Just the mention of her late husband’s name was enough to double the size of the knot in her throat, even after half a dozen years. She’d loved her quaint shop down by the riverfront. It hadn’t been close to the center of town, but she’d always thought that made it feel homey. It had been close enough to catch the riverfront tourists, and back then she, Henry and Nicky used to watch the sun come up over the river as they ate breakfast in their home above the shop.
Then Henry was gone. Now, six years later, the building was gone. “What’s the whole point of faith if not to sustain me through something like this?”
Abby started in, but Jeannie just blinked back tears and shot her hand up in a silent “Don’t.”
After a quiet moment, Abby pulled a paper towel from the ancient metal dispenser and blotted her own tears. “George wants to talk to you,” she said softly. A conversation with George Bradens, Gordon Falls’s Fire Chief, usually meant getting roped onto a committee for some new civic endeavor. “He says it’s about Nicky.” Abby put a hand on Jeannie’s shoulder. “Listen, this is too much. Let me make some excuse for you so you can go home.”
“I’m fine.”
Abby leaned against the red Formica countertop. “I thought we covered this already.”
The room was far too red. Red tile, red wallpaper. It all felt like sirens going off, close and loud. “Well, I’m close to fine.” That’s how she chose to view the raw-around-the-edges feeling that had continued to plague her every day—every hour—since the fire. The entire month felt like peeling off singed layers, discovering new burns in unexpected places every time she was sure she was done with all that. “I don’t want to go back to the apartment anyway.” That dingy apartment she and Nicky rented now seemed so unbearably temporary. They couldn’t see the river, and they seemed far away from everyone. It was the worst of both worlds. Stuck in the middle, endlessly coping.
Keeping her life on hold while her candy store was rebuilt choked Jeannie like smoke.
“I figure you’ve got five more minutes of old business, then Chad will be up. Really, Jeannie, you don’t have to be here.” Abby caught Jeannie’s eyes in the dingy gold-framed mirror above the sink. “So don’t go home. Go shopping, go eat a pound of fudge, go walk over and sit by the river if you want, but give yourself a break and leave.”
Abby made it sound as if Jeannie could slip out unnoticed. “Every single person in that room will know if I skip out. And they’ll know why—Chad’s the fire marshal and George is the fire chief. It couldn’t be more obvious.”
“So what?”
“Well…” Jeannie fished for a better reason than her stubborn defiance of a paralyzing fear. “If I leave, how will I know whatever it is George wants to say about Nicky?” She shut off the water with a resolute twist of the faucet. There was nothing for this but to do what she always did: fix her eyes on gratitude and soldier on. And on, and on. She’d worked at being grateful; she’d sent baskets of goodies to George and Chad and the rest of the volunteers at the fire department. Sent, because she still couldn’t bring herself to go into the fire station. The least she could do—the goal she’d set for herself tonight—was to sit through the presentation, stay upright, force a smile and be grateful Chad Owens was as handsome as he was thorough.
Don’t look at her. Chad Owens kept telling himself to keep his gaze away from Jeannie Nelworth. He shouldn’t single her out in any way, but his eyes repeatedly wandered over to her tight smile no matter what he resolved. It was a hopeless cause; everyone in the room seemed overly aware of the woman.
Jeannie loved yellow, loved kids and normally exuded as much happiness as twelve people, but she looked pale and drawn tonight, cornered by the collective awkwardness. George kept putting his arm around her, looking out for her as if she needed shielding from the world. That was George, everyone’s unofficial protective grandfather. The town’s most beloved fire victim at a fire safety presentation—honestly, he was amazed she showed up at all.
Chad thought Jeannie should have some space after the presentation, an escape from the small tight knot of false casualness that pushed around her after the talk, but George motioned Jeannie out of the group right away, calling her over to where they were standing.
“How are you?” George hugged her. George hugged everyone.
“George,” Jeannie said with an applied smile. “I am fine.” She pushed her brown bangs out of her eyes like a nervous teenager. “Stop worrying, why don’t you?”
“You know very well I won’t. I’m looking out for you, so help me stop worrying by saying yes to my idea.”
Jeannie rolled her eyes, crossing her hands over her chest. “How about I hear your idea first?”
George crossed his hands over his own chest and leaned in. “I want to hire Nick.”
There was a momentary flash of panic in her eyes. “Don’t you think thirteen is a bit young to be a firefighter?”
George laughed. “Every boy wants to be a fireman. But not every boy can be a firedog walker.” He said it with an absurd importance Chad didn’t feel and Jeannie clearly didn’t believe.
Chad hadn’t been in favor of George’s scheme to hire Nick to walk the portly firehouse hound. Plug certainly needed exercise, but Chad found the gesture lacking. George should know better than to put a cozy bandage on a kid’s enormous trauma. Fire stole something from a soul that could never be restored. Chad knew it. Nick and Jeannie knew it now, too, and some cuddly chore wouldn’t make that go away. Still, no one talked George out of anything once he got a plan in that meddling, generous mind of his. Chad supposed the scheme couldn’t hurt, but he didn’t think it stood any real chance of helping.
“You have volunteer firefighters but you want to pay my son to walk your dog?” Jeannie’s eyes narrowed with a friendly suspicion at the idea. Her long, dark ponytail swung as she gave George a sideways glance. Chad was glad Jeannie recognized George was up to something.
She wasn’t pretty in the stop-a-guy-dead-in-his-tracks kind of way. It was more her energy, her optimism, that pulled people toward her. Those brown eyes always took in the world like it was a fantastic package waiting to be opened. Nothing seemed to keep her down. Last year she’d had her Jeep painted in the same yellow polka-dotted pattern as her store, and while all the other merchants thought it stunning marketing, all Chad could think about was how mortified her son must be to ride in the thing. Still, everyone in town knew Jeannie Nelworth’s Sweet Treats candy store. Half the businesses in the county used her gift baskets, and the woman’s chocolate-covered caramels were nearly legendary.
“Plug would be good for Nick,” George lobbied, smiling as if every volunteer fire department had a dog-walking budget. “Boys love dogs.”
Jeannie let out a sigh. “Well, Nicky seems to need to take care of something since…” Her voice fell off, as if she’d run out of good ways to end a sentence like that. Chad knew the feeling. He knew exactly how a life split forever into “before the fire” and “after.”
“The guidance counselor suggested a pet,” Jeannie continued with a hollow laugh, “But all our landlord allows is a goldfish. Those are ‘lame,’ as Nicky so bluntly put it.”
Dr. Billings cut into their little trio. “So, Jeannie, how’s our Nicky doing?”
“Really great.” Jeannie gave the dentist a big smile. “People have been so kind.”
They’re always so kind, Chad thought. People were so kind after Laurie’s death he thought he’d drown in careful kindness. Friends and family surrounded him with casseroles and cards and “how are you’s” that hoped to avoid his sad answers. That was why it had been so easy to move here. Only George knew what he’d been through, why his history with fire went beyond the professional and into the personal. He kept him off