Page 64 of My Grumpy Fire Chief Next Door
I shift my gaze back out to the yard. Parker’s twirling in circles now, arms stretched wide like wings, Blaze darting around him in happy loops. My throat tightens around a lump that won’t budge.
“You know, he reminds me of the life I almost had,” I say, the words brittle, like they’d snap if I wasn’t careful. “Coaching children... it helps. Keeps me steady most days. But sometimes it just... hurts.”
I expect the question then, the natural one, the one every person who’s ever meant well would ask. What happened? Why don’t you have that life? Why does it hurt to coach the kids? Butit doesn’t come. She stays quiet. Just sips her tea like whatever I’m talking about isn’t something she can pry open.
And just when I think she’s not going to say anything at all, her voice drifts over to me, soft but sure.
“I don’t know what you’re dealing with or what the problem is.” She pauses, her gaze fixed out on Parker, watching him spin like the world doesn’t know grief. “But whatever it is, you don’t have to stay stuck there. It’s okay to want more again.”
The words land slow, sinking deep, and unsteady. I turn my head, studying her, really studying her. She isn’t just saying those words. She means them.
It’s not until I look closely at her that I realize the reaction I want has been there all morning; she isn’t venting, lashing out, or even ignoring me.
She’s just sitting here, holding space, leaving me alone with the mess in my head. But even with her calm and her kindness, she’s distancing herself. Not out of anger, but out of quiet self-preservation.
And hell, if that doesn’t hurt more than any scolding or lashing out would.
She rises first, slow and easy, like this whole moment was nothing more than shared coffee and small talk. “Parker, come inside, sweetie,” she calls, her voice cutting through the still morning, warm and light like always.
Parker doesn’t argue, just runs toward her, Blaze trailing after like his shadow’s stitched to his heels.
I don’t move. I sit there long after the screen door clicks shut, my coffee cooling in my hands, feeling the kind of lost I haven’t let myself feel in years.
The door clicks shut behind them, and I hear Parker’s little feet thudding across the floor inside. The sound guts me more than it should as I continue to sit there, mug cooling between mypalms, staring at the empty yard, listening to the echo of their voices threading through the cracked windows.
I want to go in and be with them.
God, I want to follow her. Step through that door, sit at the kitchen table like I belong there, and join her and Parker in that soft, ordinary life. But I don’t move. I sit there, jaw clenched, shoulders stiff, like if I stand up and walk through that door, I’ll ruin whatever good still exists on the other side."
She gave me two chances. Two times, she let me in and risked that sweet, open heart of hers, and both times, I didn’t meet her halfway. I told myself that I was protecting myself. But now all I’ve done is wedge something sharp and silent between us.
Kate’s not cold. She’s not shutting me out, not yet. But something’s different. I can feel it, the space she’s put between us. She’s protecting herself from me hurting her, and I don’t blame her. But I hate it.
The wind shifts, stirring the smell of damp earth and a trace of her familiar scent — warm and sweet and clean, just like it clung to my sheets last night.
And like some cruel trick, my mind drags me back.
Josie, barefoot in the kitchen, coffee mug in hand, sun slanting through the windows just the same. Laughing, calling me her oak tree. Strong. Steady. The man who couldn’t be moved.
But the voice that fills my head now isn’t Josie’s.
It’s Kate.
The way she’d stood on the porch this morning, hair a mess, robe slipping off one shoulder, bare feet on the old wood, her voice soft and even as she handed me coffee like I deserved it.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but the image won’t leave.
“I’m not ready for this,” I mutter to no one but the wind.
But even as the words leave my mouth, the truth sinks deeper, cutting through every lie I’ve tried to tell myself.
Because the picture behind my eyelids—the one that won’t let go—isn’t Josie anymore.
It’s Kate.
Chapter seventeen
Kate
