Page 20 of Wildfire
"There had to be an important reason you came by."
His gaze catches mine, and I watch his eyes scan my face, hesitating on my lips before looking back up again.
"There is an important reason. I want to know if you want to go grocery shopping after work?"
This man. Always thinking about other people.
Before I can respond, a crackling sound emanates from his truck, and he rushes over to listen.
"I gotta go! Tell my folks I have to respond to a fire."
He jumps in his truck and tears out of the driveway just as they walk out the back door and across the deck toward where I sit.
"Fire call?"
"Yup."
Buzz looks concerned as he sets a bowl of potato salad and a plate of chicken on the table.
"There's been too many fires already this season." He exchanges a glance with Callie as she brings out cutlery and tableware.
"Is there anything else in the house I can grab?" I climb out of my seat, trying to escape the worry creeping into my body. I don't know what is going on, but the looks on their faces are setting off alarm bells in me. I know Cole is a pro, but suddenly, I feel panic take hold.
"There's a bowl of green beans on the counter you can grab."
I rush into the house to try to move the feelings. Anything to get them out of me so I can return to being the stranger he was kind to, not someone starting to care for this family.
When I enter the house, I find the food just as my cell phone chirps out a text alert. I know who it is before I even look at the screen, and my ears start to pound to the rhythm of my heartbeat. Pressure rises from my chest to my head as I stand still in the airy kitchen, paralyzed.
Here I am, eating food with this kind and generous family that made me feel more welcome than my own family ever had—or at least since my mother died.
Everything broke when she passed away. She was the center of our universe, and when she ceased to exist, we were like four planets with no gravitational orbit. We were floating around, bumping into whatever was in our way, often destroying it in the process.
I left for my well-being, but I know they are trying to pull me back. Somehow, my absence is a further disruption in whatever universal order we created after Mom died. And the guilt of slipping out in the early morning hours is starting to eat away at me.
I take a deep breath and swipe the bowl of green beans off the counter. I am not going to let my broken home life ruin me. Not anymore.
"Get lost in there?" Buzz hollers out.
I offer him a weak smile, but he doesn't miss a beat.
"Hey, kiddo. Everything okay?"
"Yeah. Sorry. I was uh…"
"Have you heard the story of how Callie and I met?"
I perk up. He's letting me off the hook.
"It all started when I was driving into town after doing a house call for Chief Johnson. He'd been laid out after falling off a ladder, cocky young buck and all, and of course, Murphy's Law dictates that was exactly when his old Chevy would start having trouble. So I was driving back into town to grab some parts at the shop when I saw this beautiful woman walking down the road with a kid by her side and two babies strapped to her body. One on the front and one on the back."
I shoot a look at Callie. She just smiles and raises her eyebrows in response.
"So I pull over and ask her if she needs a ride. Turns out her old junker had broken down in almost the same place yours did—"
"Mine's no junker, Buzz."
"Pardon me." He winks. "Anyway, I gave them a ride into town, towed the car to the shop, and the rest is history."
