by Zoe York
“Will’s place. The thing I want you to know, I guess, is none of us take anything for granted. Our family stuck together, but it was hard. All of us came out of the years after my parents died with a painful awareness of just how precarious life is, how precarious it is to have a roof over one’s head. You can probably trace all of our current living situations back to that time of uncertainty, when Owen realized just how expensive it was to own the house we’d all grown up in. How he’d have to take that away from us, or it would be ripped away at some point.” He was still holding her hand as he turned the truck down a very different-looking street. This part of town was newly built in the last ten or twenty years, Isla could tell. The houses were all modern, the streets neat and the sidewalks wide. “This is where Will lives.”
“He’s the second oldest? And he’s a teacher?” She thought she was seeing what Adam was showing her. Both of his oldest brothers had established themselves in town in a permanent, responsible citizen way. Josh was at least trying, in his own way, too. She didn’t know Seth’s whole story, but this was what Kincaids did. They put down roots.
“A school principal now. Yep. And he’s in the army reserves, too.”
“Responsible, good with money. And he bought the modern version of a house big enough for the whole family?”
“He really doesn’t mind having Josh and me there. It would drive me batty.” Adam gestured at the wide garage. “And then Seth and Josh are all about their businesses. They don’t even own homes.”
“But you do.”
“I guess I do.” He grinned at her. “Surprised myself there. So, what do you want to do next?”
It was time. “The cafe.”
His grin grew. “Yeah?”
She rubbed her palms on her thighs. She was shaking. “Yep.”
They parked in a lot behind the main drag, then walked around the block. Adam pointed out Kerry’s midwifery clinic, down the street, then gestured across the road. “That’s the hair salon slash real estate office where I first heard about the sale price.”
“Catie’s Cuts? I’m guessing Catie is the…”
“Real estate agent slash hair stylist? That would be correct.” Adam pushed open the door of the cafe, and a little bell chimed overhead.
The cafe wasn’t busy. There were two tables with customers, but Adam steered her away from them to the counter. The glass display case had takeaway food in it, sandwiches and salads on the bottom two levels, and some sweet treats on the top shelf. She could picture it full of baked goods.
He leaned on the counter and gave the middle-aged woman behind the counter a flirty smile. “Anne, nice to see you again.”
“Adam. How did the house hunting go?”
“Quite successfully. Moved in yesterday.” He told her the address, and she said something about the previous owner Isla didn’t quite follow. She couldn’t concentrate on the conversation, she was trying to see the kitchen, too busy visualizing— “And this is Isla.”
“Pleasure,” she said, holding out her hand. What had she missed?
“Are you new in town?” Anne asked.
Adam fielded it. “Isla’s visiting me for the weekend. I’m giving her the grand tour. We were hoping to grab some lunch.”
“Takeout or a table?”
He glanced at Isla. “We’ll take it to go?”
She nodded. “The sandwiches look great. Two of those?”
Back at his truck, takeout bag clutched firmly in her grip, Isla finally exhaled fully for the first time since she walked into the cafe.
“I thought I was ready to see it,” she said to Adam, a sort of apology, because he was looking at her with concern. “But it’s just so much. Your idea…and that I could have…”
He opened the passenger door for her, and after she climbed up, he stood in the open door and leaned against the frame of his truck. “This is why you’re here. To consider if we might want to do this. Nothing’s set in stone.”
“I know.” She felt wildly out of control, though, because she didn’t know. Not really. Not enough.
Everything she might want in life was so close she could taste it, and yet the hurdle to get there seemed ridiculous to even consider for real.
Marriage.
“I know you explained this before, but…” Even though they were alone in the parking lot, she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Why? It has to be more than just being my cheerleader, Adam. That's not a reason people get married. I’ve been there, done that. I…this doesn't make any sense.”
He exhaled roughly. “I don’t know how to make it make sense. It just feels right.”
Her throat was closing up as she gazed up at him. “You know, you could break my heart and yank this all away. So I'm going to assume that you're being serious here. But I have to know more about your reason why.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “That’s fair. Can we go back to the house?”
The short drive back was quiet. Not tense. He kept giving her reassuring smiles, but his gaze was a million miles away, like he was deep in thought.
Inside, Adam paced ahead of her into the kitchen. She followed with the sandwiches.
“I’m going to say something,” he started. “And it’s going to sound more extreme than it really is. Because I’m fine. I’m happy, even. But when you say, that’s not a reason people get married, I know that. Intellectually. I know people get married for love. And I didn’t say this before, because I think it makes me sound like a monster, but deep down? I’m broken. Maybe I always have been, but it definitely got sharper when I was overseas.”
He paused there, and she waited. Sometimes, talking about the barbed realizations learned on tour took time. She had all the patience in the world here, especially if he was opening up about what this meant for them.
That didn’t make it any easier to hear what he said next.
