by Erin Wright
He dropped his green scrubber into the pail and climbed back down the ladder to go watch the Anderson family at work. Jaxson casually came over to stand by him, watching together as the two little boys worked to sweep dirt and wrappers and trash into the dustpan. They weren’t perfect, but they were also kids, so…
“You’ve got good kids,” Troy said softly. He could see that now.
“Thanks. They can be a handful, especially when they’ve just come back from their mom’s house. Lately, she hasn’t been much for watching them, and instead lets them run wild…they’re picking up some real bad habits in Boise. I’m just glad that the judge finally awarded me primary custody over them. That was a hell of a court battle.” He shook his head. “The court system can be rough.”
Troy nodded. He couldn’t say he’d been through anything like that, but he could imagine it’d be tough to have an outsider tell you how often you could see your own damn kids.
Then Troy drew in a deep breath and said what he should’ve been saying from the get-go. “I’m glad you moved up here so you could fight for them. They’re worth fighting for, and the town is better off for having you here.”
It was a freakin’ speech in Troy’s world, and he held his breath, wondering how Jaxson would react.
“Thanks, Troy.” Jaxson clapped Troy on the back, the maximum level of affection that two straight males were ever willing to show each other. “It wasn’t an easy transition, but I’m damn glad I’m here. Aiden!” he hollered, moving forward and grabbing the broom handle that he’d been swinging around in the air. “Not a toy. We’re here to clean. You two need to sweep up that last spot over there,” he pointed to the corner where a pile of dirt was still left, “and then we’ll be done and it’ll be donut time. I want to see you two do your best.”
Over his shoulder, Jaxson sent a laughing shrug towards Troy that clearly said, Boys. What’re you gonna do? and stayed where he was so he could keep a firmer grip on the two.
Troy watched the three of them working together for a moment, and then turned back to watch Moose and Levi working together. Even here, in this moment when he had five people there specifically to help him out, he still felt like the outsider.
When he’d been out at the Miller’s place, helping Abby and Wyatt move into their new house, he hadn’t felt like a sore thumb sticking out. He’d been having fun; laughing and enjoying himself, even if he wasn’t talking much. What was the difference? Why’d he been so happy there, and so miserable here?
Penny. It all came back to her. She’d been gone six weeks and still the pain was as fresh as the moment he’d dropped her off at her apartment building that last time. He’d thought that if he just had the perfect moment set-up, the perfect atmosphere, he could knock down those last walls around her. For a long time there, he’d known that he was more in love with her than she was with him, and he’d been okay with that. He’d been willing to wait; to give her the time to make her way to the truthitude, as she’d call it, that they belonged together.
But she kept talking about getting a job elsewhere, and that combined with the opportunity to make this old mill a reality…he had to make his move.
And what a disastrous move that had turned out to be.
As the Andersons left, and then Moose and Levi left, Troy just continued to scrub and work, work and scrub. Maybe, just maybe, he could scrub it all right out of his mind, soul, and most importantly, his heart.
Chapter 26
Penny
Life sucked donkey dick.
Her boss was terrible, her apartment was tiny, the weather was depressing, and the work was uninspiring. Oh, and it was almost Christmas, and here she was, hours away from home, with no chance of being able to make it home for the holidays. Rent was eating up more of her paycheck than she’d hoped it would, and she was barely hanging on by her fingernails. The gas and time off to go home…those were luxuries she just couldn’t afford with her new “glamorous” job.
Oh, it was glamorous, all right. Who didn’t look forward to being ridden like a rented mule by an asshat of a boss who still hadn’t bothered to learn her name? The first fifteen times she’d corrected him – It’s Penny, not Peggy – he’d been snippy and rude, and had continued to call her the wrong name anyway. She’d finally given up on being called the right name earlier that week, and consoled herself that at least HR knew how to spell her name on her paychecks, and wasn’t that what mattered?
She was, to put it bluntly, miserable. Why oh why had she ever, in a million years, thought that moving to Seattle was a good idea?
She peered down the aisle between the tan, soulless cubicles and past the copy machine squished up against the coffee pot, squinting to see if the rain had stopped yet.
Ugh. Either a giant was spitting on the window yet again, or it was still raining outside.
Wranglers are starting to take on a whole new appeal.
At least, dry ones were. Anything dry was appealing, actually.
Coming from an Intermountain West state where water was a precious commodity, and whether or not they were going to get enough this year for the crops was an ongoing topic of discussion, the interminable rain had been a novelty at first. Everything was so painfully, overwhelmingly green, despite the fact that not a soul had a sprinkler system in their yard.
There were still fights over water like there were back in Idaho, but here, it was a fight over who was going to get stuck with it. Redirecting a rain spout into someone else’s yard was practically an act of war.
The farmers of Long Valley would sell their mothers off to the highest bidder to have access to this much water. The grain would grow so well, Troy would never be able to come home from the mill—
She sighed and propped her chin on her hand as she stared sightlessly down at the newest proposal she was supposed to be working on.
