them. Teddie’s eyes widened slightly, and I watched the flush on her cheeks deepen. Nice work, Knox. Way to play it cool.
But I wasn’t sorry. Something about this woman made me want to be honest. Made me want to cut through all the bullshit and just say what I meant.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket. I didn’t have to look to know what it was. More messages. More drama. More problems I couldn’t solve.
Something in my expression must have shifted, because Teddie tilted her head, studying me with those big brown eyes.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.” The word came out too fast. I softened it with a shrug. “Family stuff. It can wait.”
She looked like she wanted to push, but she didn’t. Instead, she gestured toward the back of the room.
“I should probably get back to helping Elsa. We’re slammed, and she’s been running this place solo for hours.”
“Let me help.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You want to bus tables?”
“I want to talk to you more.” The honesty felt strange on my tongue, but right. “Busing tables seems like a reasonable excuse to do that.”
That laugh again. It hit me right in the chest, made me want to spend the rest of the day finding ways to make her do it again.
“Okay, firefighter.” She grabbed a tray from a nearby table and shoved it into my hands. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
We fell into a rhythm. She took orders, I cleared plates, and we met in the middle whenever we could—quick exchanges by the kitchen door, brushed shoulders as we passed between tables.
Each time we crossed paths, I learned something new.
She’d grown up in Wildwood Valley, never lived anywhere else.
She and Meghan had been best friends since kindergarten.
She worked part-time at a craft store in town but was looking for something more.
“More like what?” I asked, stacking dirty glasses on my tray.
She shrugged, but there was something wistful in her expression. “I don’t know. Something that feels like it matters, I guess. Something that uses…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”
“Uses what?”
She met my eyes, and for a second, I saw something vulnerable there. Something she didn’t show most people.
“My voice. I’ve always wanted to do something with it. Sing professionally, I mean. But Wildwood Valley isn’t exactly Nashville, and I’m not the type to pack up and chase a dream that might not go anywhere.”
“Why not?”
“Because this is home.” She said it simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Meghan’s here. My whole life is here. I’m not going to throw that away for a one-in-a-million shot at something that probably won’t happen.”
I understood that more than she knew. I’d spent years chasing things—deployments, assignments, always moving, never staying. And now here I was, in a tiny mountain town, finally feeling like I might have found a place to land.
“There are other ways,” I said. “To make it work. You don’t have to go to Nashville.”
She gave me a skeptical look. “What, like karaoke at the local roadhouse?”
“Like the internet. People build whole careers online now. Recording from their bedrooms, posting covers, building audiences. You don’t need a record label.
You just need a decent mic and something worth listening to.
” I gestured vaguely toward the stage. “And you’ve definitely got something worth listening to. ”
She stared at me for a long moment, and I couldn’t read her expression. Then she shook her head, but she was smiling.
“You’re serious.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because we just met. You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you have a voice that stopped a room full of cranky, stranded travelers in their tracks. I know you walked into chaos and immediately started helping instead of complaining. I know you stayed in your hometown because you love the people here, not because you were too scared to leave.” I held her gaze. “That’s not nothing.”
The flush was back on her cheeks, deeper this time. She opened her mouth to say something, but Elsa’s voice cut through from the bar.
“Teddie, I need you at table six. And Knox, your burger’s been sitting there for two hours. Either eat it or let me toss it.”
Teddie laughed, the tension breaking. “Duty calls.”
“I’ll be here,” I said. “When you’re done.”
She held my gaze for another beat, something shifting in her expression. Then she nodded and headed toward table six, ponytail swinging behind her.
I watched her go, and for the first time in weeks, I felt something other than exhaustion and frustration. I felt awake. Alert. Like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
My phone buzzed again in my pocket. I pulled it out, saw the screen lighting up with notification after notification.
I held down the power button and turned it off completely.
Whatever was happening with my family could wait. Right now, I had more important things to focus on.