11. Ember #2
I told one woman while trying to fill an awkward silence at the register after accidentally giving her sourdough instead of rye, and within forty-eight hours I had somehow become local folklore.
The city girl with the lottery money.
The goat farm millionaire.
At this point I’m fairly certain if I sneezed in public, somebody’s aunt would know by dinner.
“I am Emmy,” I say, offering my hand. “And the funds have been liquidated into rural real estate, Ben.”
Ben stares at my hand for a second, then lets out a booming, chest-rattling laugh that has half the table turning around. He shakes my hand with a grip that nearly crushes my knuckles.
“I like her, Brooks. She doesn’t have that nervous twitch the summer students usually get when I talk to ‘em. Sit down, girl. Eat a hot dog. Tell me what you’re gonna do with those three broken John Deeres Arthur left in the tall grass.”
For the next two hours, I am fully integrated into the Suncrest Hollow senior advisory council.
I sit on a metal folding chair between Ben and an old mechanic named Walt, drinking a lemonade out of a plastic cup while they quiz me on my plans for the property.
Walt listens to my description of the window casing I tried to nail down this morning and shakes his head, a slow smile wrinkling his leathery cheeks.
“You’re using the wrong fasteners, girl. Cedar’s soft. You use a galvanized casing nail, not a ball-peen hammer. You’re just bruising the grain. I’ll drop off a box of the right ones on my way to the hardware store Tuesday.”
“I would accept that contribution to the infrastructure, Walt,” I say, giving him a genuine smile.
Across the table, Brooks is leaning against the side of the fire truck, a cold bottle of beer in his hand, watching me.
He isn’t talking much, just letting the older men pepper me with questions, but the look on his face is entirely different now. The protective, serious wall has softened completely.
“So, Emmy,” Ben says, leaning back with a grin, “what made a fancy city girl decide that fixing up old, rotting barns was a better use of her time than whatever it is they do up there? Skyscrapers? Stock markets?”
I take a sip of my lemonade, looking over at Brooks before turning back to Ben.
“I think I just got tired of building things that were meant to be replaced in eighteen months. You build a brand, you spend three years making it perfect, and then the algorithm changes or a bigger company buys you out and wipes the whole thing off the map. It felt like I was spending my life writing on water.”
Ben nods slowly, his bushy eyebrows furrowing. “Writing on water. I like that. We don’t do that much around here. We build things to stay, even if the wood’s rotting. You fix it, you paint it, you keep the roof over your head.”
“Exactly,” I say, and I realize for the first time that I’m not just saying the words to be polite. I really mean it. “Here, at least when you fix a window, the wind stays out.”
“Well, you come talk to Walt about those windows, or you’ll be buying a new frame by winter,” Ben says, pointing a thumb at the mechanic. “And Brooks, stop hogging the girl’s time. You’ve got a town to run.”
Brooks chuckles, taking a long drink of his beer. “I’m not hogging her, Ben. I’m just trying to make sure she doesn’t burn the barn down before the roof gets fixed.”
“She won’t burn it down,” Walt adds, leaning forward. “She’s got the right spirit for it. Just needs better tools. And maybe a little less… whatever that red lipstick is called.”
“It’s ‘Midnight Berry,’” I defend, smiling, and the whole table laughs, a warm, heavy sound that feels like acceptance.
By late afternoon, the sun is starting to slide down the sky, casting long, golden shadows across the fire bay floor.
The crowd is thinning out, the older folks heading home before the evening chill hits the valley, and Sophie is currently fast asleep on a pile of turnout gear in the back of the crew room.
I stand up from the chair, stretching my back.
“I think my shift is over, hot neighbor,” I say, walking over to where Brooks is finally packing his white hat into its leather case.
He looks up. “You’re walking back?”
“Yeah. It’s a nice evening.”
Brooks pauses, his hands resting on the latches of the hat case.
For a second, I think he’s going to offer me a ride in the truck—and a part of me, a very loud, unauthorized part of me, desperately wants him to.
But he just looks at me, his jaw clenching by a fraction of an inch as he stands up straight, his massive frame blocking out the light from the bay door.
He steps closer, closing the distance until the polished silver buttons of his dress uniform are nearly touching my chest.
“Take the path through the lower hollow,” he says.
He reaches out, his fingers gently catching a stray lock of my hair that had fallen across my face, tucking it behind my ear.
“The main road doesn’t have a shoulder and the loggers like to run fast on Saturday nights. Keep your eyes open. I don’t want to have to deploy a rescue team to find you in the brush.”
“Always do, Chief,” I say, my voice coming out a little breathless as I look up into his gray eyes, a small, crooked smile playing on my lips. “Though if you did deploy, would you wear the dress uniform? Because I feel like that would greatly improve my survival morale.”
A tiny, reluctant grin breaks through his serious face. “No promises, Emmy. Just stay out of the ditch.”
I turn and walk out of the station apron, the cool evening breeze hitting my face the second I clear the shadow of the fire engines.
The walk back to the Gilded Goat is quiet.
The lower hollow path runs along the creek line, the water rushing over the gray stones with a steady, soothing hum that completely clears the noise of the fire bay from my head.
The mountains are purple now, the sky changing from amber to a deep, bruised indigo as the first stars start to prick through the dusk.
As I clear the final tree line and my porch comes into view, I stop on the gravel driveway.
The house is dark, the windows reflecting the silver light of the moon.
It looks old, it looks broken, and it is going to cost me a ridiculous amount of money to make it presentable. But as I look at the crooked window casing I tried to fix, I don’t feel that sharp, panicked urge to run back to Manhattan.