Page 2 of Slow Burn
She wasn’t there to make friends.
She’d come to shake up some ghosts.
Someone needed to pay for killing her mama.
two
“Where there is smoke, there is fire.” - Proverb
There was little Cole Hauser and his daddy had in common aside from their devotion to their small town and the love of a challenge.
Today’s battle? This damn suit. He’d wrangled himself into it like a possum at a dog show. Sure, it was the only thing halfway respectable for a day like this—his daddy getting honored in front of half the county—but that didn’t make it feel any less like slow-cooked punishment. Most days, Cole wore jeans and a t-shirt with The Hammered Nail’s logo on the front, not a three-piece like he was posing for a bank ad. His only saving grace was having this ceremony in September and not the infamous oven that was Tennessee in July.
That would’ve been his daddy’s pick, no question—though none of this was his doing. Still, he’d have eaten up the heat like molasses on a biscuit. That thick, sticky kind of summer that had your clothes clinging was like sweet nectar to a honeybee for him.
Maybe it reminded his pop of those moments when fire licked at his boots and tugged at his coat, trying its damnedest to take him under in the blaze he’d spent his whole working life beating back as a firefighter.
Until today.
Today, John Hauser was walking away from all of it. No more early alarms or late-night calls, no more soot-stained gear or secondhand smoke in the laundry room. Just a plaque and a podium and a whole town watching.
He didn’t look like he was done, though. Standing on that stage, John was as solid and sure as ever. Broad as a barn and sunbaked from years in the heat, he had that same steel in his spine. And when he found Cole’s mama in the crowd, they shared a look that said more than words ever could. It was the kind of look you earned after thirty-some years of standing side by side through just about everything.
Usually, those silent communications had to do with Cole—what to do with the son who never quite settled down. But this one? This one was all for them.
It didn’t happen often, but pride puffed up in Cole’s chest instead of that old bitterness as his daddy strode across the stage like he had every right to be there. And hell, he did. The proof was in the number of people in the crowd.
Pop took his plaque and shook Mayor Abbott’s hand, then turned to his audience, cheeks flushed with the embarrassment that came from being recognized for something he’d done out of duty rather than for the accolades.
Folks whooped and hollered as he ducked his head, trying to wave off the mayor’s attempt at drawing him to the podium. Despite his efforts, Mayor Abbott managed to get John behind the mic, and Cole’s daddy stood there like someone had asked him to perform brain surgery.
From behind came a low, slow chant of “speech, speech, speech!”
Cole glanced back, first spotting the fire chief staring forward. Eric Ward was characteristically stoic in his starched uniform, an extra stiffness in his posture. Lydia Abbott, his sister, sat beside him instead of his wife—no surprise there. The divorce had finally stuck this time. Lydia looked about as happy to be there as her brother. Her husband was, also characteristically, missing.
It was the group behind them—other crew members from the station—who were getting rowdy and chanting the word with increasing volume and intensity. Despite everything between Cole and his daddy and the urge to tear off the damn suit, Cole couldn’t help cracking a smile.
It disappeared almost as quickly as it came. His attention snagged on the feminine figure lingering toward the back of the crowd. Glimpses of a yellow sundress flashed between shifting bodies like heat shimmer off hot asphalt. He reacted like a man who’d broken down on an abandoned road in the dead of summer even before he fully registered that he recognized her.
He’d seen her face often enough, even if they’d never met. Being five years older meant his circle had never overlapped with hers. But amid the clutter of family snapshots and sentimental knick-knacks, her picture had been a constant on his parents’ mantel the better part of two decades.
The story of why was as familiar as a lullaby. Because Jocelyn Murphy was tied to his family, whether she wanted to be or not. After all, his daddy had saved her life twenty years ago, almost to the day.
She didn’t look like the girl in that picture anymore. She was older now, more guarded. Beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with softness and everything to do with the flint in her eyes. Cole struggled to swallow past the dryness in his throat as hecataloged the changes in her since the last photo was placed in the same old frame on the mantel.
He turned to his mama, mostly to keep from staring. “Jocelyn Murphy’s here,” he murmured.
Ellen lit up. “Is she? Oh, I hoped she’d come.” She craned her neck, waving until she caught Jocelyn’s eye.
There was a ripple effect, and several others turned to look, too.
Pink tinged Jocelyn’s cheeks as folks traded whispers, the added color like a punch to Cole’s gut. The visceral reaction almost knocked him over. She waved back, then shifted to fiddle with a piece of her dark hair that’d fallen from her updo, clearly uncomfortable with all the focus that had landed on her.
Ellen ignored the whispers of the townsfolk. “I wish she could sit with us.” She bit her lip. “Do you think your daddy can see her?”
Cole’s gaze swiveled back to the stage where John was reluctantly clutching the edges of the podium, another flush creeping up his neck.
“Probably can’t think beyond whatever he’s trying to cobble together for a speech,” Cole answered with a smirk.
