Rushing In: A Small Town Family Romance

by Claire Kingsley

  I’d never thought much about that, but now that I was in front of his too-big-for-just-one-man house, I had to wonder why he still lived here. Maybe moving would have been too much trouble. He probably lived at the firehouse more than here, anyway. Maybe he just didn’t care.

  It was in good repair, the yard neat. A concrete path led from the driveway to the door and the curtains in the front window were closed. Inside was an empty front room—no furniture at all, just a big rug in the center of the maple hardwood floor—and a similarly empty dining room.

  His living space was all at the back of the house. A kitchen with a breakfast nook and a family room with a couch, recliner, and TV. The only attempt at decoration was some framed photos of me. Mostly older ones, from when I was little, although he had my high school graduation picture on the wall. Everything was clean, but sparse. Of course, he lived here alone. How much of a mess could one man make?

  “I suppose you remember your way around.” He set his keys on the kitchen counter. “Your old room has a bed in it, but if you like one of the others better, I can move it.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine.”

  “Do you need help unloading your car?”

  I sank into a chair at the small white breakfast table. “Probably, although I don’t have much stuff. Can we deal with it later, though? It’s been a long day.”

  “Yeah. For me, too.”

  “Dad, I swear I didn’t see the guy in the street. It was an accident.”

  “I know.”

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  He took the chair across from me. “Yeah, I talked to one of his brothers on the way over here. He’s fine. Just a broken leg. He’ll sleep in his own bed tonight.”

  “He looked awful.”

  “Well, he’d just come in from the front line of the wildfire up north.”

  My eyes widened. That was even worse. “Are you kidding?”

  “Nope. He saved a guy’s life today, then almost lost his. I have a feeling he was going for a celebratory beer when he stepped out in front of you.”

  “So he’s one of your firefighters and basically a hero.” And the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen, but I was absolutely not thinking about that. “I almost killed him. Clearly I’m going to be the most popular girl in town.”

  “Don’t worry. You know how it is. Everyone will talk for a while, but it’ll die down. Sooner or later, something new will come along and give them something else to talk about.”

  I tucked my straight brown hair behind my ear. Actually, I didn’t know what it was like. I barely remembered living in Tilikum. But I decided not to point that out. “Should I go see him at the hospital?”

  He shook his head. “No, you don’t need to do that. Like I said, they won’t keep him overnight.”

  I glanced away, feeling an odd dip of disappointment. Why was I so preoccupied with seeing him again? “I still can’t believe I did that.”

  “Accidents happen. Even Gavin knows that. Truth be told, I’m surprised it took this long for him to get hit by a car.”

  “What?”

  He hesitated for a moment. “Gavin Bailey hasn’t exactly grasped the concept of his own mortality yet.”

  Gavin was a Bailey?

  “So you don’t just know him because he’s a firefighter. He’s that Gavin.”

  “Yeah, you remember Gavin Bailey, don’t you?”

  I didn’t. Not personally. Only the things Dad had said about him, as well as his brothers, over the years. It seemed like he always had stories to tell about the Bailey brothers.

  “I haven’t actually seen any of the Baileys in a long time,” I said. “But I guess this will make for an interesting ice breaker.”

  Dad cracked a smile. “I suppose so.” He paused again, like he was thinking about something. “Speaking of ice breakers, I know you just got here, but your mom said you might need some help getting to know people.”

  “You talked to Mom about me already?”

  “We’re your parents,” he said with shrug, as if that explained everything.

  Not that Mom was wrong. I’d always been shy, and I had a hard time meeting new people. It made me nervous.

  “I’ll be fine, Dad. And I already met Gavin Bailey.” And maybe I really should go see him at the hospital.

  “I think she probably meant you might need help making a friend or two.”

  “And by that you mean a girlfriend or two, not a firefighter I hit with my car.”

  He chuckled. “By that I mean not a playboy firefighter with a very charming smile.”

