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“Do you know why he moved here?” I heard myself asking before I could think better of it and keep my mouth shut.
Holly nodded. “Yeah. His grandmother. Has he told you the whole story?”
“I’m not sure what the whole story is. We haven’t spent much time together. I saw Bea at the wedding after they saw me skinny-dipping.”
“What?!” Susannah burst out with Madison casting me a wide-eyed look.
“I swear, it was an accident.” I quickly explained what had happened.
“Way to come home and make an entrance,” Maisie said.
“So what’s the story on Jonah?” I pressed.
“It’s really sad,” Madison said from my side.
I looked at her. “What do you mean?”
She glanced around the table, explaining, “He told Graham.”
“Told Graham what?” I asked.
“He used to be a teacher and was in a school shooting. Four kids died. He saved more by getting them out of a hallway, but he got shot. A woman he was dating also died. The shooter shot himself,” she explained succinctly.
I gasped, pressing my palm to my chest. “Oh, that’s terrible!”
“It’s heartbreaking,” Susannah added.
“He rarely talks about it,” Madison offered. “Graham said he only learned about it because he asked him about the scars on his side when they were at the station changing one day. Graham figured it was some kind of injury from firefighting and then felt like an ass when he realized it wasn’t.”
Holly nodded. “His grandmother told me he was shot twice.”
I thought about the shadows I’d seen in his eyes and the carefully guarded quality about him. “Wow,” I whispered. “That’s just tragic.”
“Sometimes I don’t even want to send my kids to school,” Maisie said. “Yet we will, and we’ll convince ourselves it’s okay even though it’s not.”
“I can’t imagine something like that happening here in Willow Brook,” I said, glancing around the table.
Lucy placed a card on the table before replying, “I’m sure most people say that wherever it happens.”
I drove home that night, and it was impossible not to wonder how Jonah was feeling after what he had been through. There were many things I didn’t know about him. I barely knew him, but I knew his grandmother. I knew she loved him and that he was a good man. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for him to carry the internal scars from what he witnessed and experienced.
After I parked in the gravel parking area near the road and walked through the trees to my house, I reflexively glanced at his place. I wanted to go over and hug him and tell him the world wasn’t all bad. My pull to him was powerful. I told myself it wasn’t because of that kiss. It couldn’t be because of that intense attraction between us.
ChapterTwelve
Jonah
Graham lifted his hand in a wave as I glanced around the restaurant at Wildlands, a favorite local hangout connected to a travel resort for tourists. I aimed in his direction, weaving through the tables and pausing to say hello to a few people. I reached the table, nodding toward Graham, Russell, Chase, and Rowan.
“Hey, guys. How’s it going?” I said as I snagged one of the empty chairs and sat down.
They had snagged a large round table in the back corner of the restaurant. Usually once a week or more, a group from the fire station would meet here. Graham, Russell, Rowan, and Chase were on the same crew as I was, although Cade and Beck, who arrived a moment after I sat down, were on a different crew.
“I’ll tell you how it’s going,” Beck said as he sat beside me. “I’m fucking starving.”
I grinned. “Well, good thing you’re here.”
“Let’s get a bunch of appetizers,” he replied.
