by Grace Palmer
“Fake,” Sara finished for him, stepping outside the range of his hug and crossing her arms. “Don’t lie to me, Casey. I know what you were doing.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It means you weren’t going to find me hiding in my top desk drawer,” she said.
Casey blinked. “I don’t understand—”
“But my desk is where you expected to find the cash-outs from last night. Right?”
Casey’s cheeks went pink. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I saw the fire and came in to help, and—”
Sara held up a finger. “I thought you came in to apologize.”
“I did!”
“Then when did you see the fire exactly?”
Casey threw up his hands. “I don’t know. It’s a blur. I went to your office to talk to you and—”
“Which was it, Casey? Were you already inside to try and talk with me when the fire started or did you see the fire and come to rescue me?”
His mouth tightened. Sara knew she had him.
“And what did you expect to find in my desk drawers?”
Casey stepped away from her. “This is unbelievable.”
“It really, really is.”
“I don’t have to take this.” Casey dropped the foil blanket on the bumper of the truck and stood tall. “I know the kind of person I am.”
“I see the kind of person you are, too,” Sara said. “You’re a liar and a thief. And as of this moment, unemployed. You’re fired.”
“You don’t have any proof!” he sputtered. “I can fight this. I will—”
“Just leave.” Sara was too tired to waste any more breath on someone she couldn’t trust. “I’m not pressing charges, so count yourself lucky.”
With that, she turned on her heel and marched back around the building.
God, that felt good.
By the time she got back to where Joey was waiting for her on the sidewalk, all Sara could do was press her forehead against his chest and take deep breaths. He smelled like smoke and soot, but he also smelled like him. Woodsy and spicy. Comforting.
“I’m sorry,” he said, smoothing a hand down her hip.
“For that ridiculous conversation I just had or something else?”
“Both,” Joey said.
“So am I,” she repeated. “For everything.”
“Hey. This is my apology now, remember?”
Sara chuckled weakly. “Sorry.”
Joey clicked his tongue. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Sor—” She caught herself, laughed, and zipped her lips closed with her fingers. “Okay. Your turn. Go.”
Joey took a deep breath. “I didn’t listen to you, and you were right. That kid was stealing from you. I’m sorry.”
“He was in the restaurant with me.” Sara shivered. “He snuck in while I was in the pantry. I heard him, but I didn’t know it was him.”
“Maybe now you’ll listen to me and start locking the back door when you’re inside alone.”
Sara pulled away and looked up at Joey. “I thought this was your apology. Why am I getting a lecture?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Because I love you, Sara Benson. And I want you to be safe.”
Sara leaned away from him, eyes misty. “I love you, too.”
He smiled, his movie star dimples making an appearance. “I promise to listen to you more.”
“And I promise to support you more,” Sara agreed. “I think it’s amazing I’m dating a guy who literally saves people’s lives for his job, so I never imagined that maybe you’d have other dreams.”
“I like being a firefighter, but—”
“People can have more than one dream,” Sara said.
Joey nodded.
“And whatever your dreams are, I promise to pay attention to them from now on.”
Joey smiled. “Thanks. But I can also admit I may have ever so slightly, perhaps, gone overboard with the movie.”
“You were excited.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But I may have been a little annoying.”
“A lot annoying,” the firefighter with the mustache said as he passed by right at that moment.
“A lot annoying,” Joey amended, kicking a rock at the man’s heels. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. No more apologies necessary,” Sara said. “I did like the promises, though.”
“You have more promises?”
Sara nodded. “I promise to never watch the McFirefighter show they are making as a spin-off to the medical drama in front of you. I’ll still watch it, obviously. But not when you’re around.”
Joey groaned. “I hate that I even know that exists. It’s going to get everything wrong.”
Sara laughed. “Exactly. I’ll never speak of it again.”
“Deal,” he said, rubbing his chin as he thought. “Okay, and I promise to hand-deliver lattes to you whenever I can on your days off. That way you don’t blow your life savings on delivery fees.”
“I think I’m single handedly paying Chris’ rent at this point,” Sara sighed.
Joey squeezed Sara’s waist, pulling her even closer. “I promise to love you as long as you’ll let me.”
Sara’s throat suddenly constricted, and she decided to blame it on smoke inhalation. “It was my turn to make a promise.”
“Okay, so make one.”
“No way. Yours was better,” she said.
Then he kissed her again, or maybe she kissed him—she wasn’t quite sure. It didn’t really matter much. All she knew as that at some point, they were kissing, and then they weren’t.
Then Joey was standing at her side and taking her hand in his. “You ready to see the damage?”
Sara tightened her grip on his fingers.
She didn’t think she’d ever be ready to see Little Bull in ruins, even partial ruins.
But with Joey by her side, she was as ready as she’d ever be.
“Let’s go.”
26
Brent
Evening—The Sweet Island Inn
It was evening in Nantucket, fireflies blinking in and out of bushes, the sky slowly filling with stars.
But it looked like high noon at the Sweet Island Inn.
The lights the film crew brought were incredibly high-powered. Brent only had to catch them in his peripherals for his vision to be blurred and spotty for the next few blinks.
