Page 65 of The Goat Next Door

Hazel leans forward, tapping her chin with a speculative finger, looking toward the boiler room and then back to me.

“You know, Ember… since your parents are so good at writing about big, serious men with heavy responsibilities…” She smiles, a brilliant, match-making spark lighting up her blue eyes. “Maybe you should ask them if they can write a book about a fireman next. A very tall, brooding fireman who spends too much time checking on municipal water levels.”

Dotty snorts, slapping the table. “Oh, can you imagine? The Chief’s Blazing Desires. He can rescue the heroine from a broken water heater.”

16

Brooks

“He drove away anyway,

which honestly should’ve earned him some kind of medal.”

— Lauren

I’m standing in the church boiler room, the copper pipes vibrating against the concrete wall as the sump pump lets out a low, mechanical groan. The water level in the pit is holding at four inches, which means the float valve is doing its job, but my brain isn’t processing the telemetry.

My brain is stuck on a loop, processing the visual of Emmy sitting at a folding table in a church basement, holding a crochet hook like a weapon and talking about men in leather kilts.

And why the hell did she look so good doing it?

She was wearing a thick sweater that looked like it belonged to a lumberjack, but somehow, on her, it just made her shoulders look small and her gold curls bounce every time she laughed.

Her mouth was that dark berry color again, and when she leaned forward—when she looked right at me with those wide, dark eyes and said the word ravished—my entire chest tightened up so fast I nearly dropped my pipe wrench.

I take a deep breath of the damp, oil-scented boiler room air, shaking my head to clear the grit from my eyes.

Six years, I remind myself, as I wipe down the wrench with a rag. She is twenty-five. She’s six years younger than you, Lawson. She’s a millionaire from Manhattan who thinks agriculture is a hobby. You have a mortgage, a kindergartener, and a uniform. Stop looking at her like that.

I check my watch. 7:45 PM.

The rain is hitting the small, ground-level basement window in sheets, the wind howling through the window frames. The ridge road is going to be a mess of mud and fallen branches by midnight.

I need to get back to the station, swap into my dry blues, and start the weather logs.

I pack my gear into the canvas bag, hoist it over my shoulder, and push the utility room door open, fully prepared to make a tactical, non-verbal exit through the side stairwell.

The “Stitch and Bitch” vanguard is waiting for me.

Bernice is standing at the bottom of the stairs, her arms crossed over her embroidered loon pocket, her wooden knitting needles tucked behind her ear like a carpenter’s pencil.

Dotty and Hazel are flanking her, looking like a pair of high-ranking border guards.

Emmy is still at the table, packing her cream-colored yarn into a canvas bag, completely unaware of the ambush.

Or pretending to be unaware.

Hard to tell with her.

“Sump pump is clear,” I say, keeping my voice level as I try to shoulder past them. “Levels are holding. I’ve gotta get back to the truck.”

“Not so fast, Chief,” Bernice says, her nasal valley accent cutting through the hum of the furnace. She reaches out and plants a heavy palm against my rain-slicked shoulder, stopping me dead. “You see what’s happening outside?”

“Yeah. It’s a thunderstorm, Bernice. That’s why I’m working.”

“The creek road is entirely flooded by the old culvert,” Dotty chimes in, pointing a tortoiseshell arm of her glasses toward the exit. “Arthur’s driveway is a mudslide waiting to happen. That little new car of hers will get stuck before she clears the church parking lot.”

I blink, looking over their heads at Emmy.