Chapter Three Thoran
"...I do like it. I didn’t have a dad, but my brother is a firefighter too. Just not here, he’s over in a mountain town. Not as cool as Lumberjack Lagoon." I let out a chuckle and the kid follows suit.
"Yeah, probably not. I don't have any brothers. Or sisters." He picks at the reflective tape on my coat sleeve. He’s careful about it, like he's checking whether it'll come up. It won't. "I have a dad, but I hardly see him now. It's basically me and my mom."
"You, your mom, and that dog you stole."
"Didn't steal him." He looks up at me and laughs. It's a big laugh for a kid that size, the kind that uses his whole face. "I saved him from being bored. I'll take him back in a minute." Then, with no transition whatsoever he follows up with, "Dogs have three eyelids. Did you know that?"
I chuckle. "What's the third one for?"
"Dust." He shrugs like the follow-up question was beneath both of us. "And swimming."
"I believe you."
And I do. It's flat and it's certain, no wiggle in it anywhere. The kid speaks with a confidence grown men would sell a truck for.
I'm crouched back down on my own concrete with my forearms hung over my knees. There’s an eight-year-old sitting on my turnout coat like it's a picnic blanket.
Somewhere behind me the compressor kicks on and shuts off again.
I don't get up to check it. He's a welcome distraction.
In fact, I've never in my life been this glad to stop working.
We've got a dozen volunteers on the roster and turnout gear on twelve hooks along the far wall. It’s the only thing in this building that looks like a fire department yet. The coats are hung open. The pants are boot-down and ready to step into with helmets on the shelf above. Mine's on the end.
We ran sixty-one seconds on the last drill, cold start to the rig. That's not good. It'll be down to forty by the time we open. But open might be a while.
The stakes for the apparatus pad are still flagged out back, orange tape snapping in the wind off the lagoon, waiting on concrete we can't pour until Lumberjack Days pays for it.
Hopefully.
"This is heavy," the kid says. He's got a fistful of my coat, hauling at it with both hands now.
"Fifty pounds with the tank."
"Can I—" He starts and I already know where this is heading.
"No."
"Please. I just want to check it out. I’ll be—"
"Absolutely not." I say it flat and to my surprise he grins like I handed him something.
The dog on the end of his lead sighs, circles once, and lies down across my boots.
And that's when I look up.
There's a woman standing in the bay opening with one hand on the frame. Her chest is going hard under a thin shirt, but nothing else about her is moving at all. She's got a comb sticking out of her back pocket and her hair's pulled back in a ponytail that runs all the way down her spine.
Something in my chest turns over and settles.
It’s one clean motion. Like a bolt dropping into a hole it was machined for.
Her eyes are on her son. Then they come up and land on me.
They’re gold-flecked, dark, and pooling like her whole life is running behind them all at once.
The heat that goes through the space between us takes every bit of air in this building with it.
The woman is breathtaking. She’s all soft curves, round hips, and full lips. But that's not what has my heart rate ticking up.
It's the calm that comes down over me like a hand on the back of the neck. It isn't a question. It's a certainty I have no business having. One sentence goes off in my head.
Oh. There you are.
I take an involuntary step toward her.
"He's been here about twenty minutes," I say. "Sat right down and started running me through the eyelid situation with the dog. He never left my sight. Not once."
She swallows. "Drew."
"I found a dog," he says, in the voice of a boy who has already decided the dog is a legal defense.
"You left the shop."
He shoves his hands in his pockets. "The dog left first. He got untied. I was about to take him back."
"You don't leave without telling me. Ever."
"Ever," he agrees, and leans into her side while he says it, completely unbothered.
She catches the back of his head and holds it there. It’s a second longer than the lesson requires. Her eyes close and I wonder what other weight she’s carrying. Then in an instant she's got the professional voice on and she's already backing toward the door with a hand on his shoulder.
"Thank you. Really, I appreciate you showing him everything. We will get out of your hair now. I’ve got a dog on my table right now, I'm just right up the road. At the grooming shop—" She bites her lip and there’s a bubbly nervousness to her voice.
"I know. I watched you put up the sign."
She stops.
The pink climbs right up her cheeks and she tucks a rogue strand of hair behind her ear with a smile. "Oh, I didn’t know I had an audience…"
"Thoran."
"Thoran." She says it slow, testing the shape of it.
I like the sound of my own name in a way I never have before. Then there's a beat where something crosses her face, like she wishes she hadn't.
"I'm Vivien."
You're beautiful. And you're mine.
"It's nice to meet you." I put my hand out.
She takes it, and heat whips straight up my arm to the shoulder. Her palm is warm, small in mine, and she pulls it back fast. But not so fast that I don't wonder if she felt it too.
"Yes. Nice to meet you." She clears her throat. "We'll let you go. Drew, Thoran's got a station to build and we've got a dog to return. His owner's probably worried sick. We will see you around."
She gives me a smile that makes it all the way to the corners of her eyes as she turns away. But I'm not ready to let her walk out of here.
"Give me your number."
She stops dead and turns back to look up at me. "What?"
"For the shop." I tip my head at the open bay, which is no more than forty feet away from her storefront.
"We're going to be cutting concrete on the other side of your dryers for about six weeks.
You tell me your appointment blocks, I'll tell my guys when to hold off.
Saves you screaming over a saw at a woman holding a poodle.
" I hold her eyes. "So I need your number. Trust me. It's for the best."
She looks at me for a long second. It’s long enough that I hear the flagging tape out back snapping in the wind.
"Oh." Something in her shoulders comes down half an inch. "Yes. That does make sense I suppose."
She takes out her phone. There’s a hesitation in her movement, but I get her number.
I watch the two of them go. The kid tows the stolen dog. Vivien’s hand rides his shoulder like she's not letting go of it again today. There's a pang under my sternum that doesn't make one bit of damn sense.
But I know what I know. Those two belong with me.