Page 16 of My Grumpy Fire Chief Next Door
I stand there instead. Heart thudding like it’s asking me what the hell are you doing, man?
She gives the impression that she wants to say something. Then doesn’t.
Instead, her gaze flickers down to my boots, up to my chest, and then back to my face. Like she’s memorizing something without realizing it.
“Thanks for checking on us,” she says, voice quieter now. “Really.”
I give a small shrug, trying to make it nothing. “You’re on my land. Not gonna let you blow away.”
But the look in her eyes?
It says she heard something else entirely.
And I probably meant it.
Chapter five
Kate
The wind howls outside like it’s got a bone to pick with the roof.
I try to focus on the stack of art projects spread across my kitchen table, each one stiff with tempera paint and glued sequins that glint under the flickering overhead light. I’m halfway through a rainbow landscape when thunder cracks loud enough to rattle my spine. My marker slips, bleeding blue across a student’s sun.
Great.
I blow out a breath and set the paper down, pushing my chair back with a soft scrape. My nerves are shot. I’ve had one too many storms crash into my life, and this one should not stir something deep and unsteady in me.
But I can’t deny that I don’t do well with storms, not with the memory that comes with them. I shake my head, trying to divert my thoughts.
It’s been a week.
One long, strange, fluttery, steadying week. I’m not sure how to explain the way it feels to have something good start to take root again. With Parker beside me, laughing, running barefoot with Blaze like the world is new, waving at everyone in Porthaven, my lungs feel like they’ve finally learned how to breathe again.
The job’s been better than I expected. The kids are vibrant and weird, and bright in all the best ways. Lillian Monroe, head of the school and already dangerously close to honorary godmother territory, took an instant liking to me and Parker.
She even watches him during my classes until he joins his class on Monday, as though it’s no big deal. As if we’re already a part of this place.
I want to believe we are.
It may have seemed silly to others that I wanted Parker to come with me on Monday to give him enough time to get familiar with the school a little bit and not overwhelm him immediately, but Lillian understood perfectly.
I want to make it real. Make friends. Stay. And for some unexplainable reason, the person I believe should be my first friend… was Noah.
My neighbor with the storm cloud eyes and the way of observing like he’s waiting for something to go wrong.
He’s been distant, intentional or not; I can’t tell. But I see him. Standing at his window most mornings when I jog back up the path. Arms crossed over that broad chest, like he’s carved from the stillness. He doesn’t wave. Doesn’t smile. Just watches.
I should hate it. I don’t.
Noah Bennett is the first man I haven’t been able to charm, deflect, or disarm with a quick grin or an easy quip. And oddly, that makes me feel...safe.
Because whatever he sees when he studies me is not the polished version. It’s not the girl who fled her old life in heelsand lipstick. Not Kate Sinclair. He sees this version. Tired. Trying. Barely holding the corners of her world together with glue and good intentions. He’s seeing Kate Montgomery.
And he doesn’t shy away.
Earlier today, when he showed up at the fence to warn me about the storm, I caught something in his eyes, something raw. A memory he hadn’t made peace with? I knew that expression.
I see it in the mirror some mornings before Parker wakes up.
