Chapter 6 #2
I waited until she'd had enough.
"Tessa." I kept my voice low. "I hear you. I know how hard that was for you to come here and ask. I'm not saying no. But I can't say yes right now either. I need to think about it. When I have an answer, I'll come find you. Okay?"
She looked up. Surprised. Like she had not let herself believe I might say yes.
"Thank you." Her voice was small. "For listening. And for—" She glanced at the planter. Almost smiled. "Holding my hair."
"It's not the worst thing I've seen."
Her shoulders shook once—a real laugh this time, surprised out of her. It only lasted a second. But it was there.
"You're welcome to come inside," I said. "Sit down for a while. Before you drive."
"I'm okay. Really. I feel better already."
I looked at her. She was steady enough. Pale, but the color was coming back. I looked back at the kitchen where the crew was still watching. I'd thought about offering to drive her, but I didn't want to give them more to talk about than they already had.
"Let me walk you to your car. Just to make sure you don't faint on the way."
She huffed a small breath. "Alright."
I stood. Held out a hand. She took it and let me help her up. Her hand was cold. She let go as soon as she had her feet.
We walked across the lot. I stayed a half step behind her on her right side, watching the way she was carrying herself. Steady enough. She got to her car and stopped with her hand on the door.
"Cole."
"Yeah."
"Thank you. Really."
"Drive safe."
She got in and started the car. I watched her pull out of the lot, turn onto the street, and disappear around the corner.
A-shift was supposed to be on its way out.
B-shift had clocked in fifteen minutes ago.
Neither shift had moved. The kitchen was full when I came through—my four standing where I'd left them, the B-shift guys a step behind them, all of them with the look of men who had been pretending to do something else when they heard my boots coming.
Martinez was the first one to break.
"Lieutenant."
"Martinez."
"Anything you want to share with the group?"
"No."
I walked to the cubby for my bag.
"Lieutenant—"
"Martinez."
"Hear me out."
"No."
"If you're not interested in her, can I give it a go?"
I lifted my bag off the hook. Turned around.
The whole kitchen was looking at me. Both shifts. Eight grown men, holding very still.
"I'd like to see you try."
The kitchen detonated.
I walked out before the noise was done coming up. Down the hall. Out the side door. Across the lot to my truck.
I got in. Shut the door. Sat with my hands on the wheel.
The Sunday before Thanksgiving, A-shift and B-shift were both off, so we'd folded the holiday and the barbecue into one.
Sam was at the grill helping Jamie work out the turkey, which he was about to make her regret.
Aunt Jenna was in the kitchen with Carol and Megan, doing whatever it was the three of them did when they ended up in a kitchen together.
Ben and Sean's older daughter were in the yard with Biscuit.
Martinez was on his second beer. Davis was on his third.
I'd been at it for an hour. I'd held the same beer the whole time.
"Rosie!"
"Hey, Cole! How are you?"
Rosie was Jamie's niece. Jamie had taken her in after Rosie's father, Jack Donovan, died of injuries he'd sustained pulling Quinn and Aunt Jenna out of a structure fire.
Sam married Jamie a year later, and the two of them adopted Rosie together.
They'd treated her as their first kid way before they'd signed the papers.
Jack was the reason Aunt Jenna and Quinn had a life. Sam and Jamie were the people they'd built that life around afterward. That was why I counted the Reeves family as my own.
"It's good to see you."
I pulled her into a one-armed hug. She fit under my arm the way she had when she was twelve.
Twenty-three now, in her last year at Wake Forest, English Lit and reading whatever they put in front of her like a person who'd been waiting for the next book her whole life.
She came home a couple of times a year. Always for Thanksgiving.
"What's that you're reading?"
Quinn shut the book she and Rosie had been hunched over, giggling about, before I'd walked over. Closed it on her finger to hold the page. Held it cover-down in her lap.
"Nothing."
She gave me the grin—the one that meant she didn't want me to know what it was about.
Rosie was looking at the bench.
I raised an eyebrow. Both of them laughed.
As if I didn't know they were reading a romance novel. Quinn read them on the firehouse couch when she came by to wait for me after a shift. Aunt Jenna kept a stack on the side table next to her chair. There was no reason for it to be a thing.