“Don’t look at those lights,” he warned Susanna.
She was playing with a stuffed rabbit, swinging it by the ears as she spun in circles in the grass. The second he cautioned her, she stopped and whirled around in search, eyes wide. “Which lights?”
“Now you’ve done it,” Rose laughed. “She’s going to go blind because you told her not to look at the lights.”
“I meant, I’m ordering you to look right at the lights, Suz,” Brent hurriedly corrected. “Look right at them and nowhere else.”
Susanna didn’t get the joke. When she couldn’t figure it out, she ran over and collapsed next to where Holly and Alice were sitting on a picnic blanket in the grass.
“Good save,” Rose said, wrapping her arm through Brent’s.
“One of these days, I’ll be as wise as you.”
“I’ve had more practice being a parent. You’ll catch up just fine.” She tugged on his arm, trying to pull him down onto the blanket she’d packed. “Actually—”
Before Brent could sit down, he saw a little blonde head run across the gravel driveway. His sister, Eliza, wasn’t far behind. “Watch out! Winter,” she called out. “Be careful on the rocks.”
Her newest daughter—and Brent’s newest niece—was swaddled, safe and snug, in a floral wrap carrier around Eliza’s chest.
“Oh, Eliza is here. I’ve barely seen her since Summer was born,” Brent said, squeezing Rose’s fingers. “Is it okay if I—?”
Rose waved him off with a smile. “Of course. I’ll be here watching the action.”
He could hear the sarcasm in her voice. Dominic and Mom had invited everyone out to see the first shots of the movie being filmed on location at the Sweet Island Inn. But so far, the cast and crew had been inside the entire time. There wasn’t much to see. Even some of the lookie-loos from town had left when the excitement didn’t pick up.
Brent didn’t mind, though. He enjoyed it just being the family.
Dominic seemed to enjoy that, too. Right when everyone had first arrived, someone came up and asked Dominic for his autograph. He’d looked like he wanted to evaporate on the spot.
He’d smiled and signed the book, but then he and Mom had moved further away from the inn, out of sight. Brent could still see them hiding in the shade of the tulip trees.
Eliza was struggling to pull a blanket from her tote bag. Brent jogged over to help. He fanned the blanket out to lay it in the grass and Winter ran under it, squealing with delight as the blanket fell over her head.
“Thanks for the help, I guess?” Eliza smiled and shrugged. “Even if I can’t sit, at least Winter is content.”
“Content until my arms get sore,” Brent laughed. He flicked the blanket up, wind catching under it, and let it drift slowly back over Winter’s head. “Where’s Oliver?”
Eliza groaned and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Trying to clean our car seat cover out with wet wipes. Don’t ask.”
Brent wrinkled his nose. “Gross.”
“Yes. Babies are gross,” Eliza agreed. “But wonderful, too. And exhausting. And cute. And loud.”
“You’re really selling me on this whole baby thing. Where do I sign up?”
Thankfully, before Brent’s arms could get too tired, Winter saw Alice and Susanna running out to where Mae and Dominic were sitting. She toddled along after them.
Eliza opened her mouth to say something, but Brent shook his head. “She’ll be fine. Mom’ll watch her. That’s what grandmas are for.”
“That’s what Mom always says. But sometimes I think she’s lying. I mean, I’d get sick of all of those kids crawling all over me all the time.” Eliza winced. “Is that a bad thing to admit?”
Brent held Eliza’s hand for support as she dropped down onto the blanket, her other hand clutching Summer, who was snoozing against her chest.
He sat down next to her, legs stretched out into the grass. “I don’t think it’s bad. Honestly, I’m the same way. Holly has always been the maternal one in the family. No offense to you,” he said, gesturing to Eliza and Summer.
“None taken. You’re right. Holly was always like a second mom to us.”
“I didn’t think I liked kids at all until I met Susanna. Well, and Grady. And Alice. And Winter and Summer,” Brent added quickly. “But you know what I mean.”
Eliza laughed. “I know what you mean. It’s different when it’s your own kid.”
Brent took care of Susanna every day. He helped cook her food and change her clothes. He gave her baths and read her stories before bed. But it was still strange to hear someone say she was “his kid.”
“She is my kid, huh?” he said, mostly rhetorically. “It’s still weird that she like… belongs to me.”
“As much as any kid belongs to their parents,” Eliza said. “Or vice versa.”
Brent frowned. “What does that mean?”
Eliza looked down at Summer and smiled. “Kids are people, too. They belong to themselves as much as they belong to us. We take care of them and clean up after them, but they still have their own thoughts and feelings.”
Brent nodded, and Eliza continued almost like she was talking more to herself than to him. “They pick favorite books without telling us and find new favorite foods. And one day, they grow up and leave, and they hardly belong to us at all anymore.”
“Whoa,” Brent said, holding up both hands, palms out. “That got unexpectedly deep.”
“Sorry. I haven’t had normal adult conversation in a couple weeks. I think I’ve forgotten how,” she admitted.
“Well, you’ve got me worried now,” Brent said. “Should I be requesting college brochures for Susanna?”
