Page 5 of What We Keep
“I do, I do,” Nate said, his smile warm when his gaze met mine.
I felt nervous all over again and swallowed. “Nice to see you, Nate.”
“Good to see you, Elsa. Let me guess, you’re moving back? Willow Brook’s awesome. Smart move.”
Before I could say anything in return, someone called Nate’s name. He glanced over his shoulder before bringing his attention back to me. “Welcome home. I’m one hundred percent sure I’m gonna see you again, but I gotta roll.”
Holly shook her head slightly, her smile bemused as she watched him walk toward a group of men.
“Nate’s a pilot,” she explained. “Those are a bunch of firefighters that he flies around. Anyway, give me your number.”
I quickly recited it, and she tapped it into her phone. In a few seconds, my phone vibrated with a text.
It’s Holly! Put me in your contacts!
“If you need anything at all, just text me,” she said. Her gaze sobered. “I’m serious.”
Suddenly, I felt choked up. The emotion and weight of returning home were starting to hit me. “I will.”
As much as I wanted friends and to connect with the life I had always envisioned having here, instantly getting a hug and exchanging numbers wasn’t what I’d expected.
A little while later, I was back in my room, flipping through the channels on the television and smiling to myself. I had, I guess, sort of a friend.
Day one was working out okay. I just had to figure out the rest of my life.
Chapter Four
Haven
“Cole!” I called as I stepped through the doorway into the main resort.
With my hands full, I lightly kicked the door shut with my boot. “Up here!” my brother called in return.
The sound of footsteps running echoed. “Hey, Dad!” Tommy said as he skidded into the kitchen.
My son’s hair stuck straight up, his purple mohawk mussed. He reached for the grocery bags looped in my hands, scooping them up and setting them on the counter. He immediately began digging through them. “Did you get the granola bars?”
“Of course,” I replied, reaching over to ruffle his hair.
He found the box of granola bars and tore one open while I began putting the groceries away.
“What’s Cole doing?” I asked.
“Finishing some work in the bathrooms upstairs.”
I paused, looking around the kitchen. Sometimes it was hard to believe how much work we had done. We hadn’t done it all ourselves. It was too big of a job for me and my five brothers. We weren’t even all here yet. After the fire, we’d scattered like tumbleweeds in the wind for a little while.
So far, it was Cole, Jude, Grady, and me. Asher had plans to return within the next month. Lincoln was vague as all hell, but I hoped he’d be back sometime. For now, he was traveling all over, fighting fires wherever needed.
Our family’s resort, Heartfire Falls, had once been… well, something else. We were Alaska’s version of wilderness guides, doing everything from hiking, fishing, hunting, backcountry skiing, and mountain climbing with visitors. It had all fallen apart—literally burned to the ground—when a wildfire blasted through the area so fast it couldn’t be contained just over eleven years ago.
My eyes landed on Tommy. He was the marker of before and after. Our only sister, Bree, had almost died in the fire and eventually succumbed to the infection from her severe burns. Tommy was her son. Tommy’s father had skipped town once he found out she was pregnant. When we had an attorney track him down after she passed away, he didn’t even hesitate to sign away his rights. To this day, that smarted a little for me because Tommy was a gem of a kid. But then, his loss was our gain. As the oldest, I adopted him. I’d never even contemplated any other option. Our father had passed away a few years before the fire from a heart attack. The losses felt painfully close and compounded each other.
Out of those ashes of that fire came Tommy, and the rest of us were trying to come together to rebuild what we lost.
“Where’s your grandma?” I asked, mentally kicking my thoughts back to the present.
Tommy glanced up after he finished the last bite of his granola bar. He inhaled food faster than he breathed. “In the garden.”