“I don’t believe in love. There’s no part of me that wants to marry a soul mate or anything like that. I remember my parents being in love. I see how my brother fell in love, how my niece fell in love… I don't have that inside me. It doesn't exist.” He made an anguished face. “That’s the raw truth. Then we reconnected. And in you, I see something, I see someone I could build a partnership with. We have a real bond, I think. Don’t we? And you said yourself that you never want to get married for love. Maybe I latched on to that too much. But it's hard living alone. I don't like that either. So…”
He was silent for a long time. Isla stood stock-still as she watched him think about it—really think about it. Tension rippled across his face. His hands clenched in front of him, his knuckles white. And when he looked up at her again, his eyes big, his mouth tight, his face sombre, he said, “I don't know. I wish I could give you a better answer. I never wanted to get married and lose myself in someone else. But being side-by-side with you? That sounds nice. I don’t know why that sounds so nice, but it does.”
She knew that that was the truth. It was true that he didn't know and she took some comfort in that admission. She took comfort in his ability to tell her that he was not sure but he wanted to go on this adventure with her anyway.
It was the opposite of romantic but it was deeply kind. It spoke to a rare kind of friendship, one maybe she had never experienced before in her life but she recognized it as that. No, more than friendship, she recognized it as a kinship. She might not love Adam, but she felt a familial bond with him. Deep, and if she was sure of it, abiding too. “Sometimes ‘I don't know’ is the right answer. I just needed to hear it again. And maybe more than once, but…I believe you.”
“Thank Christ. I was worried there that I wasn’t smart enough to convince you, and that would be a damn shame, because the look on your face in the cafe…”
“Yeah?”
“It was pretty awesome, seeing you dream like that. It looked like how it felt for me when I started going to the volunteer fire brigade training. And my brother wa
s dead set against me becoming a firefighter. In that moment, all I wanted was someone in my corner.”
That knocked the wind out of her, and she set the sandwiches down. All of Adam’s talk about wanting to be her cheerleader was coming from a place of earnest want himself. She moved to him and gave him a hug. “I’m in your corner.” She stepped back. “You know, when I arrived in town, I saw the fire station and knew you worked there. I was proud of you.”
His face transformed, softened. “Thanks.”
“Should we eat our sandwiches, or were they just subterfuge for reconnaissance?”
“Leave perfectly good sandwiches?” He snorted. “Bring them to the living room.”
“If I’m going to move in, we’ll need a kitchen table.”
“On it.”
They settled on the couch, and ate together in companionable silence. Once they finished, Isla asked the next question on her mind.
“Is it going to be weird, sleeping in separate rooms?” She waved her hands around. “Is this going to get awkward?”
“I don’t think so. Should we test it out?” He stood up and picked up their plates. “All right, I’ll wash these up, then I’m off to bed.”
She laughed, because it was early afternoon. “See you in the morning, I guess.”
He bowed slightly. “See? Not awkward.”
She stood and followed him to the kitchen. “And what about how we act in front of your family? I don’t want to be surprised with any awkwardness.”
“Like if there’s a situation where we have to kiss?” He made a face as he crossed the room to stand in front of her. “Ew.”
She pushed at him. “Yes.”
“I think we can kiss without getting carried away.” He wiggled one eyebrow. “You worried you can’t resist all this?”
She laughed and then sighed, leaning against his chest, wild remnants of laughter rippling through her.
“Isla thinks I’m irresistible,” he sang against her hair. Then he gave her a tight hug. “Come on. Give me a kiss.”
She leaned back, took his face in her hands, and pressed her lips against his. Happy warmth tingled inside her, but that was it. No fireworks, no desperate need. And Adam didn’t deepen the kiss, but she knew if he did, it would be more of the same.
He was a sexy, handsome friend, and they could absolutely live together without it getting complicated.
After they broke apart, Adam dropped to one knee. Isla laughed. “What are you doing?”
“Asking you to marry me, properly this time.” His grin was both confident and endearing. He held out his hand, offering her a firm handshake. “Isla Petersen, will you be my wife? Will you let me help you make your bakery dreams come true? Will you make cookies for me, and come to my family Christmas parties, and just generally help me look like the grown-up I am to my family?”
She took his offered hand and shook it.
He didn’t let go.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I will marry you. I will share this house with you, and bake you cookies, and kiss you in public whenever you need me to.”
His eyes twinkled. “Lucky me.”
“Adam…”
“And only in public,” he added hastily. Then he stood up. “At home, we’re a strictly hugs-only marriage.”
She leaned into him. “Thank you.”
“This will be good for both of us,” he promised.
Chapter Eight
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Adam had a strange relationship with confidence. Most of the time, he had it in spades. He’d graduated top of his class. He knew he was a good firefighter, and he knew his place on the team. He had lots to learn still, but he was capable.
And then there were moments like this, when his restless energy converted in the wrong direction to overstepping. He knew his riding position was to support his crew. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be the first off the truck. But they’d arrived at a medical distress call, a child couldn’t breathe, and frankly, Adam ran faster than everyone else on his team.
