Dad had filled it with his sweat and stubbornness when he wasn’t wearing the badge. He’d been Sweetbriar’s police chief for decades before finally retiring. Now my older brother Cade held the title, though Dad still carried himself like he had the final say on everything from town politics to the best way to stack firewood.
Mom made her mark in quieter ways. Dahlia Lake—she’d kept her maiden name for her work as a romance novelist and claimed she worked best at the kitchen table with a pencil in her hair and coffee rings on her manuscript pages. Half her books had been written while raising us kids, helping with homework, listening to us stomp through the halls. Now she had her own writing retreat at the back of the property, and she could often be found at a reserved corner table at Violet’s.
The hallway leading to the kitchen was lined with mismatched frames, each photo a piece of our story. Asher, with his twins, both trying to escape the frame in opposite directions. Violet, behind her café counter, looking like she’d been born there, which in some ways she had. Cade on his first day as chief,Charlotte beside him, both pretending they weren’t terrified. Rose and Trevor with the kids, making faces at the camera. Lily and Luke in matching sweaters that had definitely been her idea. Jude and I on our first day at the station, trying to look like men. Holly and Liam on her apothecary shop’s opening day, Holly laughing at something off-camera.
Eight kids. One wall. Crooked and cluttered and perfect, just like us.
“You’re almost late for dinner,” Dad said from behind his newspaper, but there was a twinkle in his eye.
“Kitchen fire on Pine and Fourth,” Jude said, sliding into a chair. “Got into the walls. Took a while.”
Mom turned from the stove, spatula in hand. “Everyone out safely?”
“Everyone out,” I confirmed, dropping into my usual seat. “Including the dog. Sparky owes me a beer.”
“Good.” She turned back to the stove, satisfied, the way she always was when the answer was everyone out. She’d been getting that answer for years, and it never seemed to get old for her. “And did you two eat anything today? Real food, not whatever you grabbed from the station vending machine.”
“We survived,” I said.
“Barely,” Jude added.
Before Mom could follow up on that, the back door banged open, and Gram shuffled in from her apartment over the garage, wearing a bright pink sweatshirt bedazzled with rhinestones that spelled Hot Stuff. She leaned on her cane like it was more for effect than necessity.
“Well, look who dragged in smelling like smoke,” she announced. “Two firefighting heroes who can’t boil water without supervision.”
Jude got up and kissed her cheek on his way to the coffee pot. “Hey, Gram.”
She settled into her chair and fixed her sharp eyes on me. “Did you see Aggie this week, Levi? She called me last night, said she caught you skulking around the campground again.”
Heat crept up my neck. “I wasn’t skulking.”
“She says Becca looks tired.” Her eyes were hawk-sharp, missing nothing. “Said you should bring her some groceries or she’s gonna waste away. And for heaven’s sake, Levi, stop pretending you don’t care. You’ve got Aggie and me both rooting for you, so you might as well give in and ask her out now that Dipshit Travis is finally out of the picture for good.”
Jude nearly choked on his coffee.
“Eat and stop trying to rile Levi up,” Mom cut in, sliding a plate of lasagna in front of Jude. But I caught her small smile as she turned back to the stove.
Gram wagged a finger at me across the table. “I think it’s nice you still watch out for her. You’re a good boy, Levi.”
Dad lowered his newspaper just enough to look over the top of it. He had the look he always had—steady, sharp-eyed, the retired police chief who liked everyone to think he was just reading the paper. “Developers are sniffing around town again,” he said. “Especially the river areas.”
Mom turned from the stove. “The river? What on earth would they want with that?”
“Same thing they always want. Views and profit.” His gaze moved to me, then Jude. “Riverside Pines would be prime real estate if anyone ever got to Aggie. She owns the whole parcel. Without her, there’s nothing to develop.”
Gram snorted. “Over my dead body. Aggie built that place into something after Harold died, and I will not watch some developer in a nice suit take it from her. Those folks have carved out their homes down there, and nobody is running them off.”
Dad grunted. “Mayor Whitaker’s been pushing this revitalization talk for years. Never could stand the man. Slicksmile, shadier handshake. Didn’t trust him when I wore the badge, don’t trust him now.”
I stiffened, because I knew exactly whose trailer sat closest to the riverbank.
Becca’s.
She was out there alone. That was the thought that sat in my chest, the one that had been there since morning and wasn’t going anywhere—alone in a trailer that leaked when it rained hard, and it had been raining hard for three days. Alone after Travis, after the job, after all of it. Starting over from scratch in a place with thin walls and a temperamental water heater. I knew she could handle herself. Had always been able to handle herself. But knowing that and being fine with it were two entirely different things.
She hadn’t asked for anyone’s help. She wouldn’t. That was so specifically Becca that it almost made me want to put my fist through something.
Jude must’ve noticed, because he gave me a look over his coffee mug.