"Speaking of love stories—" Quinn said. "I heard the woman from the video came to the firehouse twice in the last week?"
Rosie squealed.
"Do you have something to tell us?"
Quinn and Rosie's smiles were about as wide as they could go now.
I gave them both a look. "I'll tell you when I have something to tell you."
"That's not a no."
I ruffled Quinn's hair. She swatted my hand. The two of them were still laughing when I walked off.
I'd been bracing for the questions all afternoon. They came in waves.
Jamie caught me in the kitchen with a tone and a smile and asked how I was doing.
Megan, two steps behind her, gave me the same question with the smile turned down a notch.
Carol was polite. The three of them were standing close enough that they were either a coordinated effort or had agreed in advance to take separate runs at it, and I couldn't tell which.
I told all three I was fine.
Sean caught me on the patio. He didn't ask. He clapped my shoulder once, hard, and told me he was happy for me. I didn't ask what for. He didn't specify. We left it there.
Martinez and Davis were kept busy by the kids, and the captains—Sam, Danny, and Tyler—were too dignified to start anything. Aunt Jenna gave me a look from across the yard once and let it go. That was Aunt Jenna. She'd ask me when I was ready to be asked.
Sometime in the afternoon, I found myself at the far end of the fence, alone with a beer I hadn't drunk.
I'd told Tessa I'd come find her when I had an answer. I'd had five days, and I didn't have one.
Saying yes wasn't as simple as it sounded. Yes, you can tell people we're together. That was the surface. Underneath it was a charade I'd have to put up—a story I'd have to tell about a relationship we hadn't lived in. Lying.
I wasn't comfortable with lying.
Saying no would be—
I paused.
Shelby, are you okay? What did he do to you?
I'm fine, Cole. Go back to bed.
If I said no, I'd be no different from the man I'd sworn I wouldn't become.
So I had to say yes.
I took a drink of my beer and winced. Lukewarm.
If I said yes, I'd have to pretend to be in a relationship with her.
Her face came up. Every smile she'd given me.
At the bakery, with the flour on her apron and the smile she'd been holding the door shut with.
The white dress crossing the lot at the firehouse, the box of pastries in both hands like she'd floated out of a church rose window.
The way her lips had felt on mine. The way her face had looked after she'd realized what she'd done.
The softness of her hair in my hand at the planter.
Thank you. Really. The way she'd said it before she drove off.
If I agreed to this, what would it cost me?
The screen door opened across the yard. Sam came out with two beers. He saw me. Didn't change course. Walked past Martinez, past the kids, all the way down to where I was.
"Hey."
"Hey, Cap."
He handed me a fresh beer, and I took it. He leaned against the fence next to me and looked at the yard.
He didn't say anything.
That was Sam. He didn't fish. He waited. I'd watched him do it to other people for half my life and been on the receiving end of it more times than I could count.
A few minutes went by.
"Something on your mind?"
"Maybe."
"Okay."
He took a sip. Didn't push. I turned the beer in my hands.
"You saw the video."
"Which one?"
"Cap."
"Yeah. I saw it."
I'd known he had. Sam had seen the video the day it went up and said nothing about it, because that was Sam. He let people come to him.
"She came to the station," I said.
He waited.
"Not to say thanks. She came to ask for something."
"Alright."
I let the silence sit a beat.
"There's more to it than the video. She's in trouble. A real situation. Someone dangerous is looking for her, and she needs somebody standing next to her while she handles it." I stopped. The next part was harder. "She asked me if I'd be that somebody."
I didn't look at him. He didn't look at me. I kept my eyes on the yard; he kept his on the same spot of fence he'd been studying. That was how we did it. Neither of us had to make it a thing.
"And?"
"And I don't know her."
"Okay."
"And the part of me that wants to say yes doesn't fully make sense. Which worries me."
He took a sip. He was thinking. I could feel him thinking.
"Cole."
"Yeah."
"What would you have done if she hadn't kissed you?"
I thought about it. Properly. Not the version I'd been telling myself.
"Same thing. I'd have pulled her out, walked away, not looked back."
"And after?"
"I wouldn't have thought about her."
"But you have."
"Yeah." I let the breath out. "I have."
Jack walked over with a question about the grill, looked at his father's face, pivoted, and walked back. Sam didn't say anything for a long time.
I didn't either.