“It wasn’t a fire. We can all do CPR,” he muttered. Which hadn’t even been necessary. The toddler had a febrile seizure and had started breathing again on his own as they arrived. But what he had known in that moment was resuscitation might be needed, and he could be the quickest one there.
Which was the wrong answer, even though it was the right instinct. The correct answer was that they had systems for a reason, that crew discipline mattered, and he would communicate better next time.
He didn’t say any of that.
And it didn’t help that they’d had two volunteers with them for the call, newer trainees who just happened to be in the station at the time.
They were upstairs now, and the volunteers were downstairs. So instead of making lunch, Richard was tearing a strip off Adam that the younger firefighter was pretty sure everyone in the building could hear. The thin veneer of rank was a farce.
Denise got in between them. “Okay, let’s take a pause—”
Richard wasn’t pausing. “You have a lot to learn about being a part of a real team.”
Adam forced himself not to roll his eyes. He wasn’t going to react at all. If having four older brothers had taught him anything, it was that another storm was always on the horizon. Something else would sweep in soon enough to piss Richard off, and until then, Adam would just live in the doghouse.
Instead, he just nodded.
And after another blustery grumble, Richard let it go. They only had one more call that night, a car fire that meant significant cleanup at the site, and Adam took extra care to follow both procedure and the team routines he’d learned in his short time with them.
It was a by-the-book call out with no room for Richard to criticize him.
He didn’t get a “good job, kid” after, but he wasn’t yelled at again, either. Not by his teammates, anyway. And not while he was on shift.
The next morning, after they’d handed over to the next crew, and he was dragging his weary ass to his truck, he saw Owen waiting for him.
A concerned older brother ambush.
Just fucking great.
“I’m tired,” he said as he tossed his bag in the passenger door.
Owen followed him around to the driver’s side. “What happened last night?”
Adam frowned. “Were you even in the building then?”
“News travels fast.”
“It wasn’t fucking news.” Adam scrubbed the heel of his hand into his eye socket. He was so tired. Sighing, he leaned against the side of his truck and rolled his neck. “Come on. You know how it is with rookies and senior crew members. There’s an adjustment process.”
“You don’t want to get a reputation as being hard to work with.”
“I’m not hard to work with. I’m as easygoing as it comes. I just…” Adam laughed. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I always worry about you.”
“I am aware, and it is exhausting. Please stop.”
Owen scowled.
Adam gave him an exasperated look. “Come on.”
“All right. You’re okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Owen gave him a half-smile. “Is Richard in one piece?”
“I said nothing. I let him tear into me.”
“I don’t like that, either.”
“He was right on a technicality, so I let it go.”
Owen clapped him on the shoulder and headed inside.
Adam waited until his brother had disappeared before he climbed into the driver’s seat, and it was another minute before he started the truck. It would be hard to make this transition anywhere, to any fire service. Doing it in his home town, in a building his brother managed—that wasn’t better or worse, he figured. Just complicated.
And exhausting.
He’d said that out loud to Owen, and he felt it in his bones.
All he wanted to do was go home and rack o
ut. But when he walked into his kitchen and smelled something bad, he knew sleep wasn’t going to happen immediately.
At first he worried the breaker had blown and the fridge had been without power for twenty-four hours, but that wasn’t it.
Holding his hand over his nose, he took a deep breath and thought about where else a noxious odour could be coming from. It was likely a dead animal that had gotten into the ceiling or the wall before expiring.
His only ladder was pretty flimsy, but he managed to get it braced against the wall in the hallway beneath the access door to the crawlspace above the kitchen. It wasn’t a full attic, just a place to store boxes. Adam didn’t have anything up there, but they might need to use it once Isla moved in.
He nudged the door open, bracing himself in case there was a whole family of raccoons mourning their dearly departed buddy or something like that, but the space was quiet—and scent-free, so whatever the source was, it wasn’t here.
Shining his flashlight around over the space, he verified for himself that it was critter-free, and he was about to head back down when he caught sight of something shiny. It looked like a small toolbox, and he’d missed it when he’d looked in here last. Hoisting himself up onto the bare beams, he crab-walked toward it, and snagged it with his fingertips.
Then he sneezed and dropped it.
Swearing under his breath, he reached down to grab it again and lost his balance. Fucking clumsy, he thought, his tired brain not moving fast enough to stop himself from putting his foot down—and through the ceiling of his kitchen.
“Oh, fuck.”
He stared down at the gaping hole he’d just created. At the ugly-ass kitchen, the tired linoleum floor.
The house he had just bought cockily, without thinking it through, and to which he was going to bring a bride back soon, was falling apart.
Another string of curse words echoed around in the small space before he climbed out the access door and down the ladder.
He was so mad at himself, he didn’t even go into the kitchen to look at the damage. He stripped off his dusty clothes right there and stalked into the shower in Isla’s room and turned the water on as hot as it would go.