Page 29 of My Grumpy Fire Chief Next Door
She flashes one last smile before heading back toward the farmhouse, her boots crunching softly on the gravel path. I watch her go, standing in the open doorway with a pie in my hands and hope in my heart.
Because for the first time ever…
I may have friends with no strings attached.
Chapter eight
Noah
The screen door clicks shut behind her, the soft click echoing louder than it should in the quiet. Kate’s scent still lingers in the air-sweet, warm, and sleepy, threaded through the room like a secret; perhaps I’m the only one smelling it.
Kate’s gone hypothetically five seconds, and the air in the kitchen shifts like someone turned the pressure dial up a notch.
Nobody is speaking, but I can sense they are waiting, so I remain silent and don’t break the silence even when Maddox starts thumping his tiny fists against the table or when Emily pulls apple pie from the box like it’s some sort of peace offering.
My coffee’s gone cold in my hand, but I don’t bother taking another sip because my head’s still in last night. My mouth still tastes like her name, and my chest…my chest is a mess of things I don’t have words for.
“So…” Knox leans back against the counter, arms folded, voice casual. Too casual. “You wanna tell us who she is?”
I stare without seeing the grain in the table. Counting the scuffs in the wood like they might spell out an answer. Anything but meet their eyes.
Emily makes this soft sound like a hum dipped in mischief. “She was wearing your clothes, Noah.”
Knox snorts. “And your socks.”
I scratch at my jaw, even though it doesn’t itch. “She got cold.”
“Uh-huh,” Emily says, dragging out every syllable like honey over a flame.
Maddox giggles like he gets the joke.
I push up from my seat and grab a plate from the cabinet, like suddenly I need to serve this damn pie to survive. The knife clinks too hard against the dish. I know what they’re doing. They’re not asking. They’re circling. Waiting for me to slip up and hand them something real.
Knox tosses Parker’s abandoned dinosaur from one hand to the other. “She’s new in town?”
“Moved in a week ago.”
“Moved where?”
I pause. “The cottage.”
Emily’s brows lift.
“Convenient,” Knox mutters, and I shoot him a look sharp enough to draw blood.
He grins.
Then Emily, gentler this time, says, “What’s her story?”
I set the pie knife down.
“I don’t know.”
It’s the truth. The first honest thing I’ve said since this conversation started. I don’t know where she came from. I don’t know what she left behind. I don’t know who broke her or if anyone did. I don’t know her story.
Emily hands me a fork. “Eat. Before you implode.”
Knox scoops Maddox off the chair and ruffles his hair. “We’re not gonna say anything,” he says. “But just so you know? We like her.”