  God, his smile had been charming. Hypnotic, even.

  “You don’t have to worry about that. Guys like Gavin Bailey aren’t interested in girls like me.”

  He looked skeptical. “You’re a pretty girl, Skylar. Guys like Gavin Bailey are always interested in pretty girls.”

  I tucked my hair behind my ear, not sure how to reply to my dad’s compliment. “Well, he and I didn’t exactly get off to a great start. And I’ll be fine. I’ll admit, meeting people is not my best skill. But Mom’s only worried because she’s such a social butterfly, she doesn’t understand my introvert ways.”

  “Hmm.” He rubbed his chin. “I realize you’re an adult who can take care of herself. But I’m still your dad. I worry.”

  “Thanks, Dad. I’ll be okay. I just need to get my feet under me.”

  He nodded slowly, but I could tell he wasn’t convinced. “You’ve been through a lot recently. A breakup is never easy.”

  I glanced away. That wound was still open—raw and fresh. “It’s hard, but I’ll get over it. And I know I could have gone to live with Mom, but I don’t know. I just needed to get out of town for a while. Get my head together.”

  When Cullen had come clean about his affair with one of his other clients—a married woman, no less—he’d informed me I needed to move out immediately. Asshole. For reasons I still didn’t understand, the first person I’d called was Dad. His barely masked anger when I’d tearfully vented to him on the phone had made me feel a bit better. And he’d offered to let me come stay with him if I needed a place to go.

  I hadn’t gone that day. I’d spent the last week at my mom’s, just a few miles from the apartment I’d shared with Cullen.

  I’d been an anxious wreck. It had been hard to make myself leave the house for fear I’d run into Cullen. Spokane was a city—albeit a small one—so the chances of randomly seeing him out and about were low. And Cullen only lived there part time. He kept a studio apartment in New York City—ostensibly to be closer to his publishing industry contacts, but now I knew he’d used it for other, more cheaty reasons.

  In any case, the city I’d grown up in had suddenly felt like a pressure cooker of terror. So I’d taken Dad up on his offer.

  “Do you need me to take care of anything for you?” His eyes narrowed and his voice hinted at some protective-father danger.

  “No, Dad. I just want to start over.”

  He nodded in understanding. “Okay. You take your time getting settled. I need to go pop in to the station for a couple of hours. I was out at the incident command post for the wildfire all day and now I’ve got some work to do for my regular job. Do you need anything before I go?”

  It was probably my fault that Dad had to go back to work. My car accident had interrupted his day. “No, I’m fine. I’ll just bring in my clothes and stuff. Then probably watch some mindless TV.”

  “Sounds like a good plan. I’ll get dinner on my way home, how about that?”

  “That’d be great. Thanks, Dad.”

  He stood and placed a light kiss on the top of my head before leaving.

  Closing my eyes, I let out a long breath. It was beautifully quiet, the absence of noise doing wonders to soothe my raw nerves.

  Although I was off to a rocky start, maybe coming to Tilikum had been the right move. Maybe small-town living would help me get my mojo back.

  Maybe I’d actually be able to write again.
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  That would certainly help my floundering career, although I no longer had an agent. And I wasn’t exactly swimming in my own industry contacts. I didn’t like that part of the job. I just wanted to write books, not network with people.

  Of course, the writing books part wasn’t exactly happening either. For months I’d been struggling with the worst case of writer’s block I’d ever had.

  I checked my phone and saw a text from my best friend Ginny. She’d been checking up on me regularly since my life had imploded last week.

  Ginny: Hey, sweetie. Did you make it to your dad’s?

  Me: I’m here. But this should probably be a phone call conversation.

  Ginny: Oh god. What happened now? Don’t text back, I’m calling.

  A second later, my phone rang.

  “What happened?” Ginny asked as soon as I said hello. “You never want to talk on the phone.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to type it all out.”

  “Did Cullen come crawling back already?”

