Page 63 of Once Upon a Summer Night

With a shake of her head, Hannah picked up her cell and scrolled through her recent call list. Hopefully, Chase would understand.

“Yes, hello, Nicki? This is Hannah Brooks. Yes, I’d love to come in to discuss the safety inspection and training position…”

*

Chase was justfinishing his first landscaping job Monday when he got a frazzled text from Hannah. He scanned it and cursed. He’d thought the chief might react poorly to Hannah’s work in the fire station’s office, which is why he’d planned to stay over after his shift next Monday morning when the chief was due back part-time, to help mitigate the conflict; Stephen’s unexpected visit today broadsided that plan. Now, Hannah was upset, the chief was apparently up in arms, and there seemed to be no end in sight to their age-old battle of the wills. Something had to be done to mend this bridge before the tension drove her to choose Kankakee over Bourbon Falls.

So, Chase swung by the farm midafternoon on his way back from an Oak Barrel Farms delivery, under the guise of checking in on the chief. He found him where he’d expected: on his front porch rocker, casted leg elevated on a folding chair brought out from the house, him scowling out across the front yard with Rex lying at his side. Chase parked his truck and made his way to the porch, on a mission but playing ignorant.

“Where’s your new, pint-sized sidekick?” he called as Rex rose to greet him.

“In the barn with Brooklyn, tending to the ducks.”

Chase nodded, easing into the empty rocker adjacent to him. “That kid sure loves those ducks.”

“Yep. Enjoying them while he can.”

It was the perfect opening to Chase’s planned lecture. “Why do you say that?”

“Because his guardian hasn’t been working hard enough to make sure she can keep him.” Stephen’s gaze shifted to Chase. “She has paperwork to be filled out for our attorney that requires some information she’s got back in Illinois. But did she drive there this weekend to get it? No, she’s waiting to go until tomorrow. What does that girl think, that the custody fairy is going to swoop in and save the day?”

Hannah is going back to Illinois tomorrow?

“Maybe she needed the weekend to recharge. You forget, she has been working two jobs all through her ‘vacation.’”

Her father snorted softly.

“I’m also pretty sure this custody stuff is new to all of us. You can’t expect her to become an expert overnight.”

“If she wants to keep the boy, that’s exactly what she should be doing. Reading up on it, getting information requests done sooner. Something. Anything.”

“What difference does it make to you?” Chase asked.

Stephen’s brows rose. He made to answer, stopped. Tried again. “I don’t want to see them split up, is all. It’d break the boy’s heart. Hannah’s, too.”

Chase nodded. “I’m pretty sure that’s why she came back home and took the interim spot at the station—to bring him here and get some support from her family.” Chase looked to the yard. “Allof her family.”

“She knows she has my support.”

Chase met his gaze. “Does she?”

“What are you trying to say?”

He drew in a slow breath, wanting to diffuse the tension beginning to radiate off his boss, his longtime father figure, and his friend. But he also needed to make a point. His future depended on a change in the chief’s behavior.

“I never understood what it was with you two. Mia, Del—you three always got along well enough. But Hannah you were always tougher on.”

Stephen snorted. “The older two didn’t have their heads in the clouds.”

“They were also older when you lost Gretchen. They handled their grief differently over losing their mother than Hannah did. Heck, we all handled it differently.”

The chief shifted in his chair. “I suppose that’s true.”

“That was also twenty years ago, Stephen. Hannah, she’s not a little girl anymore. She’s a grown woman who worked her tail off to make something of herself. Who gave up a comfortable life in her hometown to support and protect her pregnant friend on short notice, and to my knowledge, never called home asking for help, money,orforgiveness. Who followed in the footsteps of her old man and became a firefighter, becoming the first female captain at her station. Who stepped up and volunteered to become the mother to her dying friend’s son, even when she didn’t have to.

“Noah wasn’t her responsibility, Chief, his conception not her choice. And yet, everything she’s done the past eight years has centered around him. That’s not someone with their head in the clouds. To me, that sounds like one hell of an amazing woman, the one that you helped raise under this very roof.”

The chief remained silent, his gaze downturned onto the hands folded in his lap. On a sigh, Chase rose. He needed to get back to Oak Barrel Farms so he could help close up for the day.

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