Eliza laughed. “Sorry to send you into an existential spiral.”
“It’s okay. I was due for one.”
But truthfully, the same thought—maybe in a few less words—had been on Brent’s mind all week.
Mom had always belonged to Brent, in a strange way.
He knew she put on her blinker two blocks before she turned. He knew she used a binder clip to get the very last drops out of every toothpaste bottle. He swore he’d be able to pick her cooking out of a line up ten times out of ten without fail.
And he had never wondered if there was more to her.
Now, he knew for a fact that there was.
As much as Mae Benson was his mom, she was her own person, too. With thoughts and a life beyond the bounds Brent knew.
It shouldn’t be a surprise to him that Susanna would be that way.
And so would everyone else, for that matter.
He looked around the lawn at all of his family.
Sara and Joey were sitting in the back of Joey’s truck with beers in their hands. Sara’s white shirt was smudged with soot at the collar from that morning’s fire at Little Bull.
Pete was bent over a book, helping Grady follow the instructions to fold a piece of printer paper into an airplane. Holly reclined behind them, watching the proceedings with a smile.
Oliver was coming up the gravel driveway with his sleeves rolled up. Winter, Alice, and Susanna nipped at his heel. Whenever they got close, he spun around and growled at them like a monster, sending the three girls squealing and scurrying away.
Mom and Dominic, now grandkid free, were walking hand-in-hand through the trees, making their way to the beach.
And then there was Rose.
She had her legs stretched out in front of her, ankles crossed. Here hands were folded over her stomach and she was leaning back against the cooler full of sandwiches and sodas and fruit Brent had brought from work. None of the clients he’d taken out on the boat had eaten much, so he had plenty of leftovers to get rid of.
Brent knew Rose better than anyone, but even he had no idea what she was thinking at that moment. Her lips were pulled up into a soft smile as she watched an actor cross in front of the Sweet Island Inn’s open front window. The camera was positioned just outside to catch the action.
His entire family sat sprawled in front of him, and Brent had to accept that, as much as he loved all of them, none of them belonged to him.
He would never truly know any of them. Not fully. Not completely. Not every corner of every shelf in their brains.
But that didn’t change how much he loved them.
Oliver walked to the edge of the blanket and sighed, sagging his shoulders. “I did my best, but you’ll want to throw the car seat cover in the laundry when we get home. Or in the trash. Shoot, maybe burn the whole car.”
“I’ll try the laundry first,” Eliza laughed. She waved Oliver on. “Come on, sit down. You’ve earned it.”
Brent hopped up quickly. “Here, have my spot. I need to get back to my lady, anyway.”
He waved to his sister and Oliver and made his way back over to Rose. She looked over as he approached and grinned, unable to help herself.
“Did you miss me or something?” Brent asked, sitting down and reaching into the cooler for a soda.
Rose curled into his side. “Always. Especially when I have something to tell you.”
“Uh-oh.” Brent was mostly teasing, but his heart rate did pick up slightly. “What is it?”
Someone from the movie set came out onto the front porch and waved their arms, directing everyone to quiet down for a minute.
“Quiet on set!” Sara hissed, holding her finger in front of her lips and narrowing her eyes at everyone.
Oliver wrangled the kids, and Rose dropped her voice but continued. “Things have been kind of weird this week. With your mom and Dominic staying with u
s. And you and your mom having a whole… thing.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Brent interrupted. “I wanted to tell you, but—”
“No, it isn’t that. It’s okay that you don’t tell me. Really.”
“Really? Because if it does bother you, I’ll tell you. I trust you not to tell anyone. It’s just that it’s my mom’s story and—”
Rose interrupted him again, laying a hand over his heart. “I mean it. This isn’t about you and your mom, okay? I’m not upset about that.”
“Then what is it about?”
Now, the nerves Brent had joked about before were even less of a joke. His stomach was twisted in knots.
Rose sighed and sat up, crossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap. “Well, the night you came back from the beach, we talked.”
“We did,” Brent agreed.
“And I told you that people could keep secrets from each other. Even people who loved each other.”
“You did,” Brent said again. He felt silly echoing her, but it helped him keep track of what Rose was saying.
And he had a feeling he would really want to keep track of what she was saying.
Her expression was suddenly deadly serious. She pulled her lower lip into her mouth, chewing on it between her words.
“And I’ve been keeping a secret from you.”
“You have…?” The two words came out half as a statement, half as a question.
Brent’s mind immediately spun into a dozen different possibilities.
Was Rose sick?
Was she leaving him?
Had she lost her job?
Was something wrong with Susanna?
Rose must have seen the panic in his eyes, because she leaned forward and grabbed his hand, holding it between her own. “Relax, crazy. It’s a good secret.”
“A good secret?” Brent took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “You coulda led with that. You scared me.”
“Sorry,” she laughed, folding her fingers between his. “I wasn’t trying to.”
Brent opened his eyes and urged her on. “Okay. Let’s hear it. What’s the secret?”
Rose pressed her pink lips together, suppressing a smile, and then dragged his hand towards her. Closer and closer—until it was resting over her stomach.