  “No. Definitely not. I’m sure he’s happily making room for Pepper Sinclair’s designer wardrobe and makeup collection.” I paused to take a fortifying breath. “I ran over someone.”

  “What?” she shrieked.

  Wincing, I moved the phone away from my ear. “Okay, maybe that’s not exactly accurate, since I don’t think my tires touched him. But I definitely hit a pedestrian.”

  “Oh my god. Is he okay?”

  “I guess he’s fine. My dad said he has a broken leg, but he’ll go home from the hospital tonight. I hope they checked for internal bleeding. Do you know how much force it takes to rupture a spleen? I still think maybe I should go down there.”

  “I don’t know how much force it takes to rupture a spleen, but I’m sure you do. Let’s maybe not go down that grisly tangent; we can assume your fire chief father knows what he’s talking about and that the hospital staff are taking care of him. How did you hit a pedestrian?”

  “I turned a corner and he walked right out in front of me.”

  “Well, that sounds like his fault.”

  “Ginny.”

  “I’m just saying. We learn to look both ways when we’re like four. Wait, he isn’t a little kid, is he?”

  “No, thank God. His name’s Gavin Bailey. He’s a firefighter who works for my dad.”

  “Ooh, hot firefighter? Tell me more.”

  “I didn’t say he was hot.”

  “Is he, though?”

  I hesitated, but what was the point in lying? “He’s very hot. And probably as dangerous as a five-alarm fire. Or however many alarms big fires can be. But I don’t want to talk about that part.”

  “Why not? This could be the beginning of a beautiful love story.”

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s a big, fat no.”

  “Come on, you’re a writer, don’t you think that would make a cute story? Think of how adorable it would be to tell your grandkids you met when you hit him with your car.”

  “That’s not the kind of story I write. If it were one of my books, I’d probably manipulate him into letting me move in with him so I could play out some weird obsessive fantasy stemming from acute childhood trauma and I’d wind up murdering him. Or wait, maybe I’d be the innocent party and he’d be the crazed murderer, and I’d almost get myself killed when I stumbled upon something he didn’t want anyone to find in the course of trying to be nice and help take care of him.”

  “Oh my god, are you writing again?”

  I wanted to lie to her and say yes. But I didn’t. “Not really.”

  “Those are both really good ideas.”

  “Yeah, and the second I try to write either of them, my brain will shrivel up and forget how to spell the word the, let alone how to craft an entire novel.”

  “You’ve written twelve novels, Skylar. A dozen. Your brain still knows how. You just have to figure out what’s blocking you.”

  “Thanks, Doctor Ginny.”

  “Can we go back to the hot firefighter?”

  “Let’s not.”

  She sighed. “Fine. Maybe just plan on staying home for a while until this cloud of bad luck passes. Sounds like it’s become dangerous to innocent bystanders.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, mostly. My life sucks, but it has to get better from here, right?”

  “That’s my girl. Of course it does. I think going to live with your dad is going to be the best decision you’ve made in a long time.”

  I didn’t share her confident optimism, but it was still nice to hear. “Thanks.”

  “Do you want some good news to make you feel better?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “I’m coming to visit you.”

  My back straightened. “What? When?”

  “I’ll be there next week. I talked to my boss already and I’m going to do a piece on Tilikum.”

  Ginny was a travel writer, but she didn’t just write about tourist attractions, accommodations, and restaurants. She dug into the cities and towns she visited, learning about their history. Her pieces were full of local stories and folklore, as well as where to shop and dine.

  “Really? You’re right, that is great news.”

  “Isn’t it? As soon as you said you were going to stay with your dad, I started working the angle with my boss. Not that it was a hard sell. A small town in the mountains has plenty of appeal. And from what I’ve seen online, it’s adorable.”

  “It is a cute town. Lots of history, so you’ll have plenty to write about. Just wait until you hear about the town feud.”