“Supposed to be” being the operative term. Try as she might, she just couldn’t figure out how to get excited about selling vegan water. “But…but all water is vegan,” she'd pointed out to her boss when she’d been given the assignment.
“Hippies are idiots,” he’d told her bluntly. “Put happy smiling cows on the bottles, and it’ll sell like hot cakes.”
How on earth was this one of the most prestigious advertising firms in the west? They used to be so exclusive. Companies begged them to run their advertising campaigns for them. When she’d been in college, they’d been the place to work, and all of the students dreamed about someday joining their ranks.
Something had happened to the firm between her graduation from college and now, and Penny was too damn tired from the grayness and darkness and eternity of rain to figure out what. Greedy management? Incompetent management? Greedy, incompetent management?
Dammit all, she’d wanted this. She had. She still wanted this. She couldn’t give up and go crawling back to Long Valley with her tail tucked between her legs. She wanted to live in a big city with all of the culture and opportunities to be found there. When she and Troy’d had that last big blowout, she’d woken up the next morning to an email in her inbox, congratulating her on being hired. She had felt like it was a sign from God – finally, the job she’d been searching for for months, coming right on the heels of what could only be considered a break-up with Troy. Not that they’d discussed that specifically, but yeah…
She’d been so sure that this was what she was supposed to be doing. It had worked out so perfectly. And then…
The papers swam in front of her eyes as she stared down at the paperwork. This couldn’t be what she’d been dreaming of and working for, for so long. She refused to believe it. There had to be more to the big city and living the dream than this.
“Peggy!” her boss barked as he strode by, his black leather shoes squeaking with every step. “I need that draft by noon tomorrow.”
She nodded numbly. She could totally come up with something by then.
Right?
Smiling cows. Happy cows. Why are we associatin
g cows with water? Has no one ever seen a watering hole for a herd of cows? They piss and shit wherever they’re standing. The mud is usually churned up so much that they’re up to their knees in it. It’s disgusting. Cows and water shouldn’t go—
“Well?” he barked, and she realized belatedly that he’d stopped and was standing right next to her cubicle. “Are you going to do something? I’ve been watching you do nothing but stare off into space for the past hour. Edge Advertising isn’t paying you to admire the rain.”
Her mind sort of blanked out, though, after everything past the “do something” part of his question.
Was she going to do something?
He was right. Dear God in heaven, her boss from hell was right!
She hadn’t been doing something, unless throwing a one-person pity party counted as “something.” She’d been so miserable ever since she moved up here, she’d really been doing nothing but hiding from the world.
“You’re right,” she breathed, staring up at her boss but not really seeing him.
She was seeing Troy’s eyes, crinkling at the corners when he smiled. She was seeing his pupils blown wide as he stared down at her with pure lust in his eyes. She was seeing the Goldfork Mountains, framing the sky, their snowy peaks comforting and beautiful. She was seeing her mom, wearing black and prattling on about the Dodgers chances this season and cleaning the attic yet again, but at least Penny knew she was okay. She could see that her mother was thriving and happy, unlike now where her mother wasn’t talking to her at all. She’d told Penny she was being a certifiable idiot by telling Troy no, and then had hung up on her.
“You’re right,” she repeated, and it was only then that she realized her boss had been talking. He stopped and stared at her, his scowl only deepening.
“Are you listening to me?” he demanded. “You need more cows—”
“No,” she said simply.
“No what? No, you don’t need more cows? I’m the boss here, and—”
“No, I’m not listening to you, and no, you’re not the boss here. Well, you’re not the boss of me anyway, because I’m quitting. I’m quitting this firm and this damn awful weather and the humidity and I’m going home.”
She snagged her purse off the hook on the cubicle wall and realized with a start that she had nothing else to take with her. It’d been almost two months since she’d started here, and she hadn’t brought in so much as an extra tube of lipstick or a framed picture of her mother or anything.
“I won’t give you a reference if you walk out like this!” her boss yelled, his cheeks turning a brilliant red as he glowered angrily at her. “Good luck ever finding a job in advertising again!”
“That’s okay!” she told him cheerfully. “My next boss will be me, and I’m pretty happy to say that I’ll hire myself. Good luck with your vegan water client.”
She walked towards the elevator, practically skipping as she went. Every step, she grew lighter and happier. She was going to go back to her hovel of an apartment, pack up her belongings, and head for home.
She wouldn’t call her mom ahead of time; her mom loved surprises and she was about to give her mom the surprise of a lifetime. And once she was done being loved on and could take a shower to freshen up – after all, it was eight or nine hours by car from Seattle to Franklin, not to mention all of the packing she still had to do – she could go give Troy the surprise of a lifetime, too.
She walked out into the cold drizzle of the ever-present rainstorm and laughed out loud, ignoring the stares of the passerby's who probably thought she had a screw loose…or seven.
For the first time in two months, she felt happy again. Finally, this was what she was meant to do.
Chapter 27
Troy
Troy stripped off his shirt, wincing at the pain of the twinging muscles that were sending lightning bolts through him. He’d always thought he worked hard at the new mill, but now that he was working on restoring the old one, racing against the clock to get it up and going and thriving before his money ran out, he realized his previous pace was child’s play.
