I finished cleaning the grills, wiped my hands on a rag, and walked over. “I can drive you home. Save you the walk back.”
Brenna looked at Bev, who suddenly became very interested in the stack of chairs she’d already finished stacking. “Sure,” Brenna said. “Thanks.”
We walked to my truck in the parking lot behind the fire hall. The sun was low, throwing long shadows across the gravel, and the air had cooled enough that Brenna crossed her arms over her chest as we walked. Not hugging herself—just cold.
I opened the passenger door for her. She climbed in and I shut it, then walked around to the driver’s side and got in and started the engine. The cab was warm from sitting in the sun all day.
The drive to Main Street took two minutes. I could have walked it faster than I drove it, but neither of us mentioned that.
I pulled up in front of Sugar & Pine and put the truck in park. The boarded-up door was still there. The plastic sheeting on the blown window. The chalkboard sign she’d left in the front window—the one listing the specials that never got made—was just visible behind the soot-filmed glass.
Brenna looked at the building, then looked at me.
“Thank you,” she said. “For today. For the burger. For—” She stopped and pressed her lips together and started again. “I almost didn’t come. I was standing in my apartment with the cake, telling myself it was stupid. That nobody was going to careif I showed up or not. That I’d just be the woman whose bakery burned down, standing around while people felt sorry for her.”
“Nobody felt sorry for you today.”
“I know.” Her voice was quieter now. “That’s the part I wasn’t expecting.”
The truck idled. The evening light came through the windshield and caught the side of her face—the curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw, the small dimple that appeared when she pressed her lips together like she was holding something back.
“Brenna.”
She turned to face me fully, and we were closer than I’d realized. The cab of a pickup truck wasn’t that big, and she’d shifted toward me without either of us noticing. Now there were maybe eight inches between us, and I could see the exact shade of brown her eyes were—dark at the edges, warm gold near the center, steady on mine.
I reached over and brushed a curl off her forehead. My fingers grazed her temple and she went still—not tense, not pulling away. Still. Like she was holding her breath to see what I’d do next.
I let my hand settle against the side of her face. My thumb rested on her cheekbone. Her skin was warm and soft and she leaned into my palm—just barely, just enough that I felt the weight of her head shift toward my hand.
Her eyes didn’t leave mine. Her lips parted, and I watched her chest rise on a slow inhale. I could have kissed her right there. Every part of me wanted to. My hand was on her face and she was leaning into it and the air between us had gone tight and charged and I knew—with the same certainty I knew how to read a fire, how to move through smoke, how to find someone in the dark—that she would have kissed me back.
But I didn’t.
Not yet. Not in a truck outside her damaged shop with the smell of charcoal still on my clothes. When I kissed Brenna Mills, I wanted her to know it wasn’t the moment. It wasn’t the adrenaline. It wasn’t the gratitude or the closeness or the golden hour light doing something to both of us.
I wanted her to know it was just her.
I held her gaze and let my thumb trace one slow line across her cheekbone. Then I pulled my hand back.
“Goodnight, Brenna.”
She blinked. Her lips closed. Something flickered in her expression—surprise, maybe, or disappointment, or the beginning of understanding.
“Goodnight,” she said quietly.
She opened the door, stepped out, and walked to the side entrance of her building without looking back. I watched until she was inside, until the door closed behind her, until the light in the upstairs window came on.
Then I sat there for another minute, my hand still warm from her face, and let myself feel the full weight of what I already knew.
This woman was going to change everything.
5
BRENNA
Icalled him because of the smoke detector.
That was the reason I gave myself, anyway. The new one I’d bought was sitting on my kitchen counter in its plastic packaging, and the instructions said it was compatible with existing hardwired mounts. Simple swap—disconnect the old unit, match the wiring harness, snap the new one in. Twenty minutes, tops, for someone who knew what they were doing.