  “Please tell me you’re not kidding and there really is a town feud.”

  “I’m not kidding. The Bailey family and the Haven family have been feuding for generations.”

  “Why?”

  “I actually have no idea. I just know they orchestrate pranks on each other, back and forth. And there are places you can’t go if you’re on one side or the other. Well, you could, I guess. No one would actually stop you. But people don’t. They have two of almost everything: two banks, two barber shops, two breakfast diners, two flower shops, two pizza places. It goes on and on.”

  “Oh my god, this is fascinating. I’m in love already.”

  “Do you have a place to stay or do you want me to ask Dad about staying here? He has room.”

  “No, I already found a rental. But thank you.”

  “Of course.”

  “So even though I’m coming soon, I’m still going to call and check on you. Just so you know.”

  “Yeah, I know. Thanks, Ginny.”

  “You bet, sweetie. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “Bye.”

  I set my phone down and tilted my head, my vision going hazy. My mind went to what Ginny had said about me hitting Gavin making a good story.

  The first time we met, I hit him with my car…

  A woman visiting a small town filled with secrets accidentally hits someone on her first day there. Although it’s an accident, she feels guilty for his injuries and takes it upon herself to visit him in his convalescence. Interestingly, as soon as the man is laid up in the hospital, the string of terrifying murders that plagued the town abruptly cease. Did she mow down the killer? Or is the killer the doctor who treats him, using the man’s unfortunate accident as a way to frame an innocent for his crimes?

  Sucking in a breath, I jolted back to reality. That wasn’t a bad story idea.

  My fingers tingled and words swirled in my head. A warm spark of creativity flashed to life.

  Feeling a sudden burst of panic, I ran outside to my car. Must get laptop. Must type before it’s gone. I grabbed my laptop bag out of the passenger seat and flew back into the house.

  I took my laptop to the kitchen table. I sat, then pulled it out and logged in. Opened a fresh document.

  Don’t be scared, Skylar. Just type and the words will come.

  Except, they didn’t. I wrote a sentence. D
eleted it. Wrote another. Deleted it. I tried just writing a synopsis, but even that was too much.

  I couldn’t do it, and I had no idea why.

  5

  Gavin

  The grass in Lumberjack Park was wet from the rain that had finally come to the mountains. Two solid days of it, like the sky had saved up all the moisture and dumped it on us in one continuous deluge. The wildfire wasn’t completely extinguished; hot spots could last underneath piles of ash for weeks. But it had done a lot to calm it down so it no longer threatened Tilikum.

  That was good news. But walking in wet grass on crutches was a royal pain in the ass.

  They squelched in the muck, getting stuck in the particularly squishy places. It had been about a week since the accident, so my armpits were toughening up. But I could have lived without the constant need to pry the rubber ends out of the wet soil.

  Of course, I didn’t really need to be here, either. I could have stayed home.

  My brothers and a handful of other Bailey relatives ran formations, practicing for the upcoming flag football season. Tilikum took its traditions seriously, and the annual flag football league was no exception. There had been a Bailey team since the beginning. The Havens had a team, too, the assholes. So did the Montgomerys, the Pines, and the Saxons. There was also the town team, for anyone who wanted to play who wasn’t related to one of the family teams. It had been that way for decades.

  And I’d played every year since I was sixteen.

  I fucking loved flag football. I loved sports in general, but football had that gladiatorial thing going for it. You couldn’t tackle anyone, which was kind of shitty, but chasing a guy down intent on subduing him—even if it was just by pulling a flag attached by Velcro—was pretty awesome.

  And this year I couldn’t play.

  Stupid broken leg.

  They had Asher at quarterback, which was a good call. He had a crazy good arm. Evan and Logan were playing wide receiver, and Levi was lined up behind Asher as running back. We had some cousins on the line—big guys—along with a dude named Paul who’d married into the family. My cousin Gena was out there, too. She was a kick ass receiver.