Levi answers for me. “She’s okay. Smoke exposure was mild. Simon cleared her, but she needs rest.”
Beau nods, arms crossed. His tan skin looks bronzed under the parking lot lights, hazel eyes glinting gold. “Good. Glad you’re alright.”
Levi turns to me, stepping back slightly. “I’d better take the car back. But hey—it was good seeing you, Wren. Despite the circumstances.”
“You too,” I say honestly.
He nods, then heads off, waving once before disappearing around the corner of the station.
It’s just Beau and me now. And Pancake, who is nestled stubbornly into my chest, is already purring like a diesel engine.
“How bad was it?” I ask quietly. “Do I even have a café still?”
Beau rubs the back of his neck, gaze drifting toward the station entrance like he’s replaying the moment. “Could’ve been worse. Honestly? With cleanup, it’s salvageable.”
I nod, but my stomach’s knotted. “What about upstairs?”
“The fire didn’t reach it. You’ll need to air it out, but it’s habitable. Nothing structural. Whoever built it ensured that insulation was installed to protect the apartment above from potential damage from below. You should thank them—they saved you a whole lot of misery.”
Relief washes through me, followed by fresh guilt. “Thanks,” I whisper. “Again.”
He watches me for a beat. “I could drive you home. I haven’t had dinner so that we could get some on your way home.”
Fuck!This is the second dinner proposal I’ve gotten tonight. I need to leave. “I’m not really hungry, actually.”
I see his face fall, then he schools his features. His gorgeous hazel eyes watch me now. “You got a way to get home?”
I hesitate. “I’ll grab a taxi. Don’t worry. I can manage on my own.”
He huffs a laugh, nods. “Alright. If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
He makes me wait as he grabs me a blanket and then waves as I step away. “Night, Wren.”
“Night.”
I climb into the back of a waiting cab. The interior is warm and faintly lemon-scented. Pancake settles beside me on the seat, kneading the blanket draped over my legs.
The cab driver was reluctant to let her in without a carrier, but the tragic way I look must have won him over. As we pull away from the station, the lights shrinking in the rearview, I lean my head back and close my eyes.
Fox Hollow is not what I remember.
When I left after graduation, the whole town felt like a sandbox I’d outgrown—same faces, same stories, same ten paces between my house and the diner. But tonight… it feels charged.
Like the old town has grown muscles, secrets, and new, unexpected angles.
And apparently an absurd number of attractive men.
Seriously. Levi looks like he moonlights as a cowboy for romance novel covers. Beaus got that sun-streaked firefighter thing going on.
And don’t even get me started on Dr. Hale, with his tired genius vibe and those glacier eyes behind black-rimmed glasses like he walked out of a medical drama.
Fox Hollow has grown into itself. And I’m just now realizing I might not fit into it the way I used to.
Still, there’s the other part of me—the deeply uncool, deeply anxious part—that is already dreading the phone call from my parents.
Because there’s no universe in which they don’t find out about the fire.
