Page 108 of My Grumpy Fire Chief Next Door
My fiancée.
And nothing else exists.
Her arms are wrapped around my waist as she laughs, surveying the crowd, her face lit up as the community celebrates us.
I turn her face to mine, lean forward, and catch her mouth with mine. It’s clumsy, but we both laugh into it. My hand slips to her cheek, thumb brushing the dampness there, and I hold her like she’s something fragile and infinite all at once.
It’s not a clean kiss. Not a movie kiss. It’s too desperate, too full of everything I’ve wanted to say and everything I’m still afraid of. There’s a tremor in her lips, and one in mine, and somehow they find rhythm anyway.
When I pull back, she keeps her eyes closed for a second longer. As though she’s memorizing the moment.
She opens them slowly, and I’m not sure who’s shaking harder; her or me.
Somewhere behind us, over the swell of laughter and music, a voice cuts through, warm and familiar.
“Alright, lovebirds!” Knox hollers from the drink table, raising a glass as though he’s leading a toast. “It's fundraiser time!"
A round of laughter breaks out. Someone claps. Someone else cheers.
Kate laughs, head against my shoulder, and I press my lips to her temple.
And as we turn toward the long tables set beneath the torches, Parker still bouncing beside us, I know...
This isn’t the end of something broken. It’s the beginning of something whole.
Chapter twenty-nine
Epilogue
KATE
Sunlight drapes across my lap, warm and familiar, and the breeze through the open window carries the scent of grass, sawdust, and something new.
Parker’s outside hammering away at his lopsided birdhouse, giggling with each crooked nail, while Blaze lets out a long-suffering sigh that rattles the porch floorboards.
I can’t see them from here, but I don’t need to. I know the poor dog already has enough of Parker’s incessant pounding; still, I know he won’t leave his side.
My brush moves in slow, steady strokes. Blue first, then a soft gray that bleeds into it, the shape of wind in the sky, each stroke carries ocean salt and old memories.
Our wedding invitation is beside me on the table.
Cream card, hand-painted blue flowers curling around our names. It’s the only copy we kept. The rest are already sealed and sent, tucked away into mailboxes for everyone who is specialto us. But this one's staying with us. A reminder of everything it took to get here.
I sense Noah beside me even before he speaks.
The shift of the floor under his weight, the pause just behind me. The way my skin warms without his fingers even touching.
“I dropped the invite at the post office this morning,” Noah says, his voice brushing against my neck like a thumbprint. “For your parents.”
My brush hovers midair as I wonder if they will honor the invite and attend our wedding or if the expectation they have will hold them back. But I don’t voice any of it out, because Noah is already worried about them.
We both let the moment sit between us, like the simmering tension before a first kiss.
“And…” He shifts his weight from foot to foot. “I also gave one to Tara.”
Now I glance over my shoulder.
His brows are knit, eyes tracking my face as if he’s trying to gauge a reaction. “She surprised me…”