Before, harvest had always been a crazy time but then it would end and life would go back to normal. This new pace was like living through one harvest after another with no break in sight.
He toed his boots off, shucked his jeans, and crawled into bed wearing only his boxers. He really ought to take a shower, but that would require so much energy, there was just…no…wayyy…
His radio went off, jerking him awake. “Franklin Fire Department requests assistance with a residential fire in the Moose Run subdivision,” the radio crackled. “There is a residential fire in the Moose Run subdivision.”
Troy was fumbling and shoving his arms into his shirt, trying to get his clothes on but his shirt was strangling him and he couldn’t figure out why until he realized he had put it on backwards. He yanked it off and flipped on the lamp next to his bed, squinting into the bright light.
Let’s try this again, shall we? Nice and slow. Killing yourself with your own damn shirt isn’t gonna help anyone.
The panic was hard to push down, though. The Moose Run subdivision was where Wanda lived. Of course, lots of people lived there. The chances of it actually being Wanda’s house were pretty small.
That sane and rational thought didn’t do a damn thing for his panic levels.
What if…
He wouldn’t let himself finish that thought.
He wouldn’t know until he got there, and until then, there was no reason to worry.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
Finally dressed, he ran out into the cold winter night, the icy air stealing the breath from his lungs, and pushed himself up and into the cab of his truck. He groaned aloud when he heard the thump of Sparky’s paws landing in the bed. He really ought to order her back inside, but he started the engine instead. She wouldn’t go out with him to the fire, of course, and arguing with her right now would take too much time. She could go for a joyride over to the fire station – it wouldn’t hurt anything.
He listened to the radio chatter as he drove, men reporting in that they were on their way. He waited for a quiet moment, and then thumbed the radio call button himself. “This is Troy Horvath. Coming up on Main now.”
“Acknowledged,” Jaxson radioed back.
It sucked that he had to drive into town to get geared up before he could head back towards Franklin. His house was on the Franklin side of Sawyer; Wanda’s house was on the Sawyer side of Franklin. It was only a 20-minute drive from his house to Penny’s mother’s house, but not if he took a detour to the fire station first.
Of course, he couldn’t go into a house fire without his gear or oxygen tanks. That was suicide. It wasn’t called Personal Protective Equipment because it was a “nice” thing to have.
And anyway, it was quite possible it wasn’t Wanda’s house. There had to be fifty houses in that subdivision and as of yet, no one had reported out the address. There seemed to be some confusion on the topic, which was strange, to say the least. How could they not know which house was on fire? Usually the dancing orange and red flames gave it away.
His truck vents had just started to push out heat, warming the cab up, when he pulled to a stop in front of the station and cut the engine with a regretful sigh. It was Murphy’s Law for Winter Travel – your destination was always about sixty seconds past where your engine had finally started putting out heat.
He could only hope someone had thought to flip on the heaters inside of the station. He hadn’t checked the weather but based on the bitterness of the cold, it had to be sub-zero temps tonight.
He hurried in through the man door of the station, Sparky streaking in behind him. Poor girl was probably freezing her tail off after that bone-aching cold ride in the bed of the truck. If she’d just ride upfront with him, she’d be much better off, but no matter how much relaxing she’d done since spring when he’d first gotten her, the cab of his truck was still the one place she absolutely ref
used to go.
“Hey, Troy!” Jaxson called out, sliding the last of his turnout gear into place, and Troy pushed himself to catch up. Levi was there and also getting ready, but Moose hadn’t arrived yet. No big surprise there; he’d moved to Franklin that past summer, so he was gonna be driving past the house fire in question to get to Sawyer to get geared up, just so he could take a ride in the fire truck right back to Franklin.
Ah. The joy of small towns, where everything is at least a 30-minute drive away.
Luke and Dylan were there, sliding into their gear, Dylan’s hair sticking up every which way, clearly tousled from sleep.
What time is it, anyway?
Belatedly, Troy thought to check the clock on the wall and realized it was just after two in the morning. Damn, no wonder he felt so thick. It was almost like he was caught in a dream, wandering aimlessly around, pushing himself to register sounds and turn them into recognizable words.
And the panic sure as shit wasn’t helping, but instead was adding another layer of stupidity to his brain.
If it’s you, Wanda, I promise I’ll get you out.
It was why he was a firefighter – to help others. He just hadn’t expected to help a woman who he’d grown to love and admire, and who’d already fought and won against two bouts of cancer.
Surely God knows what she’s already been through, and won’t put her through this also. No reason to panic. Just get your turnout gear on and what comes, comes. Worrying beforehand isn’t gonna make it any better.
Moose came in then, looking just as rumpled and tired as everyone else, but his strides were purposeful as he hurried into his gear. Jaxson had already started both fire trucks – the engine and the water truck – letting them heat up as they idled.
“Why is Franklin requesting our help?” Levi asked. “Moose Run is on our side of Franklin, but they’re still a lot closer than we are.”